This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

21st century woke up with the dawn of extraordinary inventions and also horrendous issues within the society, environment and economy. Where does the right solution lie? INDIA has enough financial resources to empower the poor section! We do not lack infrastructure and arrangements to bring up the problems on the board!

India today, does not seem to be unable to deal with the serious issues we have! Our NGOs, our wealthy industries and businesses, the pool of young, intelligent & talented population and increasing awareness through media and technologies – these are the few of those able sources which can make a difference. Having said that, what can the individuals do?

It is more appropriate to touch upon some questions than answering them right now, because most of us may not think enough about it! Are we Mahatma? I guess, no. Are we Abraham Lincoln? Are we Dalai Lama? No, we are common people with constrained ability, access and power to the resources which does not motivate our intensions and turn our inner zeal into practice. But there is something we all have and that something we do not know. We could be no different than any great personality only if we identify our own ability though limited.

Watering the roots should make the tree grow up and high! Roots have to be very strong to survive a long life. Three major institutions of the society, family, schools-colleges and friends-family (let us call it ‘the neighbourhood’). I have to acknowledge one of my acquaintances who helped me to vocalize this word which was roaming inside of me somewhere! Families pour the substantial values, schools and colleges teach public behaviour and manners whereas what is more important is NEIGHBOURHOOD which remains with us, keeps changing us for the major part of our lives. Hence the first thing is to be aware what is happening around us and then to think of doing something about it!

How can a business/IT professional make a difference? How can an accountant who is just making his/her livelihood, help someone in day-to-day life? Apparently, these people may have least time to spare to conduct a camp, to volunteer in a public service or to join a protest against injustice. As said, there are organisations and nowadays corporate social responsibilities to do that. We all are small time people with our little ability to help others. But often we help a person who meets with an accident on a street, who needs a quick lift to somewhere, who needs a little help with their electric fuse and many other ways.

We apply our hands when we get confronted by our own swoon values or our human responsibilities. We hardly know that what our neighbours are up to! We least know about their profession, their views about others or us, their interests and sort of problems they face in public life. Technically speaking, a piece of information is always helpful! Knowing about your neighbourhood can solve a lot of issues itself. A computer professional can fix someone’s minor problem in minutes! Two neighbours have to travel long to work but their offices are so close to each other, can share a car while going to work every day – which eventually saves money and precious fuel on this earth. There can be so many other major things as well which can be worked out! So again, it is about being aware of neighbourhood and being proactive to know.

Recently, some religious issues got surfaced regarding acquiring a residence in Mumbai and also in Ahmedabad.  Most people do prefer to live in equated communities and we do resist residents from other cast, religion and even language. Again, when we do not know much about our neighbours we know WRONG about them! What do we know about Muslim or Jain religion? Most of us can only give the name of their prophet and their holy book! We wouldn’t know more than this and still we have strong presumptions about their religious practices. Our most opinions are based on incomplete information and our resistive attitude. We are far too busy in blaming government and authorities. One of the recent movies, YEH MERA INDIA (YMI) did try to convey a simple and basic message which is still very deep and worth understanding. There are always good things and bad things; it is up to us what we remember. Resisting the human nature, which is more intolerant about negative things, is the foremost thing we could consider.

Knowing about your surroundings may lead you to be a little helpful to others and there is no university of social services, NGO or public bodies you have to go to. I trust our humane instinct that with some more awareness about the people next door will surely do wonders!

Amen…

Visit  www.snehism.com to view the site.

Case 3 – Posted On: 11 November 2009

Retailer: Krunal Stationers and Xerox, 6, Corporate House, Opp. Pakvan-2 , Judges Bungalow Road. Name: Shaileshbhai Shah (40027042/9428580125)

I have mentioned more details because I think everyone should know who the person is and should we really buy anything from him.

As I said, I am trying to buy an ink-pot and it hasn’t happened yet ideally. I sent my office help Vipul to get me this ink-pot. He got me this 60ml ink-pot and he paid Rs. 15. As you can see in the images, the MRP is covered with black marker and hand written price appears on the top (Rs. 15/-). I went back to the shop and asked why it is so? “Etla j laie chhie, amne posatu nathi!” That’s what Shaileshbhai had to say about this. So what is the need of putting an MRP on any product?

It was just a matter of 3 odd rupees, but it doesn’t end there. You would definitely think, what is the fuss about just a few coins? There is a lot of fuss about it, because it begins only there. There was a young guy working in the same shop and presumably he was the son of Mr. Shah. He would follow and may use better tricks than his father. I could have paid 3 rupees more and got my ink-pot but I asked for the refund and did not buy it! It is up to you to decide how much you want to allow these people to do whatever they want. There might be more serious cases but I hope this was exemplary to understand such situations.

“JAAGO GRAHAK JAAGO!”

Comment from a customer!

hi,

who r u? and what u want i not matter it.

But don’t make people fool. Because i bought a ink pot from krunal stationers after reading your post .shailesh bhai say me its price is 12 and i give him 100 rs note.So he return me 90rs and say when ever u come next time give 2 rs because i not have changes.

So for your private purpose and easy publicity don’t try to make people fool.So, Remove this post as soon as possible because its totally wrong

Avinash Patel

My response to it – 24 SEPTEMBER 2009

As an update I am republishing this as a new post as well! One of the customers bought the same ink pot from Krunal Stationers and mentioned that he did not have any trouble buying there and also the store keeper has been kind to him. No one would be more glad than me about this as, my purpose was to have the customers to be more aware and awake! And also the retailers follow the standard practices.

While re-reading my own post, I did sound a bit agitated and aggressive but that is what I felt at the time I had this experience! Wrong things do provoke me, and I thank God for that!

Thank You Avinash for letting me know that I got heard!

Facebook is looking very slow these days! It could be a slight downfall as human interests change frequently! If something’s thrown quickly against FB it might click to the users and can go places!

One more reason is that compared to Indian visitors (4,063,300) there are far more users in western countries like US (83,558,820) and UK (20,247,300). And all these majority users are busier during August to Pre-December! Approaching deadlines of projects before Christmas… And hence, may get less time for hanky dolly! I have seen significant fall in status updates, useless messages like “I m cleaning my room today!” etc. Facebook is on rank 31 in best 50 sites of 2009! Guess who is on top?… Flickr.com. Twitter is way on top in this ranking compared to Facebook.

Facebook activities also are more of an imitation of friends or contacts. Well, it is all about following each other and forming a community! But still a thin line is surfacing between imitation and following. Offline (a new word for the “real world”) friends have got new place to meet and share things, Facebook! Friends, people in relation, husband & wife, mom-dad, siblings – all these relations are getting a new dimension through this online world of sharing and caring! Unknowingly, a lot is happening around those tangible comments, pictures and connections! A new sense of jealousy, rivalry, imitation and unhealthy competition is spreading. Some are competing for more friends on the list, some are jealous of their friend’s ability to exploit FB apps to show new creations and there are some who just follow the activities because their friends are doing it!

We still are not aware of the time bomb we are sitting on! These micro and macro level oscillations of emotions, rivalry and imitations are becoming the strength of the online world. The amount of information in various forms they hold, the accumulation will create a dangerous diagram of our lifestyles. Being with Google, they have your emails through GMail, your documents through Google Docs, your location and map activities through Google Maps, your schedules through Google Calendar, your sites through Google Site and many more. A common user may not realize this fact but going ahead with all these community sites and live update of your lives will take a certain level of control on your activities!

It will be a bit early to say anything more, and rather we just keep this thought in mind while embracing anything online!

More on me @ www.snehism.com

“Sach Ka Samna”, speaking the truth in a real life and facing the truth in front of millions on TV is just too much! “The Moment of Truth” – original series of American television asked finer questions than what Rajiv is asking to the contestants in Sach Ka Samna. In one of the episodes, Rajiv asked the contestant nearly all the questions regarding his relation and association between him and his wife. Does the truth of life move around physical relations only? Are those the only truths which are important in life? There are issues which exist in each individual’s life other than sexuality and partnering. From the day one, this show is facing sharp criticism. It also reached the assembly and media was told to self-regulate. Media has consistently failed to self-regulate the material and also the presentation.

According to my opinion, there could have been more interesting though funny questions could be asked. Interaction between two questions regarding the truth revealed could have come with very interesting incidents of one’s life, like Vinod Kambli revealed how he ran a few meters without clothes! People are more candid about their behaviour and actions. There used to illicit relations between male and female in ancient times as well, but there was no media to uncover stories to the outside world.

As there is not much we can do to control such television programmes, all we can do is to self-regulate. It is our choice what to watch and what not. But somehow human senses are curious about the weirdest!

A truth from my side: I too watch this show most of the times!

This article was for fun!!! And has been removed by the author as it may have hurt some sensitive nerves! Please contact the author on info@snehism.com for inquiries.

The state is spilling over with internal filth and dirt when Modi is busy defending the so called anti-terrorism bill – GUJCOCA. Government again refused the bill and with the recommendation of changing some clauses in the bill mainly which were allowing the authorities to seize the properties of the suspect and tracing the calls of any suspect at any time without any explanation.

When I assume the process, I can imagine a few thoughtful people thinking over different points of the bill and discussing the pros and cons before reaching to any vital decision. But as the verdict comes out, BJP’s immature comments started coming out and the dirty politics starts over again. Mr. Modi’s ego speaks again, “I will not make any changes to the bill and foot it again to the center.”

Outrage is spreading throughout the state because of increasing overall crime rate. Yes, we cannot deny that the overall rate of crime is also increasing in the whole country. But we haven’t seen the Gujarat in this shape before. We are witnessing the incidents which we have never seen before in our own Gujarat. Police is still summing up the amount of money Ashok Jadeja has acquired from hundreds of people and each day a new rape case is coming out. Frauds, robberies and petty stealing are also riding high in daily newspapers. The crime rate is all time high in Gujarat. I do not think I need to refer to any sources because we all read and watch what happens around us. It is matter of our own sense.

Black memories of Patan gang rape case haven’t yet faded and Surat is blotted with a shameful gang rape. As I am recalling these inhuman acts, news comes out from Rajkot and Himachal Pradesh, teens raped respectively in both of this places where in the latter case the victim is a tourist from Britain. I just took a note of the rape rate in Gujarat before a few months that how it is increasing consistently. Although very complex and sensitive, undertaking the studies of increasing rapes in the social context and also other external reasons for such activities seem essential at this point of time.

Rapes, sexual harassments, making video clips – all these are new form of criminal activities of this modern time and they are getting so frequent. The victims seem to be coming out more openly than before and we can also see many reputed entities of the societies involved and alleged in cases like this. Shiney Ahuja and an MLA from west Godavari are the most recent examples of those. But still the numbers of rapes reported to the police are far lesser than the actual number.

On the other hand, ‘organized’ and gang rapes (which in turn can be called organized) have significantly got surfaced in the recent times. The definition of rape has always been powered over other elements in different cases and it remains the centre of the case in most instances. Even in Shiney Ahuja’s case victim is constantly stressing how Shiney forced, grabbed and pushed her, because all these phrases lead to the confirmation that the rape was committed. I am not sure that how accommodating is our judicial system for the crime conditions and the social context (behaviour of an individual and the reasons for that behaviour) involved in the incident. But I am sure the society should and must be interested in the detailed examination of reasons involved in such criminal occurrences.

The reason behind such study is to understand the affecting elements which trigger such instances like rapes and sexual activities. “Spot” rape – a spontaneous excitement leads an individual to lose the control over sexual urge and expressing that in verbal, gestural or physical form. As I mentioned earlier that the “organized” rapes are increasing and this kind of rapes involve raping a fairly known individual and in many cases an acquaintance or an intimate friend. “Organized” rapes means an individual or a group of people pro-actively look to satisfy their sexual urge or forcing verbal, gestural or physical abuses to a man or woman. If assessed on moral grounds, organized rapes would hold a very lower position compared to the spot rapes which only take place on an instantaneous sexual aggression. This classification may not be that important for the legal resolution of the offence but considering the long term societal balance, some profound study should take place. (There are enough reasons, anger and misery over these inhuman incidents which tell me to conduct such social studies but time, conditions and limited understanding do not YET allow me!)

There is another issue which I do not want to discuss in detail but just a note:

No political parties or diplomats came out at the time of Patan incident. But as soon as the Surat gang rape case came out and the culprits are held, VHP is coming out asking for strict action. Can you people guess? Yes, because the culprits are Muslims. It may get more sensitive as the Rajkot case contains the same attributes. Let us just don’t get carried away by all these and let us focus on the safety of women at first and then to understand, evaluate and take some meaningful actions where we can develop a society which is more cleaner and moral.

“Mothers, please teach your son that every woman must be respected as he respects his own mother!

Fathers, please provide an example to your son that how the women in any relation, mother, sister, daughter, friend or wife must be respected in every manner!

Teachers, please teach your students about the social and public behaviour towards women and any other individual in the society!

You are the INSTITUTIONs of the society!”

Business minds know what people can fall for! They are called marketing gurus in this era of “anything is saleable with correct marketing”! Emails and chats are still thrilling for people in this time of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol- which provides cheap internet calls in all over the world) and video conferencing! We like to feel the anxiety. Social networking sites have poured in last five years and still the market is wide open to this domain, because people are blindly falling for those!

It was an amazing thing just before a few years, to see our own picture onto a computers screen. We used to shuffle drives, floppy disks and scanners to get ourselves on to that cathode ray tube! But now it’s on your finger tip to upload photos in a minute and share with the friends! All fair, until it is played fair. But the commercial ideas behind this sites have not yet come to the light. They have been sensed by the experts of the industry. Over the time it is learnt that the power of data (which can easily be transformed into organized information) is phenomenal. Hence the plethora of information being uploaded by the users can never go without being utilized at the end. And it has just stared what we call it an information age. Essential is to be cautious while being on internet as you never know where you have been tracked and observed!

Social networks are a step ahead, which lure you to enter, submit, share and send information, pictures, videos openly to the world. The kind of information social networks store create a pattern of your activities. Sites like MSN and Facebook are clearly recording your activities as we like to update ourselves on internet every hour! At first sight, it wouldn’t seem that serious, but the first disadvantage is the addiction it creates. In one case, a middle aged relative of a girl signed off from the her network and as a result the girl got into serious depression for not finding that online friend for days! This was an emotional side of it.

Technical hazards are far more serious than this. Recently, Facebook’s terms created a firestorm, as it said that social network site claims the ownership to the contents and photos even if the users delete them.

But then they strategically changed to this…

“Consumer advocacy blog The Consumerist phrased Facebook’s fresh policy as “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever,” pointing out that Facebook’s ToS spruce-up removed several sentences in which the company said its licenses on user content expired upon account deletion.”

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10165190-36.html

Please do not miss to view these links,

http://www.therawfeed.com/2009/02/facebook-thinks-youre-stupid.html

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=27381690528&topic=3981

http://themcode.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/facebook-privacy-policy-youre-exposed/

Well, this is something we can even see in the corporate policies and seek legal help. But what about those threats that we cannot even imagine about. There are huge networks who forge pictures and publish them on various sites! We are among the millions who post their information and pictures on such sites so the chance of being a victim is fraction of a per cent, but we cannot deny the chance.

Just for fun, to play a prank or may be just to take a little revenge against the you by your friend, your information and photos can be misused at any extent. With the perspective of uncertain human behavior, we cannot ignore this fact. It has been observed that most of the criminal and abusive instances take place as the result of spontaneous provocation or reaction, and that instance would not be of more than 10-15 seconds! But the victim may suffer the life for that.

Now the social networkers range from 12 years old to more than 80 years old. There are millions of groups like, ‘I don’t like doughnut’ Group to ‘Vote Obama’ Group. Countless hours are being spent on social sites nowadays! Many people do have more than 4 social network profiles. One more important issue which is the prime threat is social disconnection and isolation from social communities. Youngsters like spending more time on “Online” world, and what is more interesting is, they call the real world, an “Offline” world! It was quite dreadful to hear that word. The real world associations, friends, connections are all slowly slipping away. Even in offices, employees spend their hours in front of the computer, they laugh, feel sad, feel excited, get angry – looking at the computer screen without having a word of conversation with their acquaintances. More you share and access the information, more it is likely to complicate your relations and your own nature. That is an experience learnt!

What we all need to do is, just be aware and alert to what we are doing. It is great fun to see our pictures and share those with friends on internet, but is equally hazardous as well. Use your own senses and discretion!

Happy Networking!!!

Just a few hours were passed after Lahore attacks and statements poured in from every corner of the world! Let us not give much importance to who said that but context which is very much important at this stage!

“I am glad that BCCI cancelled our tour to Pakistan!” – M S Dhoni

Indian captain was a little impatient to express his happiness that he would have been there instead of Sri Lankan cricketers if BCCI wouldn’t have cancelled the tour to Pakistan. It was a time to be with the Sri Lankans who still have traces of the incident in their body and mind, it was a time to condemn what has happened to the sport cricket and to be happy for those who have survived by less than a centimeter. But coming out with happiness for not being the victim, was not a very mature thinking and not a responsible statement!

“IPL should be postponed!” – Chidambaram

The statement from Mr Chidambaram was misinterpreted as it was released on the evening of Lahore attacks. Actually the Loksabha polls were clashing with the IPL and hence many diplomats wanted to move IPL after the elections. Although, it would be a step back if we postpone the IPL because of attacks. Yes, it is tragic and very serious regarding the security concerns for out-country players. But in a way it will be their success if we change the way of life. More securities and alertness would be essential but we have to keep going on! No player was killed in the incident (thank God!), but the match was called off and the team of Sri Lanka flew back to home the same day! There is a success lying behind this. Terrorists achieved to spread fear, disrupt the normal flow of life. We may need to think how not be defeated!

“Is Pakistan a failed country?” – Vinod Dua

Vinod Dua uttered a question which was in my mind a few days before! In his own program, he brings out such very crucial questions which directly points the root of the problems. He went to Pakistan as an international observer of national elections. He found that the Pakistan and Muslims go out and fight for their religion and become so called ‘Jehadis’, they do not have unity within their country even. Sindh regions vote for Sindhi party, Punjab vote for Punjabi and Frontiers vote for Frontier party! It clearly suggests that Muslims are also divided within the country!

Is Pakistan a failed country? – with regret, I would say, Yes! Pakistan has failed to retain the dignity of an independent nation. I would like to go back in the past and think about those people who hailed for the partition, what would have been their stand at this point of time. In recent years, leaders of Pakistan have remained indulged in fighting amongst for the power and money! I have a great doubt about Pakistan’s survival. Pakistan is also paying a big price for possible presence of Osama in the country. What would get them out of this mess? After the democratic government finally got deployed in the power, again Nawaz Sharif’s subtraction from the assembly has again lit the fire. Army of Pakistan is quite upset with the elimination of Sharif. A non-foreseeable consequences are awaited! Lahore attacks could be a fraction of it. It is said that the players of Sri Lanka were targeted for a kidnap!

One by one doors are closing for Pakistan! May God bless the innocent people of our brother nation! May peace come to our land!