Sticky post
This event took place exactly 4 years ago, in May’2006 when I had completed one year of blog. By sheer work of fate BBC World had reached out to me to talk about the use of internet amongst Indian youth. … Continue reading Delhi Bloggers Meet with BBC World Radio May’2006
This particular survey done by Tata Consultancy Services shows that “The Web 2.0 Generation are digital natives, with high technology savvy, global in terms of aspirations and outlook as well as being increasingly optimistic about India’s economic future.” The survey is one of the largest conducted amongst youth in India covering 14000 students from schools across 12 Urban cities. Some of the highlights of the survey: 63% of urban students spend over an hour online daily 93% are aware of social networking Orkut and Facebook are most popular online destinations 46% use online sources to access news; TV, Newspaper users at … Continue reading Survey by TCS shows urban school children in India are well versed in New Media
‘Greetings from the land of the Sinful Kamasutra’ said Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil while opening the Euro pride 2008 at Stockholm. (Video) But who is he?
He was one of the few Indians to be invited to the Oprah Winfrey show, was one of the candidates for Time Magazine’s World Top 100 Most influential People list in 2007, have been quoted and interviewed by respected magazines and news dailies from all over the world; he is one of the most prominent face in LGBT rights activism and HIV awareness activity; he hosts an annual cultural festival at his palace for homosexual artists to celebrate their talent and their being, yet he is someone who is hardly talked about on Indian mainstream media. A convenient silence, deafness and blindness prevail on us when it comes to homosexuality – but not any more.
I wrote about Prince Manvendra Singh on this space exactly a year ago on my post ‘Its time to stand up and stand tall’ where I said “only when the number of people identifying themselves as queer is large enough and the faces known enough will the society realize it is not something so unnatural after all. And this responsibility lies with LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people themselves to come out of their closet and be confident of their sexuality. It’s time to stand up and stand tall.”
And they did. In just one year the queer movement in India has grown by leaps and bounds. There are more popular culture celebrities who now openly support homosexuality, most vocal of them being Celina Jaitly who have called out for gay rights in India in her blog on Times of India. The last year or so saw movies like ‘Partner’, ‘Dostana’ which had both explicit and implicit homo-eroticism and gay rights advocacy. While our cinema and advertisement have always had depiction of male homosexuality albeit in a funny and derogatory manner, we have been terribly silent over female homosexuality. This also changed (very insignificantly) in the recent past, a certain Virgin Mobile TV commercial is the case in point, where a girl tells her father that she is not interested in going out with this boy from her class. The father gets all worried thinking she might turn out to be a lesbian and insisted she goes out with boys more.
Continue reading “Queer Pride India 2009: Celebrations in all major cities”
[This is the new thing I am doing] An important update on this. The meeting is cancelled because there were only 8 confirmed bloggers for the meet, and the ABIDE team wasn’t interested in meeting such a small group. I don’t blame them, after all Mr. Mishra and Mahesh are really busy people. That also makes me realize what a shame it is that they are all so fond of cribbing but no one wants give up their Sunday morning for something really constructive. Anyway the Blogaloreans are now focussed on organizing a Free Hug Campaign on V-Day to defy … Continue reading Bangalore Bloggers Meet with RK Mishra and Ashwin Mahesh (cancelled)
In my previous post besides pointing out the fact that Bloggers are making an unnecessary hue and cry over this Kunte v. Dutt issue, I also brought my reader’s attention to a particular angst I have against a culture of elitism in Indian social media. I have had this for quite some time. But never thought of writing about it. As more and more professional journalists start to blog this elitism is taking new dimensions. A certain blogger friend constantly lives in denial of the existence of any such culture or any such elite blogger. I told him today, that … Continue reading One perfect example of elitism
The Blogaloreans are meeting again. This Saturday, 12th April 08. On agenda this time is something beyond blogging, an attempt to know our favourite city, Bangalore, how? See below. Venue: Bangalore Traffic Police Park on St. Marks Road. So why this venue? Simple reason – Not everybody knew about the park, as a Bangalorean we all should, and now we do. The park is described thus on the Bangalore Traffic Police’s website “This traffic park has a facility to train citizens and students in road safety and traffic rules.” So you know, may be it would be a good idea … Continue reading Blogalorean’s Meet 12th April 08
The writer’s strike might end by Sunday. A bright future of new media ahead. Apparently, the new tentative agreement assures writers that it “protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery.” That’s a major victory for new media stake holders. The end of the strike will also bring relief to thousands of workers and support businesses idled by the strike. In the new contract the heads under which new media / internet content is being recognized and paid for are as follows: Creators of original new media material Internet Residuals The … Continue reading Future of New Media
Badge Credit: NT Balanarayan —– Bangalore Blogathon India to be held in Bangalore some of the major cities in India tentatively, in the 3rd week of March April 2008 is going to be a week long, both online only and offline event on varied topics of socio political importance to Bangalore and India. The online activities would be held on the blog Blogathon.IN. Independent Bloggers Meet might happen on 12th of April on the opening and closing day in cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Bombay, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Kolkata. Blogathon objectives: Call us ambitious but what we are trying to … Continue reading Blogathon India: April 2008
I was on Bangalore Times, yet again. This time quoted as the Bangalore Blogathon coordinator. Yet another moment in my 15 minutes of fame. Coming soon to town is the Bangalore Blogathon. You hearing that term for the first time aren’t you. Yeah, cause even Wikipedia doesn’t have any page on Blogathon. But no, we Blogalorean’s aren’t the first people who have thought of it. “In the summer of 2000, blogger Cat Connor decided that a free weekend could be combined with a marathon session of insomnia to have some fun with her personal website. In fact, Cat decided … Continue reading Blogathon
Had some issues with the connection today so couldn’t live blog but I live twittered all through the day. Below is a detailed account of Day 2.
It had a dull start, not many for bloggers collective. After break fast we walked around a bit trying to figure out what’s happening where and saying hi hello to a few campers. Arun was taking pictures of all at the break fast table, Prashanth of Blogalorean made it today, he was busy playing cricket yesterday, Amit (labnol) Agarwal wouldn’t be taking any session today, said I’m here to just meet people today. Jace is going around taking a lot of pics, they are not using the mega phone today, you gotta shout to collective participants for your collective.
I am at IIM Bangalore attending the 5th Bangalore Barcamp, around 800 people registered but turn out is real low. Look and feel of the BCB is more cool this time…instead of boring name tags they have these cool stickers which you can put all over you, your laptop…they read like, I am seasoned, This is my 2nd Barcamp, Ask me for help, Ask me for network help, I am speaking, I am live blogging etc. I am also tweeting the event.
11.15 am Raj is speaking on My SQL at L-12 Raj works for yahoo. Right now he is answering people’s question which means they were listening. I wasn’t because I am blogging duh.
Every time I do they say, “there she goes, there she goes again, trying her best, to hog as much attention as she could get.” So this time I thought I’d keep a low profile. But then Arun nudged me, “Why don’t I see you around on BCB list? Why are you so silent, either you are too busy or too upset with something.” First I gave him some bull shit reason, then the honest reason, finally I was motivated enough by him to do this. Proposing the New Media and Mass Social Campaign Collective for BCB5 What is Barcamp? BCB (Barcamp Bangalore) is … Continue reading New Media + Mass Social Campaign
Addendum 14-Sep-07: This following post got featured by Bangalore Mirror under Blog Talk in two parts on 11th and 12th September 2007 —————————————- After minutes of so many of the Delhi Blogger’s Meet, Barcamp Bangalore organisor’s Meet, here are the minutes of my latest venture, Blogalorean’s 2nd Meet, held at Brew Ha ha, Near Jyoti Nivas College, Kormangala, Bangalore on 8th September 11 am. Attended by: Himanshu, Ram, Sandil, Jerry, Adheeth, Snigdha, Vinu, Prashanth, Bikram, Anand, Sukumar, Prabhuraj ( ibreathecinema.helloyouths.com), Pratik (http://muziboo.com/), Hari, AJ, Dhivyanshi and Saurabh. I hope am not missing anyone. Oh and Me :-) [only 2 URLs mentioned since … Continue reading Blogalorean’s 2nd Meet – Minutes
Barcamp4 concludes and Blog’a’lorean’s have just begun. While moving base from Delhi this is one thing I thought I’d have to miss. Fame in the Blogsphere. Delhi Bloggers knew me, but here I was a stranger. Having come to Bangalore I thought of making efforts to connect to a few Bangalore based bloggers to create a DBM sort of community here. The first person i got in touch with was Gopal and second Akash. I didn’t know that’s all it would take for me to suddenly become a name in the Bangalore Blogger circle. I owe this to the two of … Continue reading How did it happen
The impromptu announcement had an overwhelming response. Around 15 of the Banglaore Blogger’s met up on Saturday 7th July at CCD. As more and more enthusiast started pouring in we were compelled to shift the venue from CCD to Koshy’s Chill Out Zone. It was a cool place indeed. We barged into chill out zone spreading our wings at two love birds there. I can understand what they were feeling, but hey, the city Blogger’s were Meeting, no small deal eh. A lot of constructive discussion took place on the meet. Most important we could connect well with each other, ideas flew … Continue reading Updates on the Blogger’s Meet
In my previous post I mentioned my intentions, willingness, ambition, vagairah vagairah to call for a Blogger’s meet in Bangalore prior to the forth-coming BCB4 (Bar Camp Bangalore 4) 28-29th July 07 @ IIM, Bangalore. Those who didn’t read my earlier post, please do so now to establish the complete connection. So here it goes… Bangalore Blogger’s Meet, July 2007 Date: 7th July 2007 Time: 5 pm Venue: Café Coffee Day MG Road RSVP: Sanjukta – 9900119681 Pls confirm your participation in comments section or by smsing at that number. You can call as well. :) Agenda: … Continue reading Bangalore Blogger’s Meet, July 07
I guess I am one of the first ones to blog about the next Bar Camp in Bangalore (BCB4). It was very kind of Akash, a freind and one of the organizers of BCB4 to invite me over for their weekly meeting. The objective was for me to share my willingness to call for a blogger’s meet in Bangalore. It would be nice to have a Bangalore Blogger’s Meet (BBM07) isn’t it. I am not claiming that the idea is totally new, I am aware of a certain Yahoo 360 blogger’s meet here in Bangalore and am also aware of a Google group called BlogBang. I am … Continue reading BCB4 4th week of July 07
I believe its time I write about the Blogging Outreach Project I had designed and now look forward to take further. Outreach means to reach out to a section of people with something which originally wasn’t there domain. By that definition this project should not be called ‘Outreach’ project because, blogging is everybody’s domain. The project is an initiative to reach out to the less privileged, socially, economically, culturally and so on, and introduce them to the concept of ‘blogging’ an amazing new media tool currently used by handful people belonging to urban middle or upper class, but actually meant … Continue reading Blogging Outreach Project
I know the blogdom is full of people who vouch for freedom of speech and expression and talk passionately against censorship. I got one thing to say to them. *Bull Shit* Get real no body wants freedom… all of us so badly need censorship, you know why… Cause we are so fucking wild..we have no control on our’s and no respect for other’s freedom of speech and expression. Seeing a sudden furore on the DBM mailing list, triggered by a mail (about a job opening) posted by one member today made me spend the whole day going back to all … Continue reading Shall we Censor
Minutes of XIV Delhi Blogger’s Meet The meeting was held at the same time and place as announced. It was attended by 12 members with 5-6 of the old and regular ones and rest new faces. Compared to last couple of meetings this time the attendance was low but the discussion was much more constructive than before. Let’s see where do we go from here. The agenda was of course to discuss a blog camp or somthing of that sort event here in delhi. As we started our planning we were posed with few basic questions (a) What kind of … Continue reading The Minutes DBM XIV
Ok I know I am tad late…actually too late..but still…at the nick of time… Announcing DBM XIV and this time we do have an Agenda…huh finally DBM XIV Date : 7th oct’06 Time : 4:30pm (it gets dark by 6pm) Venue : Steps near audi, (BBC meet waali), IHC, Lodhi road. Agenda : planning a seminar style meet, progressing onto a blogcamp. Participation: Be there if this announcement sounds interesting to you See you Continue reading DBM XIV
Ok I may be a tad late in talking about the Blog Camp Unconference…but its never too late.. I cannot even begin to explain how much I would have loved to be a part of it and how much I have got to talk about blogs and blogging. Regular readers of my blog would know why… May be soon we should have a Delhi Edition of Blog Camp and then I would be an active participant. Only yesterday I had another lecture in AIMC on Media and Law, but the students were more enthu to talk about blogging given the … Continue reading Blog Camp
This post is in reaction to Paavani’s post. First I started writing in her comments section, then I thought of writing on the DBM mailing list. Finally I thought it would be safest to post it here. However I couldn’t post it to blogger (for some reason i couldn’t publish) so posted on the mailing list. And once again all hell broke loose. I wonder why is it so difficult to express First of all Paavani I applaud your bravery on this post.. though I am not sure if you are yourself aware or not but you have raised some … Continue reading DBMs | do we have a purpose?
Time for another DBM. I am not too sure where is this powerful community of bloggers going with these series of Meets…two and half years and we still figuring out what is the substance of our commune… Nevermind, I in anycase am always looking forward to all of them. So here is welcoming all delhi Based Bloggers to the meet…its a bit too short notice I know… was decided hurriedly… The ‘others’ are also having a meet on Sunday. The twain shall never meet…Such a new genre this ‘bloggers’ and such lack of unity already. This is ours XIIth and … Continue reading Yet another DBM
The XIth DBM went great. Here is keeping a track of all the write ups and pics of the event…till the the time the official blog is updated… I can update the blog since I have the password now, unless of course they have changed it… but the original creator of that blog has issues with me updating his blog…so I won’t. Apparently its better not to update it at all than let me do the so very needful. The latest edition of Digital Planet is a special edition on Delhi the Indian Capital. We, Delhi bloggers were expecting the … Continue reading DBM went great | Quick updates
Time again for the Delhi Blogger’s Meet and this time I made it a real special one. It all started with just some 4-5 lines of mail written by Julian Siddle to me…I took it up from there. Told him when he comes we would have a blogger’s meet and here it goes. We would have Julian, Gareth Mitchell and Bill Thompson, all the way from BBC UK, with us. Julian is the producer of BBC World Service Technology programme Digital Planet. Gareth is the presenter of the same show. They would be here to shoot a special edition of … Continue reading XIth Delhi Blogger’s Meet
This is one of the hardest thing to do…and I could never do it properly. To know everything you want is right there infront of you and not being able to reach out and have them. And yet not being able to get over it and move on. You don’t stop wishing you could have them, you don’t stop wishing and praying, you know there is no hope and still you try to hold on to that weak string of hope… Has it ever happened to you? This is what is happening to me these days… And I can’t even … Continue reading A few things of life and another DBM
Yeh Kahan aa gaye hum yunhi blog karte karte… With all the ‘celebrity bloggers’ of India Uncut and Desipundit out there it was me who was giving a presentation as a Resource Person in a One day Faculty Development on “New Media Concept and Applications” conducted by Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication (AIMC). I was there to speak on the topic “Blogging – Individual as a global publisher.” I had the honor of sharing the panel along with Director, SPIC MACAY, Navin CR Khilnani, Director, Educational Multimedia Research Center, IIT, Roorkee, Dr. R Sreedhar and Knowledge and Management Consultant, Sairee … Continue reading I was a panelist in the ‘Faculty Development on “New Media Concept and Applications”
We are celebrating the 2nd Anniversary of Delhi Blogger’s Meet on Sunday 29th of January @ Cafe Coffe Day, CP from 4 pm onwards. We would be discussing the following Blogging viz. Creative Writin Blogging viz. Mainstream Media Blogging viz. Adverstising Tool If you are a delhi wala who blogs and you want to contribute on any of the above topics we would love to hear from you. All are invited. For any weird, stupid or silly question that might arise at your mind regarding this meet contact Me at the comments section or write to me personally at samyukta_basu[at]yahoo[dot]com. … Continue reading DBM’s 2nd Anniversary
Its been long…have got a lot to write from my past, a lot of interesting stories couple of them are lying in the draft stage…would be out soon. Meanwhile this is how the Delhi bloggers Meet go…read about it and please leave a comment. http://delhiwecare.blogspot.com/2005/12/ixth-delhi-bloggers-meet-18th-december.html I am happy these days… IXth Delhi Blogger’s Meet , 18th December, Humayun Tomb, New Delhi “Silence is Golden, Beauty is Joy, Laughter is Medicine and Novelty, Life” Here I sit to write about “how did the IXth Delhi Blogger’s Meet go”. Now the idea is to write in a way like we had the … Continue reading IXth DBM
The Perfect season for an outdoor activity. The perfect sun for a photo shoot and the perfect timing for a Cricket match. We decided to have a DBM with a difference this time. So here is the plan. Date 18th December, Sunday Suggestions and improvements are always welcome and appreciated. So we meet up at Humayuns tomb at 11am that gives us ample opportunity to bask in the winter sun. After the initial round of introductions (we have nothing against squares,triangles and other assorted geometric figures) we shall proccede to our photography show/tell/teach thingy ahich will be (hopefully) followed … Continue reading The Delhi Blogger’s December Meet – IX th DBM
I have run out of ideas to create further posts on my blog. But I am a wannabe writer. I cannot possibly run out of writing ideas in just about 10 month’s time. So lemme see what’s all there that I have written about and what’s all there I can write about. Things I write about:- My heart My loneliness My Frustration Fights with Family The absence of some one to love My mind What all I think What’s my take on latest issues. On women’s empowerment. On Legalizing Sex Trade On Freedom On the funny side of Life the … Continue reading Food for this blog
My second step Second step in blogdom. A lot is being said and done about blogs these days. Blogs are now being considered as a stress buster, as a weapon of an opinionated and educated son of the democratic India (so what if he is working for an MNC somewhere in Noida or Gurgaon) blogs are being used as a forum for agitations against the corrupts, corporates use blogs to promote themselves, to instigate rival comments and debates, movies are being promoted, NGOs convey their message through blogs and what not. “A pen was mightier than sword and a key … Continue reading
I was walking alone on the path to nowhere wanderers kept joining and a caravan was formed… Rohit , Amit and Navnee t were the first ones who started walking. Two of them first timers weren’t too sure of the DBM standard time. At that time somewhere near South-west delhi, a lady driven car was going a little haywire as she was busy attending calls on her cell phone, “are you coming?” Says Rohit. “Yes yes I am driving wud be there in some 30 min”. Mam I am calling from Hutch…Listen I am driving call me later Hello samyukta … Continue reading The VIII th Delhi Bloggers Meet – This is how it went
Where am I these days? Amidst Exitement and Exasperation. Exited about my new role as a Socio-legal Researcher doing research for an USAID funded project. The social activist has taken over the corporate bitch…for some considerable length of time to come i guess…Am Exasperated about my Car’s average, crazy drivers on the road, drivers who r in love with the (horns of cars i mean), those who would honk me even if I am driving at 55-60 when the speed limit is 40 (i have heard speed limit for cars on a delhi road is 50 isn’t that funny) suddenly … Continue reading VIII th DBM
People I am back. I wasn’t blogging for some time now. First, I blamed it on lack of time even though I have always refused to buy that statement from others…I say time is never a constraint its only your priorities which governs your clock and calendar. Then, I thought lack of time wasn’t a reason enough stimulating so I blamed it on some more crappy reason like “I have got nothing more to say…silence speaks.” (the previous post turned out to be one of the most depressing post of mine and I hate the negative vibes it gave out. … Continue reading The VIIth Delhi Blogger’s Meet
