India Blog Watch

Munna Bhai talked about Gandhian philosophy in the movie, ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai’ in a tapori language and the India’ intellectuals have started contradicting each other on the relevance of Gandhi in modern times. I remembered Albert Einstein’s statement on Gandhi that, people, one day, will not believe that a man like Gandhi was born in this world’. Today I am finding it right even after only 59 years of his death. People are fighting verbally on his principles, which had global impact at the time when the global world was not even in anybody’s mind. Anyways, here in CNN IBN blogs, Abhijit Bhattacharya writes in his post Gandhigiri is DEAD… about Gandhi’s three principles and questioning on the relevance of Gandhism in present world. He writes as ‘Millions could not digest the fact on 30th January 1948 that Mahatma Gandhi was dead. They just could not believe it. I think time has come again for all of us to stand up and accept that Gandhigiri is also dead today. We should stop duping others and ourselves by saying and believing that Gandhi and his principles still exist. Gandhigiri is DEAD’

Shivam Viz is upset when he heared about the remake of Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan. He accepts Aishwarya’s beauty in an incredible manner but he does see no ground of comparison Aishwarya and Rekha of Umrao Jan. He writes in his post Umrao Jaan, 2006 as Aishwariya Rai does look incredibly beautiful. Rekha did, too. But no comparisons please, okay? You may find some beautiful pictures of Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jan and J P Dutta’s Umrao Jan.

Indiablogwatch is trying its best to cover the emerging trends in the Indian Blogosphere and to give a fillip to this idea we’ve invited Raj – the man behind SixerTV – a newly launched social networking site exclusively based on cricket. SixerTV offer everything an ardent cricket fan hunts for connecting global cricket community and giving them a wonderful platform to discuss and express their views on the game. Here comes Raj with his valuable insights… Vikas: You have been spotted as the upcoming "MySpace of India". Where do you think you stand in this respect? Raj: I am not sure if it’s a fair comparison. Those were the views of the writer (Ms. Rashmi Bansal). It’s a tall order for any site before its launch to be compared as upcoming MySpace of India. I am not sure if My Space business model would work in India today. We focus on cricket fans. Web2.0 is a new concept in India and it will take a couple of years for any company to see the growth that is going on in the U.S. Vikas: Sixer.tv is an "online platform to connect global cricket fans". What exactly Sixer.tv wants to achieve by this and how far it have been successful? Raj: Sixer wants to enable cricket fans to connect with other fans around the world and share their love for cricket, cricket memories, moments etc.  We are only a two-day old site. In first two days of launch , We had more than 500 members join Sixer site in less than two days. Over 2000 ‘Runs’/views of articles posted on the site. We have over hundred articles/pictures/videos posted. Over hundred invitation to friends to check out the site from joined the member. Two articles had more than 400 Runs. One out of every three members who joined our site has invited friends that’s a great achievement A sports journalist from a leading media house, whose article was submitted on our site, was amazed by the pull of Sixer site and the ‘Runs’ scored by his article. His article was read by more than 300 fans within few hours. We haven’t done any marketing of the site in India. So, from the initial traffic point of view we were successful. But we believe we have long way to go as several fans don’t understand what a social networking site is. They are not internet savvy yet. We are also challenged by slower internet speeds in India. Vikas: The whole Internet, of course, as a media, is moving towards Web 2.0. How far do you think the phenomenon has emerged successfully? Raj: There is lot of hype and unproven business models that are going after markets that don’t exist. They are being built for hit and run (build a company that can be sold in few months or within a year). Look at what has happened in the travel portal space. It’s crowded, in the end these sites are in the travel agency business. It’s a wrong comparison, the point I wanted to make is there are lot of companies/investors getting in without doing their homework. Sixer is going after cricket fans that love to connect with other fans. The game (cricket) is becoming bigger everyday with new countries joining ICC and the number of games being played by each team. Vikas: What is the main idea behind linking of clubs and metros? Raj: A Sachin Tendulkar fan would love to connect with other Tendulkar fan. Likewise, a fan would love to check out other cricket fans in their city and do cricket and non-cricket related things. Vikas: You have restricted your users at various fronts, such as they are not allowed to vote and comment on a story. Don’t you think it is totally against the phenomenon of social networking? Raj: No it’s not a restriction. From day one users can comment and rate pictures and videos posted at Sixer site. We decided to hold off the comments and vote functionality on ‘News’ section for few weeks so the users can explore the site. As you know it takes only couple of programming hours to integrate comments and vote on the ‘News’ section of the site. In next few weeks our focus is to see what users are doing at the site and not have every bell and whistle on the site. Vikas: What are your future plans with respect to Sixer.tv? Where do you see Sixer.tv in the next five years? Raj: We want to take Sixer content to mobile space. May be sponsor a Sixer Cup or event. In next five years, Sixer should be a leading online brand with presence in several countries and satisfy or exceed the expectations of cricket hungry fans. Vikas: Finally, we would like to have your thoughts on the Instablogs Network and its all related sites. Which are your favorites? Raj: Great Network. The growth you guys seeing is truly amazing. Celebrities and Gadget blogs are my favorites. I hope you guys continue growth at the same pace.

Globalization is the most talked-about topic in the last decade and in this decade as well among the trade analysts. It has many more meaning in many more areas. The Actual meaning is something different from the globalization in practice. The free trade barriers, abolishing import duties are its meaning at one hand and on the other hand, it cannot tolerate the immigration of workers. Gaurav Sabnis has written a comprehensible post on the actual meaning of the word Globalization and about its practice by the different countries. In the post, Immigration – The Acid Test of Globalization , he writes about the free trade, the transfer of goods vs the transfer of services. He writes as, the current restrictions on immigration are similar to the restrictions placed by socialist countries on goods trade. These restrictions are non-sustainable. If the restrictions were only morally wrong, they might have sustained. But restrictions on free trade have a practical impact. They undermine your economy, and most of your people are worse off.

Lagaan in 2004, Devdas in 2005 and now Rang De Basanti in 2006, Will it or won’t? Why RDB, why not Omkara or Munnabhai selected? The debate and nosiness has been started among bollywood and Electronic Media people. The common people, whether they have any interest or not in the Oscars award for Indian movie, are forced to see the irritating news packages and discussion (worst) on this matter on News channels. Amit Verma has written a post on the Oscar mania of Indian filmmakers. He writes in his post There’s no "Oscars jinx" that the fundamental nature of Indian movies is completely different from the western movies. Then why we are running to get recognition there in the Oscars? He writes as If Indian cinema has started doing well abroad, it is because of NRIs. The only Indian film-makers who have been taken seriously by the West are those who make films in what is essentially the Western paradigm of film-making: two prominent examples are Satyajit Ray, who was more inspired by Renoir than Phalke when he started out, and the exceptional Mira Nair, whose Monsoon Wedding used song and dance in an entirely non-Bollywood way, using an Indian setting but a Western structure. One thing the writer forgot to say that there is no any category for the best foreign films in our Film fare awards in India. How will you rate those western movies on Indian parameter to make them obsess? This is a good suggestion to the big-shots of Indian Film Industry. Isn’t it?

Congress had organized a Chief ministerial conclave in Nainital. The Chief Ministers of Congress-ruling states were asking the central government to act on their agricultural-related demands related as agrarian crisis is the biggest problem facing by several states in India. Nilu writes on the non-seriousness of the conclave on Recursive Hypocrisy as Agriculture Minister Sahard Pawar was not available in the Conclave to give answers to CMs’ queries on problems of farmers. The Finance Minister was there for giving the answers. The demands were such as to increase farm credit, decrease interest rates and write off bad loans. The Finance Minister rejected it by saying that it was primarily a state subject. All CMs were asking to provide soft loans to a farmer that was imperfect demand. Imperfect because these demands cannot help either to the farmers or to agriculture. He writes as every farmer in this country does get a loan at an interest rate of 5%. Will that solve the crises? Firstly, what are the crises? Do they stop with suicides in Vidarbha? Or do they extend to the abysmal yield in the rest of the country? To start with, there simply isn’t any real investment in technology or innovation in this area. Farm credits, crop insurance and support prices are only measures to help those in misery. What about solutions that result in yields which would make agriculture a viable profession? How about the land ceiling act that encourages subsistence farming? Where are the infrastructure projects like building cold storage facilities?

Every country has its own problems but the nature of problem varies from country to country. If we think about the problems facing by different schools in India, there are many in numbers such as lack of discipline, be deficient of teachers, use of mobile phones and many more… Here Ajay Bhat has posted a photograph of a poster from a public school in Seattle. It is about the prohibition to take weapons in public schools…(I am surprised as I am an Indian and got relaxed India is not a developed country such as the US).

Speaking any language, that is non-European, at the airport in Europe and sometimes in the America too, may send you in police custody. The problems are bigger for Asian people especially for west Asians. Neha Vishwanathan has written a post on the danger of speaking the other languages at airports. Be it Seattle, Amesterdam and Heathrow, people have been detained under suspicion and later freed on many ocassion. The most important and never understood logic is that why the western security agencies, all the time, relate only non-European languages with terrorism.

Indian Outsourcing Industry has become a threat for the outsourcing companies of UK and other western countries. Western countries always do claim about the data theft happening in Indian BPOs. The recent allegation of data selling by call center employee has again started debate on the security of personal information. However, these types of fraud and data theft happen more in UK, and US then in Indian call centre. Ekawaaz has written a post on the story of theft of privacy data by Indian BPO employee and about the steps to restrict the practice in Indian BPOs. He writes as I took it with mixture of feelings, Alarmed and Frustration. Alarmed because these sort of incidents are damaging our BPO industry reputation and Frustration. No matter what the prospective punishment there will always be people who will trade information for money. If we really want to safe this industry we at least need these three things- # Strict regulation for BPO employees. # Standard employment procedure for all BPO employees. # Strict rules for any cyber crimes.

Rashmi Bansal has asked you to be a Survey Evangelist by participating in an open source survey on Engineering College Rating Survey for her magazine. If you are an engineer, just vote for your college to get good ranks among about 350 engineering colleges across India.