“..but more importantly, while the governments in the west agonize over what to do about nutrition for kids, India has actually gone ahead and done something about it.” (From the docu film “India’s Free Lunch“.
As Madhukar Shukla said in Facebook while sharing this video link – “mostly noted when a report of a lizard comes in news, the funds get diverted, or scam hits the scheme, India’s Mid-Day Meal scheme has gone largely unnoticed for the positive impact it has made to many young lives.”
Imagine this.
Two little girls. Friends. Neighbors. They study in the same school and go to school together everyday. One studying in the 4th standard and the other in 3rd.
Their parents had come to an arrangement that one parent would take both kids together to school in the morning and the other would bring them back in the afternoon. The parents, both gentlemen. Love their kids so much.
Everything goes well with both families until one day one of the girls seems to be depressed and the school authorities decide to do a counseling. They find out that the neighbor who brings the kids in the evening, her good friend’s father, as old as her father, abuses her sexually.
Imagine that. Well, you don’t have to imagine much as this is something that actually happened in Kerala, as I heard from a friend last week. The school in which both these girls are studying has decided to do a counseling with all children in the light of this event. A very good step which is better late than never.
I have a request to all parents who are reading this post. All of you who have young girls and boys. Please do take extra care for your children. Don’t let that close friend, cousin or neighbor physically express their love for your kids. Don’t let them loose and spend time alone with these folks. Draw a line. People might ask, ‘why panic’ and ‘what about trust’ and all that. Damn trust. A pissed off friend/cousin/neighbor is anytime better for your children than a lifelong fear of hugs, touches and kisses.
Remember that dialogue which Nazeerudhin Shah’s character delivers in the movie Monsoon Wedding? “These are my children, and I will protect them from myself even if I have to.” Think about that.
Happened to read this article titled “Why Designers Hate Crowdsourcing” in Forbes.com when a friend gave me the link and asked for the thoughts on the subject. I could totally relate to everything said in the article as I have worked in these online market places for a long time.
I think this is the bad side of Crowdsourcing. People take up someone else’s work and leave them empty handed. The problem is with both buyers and sellers in these online market places. And these online market places are more buyer friendly.
Very often, almost all buyers demand to see a mock-up of the design that you propose BEFORE awarding you the project. Okay, perhaps one mock-up is fine to showcase what you are capable of but many of them wants to see two or more mock-ups from each seller (consider the fact that there are thousands of online sellers – freelancers / companies – waiting to get a project in these websites). Then they request revisions to these mock-ups (you can’t resist the revisions when you see a message from the buyer saying, “I like what you have done in the initial version. You are in my top 2 shortlist and we are almost getting there.“). Even after all these are done, you would see that your work proposal was rejected. Sometimes the project is awarded to someone else, sometimes it is awarded to none and the buyer gets away with it. Even if the project IS awarded to someone, you would see that his/her bidding amount was less than your proposed amount. And your hours of work would be gone without any reward.
What would have happened is this – the buyer asks for mock-up from all those who have placed a bid on the project. Here he gets a lot of options – from people of all skill levels. He combines the best and takes it to someone who can do a copy of the design he chose for a much cheaper price. The way I realized this is when a buyer asked me if I could design something like a mock-up he had shown that some other seller had designed for him (I rejected the offer by the way, as this very act was well enough to question the business ethics of that man and there is a fair chance of me not getting paid for my work. Plus, it insults my capability of doing a design myself).
The websites which act as the middle men can do so much to change this. They could set a minimal price for mock-up. Or say, you could see the portfolio of the sellers first to see what they are capable of (verifying that the showcased projects are indeed done by that individual/company is not too much of a task – just some Google searches or a couple of emailing would do) and award the project only if you like their work portfolio. And then you can ask for mock-ups after you set the milestones of a project. That way you can stop at any milestone point of the work and your money for the project is not wasted even if something goes wrong. But these websites do not do any of that.
Some websites do have a dispute option (but that is NOT applicable to such mock-up games but only for the time after awarding a project), but when you initiate a dispute between you and the buyer, both accounts would freeze until the dispute is over! If you are a freelancer and depends on it for a living, this is something you wouldn’t prefer and you would ignore your loss and begin hunting for the new work. And even if you proceed with the dispute, most likely the buyer’s account would be set free in a few days. Yours, locked up for a long time.
But many new comers who want to get started with their career in freelancing falls for providing mock-ups in the hope of bagging a project. And some are even ready to do the entire project for NO MONEY at all! Some bid for a cheap price that not even an individual who lives upon his work can’t even think of. And as far as India is concerned, all western buyers know the Rupee-Dollar difference and that they can always get quality work for a lot more cheaper price. So even if you convince a buyer of your skill set, and then ask for a rise in the pay, the chances are high of him discarding you and finding someone else with the same caliber for a much cheaper hourly rate or for the same hourly rate. You know this too, so you wouldn’t take the risk unless you find someone else who is ready to pay you a higher hourly rate until that buyer finds out someone who works for a lesser hourly rate. 🙂 This applies not only to the online market places, but to individual clients we meet over the Internet as well. So your aim should be to find newer clients or an alternate client in the backup so that even if you lose one client, you have another to survive.
All of these projects in these online market places are of small businesses (though there are projects worth thousands of dollars posted everyday in these websites – I hope someone would someday come up with a statistical data of the money that flows in these websites everyday and the money that these websites earn everyday in terms of commission) and big companies like Apple or Microsoft or even the 2,3,4 tier professional companies would not use these sites for projects for various professional reasons. So this looting goes unnoticed by the mainstream media.
When we read the story of “contest” in 99designs, we could end up saying, “but hey, some of those people knew that their designs might not be making to the list“, but it is still looting. Looting your creativity, your time and your skills.
On the last Friday evening, I had these to keep me company.
(shot in my Sony Ericsson P1i mobile phone)
You know this ain’t big news for an established professional singer, but for a small time singer/music blogger like me, this is big news. 🙂 My cover version of the popular Malayalam song, Picha Vacha Naal Muthal (composed by Deepak Dev and originally sung by Shankar Mahadevan for the Malayalam movie “Puthiya Mukham“) has crossed 10000 online plays and 3155 mp3 downloads within 11 months (Muziboo and 4shared combined).
I want to take this moment to thank you one and all, for your continued support, criticism and encouragement to my music and singing. It will keep me going on. I know it has been a long time since I have recorded/posted something here. The reason is that I caught up with my professional and personal work and then my microphone is not working! I promise to post something as soon as I get it fixed.
And here is the song:
I had an opportunity recently to check out the Ovi Music Unlimited service which comes bundled with the Nokia phones such as X6, 5235 and 5130. I tried the service on a 5235.
One of the best features about the Nokia-Ovi service is that you get to download as many music tracks as you want from a collection of upto 4 million songs that Ovi has to offer you. And that is for 12 months. You do not have to pay anything, you just need a code (that would be SMSed to you when you activate your newly purchased Nokia Ovi device) that would activate your account. You can keep all the tracks you download, even after your subscription period of 1 year ends. There are certain digitial restrictions though – you can download or play the songs only in your Nokia-Ovi device and your PC that is registered with the service.
The best part is that you get all your music at one place and it is:
The installation process was easy. I just had to install the software that came bundled with the Nokia 5235 (and I updated it online to the latest version). With a one-click account activation process in the software, I could begin downloading the tracks. The Ovi Player has a simple interface that makes it easier to navigate through, as easy as browsing a website. Their categorization of the tracks are also easy to navigate through. I have read in other reviews that the software takes a lot of resources compared to iTunes. Even though I would agree to the comparison with iTunes in system resource utilization, I must say it is still better than Microsoft’s Zune software. You can do pretty much everything in Ovi Player that you do with the softwares like iTunes or Zune (importing existing songs from your machine to Ovi player, creating playlists, audio equalizer etc). Except that you don’t have to pay a penny to download a music track from their collection.
They have a wide variety of categories and songs – from Western to Indian Classical, Pop to Rock, Filmy to Album songs etc. And they have many latest albums in each genre to download. The Top 20 charts helps you give a headstart to the latest hit numbers and the charts listed as Bollywood Top 20, International Top 20, South Top 20 and Non-film Top 20. The playlists include special packages like Micheal Jackson special, Lucky Ali special, S P Balasubramanyam special etc. Another unique feature about their listing is “Audio Films“, which is an audio narrative of popular films with original sound bits from the movie. So in 30 minutes you get to enjoy the audio version of a movie. But the problem is, you have only Hindi films listed there.
The tracks are properly tagged, comes in WMA format and in 192 KBPS which provides a good audo quality.
One issue that I have noticed in the whole package is their regional coverage. The South Top 20 chart totally ignores Malayalam language. And the Malayalam language section doesn’t have the latest up-to-date releases whereas Hindi has the most up-to-date versions compared to the regional languages.
For the music enthusiasts who use mobile phones to have music-on-the-go (or just your PC to play music at work or home), I would suggest you go for an Ovi Music supported device, the prime reason being that you get to download a vast collection of music tracks for an entire year. But if you already own an iPod or Zune, have experienced the audio quality of those two devices and carry them for music-on-the-go, you may want to think twice. I heard the songs with the ear plugs of Nokia 5235, but regardless of the presets and custom settings of equalizer, there is excessive bass in the audio. And I really hate the ear plugs as it leaves my ears with pain. So the listening experience of Ovi Music tracks with a Nokia device is not any closer compared to the devices like iPod or Zune (I like my Zune better than my iPod, and it’s audio quality with their earphones is amazing). Plus, you cannot use the tracks you download from Ovi Player with any other devices. But still, it is better compared to other popular music phones in the market. And like I said, this is a perfect solution for those who are addicted to listening to music on their mobile phones.
I saw an email (content pasted below) when I came back home from Trivandrum on Friday night. It was from an online friend who is also a blogger. The email came from his personal email ID (we have corresponded earlier) and it also had his signature at the end of the email. The subject line said “My Predicament!!!“. The content was this:
I’m writing this with tears in my eyes,my family and I came down here
to London,England for a short vacation unfortunately we were mugged at
the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash,credit card and cell
were stolen off us but luckily for us we still have our passports with
us.We’ve been to the embassy and the Police here but they’re not helping
issues at all and our flight leaves in less than 3hrs from now but
we’re having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager
won’t let us leave until we settle the bills.Am freaked out at the moment.
I believed it to be genuine, because it did not mention anything about transferring money to so-and-so account. It had a genuine email signature and the by the nature of the email content, the intent seemed to be like just letting me know about the plight. I got panicked and immediately wrote to my other good friends in London. Then the sender himself wrote back saying that his email ID was hacked and somebody else sent this email. Then two of the friends I emailed wrote back saying that this email is a fake email and it had been in circulation for a long time! One of those friends already had written a blog post about it. Looks I am the last one to know about it. So the first thing I want to tell you all is to be beware of this email if it comes to you!
But there was a good side to this whole story. Within 39 minutes of my email to the friends requesting to help the blogger friend, a friend from London wrote back leaving two contact phone numbers of his. He also checked to see if they had any guests in the hotel in that name. I mean if the incidents in the email were true, the help could have been readily availed. This reinstates my belief that at times of need, there are good friends on whom you can trust upon. That’s what this fake email taught me with this incident. 🙂
One of the good things that the weekend train journeys in the evenings has given me is the opportunity to read books. Even though restarting the old habit of reading books was in some of my new year resolutions, it never worked (resolutions are made to be broken, you know! 🙂 ). But this time, it gives a lot of time to hear music and read books. So this year I have read the most number of books, compared to the recent past.
Title: Super Freakonomics
Publisher: Harper Collins
Price: Rs. 299 (in Flipkart)
I usually would get turned off by anything that has the word “economics” in it. But sometimes back a couple of friends at work had told me that there is this super book called Freakonomics and it presents the fun side of economics and statistics. They did quote some stories from the book and it was so interesting. So when I got a chance last month, I bought this second version “Super Freakonomics” and I absolutely loved it! I never knew that economics could be fun and it could be used to draw some stunning statistics of life and we would be left wiser towards the end. Some of the chapter titles itself would add to your curiosity – “Why should suicide bombers buy life insurance?“, “What Do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have in Common?“, “Fix is in – and it’s Cheap and Simple” etc. The most interesting chapters are the ones about Global Warming and the study on our apathy and altruism. And there are other things that gives us some insight, like how TV (yeah, that thing we call idiot box) has made what the numerous plans and incentives by Government of India couldn’t make happen – Family planning! And there is a blow to the pride of Indian men too – that the reason that condoms do not work best here in India is that it was made as per WHO standards – in other words, it means, Indian men have smaller dicks compared to international standards. 🙂 The book, as the authors claim, is not written based on the emotions and sentiments but rather on data and statistics. You could argue that there are “Lies, Damned lies and Statistics“, but you cannot ignore the data they present at least from a learning perspective.
Album: Fitoor
Singer: Mohit Chauhan
Label: Universal Music
You know what? I love this man’s voice, right from the days of Silk Route. And while I was mourning the absence of Silk Route came his voice in the movies. There is something magical and so soothing in his voice. I am talking about none other than Mohit Chauhan. Now comes his single debut album called Fitoor. And its totally rocking!
The team who worked behind the album consists of the former Silk Route drummer Kenny and the Parikrama guitarist Saurabh. The first track, Fitoor, itself will take you completely on to it. The rock flavor of the song works out really well. The song Sajna has kind of a folk-rock feel. You would feel like you just gotten back to the good old days of Silk Route when you hear this song. Next one, Musafir, is a love ballad but I feel that music is over done in the background (it sounds so crowded). Would have been better with a less crowded arrangement. You cannot resist Mohit’s voice in this one anyways. Uff Yeh Nazara is a nice song particularly for the lead and bass guitars it used. Perhaps the most simple and soothing track of the album is Meri Tarah and with that mouth organ and accoustic guitar tones, it reminds you of the good old days of Silk Route. Mai Ni Meriye is a folk song with the Silk Route mark on it. Sway your heads along as you listen to this one. Or just fall asleep listening to this as this song is so soothing. Jeene De starts with that oh-so-you-wanted to hear voice of Mohit. He doesn’t cease to amaze you how he uses his voice to get you mesmerized.
To summarize, this album is very much worth of your money. Go ahead and buy it and if you loved Mohit’s voice in the films or if you have loved the band Silk Route, this album is a must have.
And here is the title track from the album:
Recently I posted this comment in Facebook about the news that the BJP led Karnataka state government has banned cow slaughter. In India, fanatics of various religions always give us something to write about.
So the comment was this and it seems that some people got pissed off by it:
And I wanted to say a couple of things to those who have been pissed off by my comment and pouring their anger on me throughout facebook. The pity is that they don’t even have the guts to quote my name in those pissed-off comments and make strange references.
So to them,
Now that I said all of these, I guess they can still get pissed off. 🙂
In my post about Prof. Joseph’s hand-chopping incident, I had written about the intrusion of religious elements into the liberal, democratic and political spheres of Kerala in disguise. I think this is more dangerous than the Hindutva politics because Hindutva politics is there on the surface for everybody to see. Hindutvavaadis thrive on anti-minority sentiments and extreme Hindu-nationalist views, and everybody knows that. Hindutavavaadis never hesitate to boast upon their beliefs (except for the grooming campaigns of Narendra Modi these days), but on the other side, the hard-core Islamists chose to play different. When they learned that terrorism and an extreme Islamist movement is a growing concern in the public, they put on the mask of liberal activism and tried to play more left than the Left. While the Left in Kerala has left itself to be rotten, there was an empty space in the field of activism that was available for others to occupy. And the Islamists were quick to fill in that space. It is said that ‘even the BJP is Leftist in Kerala’. So the best way to get public acceptance was obvious – be more left than the Leftists.
The first step in that direction was taken long back – starting with media. A prominent Malayalam weekly and news daily is owned by such a group. They invited the prominent figures in the socio-political-liberal sphere to write for them and made a mark. Then came their student/youth organizations. They started campaigns and agitations on several issues – Capitalism, Globalization, Bourgeoisie, Western Imperialism, Environment, Development, Human Rights etc. When they shouted slogans against America and Israel, their tones were sharper than the Communists. When they talked about freedom of speech for M F Hussain, they kept mum on the threats and Fatwas issued to Taslima Nasreen. When they talked about Imperialism and Human Rights, they never talked about the Islamic imperialist countries and the grave human rights violation in those countries.
When Madani was released from jail, he also played the same political card. Madani was smart. He saw the possiblity of a wider political spectrum and thus included “Dalits” in his come back. The term “Dalit” had already become a fine selling point of all political parties by then. Madani also banked upon the same “anti-imperialistic” politics of the other Islamist organizations.
But people failed to notice it or chose to ignore. And our socio-political leaders kept taking part in their meetings and that image has been used to boast upon their public acceptance. And now the final step – Jamaat-e-Islami is forming a political party in Kerala. And what is their declared obective? Their Wiki page says, “Establishment of (Islamic) way of life in all aspects of life“. And their core doctrine? “the Divine Being is solely Allah, there being no God except Him, and that Muhammad is Allah’s messenger“. Tell me how it is different from the dream of a Hindu nation proposed by the Sangh Parivar.
Now we have a number of such “political parties” and “activist organizations” in our public sphere. And the news of bombs and detonators being placed in the public spaces and people being hacked in the name of religion is increasing day by day. Even though some of the socio-political leaders and intellectuals have turned a blind-eye towards such developments, the consolation is that there are people like Hameed Chennamangaloor who have been voicing against these groups openly since a very long time. And publications like Mathrubhumi weekly having open debates about this as cover stories. But that is not enough. People have to stand up and say, we don’t want an Islamic or Chrsitian version of BJP or Sangh Parivar. We don’t want religion in our political space. We don’t want that one God or multiple Gods and their doctrines to rule us, instead the secular ethos envisioned by the founding fathers of this country. We want to keep our democracy in place, how much shortcomings and failures it has.
