Shifting Paradigm

For some days, I had been planning to write a post. I will not reveal the title because I have already developed the idea. Now, I want to add punch to it by substantiating with some data or some type of authentication. However, before, I would have written the post and posted it, an event in Blogging career took place which has given me a slight kick. I believe that it is haughty on my part to claim the credit for that happening but well, I want to claim it.


I had been persuading Prof. Rajneesh Khanna, an author of some major text books and far ahead than me, for writing his blog. I had visited his place and prepared his blog. He liked the idea but somewhere, that shift and zest were not there. He did not take to blogging.



A couple of day back, he posted some of his original writings on the blog and tried to develop a new blog. No doubt, he was not able to create the new blog in the right manner. He rang me up and apprised me of the new postings. I checked the blogs and was elated to read the contents on it. It gave me a great boost to my ego. I felt proud that I had been able to initiate someone quite capable in pursuing an activity which would be useful to many. I do not know whether Rajneesh would give me credit or endorse it. However, after that, I forwarded his articles to some of the forums. He had also sought further guidance for developing his blog. He would visit my place for that. The whole event had just given me a great feeling.


It has also changed my outlook towards my activity on blogging. I did not like the idea of promoting the blog through different technical means. However, it was just by untentional act when I had placed links of my blogs on some of the directories and Wikis. I had not tried to promote my blog with any major game plan. After Rajneesh had joined in, I felt that as if I was definitely pursuing a meaningful activity. Now, I have desire to promote my blog. Earlier, I thought, I should continue to write on my blog and the contents of my blog by itself bring an audience for me. Now, I desire to make use of various devices which the experts in the field of IT are developing every day and putting them on the Internet.


I am in teaching. I have developed some teaching blogs also. However, I am loosing enthusiasm in promoting and developing them. I have started the blogging activity mainly to undertake that goal. I had learnt from other teacher’s blogs and forums that blogging could be used as an additional teaching tool and as an effective tool also. By now, I have become a partisan. I am devoting more time to my blog sumir-history and this very blog. The main reason is that the atmosphere of teaching world is very distressing. You look around yourself and find many such Phds who do not impress. They mainly act as manipulators. They do not attract for their scholarship. They are dominating because they are street smart. I find many of them scum of human depravity and a social peril. They have the position but they will only harm. On the other hand, this new technology has given an escape route to people like us. Yes, right, I call it an escape route. I consider those Phds with official position as more successful than us. I am in history and history tells a lot about such people. That is other thing, there is no value judgement about them. The final verdict is yet to be passed. However, there are enough examples which teach that they are being identified as the social and public peril. Any how, the migration of Rajneesh to this arena has given me a satisfaction and confidence. When I look around in the internet world, I find many of them like me performing their act and leaving their mark. Now I feel encouraged to continue with my activity. Rajneesh is not interested in doing Phd. I am also not interested. We do not want to join the buggers. We know that there are more paths which can be chalked out and treaded to great summits. We are pursuing such paths. We want to be smarter. Now, the only thing which is required is some success in our endeavours.

Amitab Phir In Trouble

(Note: It is a cross posting of post from Cyber Mole.)

A company Telefun, running a FM radio in Pakistan has placed some advertisement billboards in Karachi wishing the coming independence day to the people of Pakistan. The face of Amitabh is shown on the billboards telling that he will be there from August 14. It seems that it is going to trouble Amitabh again in India.
Checking the following postings: Meterblog Karachi.

It is interesting to read the comments of the Pakistan Nationals on that posting. The comments may suggest the type of trouble which Amitabh would face in India.

But it may also sound bad for blogging in India. They may again think of blocking some blogs and in the process again block the whole domain.

The second important posting, which is bit balanced, is at All Things Pakistan.


I am having a hunch, what may happen, it will prove bad for Amitabh Bachchan. I really do not know that how the people in the Indian government would react to it.

It also brings forth the issue that whether the company Telefun has the right to use the picture of Amitabh on their billboards. If it is proved that Amitabh has been paid for allowing his picture to be used there, then it will not be good for him. The fundamentalists in Mumbai would also react sharply.

In every case, it may turn out be another firework on cyber space as well in print and electronic Media.

Hindi Lessons Online Multimedia Source for 5 Years Old

A Hindi Script Tutor developed by Avashy for the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London is worth visiting for the parents of small children.


There are interactive Hindi Lessons, teaching the script. It has a lesson breakup for the Swaras (Vowels - स्वर) and Vianjans (Consonants - व्यन्जण). It has used flash for demonstrating the writing of the each word. It has other sources based on voice.


I have an old computer with a defunct Sound Card. It is the gift of those vendors who just flaunt their knowledge without having the right expertise. They are hardly tenth or twelfth pass and learn the computer maintenance from the teaching shops. They are then employed by similar type of businessmen who believe in making money by looting the people. One such computer engineer, who visited to remove a virus from my computer, virtually crippled my computer by denying me to use the gadgets and devices bought by me in hard cash. He cleaned the directory and during the process even removed such drives which he could not replace. As a result, I am not able to exploit all the features of the Hindi tutor.


Coming back to the main topic, the Hindi tutor is a good source available online. It draws each alphabet which attracts a small child in the age group of 5 to 6 years. It has option to listen to voices behind every symbol. My child, who is now 5 and learning to read, was quite fascinated by the demonstration. He clicked each alphabet and saw it being drawn by the Flash. It helped him to remember Dantak (दन्तक) words better.


I hope this information may be useful for other parents like me.

Impact of Ban on Blogs

The ban on blogs through a clumsy action of the government of India may augurs good for the bloggers of India and their community. They have acquired a recognition which they already deserve. It was their due. However, it was denied to them for a long period.


A full-page article has appeared in the Chandigarh edition of Hindustan Times of July 23, 2006 on page 12. (Links are not available and secondly the site asks for registration which as a policy I now avoid to register with sites. I have now become choosy.)


It is heartening to read the article as it is titled as "The Big Story" and a whole page is devoted to it. But the exhilaration ends there and leaves you unsatisfied.


Therein a compiler has given an assortment of the contents of some bloggers and did not try to touch the real issue. That is other thing, that in the contents we find reference to the real issue.


The main issue was that the government of India had jumped the guns in the name of national security. It had gone against its own policies and claim of being the world’s biggest democracy. It had actually curtailed the right of freedom of expression which is assured by the constitution of India.


The article has not touched the real issue. It has not given any view on the happening except for calling it a "The Big Story". A blogger has written an article "There’s no Why". Then there are excerpts from Frodo Bloggin and RAMgee. On the right hand side, there is a set of questions which had been discussed again and again by many newspapers and magazines earlier also. A column is devoted to selective Indian celebrities of Blogging activity and also a six year history of blogging and different episodes since 2001. If I am right, this activity started in 1997 and since then, it is in news. Nowhere, it has tried to discuss that why was it a ‘Big Story’. However, this much is enough for Blogging activity and we all should be thankful to it.


It shows that the Print Media has started taking note of their younger brothers.


No No No! Please wait and permit me to say it differently. I am not suggesting that we the blogger are new journalists. But we are definitely a new medium which is bound to influence the opinion making process.


Anyhow, I foresee that it will not end here. One of the leading newspapers has given place to this activity. They have done it because somewhere they feel that it was New York Times and BBC which had given the right importance to the significance and peril of banning the blog which rather they should have done. Now they are on the correction and amending path. But they have given this task to some new editor. The editor has not been able to bring out the soul of the topic. He has remained confined to give an assortment. In other words, he has done what many of blogger do on their blogs. They borrow from the views of other bloggers and then add some of their comments and then post it as their own. This is what I usually do. No doubt, I write some original pieces also. (It is my blog and I can indulge in self-praise. (Blink)) Well, soon, some senior editor will take up this topic and start commenting on it. Let us wait for that day. This has already happened in America. During the last presidential elections in America, blogs were being watched with full attention. Later, many surveys and studies were published on the impact of the writing on blogs on the poll outcome. The verdict was not in the favour of blogging activity but this activity has acquired a place of respectability in communication Media. Now, every day, a new survey comes on the blogging and its different aspects. The same thing is now going to happen in India.


I remember an incidence. There was one senior colleague who had retired long back. Whenever he used to enter the staff room ( I am a lecture in a college.), he always tried to start a discussion on the latest political activity. It was annoying for many of our colleagues. They were involved in some serious problem concerning the day to day working of the college but this person always interrupted such serious talks and forced upon us a discussion on the political issue of the national level. Well, out of courtesy, some of us gave their opinion but the senior colleague always rejected and forced his opinion on us. When he was countered by equally knowledgeable colleagues in our faculty, he used to decide his case by telling that his opinion was even endorsed by the editorial of a local leading news paper. On this, once, one of other colleague commented on his back, that the person came every morning after reading that particular paper and then claimed the opinion expressed by the editor of that newspaper as his own. He did not know that there were other frontiers also and there could be other side of the story also.


Now the idea of narrating the above incidence here is to stress upon the significance of Blogging as it is emerging now as a new frontier of knowledge and opinion makers. In the recent Iraq War, it was the private blogs which came up with more information on the battlefield than the professional newspapers. They have made a mark in the field of dispersion of knowledge and information. No doubt, somewhere, the traditional print media consider them their competitor but it was when the print media started giving place to their piece of information in their editorial, that the activity of blogging acquired the status of respectability. It may be my opinion but I understand that it was how the blogging became important in the world of communication. Now this thing may happen in India also after it has found mention in newspapers after suffering ban on it. The print media did not respond earlier. It was mainly the foreign media which took up this issue in more forceful manner. The Indian Print Media may object to it but there is truth in the version which I am giving.


On whole, the ball has now started rolling in favour of blogging and it will definitely march on.

भाजी सरकार दी अक्ल टकाने आ गई

Ban Is Lifted from Blogs In India
"A week ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem out pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially."

I am using Reliance Infocom for accessing internet. Now I can open my blogspot sites. I can also access typepad site. It seems that the ISPs have released these sites. I hope the rest of neticians can also open any site which they like on different blog portals.


I also hope that the government of India will review the procedures to implement their decisions in this technically advanced milieu. They have faced the music. They now know that the bloggers may be a "miniscule minority" but they can do great damage to the reputation of the government if the government behaves like an archaic state and conduct itself in a clumsy manner.


I also feel that some good has also come out of it. For me, I have learned about proxy servers. I am not going to remove the logo of Slap the block. I believe that it has bound the bloggers into a community. It may have popularized this activity of blogging.

I also want to thank the foreign media who had actually played a major role in voicing our concern. The Indian media had played its role but dear friends, it was on the milder site. They shout from the top of the roof on some clumsy stink operations or Matuk Das Choudhary (Patna) lover affair with his student Julie. But they did not find the block on blogs as gagging of the freedom of the expression. No, they did not play the role which was expected of them.

Let us hope that there will be no next time.

Now, in future, I will be more abrasive and straightforward.

However, I will not remove those posting which were made on the issue of blocking of blogs in India.

It will keep on reminding us that what can happen in this peace loving, non-violent and free country. It will be reminiscent of the draconian activities of the government.


We have to remember it because now RTI act is under attack.

BECOME INTRUDERS IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY

Pkblogs has gifted to Indians their own INTRUSION site.

It says, “Unable to view pictures on your blog??
check http://www.inblogs.net to access banned blogs "with pictures" from India”

सारे जहान से अच्छा हिन्दुस्तान हमारा

I, a Bhartiya, proudly declare that the above site is MADE IN INDIA

हम बुलबुले हॅ इसकी
यह गुलिस्तान हमारा

Check it.

Funny Message on Blocking from Access

Hey, just see what happened just now.

I tried to “outsource” accessing my blogspot weblog to Pakistan, I received the following message.

“You are Forbidden to access this server.”

Phew

Are they watching? Is there Gestapos in India also? Is the government watching you?

Hari OM, Hari OM, Hari OM Hari

Shri Guru Charan Saroj Nij Mukro Sudhar,

Barno Raghuwar Vimal Dayako Phal Char,

Budhi heen Tanu Janikay,

Sumiru Pavan Kumar,

Bal Budhi vidya Dayhoo

Mohe Harlo Kalesh vikar.

Bhoot Pissach Nikat Nahi Awai,

Mahavira Jab Naam Sunnavain.

The Culprit Weblogs

Now the word is all over and it is reaching critical mass.


According to My Pet Jawa at http://www.mypetjawa.mu.nu/ through the reference of Dr. Shackleford and OpiniPundit (itself a culprit Weblog) at Exposing the Left the following web sites were not palatable to Ministry of Home Affairs who had instructed to Ministry of Telecommunication to block but they, the blocked holes, blocked the net itself. They should better block NIC. That would be more useful. Anyhow, one thing is proved, the Government of India is definitely learning the utility of the e-governance.


• pajamaeditor.blogspot.com


• exposingtheleft.blogspot.com


• princesskimberly.blogspot.com


• commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot


• mypetjava.mu.nu


• thepirateco.us


• hinduhumanrights.com/hindufocus.html


• rahulyadav.com


• dalitstan.com


• macker-old.com


• merrimusings.typepad.com



Watch out for Best Solutions for Bailing out Blogspot.
Hey, one bureaucrat told me that the Secretary, Ministry of Telecommunication, Mr. D. S. Mathur is a meaning person.

HT Ludhiana Figures How Correct

Yesterday, that was July 15, 2006, the B. Ed. Entrance was conducted all over Punjab. I have authenticated information that there were less than 3200 candidates who appeared in entrance test at Ludhiana.


However, in the HT Ludhiana a Heading shouts on page that "Over 5,000 take B.Ed entrance exam.


These people at Ludhiana never take care to get the right information. There were 171 centers all over Punjab. There were nearly arrangements for 34000 students only. The maximum number of candidates have appeared at Chandigarh which was not more than 3300. The next one is 3200 and they appeared at Ludhiana.


The HT Ludhiana people are quite good at such activities. Some days back they had shown the photograph of Gopal Sharma DGP of J&K and below they wrote that SSP of Srinagar is holding the Press Conference. Similarly, a month back, when present Deputy Commissioner Gupta took over at Ludhiana, there was a report calling an SDM as DC of Khanna.


Carry on. I am not going to inform you. And here I am with facts. Counter me I will come up with proofs.
Kindly read this report along with Peril of Being a Whistle Blower or Peril of Being a Whistle Blower (Kindly note that site is blocked so try either of the option).

Cough Problem with Blogspot

I am suffering from cough problem. Something wants to come out but it is stuck up somewhere in the neck. I have taken the medicine but the problem is persisting. It started somewhere on July 13, 2006. On the same day, the web sites, having the term ‘blogspot’ in their addresses stopped appearing. It was not confined to blogspot addresses also. Even the sites with address having type pad as a part of their address also got inflicted with the same problem. The login page of the blogger opens. Even the account page opens. But the web log containing the blogspot term is not opening. On the start up menu site of the blogger, the sites which are being upgraded are appearing. You click them and if there is no term blogspot in it, it will open. You find the icon and logo of Powered by Blogger on them. But the sites which contain that peculiar struck up term, keep on coughing but nothing comes.


I have watched that the login page with the login ID opens and even the account is opening. I am posting it to make a record of this happening. Let us see if it gets posted. Or I may reach the google people through it and they may look into this problem. Not my problem of cough but the one which I have mentioned about blogspot.


Just a few days back, when I had completed an article on the mutiny of 1824, somewhere, a bad thought crept in mind. I wondered and feared that someday it might happen that the whole Internet setup could collapse. I would then loose all my presentations, efforts, dump of links about different useful sites which are good source of information and material, the time spent on developing the each blog. It was really a nightmarish thought. Now, nearly for forty eight hours, my blogs are not opening. It is giving me fear and I cough more.


I had thought of writing a write up on those who migrate from one server to other. I have observed some of very good bloggers, writers and thinkers shifting their activity to different site. There was a site sega which started its own site but it seems that they are just blogging through different site. Then, just a half a dozen months back, Kevin of civil war memory shifted to type pad services. However, even his site is not opening. It means the type pad.com is also suffering from some ailment. Then there was Hindu Dharma site who had shifted to Word Press blogging.


Please do not think, that I am also migrating. Hey, I have just developed a space with ***. But I have not enjoyed it. They are also masters in their field but I am still comfortable with Bloggers. It was they who published my own space and learnt them quickly. It is no emotional thing but a very practical thing to say. It was easy to learn on Blogger. I just pray that it comes back soon. Some one was telling me that there was some problem with server being run on window nt. Well I do not understand much about it. I can only wish if there is some problem, the Bloggers and Googles may rectify it at the earliest. In the meantime, I read some more books as the new session is about start. I will be ready with more material and more search queries to explore the web.


Oh, My books, How Sweet you are. This new technology is suffering from cough problem every now and then.