India Blog Watch

Pichacao Brazils home grown style of tagging is the mouth piece of Sao Paulos poverty ridden slums called Favelas. Its considered as an ugly, nonsensical angry crime. Yet the Pichadores scale the highest walls, towering buildings to get their tags painted, sometimes at the cost of their lives. Pichacao ia a form of rebellion against the society by the poor, the neglected, that do not exist for the rich and affluent. It is actually favelas “screaming” for attention, any type of attention.....for them “Bad strokes are better than no strokes.The ugly aspect of their writing represents their hideous existence in the Favelas.

High up in the Himalayas is the land of the Thunder Dragon. The tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan one of the most pristine places, the last Shangrila, is now transforming into Plateau of Happiness. A mythical place where a king gives up absolute power to bring democracy to his people. Even in this quintessentially isolated Himalayan kingdom a debate about globalization is gathering intensity after the introduction of internet and the cable television. The Bhutanese may be treading slowly, trying to preserve their culture but the contest between internet and cable television vs Buddhism has become ever more explicit.

Emerging around 800 AD Sufis were originally pious devotees who sought divine reality or the ultimate truth through constant remembrance of God incorporated with techniques with chanting and music, dancing and swaying. Sufi tradition prevalent in Pakistan since the 13th century is deeply ingrained in the social cultural lifestyle of the country, particularly Sind and Punjab province, where majority population seeks solace in Sufi ideology. This potent brew of mysticism, folklore and a dose of hedonism are far more widespread than the Talibans version of Wahabi regimental puritanical Islam. Given that can Sufism then counter Taliban, as Pakistan faces two extremes?

Modern Brazilian Carnival originated in Rio de Janeiro in 1641, when the city’s bourgeoisie imported the practice of holding balls and masquerade parties from Paris. It originally mimicked the European form of the festival, later acquiring elements derived from Native American and African cultures.

Hero, heroine and villain are the foundation of Hindi cinema. Negative villainous characters have always added spice to the otherwise sugary love stories. With Indian villains having lived up more than to their reputation, take a look at Bollywoods’ Top 10 Villians.

An unusual scene outside Kabul International Airport, a small group of cheerful Afghans welcoming the homecoming of Afghan Cricket Team after it booked its place in the final qualifying event at Buenos Aires in Argentina for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Something which no one could dream of.

Mexican drug war is a de facto turf war between rival drug cartels and government forces. As cartels get dismantled or left without leaders violent power struggles erupt over who takes their place. At present, these powerfully organized crime syndicates have aligned themselves into 2 blocks led by Gulf Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel. These two blocks are involved in massive, violent turf wars currently being carried out throughout Mexico with the help of their own private army, for eg. Los Zetas

Terror struck Mumbai on November 26, 2008 and India’s financial capital saw bloodbath, in what comes out to be India’s 9/11. India’s worst terrorist attack resulted in the death of 183 Civilians, including 22 foreigners.

Recurring terror attacks have revealed the failure of the Indian Govt. to deal firmly with the issue of terrorism. Undoubtedly, India is increasingly becoming the soft target for terror and may be the focus for terror is shifting to India.

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