Dream A Dream

Remember me talking about NGO way back in february Link. After due diligence, I zeroed in to work as a volunteer in Dream A Dream Web. DaD is a Bangalore based NGO working on enhancement of lives of economically disadvantaged children. Every one of us has tons of fruitful memories about our childhood. We might talk about our school, toys, joyful summer vacation, host of friends, punishments and pains, jocous moments and many more. Imagine a section of children are being denied of their rightful pleasant childhood just because they born on disadvantage state and family. For no mistake of their own, those kids lead a pathetic life. DaD steps in their formative years and believes in providing a good life. DaD conducts various programs like story telling, teaching computer, encouraging sports, trekking, conducting cultural programs. And with all those programs, DaD aims to provide a normal livelihood for those kids. That normal livelihood are crucuial in imparting more confidence and open up a world of oppurtunity to move ahead. And I strongly believe  in DaD's vision. Not lot of NGO's run with help of volunteers, they demand dedicated people. But DaD started as a voluntary organisation by 6 engineers and its work is purely based on volunteers's enthusiasm.

 

On my association with DaD, I went for volunteer orientation program in april and was waiting for suitable oppurtunity to contribute to their grand vision. I am now working with Dream A Dream computer program, where we impart basic computer training to group of children from the above mentioned background. In the forthcoming program, I volunteer to teach "How to draw using Ms paint" for kids. And here are my primitive ideas about the list of topics that I wanna cover in the training. Do feedback me about your thoughts after seeing the flash presentation. I am sure most of us would have stepped into teaching computer to kids at some point of time. We erred at some styles and found out better way to convey the information to kids. The intended audience for the training will be around 8-13 years. I am looking for more active and constructive feedback. Click on the flash file to move on to next slides.

 

Here is the revised version and it early version.

 

                           

 

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Nasty Football Matches

Talking about Italy Vs Australia match. Italy, despite being 3 time world champion, couldn't face australian juggernauts, thats the hard fact. Australia's possession of ball (60%) for the game says it all. And it's not fair for Italy to get into quarter finals by the penalty kick route. I have a serious reservation about the judgement of referee to give away shootout chance at the final moments of the game. I wish he had given a free kick rather than that heart breaking decision. I was supporting Italy till that point, after this, I am not gonna be supporter for Italy, its not fair game at all. The sorrow face of that australian defence guy, who made that last minute foul, was undescribeable.

 

England Vs Ecuador: England played the game with the worst strategy ever, 4-1-4-1 pattern left Rooney in the top all alone. Whatever Rooney tried to do, there were couple of ecuador defence to stop. Add to that, none of the passes from other england players to Rooney were perfect, either he had to run a long way or passes came in midst of defence shield. If at all, Ecuador player Tenoria didn't miss the golden goal chance in first half, England would have had never reached the quarters. Lot of foul game too, if referee was not strict, the game would have had become the childish fight. Atlast my demi-god, england angel David Beckham saved the England face with that beautiful free kick. That goal put a lid on his critics mouth, people were questioning his leadership ability off-late, he was arraigned for failing to inspire the fellow team mates to perform. Expected a lot of quality game and interesting tactics from England team, for which they failed miserably. After that Beckham's goal, England team resorted to all sorts of dirty delay games, just to push off till the final whistle blow. Not at all fair game again. Till now, germany and brazil are the best two teams in the fray. My wishes are that good team should clinch the world cup and matches should be very interesting and competitive.

 

 

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Football fever

Yesterday's Brazil vs Japan was an interesting match to watch. Curse Indian timings, we got to wake up till night 12:30 to witness the great event. In first half, Japan was concentrating on the defence for long time. And they were successful in thwarting most of the attempts of Brazil forward players- the magical rectangle- Ronaldinho, Robinho, Ronaldo and Kaka. Japan broke the brazil defence ring once and fortunately they converted that attempt into a goal. There were tensions in the face of all brazil players and brazil fans, as they were one goal down at one point of time. Me and my frens were cursing Ronaldo during that time. He was accused then for missing most of the chances given by his team mates. Japan made sure two players were covering Ronaldo always. In the last minute before end of first half, thanks to beautiful cross passes from the other brazil players, Ronaldo scored his first goal in 2006 FIFA worldcup. After that only, we were relaxed. Can't really imagine, Brazil going back to dressing room with one goal down. I missed the second half as it was already late to fall into bed. Morning, woke up to hear the good news that Brazil won the match 4-1, dominating Japan in the entire second half. That was refreshing news for all Brazil fans like me. Viva Brazil, this is the way to go! Wish the finals will be between Germany and Brazil this time. My favorite stars for this season: Ronaldinho, Arjen Robben, David Beckham, Robinho, Messi, Klose, Lahm.

 

 

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Dance Show Videos

After a short break, back with a blogpost. And thanks a million for all who encouraged me for my previous dance performance videos. This time, got few more video clips of the stage show. It was shot during my dance school summer showdown. Undoubtedly a great show with excellent performance from professional dancers. I too danced in the show for two songs (no wonder if you can't find me prominently in first two clips, I was dancing in the last row ;) bad dancer huhh...) yet all three video clips are worth watching.

video 1- genre: Jazz

video 2- genre: jiving

video 3- genre: HipHop. This is by professionals. You can spot the difference with ease.

 

 

 

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Foot Loose

Learning dance for 4 months now, here is a video on dance of non-professionals. Me and my roommates in Bangalore house. These are Gags - just for laughs. Will soon post the video of my dance school annual showdown.

 

Same song, now my another fren

 

 

Here is one more,

 

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Folklore

What happened in capital market in past 2 weeks is a tragedy. Huge correction made bearish change in mood of investors in India. Even in this hot moment, a hilarious story made people laugh out in dalal street. I read this story in this week's business today. The story goes like this:

 

A businessman camped in a village and announced that he will buy their monkeys at Rs.10. He also said that he want 1000 numbers of them. People started selling their monkeys to him. After few weeks, its hard to get supply of monkeys in market, so the businessman now decided to raise the price tag to Rs.20. This doubling has helped in getting few more and the story continues like this. Everytime when he hike the price, he will get some supply from the market. After subsequent increase, the price has come to Rs.50 for one monkey. The price tag looked attractive, and people were ready to sell their monkeys to him, but they had none. On this moment, the businessman left for his hometown and before leaving , he appointed an assistant to take care of his business and monkeys collected so far.

 

The assistant looked at the inflated price in the local market, devised an idea. He called all the people in the village and announced that he will sell the monkey collected so far at Rs.35 to all people, so that when the businessman returns back, the people could sell them at Rs.50 and take home a hefty profit of Rs.15 for nothing. This offer looked very attractive and everybody bought back the monkeys at much higher price than original price. After that, both businessman and his assistant were never seen in the market. What's left in the village is nothing but all monkeys- not just they sold- but a hoard of people too.

 

The businessman is none other than FII's who came to the market and the people are none other than retail investors like you and me. The monkeys are synonym of the equities traded in our capital market. Now we are left with equities with huge price tag and no buyers to buy them, hence market correction and sensex crash.

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Egypt cracks down on bloggers

Egypt government detained and beaten six bloggers for their anti-regime movement and protests through their blogs. Few bloggers were sexually assaulted too. You can read the full story here. The Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel continues to blog from prison, his blog here.  Any action against bloggers for expressing their opinions is condemnable. This is not the first time the bureaucrats and corporate honchos taking actions against bloggers. Earlier in India, the blogger vs IIPM fight raised the same question on our freedom of speech. Egypt government's action, IIPM controversy shows the decreasing trend in patience and accepting criticisms in this fast-paced world. Mr.Statesman, suing or arresting those who fielded views against you is utterly unproductive.

 

Blogging is an expression of freedom of speech, given to each and every citizen in a democratic country. However I analyse, I end up seeing the blog world is full of pros rather than cons. On technology front, blogging is the pinnacle of Web 2.0, which was conceptualized around user generated content. The old internet was based on providing information to users in a static and non-interactive way. The new Web 2.0 business model revolves around creating avenues and solutions for people to fill their content in web, which has proven to be highly successful. On creative aspect, Bloggers are multi-faceted personalities and blogging gives an avenue for them to exhibit their creativity. Lot of construction actions are happening in blogworld. In someways, the blogs listed as technorati's top 100 blogs seed a paradigm change in this world.

 

World has started listening to blog world discussions to understand the true mind of common people. Be it a controversy or appreciation, bloggers views are frequently quoted in all magazines. (Ex, DNA newspaper aggregation on blog views on hot topics). While listing a company profile, Google finance lists recent blog posts on those corporates too. Blog based business models and advertisement ideas are the talk of the wall street now. Metroblogging brings the bloggers in a city to a common platform and metbloggers differ from regular journalists and newspapers in reporting events happening in a city. Metblogs also serves as the original source of breaking news in cities. Wiki article on metblogs here.

 

Within short span of time, this little world has grown as a fifth pillar of democracy and it can be termed as true voice of common man in a country. With the expressed opinions and feelings in media, Statesmen should listen to criticisms and correct the mistakes in the system. Any kind of oppression on the freedom of speech (like egypt's ) should be condemned to the core.

 

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In midst of Anti-Reservation Ire

India's political scene is made hot because of new reservation policy of Indian government. Ironically, it all started by not a formal announcement of the policy but a casual remark by the HRD minister Arjun singh in a press meet. On April 5, when the media approached Arjun Singh after a function in New Delhi seeking clarifications whether his Ministry proposed to implement reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in educational institutions, including Central professional institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The Minister replied in the affirmative and explained that Article 15(5) of the Constitution had come into force on January 20, 2006, after having received Presidential assent, thus facilitating the advancement of the socially and educationally backward classes in matters of admission to educational institutions through reservation of seats and other means.

 

He is not bringing something new, but following what's said on Mandal commission report (and not completely) which was submitted in 1980. Interestingly, the mandal commission classified people as backward class/castes based on 11 criteria viz.

 

Social

• Castes/classes considered as socially backward by others.
• Castes/classes which mainly depend on manual labour for their livelihood.
• Castes/classes where the percentage of married women below 17 is 25% above the state average in rural areas and 10% in urban areas; and that of married men is 10% and 5% above the state average in rural and urban areas respectively.
• Castes/classes where participation of females in work is at least 25% above the state average.

Educational

• Castes/classes where the number of children in the age group of 5 to 15 years who never attended school is at least 25% above the state average.
• Castes/classes where the rate of student drop-out in the age group of 5-15 years is at least 25% above the state average.
• Castes/classes amongst whom the proportion of matriculates is at least 25% below the state average

Economic

• Castes/classes where the average value of family assets is at least 25% below the state average.
• Castes/classes where the number of families living in kachcha houses is at least 25 % above the state average.
• Castes/classes where the source of drinking water is beyond half a kilometer for more than 50% of the households.
• Castes/classes where the number of the house-holds having taken a consumption loan is at least 25% above the state average.

Is the 11 indicator's sufficient or sacrosanct? Can't a powerful caste group lobby with the government to include their caste in OBC list? Vatsan was saying its better to get your caste moved to OBC category from FC, rather than fighting with the government in roads. That idea can become true in near future

Sources
[+] Comments on Mandal Commission Report by Dinakar Sarikar.
[+] Cover story "Examining Reservation" by Frontline Magazine

 

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Journalists or Saviour?

Long living debate in journalistic world is about the humane nature of journalists. When a journalist and camera crew covers a self-immolation story, shouldn't they try to save the life of the man involved rather than keep camera rolling. I was going through Rajdeep sardesai views on this debate in his blog today. His take is covering the story should be the main agenda of the journalist and at same time when they air the stories, they should show some restraint to suit the society. It's a tight ropewalk between hot journalism and voyerism. Recently when a man self-immolated himself against the punjab government, cnn-ibn camera covered the episode and aired it as a top story. The issue snowballed when another farmer died in same way and his death was said to be provocated by the earlier story in the channel.

 

The pictures of a burning man is a compelling story for any news channel to air as a top news. But they should show restraints in social and common sense. Media has got a lot of power in a democracy, as media people are termed as fourth pillar of democracy. The whole fight on reservation by the students would have got fizzled out if there is no media coverage of the issue. When NDTV aired the pictures of suffering patients in AIIMS hospital because of doctor's strike, the motiv of those fighting docs were questioned. When those three girls got burned inside a bus after the then-CM's arrest in Tamilnadu, the camera crew was criticised badly for not saving those poor souls.

 

There were also good instance of journalists playing a saviour role in current Indian politics. Those two episodes of public debate by srinivasan jain of NDTV in support of kushboo and now for Aamir khan are clear examples. When kushboo caught into self-digged controversy over pre-marital sex, there NDTV crew has come forward to pave way for public debate on the episode. The politician Thirumalvalvan, who was leading all the fights in the story, gave up his fights after the debate. Now Aamir khan and Fanaa got into controvery over the actor's remarks on dam on narmada, again NDTV's public debate soothed the fighting souls. Srinivasan jain has managed to pull up gujarat BJP politician from warring side and Aamir khan and his film fraternity in the other side. The debate was healthy and unpartisan. The common people opinion in gujarat was also aired which cleared the mystery about the stand of aam admi of gujarat in the episode. Aamir softened his stand on dam issue and clarified his poistion to the warring politicos. Now the entire film fraternity expressed their solidarity with Aamir.

 

Let the debate continue.

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How-to propose your gal?

Life is an interesting sojourn, where we relish each and every moment. Its a happy morning here in rain-kissed bangalore where cool winds sail smooth and soothe your soul. Romantic air fills the naustrils of all bangaloreans here. Period. Isn't the best moment of our romantic life is when we propose to our gal. How wild can it be? how romantic can it go? How practical and normal occurance can it be? Here are a few wild, romantic, practical and crazy ideas to propose to your gal. Disclaimer: On flop side, I hope you won't get hurt badly after proposing these crazy ways. On flip side, it may be the most memorable romantic moment in your life.

If it's a love at first sight in office, you would have lost sleep as well as precious working moments in office in day dreaming about her. Better take time off and take her for a date. Take her in a long drive in your bike/car (economic constraints dont stand before love, isn't it?) and take a break near a beach (if it is in plains) or hill view valley (if its on ghat roads). When you and your gal relax in the scenery of majestic and mighty nature before you, propose her. Dear, I wish my life is exciting like this forever WITH YOU. Don't you?

If it is a love on the gal whom you met in common place, I assume its tough to get even time to speak or impress her, then taking her for a romantic date is quite impossible. What could be more realistic? Lets take you meet her in a dance class, after the evening classes, you could walk with her on way back home. On a good day filled with romantic climate like this, you will get a great chance. Show her the beautiful moon and say "Dear, I wish we could go to this moon for our honeymoon. Won't you?"

This is an idea from an advertisment. Interesting way to propose without even speaking about it a word. In your date, buy her a wedding ring and drop in her drinks glass when she is unaware. While she enjoy chatting with you and sipping her drink, You could sport a naughty smile on your face. When she is about to complete her drink, the silent romantic diamond ring will speak everything for you. naughty smile will become romantic when she founds out what in your heart.

Your experience is most welcome, share yours with us through comments section.

Interesting addendum to this post. These are ideas of Vijay, my fren in bangalore (He is there in dance videos, who dances with coolers).

Let me give my ideas which all type of girls would love it. You should show your heroism infront of your girlfriend in daily activities. Say for example, somebody is snatching either your purse or her purse. You should not go to police station instead you should chase the guy and catch him. I know nobody dares to do this. You may argue that you would have seen this technique in cinema but this practically can happen. If you cannot catch him atleast you try chasing him.

Second idea is closer to your first idea with some editing. You need not take her for a long drive in bike/car. Even if it is small distance you can impress her. Say for example, if you know to do wheeling or circle your bike with one leg when you want to turn around will matter a lot. By doing a wheeling with a bike with a girl behind you will definitely thrill a lot. This is practically possible. Ofcouse in your case you need to learn stopping your bike in neutral gear first. Then only you can try this technique.This greeting cards, giving her ring, flowers/bouquets are not at all required to impress her. It's all lazy man's way to impress a lazy girl.

The rationale behind all this is to show your manly behaviour infront of her. (If not try to act like that.) You should not do whatever others are doing. You should do where no one else in a crowd can do that. At the same time it should not be a foolish thing. Then girls would automatically follow you... There are lot of techniques that I can share with you but you know I have patented a lot of techniques. If you want to use then you need to pay a loyalty to me.

Your way of approach is good but the quality of the content you share is inferior or not practical. Innum unkitta neriya ethir parkaren.. Innum nalla muyarchi sei. this greeting cards, giving her ring, flowers/bouquets are not at all required to impress her. It's all lazy man's way to impress a lazy girl.

The rationale behind all this is to show your manly behaviour infront of her. (If not try to act like that.) You should not do whatever others are doing. You should do where no one else in a crowd can do that. At the same time it should not be a foolish thing. Then girls would automatically follow you... There are lot of techniques that I can share with you but you know I have patented a lot of techniques. If you want to use then you need to pay a loyalty to me.

 

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