India Blog Watch

Himvani.com, the site which started as a blog on blogspot on February 14th 2006, is celebrating its first anniversary. The site is a Voice of Himachal (VOH) initiative that is encouraging citizen journalism in Himachal Pradesh, a small hilly state in India. It was started with a vision of a ‘sincere effort to generate public awareness and responsiveness towards sustainable living in the state‘ and has successfully done the same.

HimVani.com believes in presenting and debating the true state of things in Himachal, and to act as a catalyst to trigger social consciousness among the natives. They don’t just take Himvani.com as a mere website. Instead, they name it grassroots journalism since Himvani has been an effort to work at the grassroots and bring solutions for those areas.

By augmenting resources, people at Himvani are firm to offer a surfeit of services which will sport entrepreneurial activity in the state focusing on use of resources that are already present in the community.

Another good thing I like about the site is that everyone is contributing for free. It is a voluntary effort just for the passion and love they have for the state. We can safely call it a smaller Wikipedia.

I am totally swayed away by the noble initiative taken by Himvani to promote citizen journalism in such a small state (not in terms of resources). But the real problem that the guys at Himvani are facing is the non-availability of internet in remote areas. Owing to this reason, many of the potential grassroots journalists are not being tapped. It would be great for Himvani and many other rural projects if internet reaches every nook and corner of Indian states.

My best wishes are with the Himvani community and I would love to write on them at their second anniversary.

Although this story popped out almost a week ago but we are not going to ignore it. Indian mainstream media looks to have recognized the potential of new online media. MTV, one of the India’s leading multimedia youth platforms, in collaboration with Pepsi has announced the launch of ‘Pepsi and MTV Youth Icon 2007.’

You will be eager to know the nominees. The list includes our much loved ‘Orkut.com‘ along with Abhishek Bachchan, Multimedia Cellphone, Rang de Basanti (movie), and obviously YOU. We are not just naming the nominees but trying to say that the mainstream media has finally realized the likes and dislikes of the youth.

The voting is taking place at www.mtvindia.com or by cellphone messaging (SMS ICON to 6882). The voting will continue till 29th of June and I won’t be surprised if we have orkut.com (with nearly 8.6 million audience) as the ‘Pepsi and MTV Youth Icon 2007.’

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Via: WatBlog

The publishing of the pictures of the victims of Khairlanji atrocity has started a fight among Indian bloggers.

After Shivam Vij published the gory pictures of the deceased and left a comment on Great Bong’s post saying he had published the pictures, Gaurav Sabnis was outraged. He thought that the pictures were in bad taste as it violated the dignity of the dead women who were subjected to this savage atrocity.

Meanwhile Beau Peep thought that Gaurav was behaving like an ‘insufferable snob’ and went on to give his reasons why the pictures were necessary and included the pictures too.

[Warning: Beau Peep’s post contains images that might be disturbing to some]

I think that this issue is not going to stop here...

Since when Senior Criminal Lawyer Ram Jethmalani has taken the case of Manu Sharma, the main accused in the Jessica Lal murder case, another debate has been started everywhere as does Manu Sharma desrve fair trial in this case.

You can find here another post. The debate is on and every body is busy to decide whom should do what in this case.

Anubha Bhonsle has written in her post as Manu Sharma has every reason to choose Ram Jethmalani but what are Mr Jethmalini’s reasons for defending a controversial accused? Is it because he truly believes Manu Sharma is innocent, or does he believe his job is to put forward the best defence for his client? Is it the thrill of defending someone who on the surface looks indefensible? Is it that he genuinely feels that Manu has been tried in the court of public opinion before he could really be tried by the High Court?

Yahoo! India was in news recently for alleged plagiarism. Yahoo had lately launched a Malayalam language Portal that featured blog entries from different blogs by Malayalam dialect bloggers.

Santhosh Pillai wrote to GigaOm:

Recently Yahoo! India launched a Malayalam Language Portal (along with other Indian languages), but they copied content from many Malayalam bloggers which were protected under Creative Common Licensing. None of the bloggers were contacted and it was a rude shock to us that giants like Yahoo! would do this.

The thing came into limelight when at least 5 recipes from her Suryagayatri’s Kariveppila blog were taken and slightly modified to be placed on Yahoo’s Malayalam Portal. She has an entry on her blog that her content has been lifted up to Yahoo Malayalam (beta) without her consent.

Groups are looking for a solution but in vain. How can a renowned site like Yahoo can be so irresponsible. Though Yahoo (or Webduniya, the content provider to yahoo) has like a ghost removed the pages, they haven’t even admitted the violation or giving a feedback to the blogger. I think Yahoo has forgotten the meaning of ‘values’.

Now, you can buy high quality prints at fabulous price with just a few clicks of your mouse. The social expression and personal photo publishing company Print Camp is a platform where users can upload, share, organize, print and maintain their picturesque memories.

The site offers personalized photo gifts for those who wish to show their deep love for their near and dear ones. The site basically emphasizes on home delivery of photo prints of your choice. The processing and shipping rates are reasonable and if you are not satisfied by the quality of the prints, the cost of the prints will be refunded in case you contact them with 15 days of the delivery.

Other than this, you can order custom made photo mugs with your images, get personalized photo T-shirts, craft colorful photo greeting cards to revive your sweet memories.

Print Camp could be the best place to get closer to your loved ones provided they continue offering the best services.

The Indian cricket team, despite of all criticism back in India, busy in losing the game from the South African team in the tour of South Africa. Other teams of cricket playing nations may learn a unique quality from Indian team ‘How to loose a winning game comfortably from any team of the World. The recent two loss of the game (It could have 0-3 but the rain saved a game for India) has irked fans back in India and even in Parliament of India.

I found a fantastic post on the performance of Indian team under the title Kaho Na Massacre Hain. The situation of the team is fit to sing a song of the super hit Bollywood movie, Kaho Na Pyar Hai that is as Ek Pal Ka Jina... for rest just see the post and don’t forget to read some interesting comments as well.

The Municipal officials of Maharashtra government have started charging Rs 500 ($11) if anybody caught feeding pigeons in Mumbai’s Marine Drive area.

The officials said that to keep Mumbai clean and disease free, this was necessary step. The officials have been circulated handbills with the warning, “Bird feeding is prohibited in public places.”

According to Vijay Balamwar, Mumbai’s assistant municipal commissioner, about 20 people have been already fined.

Sakshi has written a post on it with a wonderful headline and a beautiful picture of Marine Drive.

She has written as

Seems like the Mumbai’s civic officials are also going the English way when it comes to pigeon-feeding issue at one of the most-popular destination in Mumbai city - Marine Drive.

We are fast catching up with the world in blogosphere. Recently the blog count in india crossed the 1 Million mark. However, this number is relatively less when we compare ourselves to other countries...

Maybe we can be satisfied that with the current level of access to technology and internet penetration levels in india, this number is no mean achievement. MSN Portal and Windows Live recently conducted a survey on the status of the indian blogosphere. It threw out some interesting food for thought. With more men folk dominating the indian blogosphere, self-expression and personal-development topped the list as the intended purposes.More details here.

Though many of us depend on blogs for our news and also develop views, indian blogosphere is too nascent to be called a fourth estate by itself.But there should be no doubt that Blogging will prove to be a key tool in this era of educated activist citizens.

The government of India is still in mess on the issue of hanging of Afzal. Indian Blogsphere has been almost silent on this issue. I just find October 5 post here on Afzal hanging.

It writes as What do you make out of the number of protests by muslims in support of that terrorist? Will I be wrong if I say that muslims support terrorism. Moreover, so do the secular self-proclaimed intellectuals?

And here, I have to pay ridiculous amounts of money to drive on our roads, or to get a piece of paper that basically says that I am a bonafide citizen of India (the passport).