I’ve moved to my own domain: http://adityamishra.in/. The Experiment is moving out of the lab.

The new domain integrates all of my various blogs and now will be the central place for all my posts.

We get email forwards each day and most die in the mail box. This one didn’t.

By the time u guys read this news, the body of Major Manish Pitambare, who was shot dead at Anantnag, would have been cremated with full military honors.
On Nov 27, this news swept across all the news channels ‘Sanjay Dutt relieved by court’. ‘Sirf Munna not a bhai’ ‘13 saal ka vanvaas khatam’ ‘although found guilty for possession of armory, Sanjay can breath sigh of relief as all the TADA charges against him are withdrawn’ Then many personalities like Salman Khan said ‘He is a good person. We knew he will come out clean’. Mr Big B said “Dutt’s family and our family have relations for years he’s a good kid. He is like elder brother to Abhishek”. His sister Priya Dutt said “we can sleep well tonight. It ’s a great relief”
In other news, Parliament was mad at Indian team for performing bad; Greg Chappell said something; Shah Rukh Khan replaces Amitabh in KBC and other such stuff. But most of the emphasis was given on Sanjay Dutt’s “phoenix like” comeback from the ashes of terrorist charges. Surfing through the channels, one news on BBC startled me. It read “Hisbul Mujahidin’s most wanted terrorist ‘Sohel Faisal’ killed in Anantnag, India . Indian Major leading the operation lost his life in the process. Four others are injured.
It was past midnight , I started visiting the stupid Indian channels, but Sanjay Dutt was still ruling. They were telling how Sanjay pleaded to the court saying ‘I’m the sole bread earner for my family’, ‘I have a daughter who is studying in US’ and so on. Then they showed how Sanjay was not wearing his lucky blue shirt while he was hearing the verdict and also how he went to every temple and prayed for the last few months. A suspect in Mumbai bomb blasts, convicted under armory act…was being transformed into a hero.
Sure Sanjay Dutt has a daughter; Sure he did not do any terrorist activity. Possessing an AK47 is considered too elementary in terrorist community and also one who possesses an AK47 has a right to possess a pistol so that again is not such a big crime; Sure Sanjay Dutt went to all the temples; Sure he did a lot of Gandhigiri but then………..
Major Manish H Pitambare got the information from his sources about the terrorists’ whereabouts. Wasting no time he attacked the camp, killed Hisbul Mujahidin’s supremo and in the process lost his life to the bullets fired from an AK47. He is survived by a wife and daughter (just like Sanjay Dutt) who’s only 18 months old.
Major Manish never said ‘I have a daughter’ before he took the decision to attack the terrorists in the darkest of nights. He never thought about having a family and he being the bread earner. No news channel covered this since they were too busy hyping a former drug addict, a suspect who’s linked to bomb blasts which killed hundreds. Their aim was to show how he defied the TADA charges and they were so successful that his conviction in possession of armory had no meaning. They also concluded that his parents in heaven must be happy and proud of him.
Parents of Major Manish are still living and they have to live rest of their lives without their beloved son. His daughter won’t ever see her daddy again. Finally Major Manish, to my generation is a greater hero, someone who laid his life in the name of this great nation.
So guys, please forward this message around so that the media knows which news to give importance, as it is a shame for us since this Army Major’s
death news was given by a foreign TV channel!!!

Last Saturday was Gaurav’s birthday party where I bumped into many other bloggers including some “A listers”. While I haven’t bothered to figure what an “A lister” is, there are obvious connotations to the title. The lame introduction of “I too blog but ahem last I blogged was in sept” was well… lame. So I’m back. Let’s see how long does this stint last

A post on the party appears here.

I’ve migrated to the Blogger Beta for culinary ventures and also trying wordpress with Vanity…

So one sees changes such as labels and some changes in format. Hope it adds to the readability. On the downside, I can’t comment on non-beta blogger sites!

The labels made me realise that the content is quite sparse right now. Will address it in next few days.

Something that did catch my attention in the last session at BlogCamp were two attempts on blogging for social responsibilty.

First was Osama urging people to blog about our villages etc as we travel around. He has a point. There is a lot of inequity in India. On one hand we have farmers committing suicide. And on the other hand we have the super rich in cities. In addition, there are billions of dollars flowing into the country for the poor. The attention of both the super rich and the donations etc is dominated by the mainstream media which covers the rural India only if there are suicides, famines etc and that too at a superficial level. Why can’t bloggers attarct a more a continual attentions to the conditions before they become as extreme as suicides?

I travel a lot and fall somewhat in the category Osama talked about. But my travels are limited to the metros. Still, I’m going to talk more about the children that one sees begging on the streets of India. Don’t think it’ll have any impact but that’s a bad excuse for doing nothing.

Second was Scott carney talking about Open source journalism. He has good intentions but the message was not clear. For a niche medium to emerge, ONE blog has to take lead and build readership. then others will converge around. IMHO, asking people to contribute early on invites the sceptics more than the passionate and kills the idea.

Tag: BlogCamp

The post lunch session at Blogcamp is either short on content and heavy on unrelated conversation or I’m just plain sleepy. Most of the stuff just didn’t connect. Unrelated, insufficient depth etc. Bad enough for me to feel like taking a flight back ASAP!

For the time being, I’ll plead mea culpa and get some coffee.

Tag: BlogCamp

I have seen quite a few Tamil blogs but just learnt of a hindi Blog: Rajesh. He says there are several tools for hindi bloggers. Way to go. Hope he puts up a post on the Blogcamp wiki on how to do it.

The blog itself looks a little unlike the hindi typeface. But just the idea of hindi blogging is mindblowing!

Two bloggers were contacted by ICICI bank after they cribbed about the bank’s service on their blogs. The anecdotes invited laughter. However, I was left wondering about my own employer. Don’t think we are that media savvy. Yet.

Kudos to ICICI bank certainly.

Neha started blogging because she hated her boss and needed an additional medium to crib! Interesting remark of “blogging is difficult for women as the personal life is online”.

I’m at BlogCamp at Tidel Park Chennai. Live posts on way!

BlogCamp