charukesi July 19th, 2005
On flickr tags and reports of increase in race related crimes, there is nothing one can say better than this picture does (source : chutneyspears - thanks, Shivaji!)
Pulitzer winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes made this following 9/11 - but it is just as true for 7/7(?!) or any other date (all that finally reduced to a date)… Check out her website for more great stuff….
charukesi July 16th, 2005
My friend Aparna has a great new blog news in limerick - news with a slightly different flavour. I am shamelessly posting (pasting) here two of her recent newslimericks based on my posts.
Sharad Haksar has been sued by Coke
His new billboard no longer a joke
For it could spoil ‘goodwill’
Sending their sales downhill
If about water shortage he spoke!
Jayalalitha is promoting cycling skill
Among the young rural Jack and Jill
Even if elections be her reason
I vote it good act of the season
If it keeps kids from dropping the quill!
Go check it out. It rocks!
charukesi July 16th, 2005
Yesterday’s HT had a small piece on how the Tamilnadu chief minister Jayalalitha was distributing free bicycles to school children in rural areas of the state. This was to encourage them to continue school and not drop out - earlier it was found that girls from backward communities who had been given free bicycles under such a scheme actually went on to study after Class X, which is typically around the time that they drop out. The number of such girls who went on to complete schooling was then a record of sorts in the state. (I cannot find the link for this online - will post it here when I do)
Jayalalitha’s motives are suspect - all with an eye on the coming elections, say newspapers. I don’t care.
For women in rural India, learning to ride a bicycle is such a huge step in their struggle towards a better life. In ‘Everybody loves a good drought’, Sainath writes about this movement in the Pudukkottai district of Tamil nadu (one of the most backward districts of an otherwise prosperous state). Started by the Arivoli Iyakkam (the movement for education, literally translated as the movement for the light of intelligence) and encouraged by the district collector (a woman, naturally), the bicycle went on to signify for hundreds of women a sense of freedom and self worth. Something they had never experienced before.
(Source: Visible Work, Invisible Women - A photo exhibition by P. Sainath)
This song (translated from Tamil) - incidentally, written by a man - was on every woman’s lips in Pudukkottai in the early 1990s…
Learn to ride the cycle, sister,
Set in motion the wheel of life sister.
Cars, ships and planes are now piloted by women,
Those days are gone when the drivers were only men.
So learn to ride the cycle quickly,
And begin a new story.
Read more about the movement here under Women cycle to independence.
Similarly in urban India, I have always been struck by how quickly women across cities and towns have taken to the two wheeler moped or scooterette, as it is known. Women driving a car have always existed in India, but they belonged, and still do, to the “upper class”. But, for thousands of women dreaming of freedom and mobility, learning to ride a two wheeler has been somewhat like growing wings…
charukesi July 15th, 2005
This is worse than Sholay. How can they do this?
Theatre in Vashi, late night show of Dus. Me shivering in the AC and all smug - hah! of course Abhishek Bacchan will be saved miraculously.
And he was not.
How can they do this?
It is all my parents’ fault - for letting me watch Hindi movies (and Tamil movies too but no English movies - dirty) as a child - I have grown up with a screwed up sense of reality. Good will win over bad. Hero will live while villian will die. Or atleast be marched away by the police in the last scene to rot in jail (by which time his evil long haired lawyers are also in jail - so no more bail for him).
When I have a nephew*, I will make sure he does not get to watch Hindi movies till he is 16. By which time his sense of reality will be all warped anyway. In any case he will not naively hope that good will triumph and the hero will survive through bomb blasts and all that.
****
The other thing I am going to talk about - and I guess it is better to say this directly to you, nephew, is this contrived pairing of each male character in the movie. Oh did I say contrived. Sorry, I meant to say cute.
There are four of them males in the movie, all with varying levels of testesterone - and therefore degrees of swagger. Basically all male type males (give or take a bit with Zayed Khan but what the heck)…
And - here is the clincher - each of them has a female jodi - who may or may nor be part of his present life but features in a definite way in his future. While the fiance (he-souten) of one of them is conveniently bumped off by the terrorist (who for some unknown reason leave her intact), another is given a chance by the terrorists to see her hindustan times husband in a new light, what with killing a few terrorists and saving cute innocent school children from death. The third one just stares moonily at her man every time she is with him in the same room - which is all the time - while he deflects these looks with professional poise (of course he loves her in his heart of hearts).
And finally, the bad woman who naturally has no business being alive after all those bad things she has done, prefers to die with her man rather than live without him. Which brings me back to my original ‘why did they have to kill Abhishek Bacchan’ thingy.
(Here I must mention that my husband gently pointed out that it was unpatriotic of me to expect them to break away completely from cinematic tradition and leave the heroine partnerless for the rest of her life. We have our culture to think of after all).
But.
But, here is the bit for you, child - it is not essential to find a woman and cling to her (even if she is a terrorist type bad woman) in life and death. It is perfectly okay to live in the world single - or to find and cling to a man you love (perfectly okay by me atleast - and in any case considering you are fictitious, perfectly okay. Period.)
I know, I know that Yash Copra has told us long ago that god has made us all (in her infinite wisdom) in pairs. But Noah’s Dus will sail all the same without that, you know…
——————————-
* Highly unlikely considering I do not have a brother or sister, but letters to nephews is all the rage in blogs now - these are usually written by compulsive writers of letters to the editor who have now made their homes in cyberspace. What with HT and DNA and all - kis kis ko kya kya likhein? So here is my own to a non existent nephew…
charukesi July 15th, 2005
Coca-Cola Threatens Top Indian Photographer with Lawsuit (source : Indiaresource.org)
For this picture by Sharad Haksar:
(photo courtesy degreecopy - these colourful plastic kudams are such a strong symbol of water scarcity in Chennai - murders have been committed over this…)
This is why - Mr. Haksar’s billboard highlights the severe water shortages being experienced by communities that live around Coca-Cola’s bottling plants across India. A community close to Chennai, in Gangaikondan, has already held large protests - protesting against an upcoming Coca-Cola plant. In the neighboring state of Kerala, in the village of Plachimada, Coca-Cola has been unable to open its bottling facility for the last 16 months - because the community will not allow it to.
The story about this hoarding is the the photographer Haksar had approached Coke before putting it up - and Coke which apprently had no problems then, has suddenly woken up to the fact that such a hoarding could cause “damage to its goodwill”.
The Kerala story - No water? Drink Coke!
More on the Coke controversy here and here
Other blog views by degreecopy and tiffix box
Related read : Vanilla Coke and ‘Wakau’
****
Interestingly, Coke was the first company to understand and fully exploit the concept of ‘competitive set’ - for them the adversary was not other carbonated drinks but water - or anything that could be drunk - share of stomach and not share of soda.. This insight is what drove Coke’s sales even during the toughest times of the cola wars and made their late CEO Roberto Goizueta a marketing legend.
charukesi July 14th, 2005
I had written on info on the London bombings about how the blogging world had responded almost instantly to the bombs.
And now I see this message on the discussion forum of flickr - Please don’t tag bombing pictures with muslim, arab or islam - someone (who has had his photographs tagged muslim / islam) has raised this topic and it is wonderful to see positive responses on the forum -
For instance, I agree, we should not let people who have warped values make us into bigots or racist. Extremists want to separate the world and put religion against religion so they come off as “freedom” fighters.
I do not know a lot about Islam but I have muslim neighbors in my bldg and they too are angry at these evil people. If we start using tags such as Islam, arab or muslim then we should at the same time take everyone into consideration and use christian, catholic, american, protestant, jew. But this would defy what flickr is about since its about uniting people, not dividing - adrianadesigner
There are so many nuts out there and more nuts to incite these ones…
charukesi July 14th, 2005
…can we hope for more fresh air.
And better features? And better editorial content?
And yes, certainly a better Sunday newspaper as Uma MD says here (oops, her title for this post is the same as mine - can I claim I thought of it first in my mind?)
Today’s Time of India carries a full page for HT - lovely photograph of Flora Fountain all in muted greys and greens - overall stunning visual.
And then this perplexing line - Starting today, see Mumbai in a new light.
See Mumbai? Are they being admirably honest and laying no claims to being a national newspaper? Or has someone tipped them off to the fact that with all that is happening in the newspaper market, Mid-day with it local Mumbaiyya timepass flavour and bindaas attitude still rules the hearts of Mumbai readers?
Or, does HT believe that what people really want is local news - international bombings and peace summits be damned - let there be supplement ?
And if that is true, then that ties in perfectly with what Dilip is saying here ?
(Personally, I am cheesed off at this upstart outsider to Bombay claiming to show me Mumbai in a new light).
Update : I just read the newspaper - the post was more about the advertisement. First reaction - why the Salman Khan tapes on front page top story - obviously they have had it for a long time now and were hoarding it for the big bang launch edition. Liked the photo feature on Mumbai. Did not like the supplements.
Will buy
Won’t buy
As of now won’t - but willing to wait and watch…
charukesi July 13th, 2005
Update: Came across this very interesting piece on Robert Paterson’s blog. It ends with In short: As connectedness transforms knowledge, our education system is swinging–running–in the other direction. Do read it fully - Robert has linked to the original piece by David Weinberger there on his post.
Found two pieces of writing on the education system - had to share them here. Let the good old debate begin. Again.
Randal Moss from community mobilization writes about the Education Values of a Decaying System. I think we all keyed into fact that the education system is failing to educate itself on the new and useful skills and values of the modern age. Education is not a fad, but the ability to creatively think and analyze information are stalwarts in the real world. Communication is essential, but if you can not generate an original thought or put two clues together the ability to self express becomes moot.
And then Suketu Mehta in the NYTimes (thanks, Sonia for the pointer) on outsourcing fears and our education system.
When I moved to Queens, in New York City, at the age of 14, I found myself, for the first time in my life, considered good at math. In Bombay, math was my worst subject, and I regularly found my place near the bottom of the class rankings in that rigorous subject. But in my American school, so low were their standards that I was - to my parents’ disbelief - near the top of the class. It was the same in English and, unexpectedly, in American history, for my school in Bombay included a detailed study of the American Revolution. My American school curriculum had, of course, almost nothing on the subcontinent’s freedom struggle. I was mercilessly bullied during the 1979-80 hostage crisis, because my classmates couldn’t tell the difference between Iran and India. If I were now to move with my family to India, my children - who go to one of the best private schools in New York - would have to take remedial math and science courses to get into a good school in Bombay.
Ok, so Johnny Can’t Add But Suresh Venktasubramanian Can. I had written about this in a long-ago post Teaching - content v/s methodology ?
On the one hand, learning by rote and learning seemingly unnecessary things stifles curiousity and leaves the child unprepared for real world problem solving. And on the other, it builds a strong foundation - as Suketu Mehta says and Suresh Venkatsubramanian knows.
R.K.Narayan says this about his own school days - Among fruits, we were familiar with the mango, banana, guava, pomegranate and the grape but not the apple (much less an apple pie). To our eager questioning, the omniscient one, our English teacher would just state, it must be some stuff similar to our idli but prepared with an apple. This information was inadequate and one popped up to ask, but what would it taste like? Sweet or sour? We were left free to guess……. Yet, for all that, Narayan’s writing and creativity are clearly quite intact…
So where is the balance in the education system to be achieved - at what point does become stuff unnecessary and irrelevant? Is algaebra relevant but Shakespeare not? And where does education cease to excite and begin to stifle?
(This post is entirely in the thinking-out-aloud mode)
charukesi July 12th, 2005
Times of India + Mumbai Mirror = Over 100 pages
Times of India clearly believes in the platter approach - offer all kinds of readers all kinds of news (or whatever) - in the form of different supplements. Apart from the regular Bombay Times and Property (or is it Education) supplements, I now get an International supplement (which I like very much) and New Bombay Times (yes, all about which road in which sector of Vashi is in bad shape due to the monsoons and so on - usually with striking pictures of said road - and oh, it also carries recipes for extremely rare and exotic dishes like rajma given by a new Bombay resident)
Needless to say, of these 100 pages, roughly 20 make for “news” reading - sure, another 8 make for interesting reading - Mallika Sherawat and the sex MMS, for instance.
***
The new supplement ‘times review’ launched this Sunday sounded very promising. A Sundae Whopper, said the main page of the ToI. The sundae contained five full length articles on the Bacchans - Amitabh and/or Abhishek and together. Different writers, different titles (like the super imaginative ‘waiting for sonrise’), same theme.
Five articles. Or one and a half pages out of a supplement with eight pages. In newspaper terms, that is colossal.
No, M/s Bennett and Coleman, more is not always better - more pages, more supplements… same newspaper.
****
And yes, I forgot, now the Mumbai Mirror is thrown in for free.
Finally, Mumbai gets a no-nonsense newspaper… (you know my views on this one and other such)
10th July - Front page - top story of the day
Bandra designer roped for D shadi
Yes, very no nonsense.
****
Finally, after many here-we-come-watch-outs, HT and DNA have announced their launch dates in Mumbai.
Hindustan Times’ Mumbai edition to hit stands on July 14.
If HT is working on a two-stage strategy, first “targeting the discerning English reader. In stage two, we will build the circulation”, DNA goes one better. As part of the launch fireworks, DNA will auction their front page - and don’t frown, it is all for a good cause.
Another activity that DNA has undertaken is the auctioning of its front page. The auction would be done on exchange4media.com. The proceeds of the auction would go to the social cause ‘Keep Mumbai Clean’.
Dilip, any take on this?
——————————————
Cross-posted on media musings
charukesi July 11th, 2005
Great cover story on Outlook - Gram By Microgram . Across rural India, Indians have turned serious innovators. These are the stories of individuals, practitioners of rustic science that is compelling, practical and applicable…
Called the Sci tech Special, this issue has some very interesting stories, including a wishlist from the President, Mr Kalam.
Incidentally, a few months ago, Outlook had run a similar story on innovations, A penny for your idea, which also had this note - a country that spews over 3,50,000 engineers a year has surprisingly few innovations and ideas to show for all that effort.
I had written a post about India and innovation then. To me, a lot of innovation in India stems from that basic survival mechanism - jugaad. More on jugaad here and here.
Clearly, the ideas and innovations are out there in plenty but how are they going to be nurtured and shaped and implemented - especially on a large scale? As Outlook rightly says, But many of them will need more than just recognition for their survival.
***
Thought : there is a small debate which has started on the comments section for this post. I am interested in growing that discussion, so have posted some of the thoughts here.
Gawker thinks government support and funding is necessary for innovations to see the light of day.
Lakshmikanth writes about his own innovation - I tried to contact some people in IISc but no one was interested. I had to apply to a US university to be able to try it out in that place.
Abi points to this piece from Badri and agrees with him. Indians should stop self-pitying and get on with their lives. If Balram Singh and Prem Singh have great inventions, let them take a leaf out of Edison’s book and commercialise the invention by raising money from local farmers. It is much easier to convince the consumer community than the morons in Vigyan Bhavan or PMO.
Absolutely, there are morons sitting at the government agencies, places which are supposed to help but are caught up in too many traps of their own making - corruption, nepotism, indifference, ignorance - and many other negatives we associate with ‘government’…
Given all this, I still think that for anything to work on a large scale, government intervention in some form is essential. I am saying this based on what little I have seen in development work, in say, education. What is private (as opposed to public) or non governmental (as opposed to government) has limited scope - despite best intentions…
What do you think?