Who? Me??

*** Disclaimer: I am not a Shiv Sainik, or a Congress fan. I just do not like the end outcome. ***

In the recent news, we saw how multiplexes refused to air MNIK, and how central government arm-twisted them into airing the shows, much to the chagrin of MNS. With threats of violence, people of the city still braved to see a hindi movie.

All in all, it’s interesting to see not the event, but the actual outcome … who has “won” and who has “lost”

Shiv Sena: Once again written off by everyone as a wannabe. Once again people thinking that the party is unnecessarily resorting to violence. Fighting for the right cause, but for the wrong issue and in the wrong fashion.

MNS: A missed opportunity to come together with the original party. Raj Thackeray could have shown to the people of Mumbai that he stands for the marathi manus and supports the cause. He is clearly fighting for the wrong cause.

Central Government: Having over-ridden the local parties in local matters, now Congress has higher say over MNS and Shiv Sena combined. What should not have been their jurisdiction has been given over to them on a silver platter.

SRK & Karan Johar: They were but a tool for grabbing this opportunity of who really controls the city. I hope they realize that they are not adding any value to the city of Mumbai, and that is what Shiv Sena is against. If you are living in this city, if you are feeding off this city, then please invest in it. Obviously, all this publicity is always good for their ilk.

Multiplexes: With ticket prices touching Rs. 250 onwards, profits soon rise. This almost seems like a win-win situation.

But what about us, the people, the marathi manus?

Marathi Manus: By far the clear loser in this entire muck-up. The one party who stood a chance to represent them has now been effectively silenced – silenced by the people who can afford those tickets. What about the people living in Mumbai who do not have that much expendable income? What about the people who see their homes being taken away from them simply because all the commodities are becoming expensive day by day? The backbone of these people has been broken. Broken by a trivial issue.

The photo is taken during one of our sojourns at lunch. A derelict police chowki in such a shambles. Are my taxes being properly utilized? Or are they being used to maintain public property like so??

When it comes to work, ours is a curious lot. Always willing to check new things (as long as it takes us away from our work ).

So it was no surprise when on our way to lunch we noticed a simple sign at a hall … it said “Youth Venture Workshops”. Since we are in the career space and passionate about entrepreneurship, off we went. The workshop was having their lunch break and we took that opportunity to talk to some of the organizers. Their idea was simple, they talk to individuals who have a burning desire to change something in the society, and help them achieve it through guidance, team building, and funding. They identify potential social entrepreneurs who have the drive to change the society and help them.

The organizers were kind enough to invite us to stick around and watch some of their sessions. The teaming sessions were simple, and involved a lot of play … just the right thing needed to build a team of young and energetic people.

The workshop turned out to be a subscription based program, for which one has to enroll in the month of June. So we gathered took information about their site and went back to work. After coming home, I decided to check up on their site, and read about the youth venture. Turns out that Ashoka Partnership is one of the largest association of social entrepreneurs!!

At the program, we talked to some of the participants who were volunteering, and it was a good experience to see people take charge of the desire to change something in society and act upon it. The next time you blame society for something, remember it can be fixed

If I have to go by the entertainment shows on TV these days, then I think the society is slowly going to the dogs. So many of them, and all of them are just so wrong … they involve celebrities, big and small that people worship. That people want to emulate, that people look up to … and all of them so fucked up in the head.

Sadly my wife watches all of these brain-dead shows. (Sigh!!) Sitting at home can kill those grey cells. So one of the shows currently involves one small time celeb emotionally harassing a German girl who happens to be one more small time actress. The guy has gone on a pseudo-satyagraha until the girl doesn’t say that she loves him!! The nation which laid the foundations of non-violence and proving your point by sheer will power is now stooping to these tactics? And, the media is broadcasting this?? And people are lapping it up???

Then you have MTV and other youth channels who bring together idle and adrenaline charged youngsters to come together and scheme against each other. Are we as Indians really that idle and shallow that we derive entertainment out of watching all this?

- a sad and dejected Indian

Why does the media corrupt? With the media being corrupt, I mean that instead of performing it’s duty of reporting news that matters to the society, what it ends up doing is look for sensational news – which are actually not sensational at all. I do not care about Amitabh Bachhan catching a cold … no I dont give a farthing about that. What I do care is a sugar scam happening right under our noses and we being oblivious to it all. Here’s how this sugar scam works -

Politician A (we all know who is the agricultural minister!!) gets into the power, then he sets up a shell company outside the country. Slowly this company acquires great hordes of sugar in its stocks. Then Politician A says that there is a sugar deficit in the country and the country might have to import sugar from outside. An artificial supply deficit causes prices to rise – simple enough?? Now, the shell company comes to the rescue! Supplies the country with the much needed sugar (of course at a higher price).

I was unaware of this till yesterday. The minute I came to know about it – one question that kept ringing in my mind was – why does not the media report events like these? If the media does not do its work, then who will?? Can Social Media take over the role of media in society??

Some would say no – since proponents of this theory say that social media is currently being used to report vain and idiotic things – like speak like a Pirate day … a’rrrr. How can you take the same seriously then? Another thought is that there is no reliability – a counter to this would be – as if currently the media is reliable

I would say yes – social media is the exact kind of distributed model which needs to get its act together and let the people act for the people. Kind of like democracy, huh? More so, members of the society who are aware about the current events (and those which are under currents as well) are citizens, and citizens who act out for the benefit of other citizens are enlightened citizens. We need more of these!!!

What do you think?

Remember I was ranting about Co-ordinate geometry and changing communities? Well, in case you have’nt, here is the link. Well here’s a nice example that is changing the society. And it is being done bit by bit, vector by vector

Today we had gone to my Maami’s place. She gave us this cute little bag which comes nicely packed in a small pouch. The pouch can be attached to a purse or your belt through a metal hook. Pretty nifty, huh!?! The cost, Rs. 100. Nice product, good value as well. The idea of this bag is that it folds out to become a very big shopping bag, eliminating the need for those pesky plastic bags. Its so small that you dont even realize that you are carrying one!! Imagine, slowly but steadily eliminating those plastic bags that vendors give to you to carry subzi. Its a fresh idea, and economical at that. Plus a nice idea for gifts as well!!

And the best part is that these bags are made by women who live in tsunami afflicted regions! The bags come with those cute Tsunamika dolls.

Imagine – the word about these spreading around slowly but surely. Sounds realistic no? Slowly because of a few determined souls, the social norm of using plastic bags has changed to not using them. Thats social transformation through the power of an idea

They are only going to make 10 million of these bags, get yours today!!

This is how Indian law defines Pornographic Content -

“Any content that is lascivious and that will appeal to prurient interest or the effect of which is to tend to deprave or corrupt the minds of those who are likely to see, read or hear the same.”

Who are they kidding? The lascivious and prurient I can still buy, corrupting minds?? Really?? So if it does not corrupt my mind (as if you can tell!!) then it is not porn?? Do we need to re-look at our IT Act and policies?

I say yes.

This is a follow-up post of my previous post on Perspectives and Co-ordinate geometry. Each individual’s perspectives form the different axes on which the individual perceives the world – and judges the world, so you have (happiness-sorrow axis, good-bad axis, moral-immoral axis, ethical-unethical axis, and so on). Each of these axes define who you are, your values, your beliefs, et al. If I were to map each of these axes against the society’s axes, then we can plot an individual on the society space (its an n-dimensional space, mind you).

Now, get this. The origin of the society (the norms dictated by the society) represented by (0,0,..,0) would be at a certain distance from your own origin say (1,2,1,-4,…,3). The vector (going outwards from the origin) which connects your origin to the society’s origin is your vector of existence. Every individual has his vector of existence. The people who are afraid of society and peer pressure have their origins closest to the society’s origins. Carefree people tend to be away from that origin. The more deviant you are to the society, the further you would be from the origin.

What makes a society? You, me and everybody. Thus, the society is a summation of these vector misalignments. And that my friend defines the origin of the society. Over a period of time, the origin naturally shifts – it shifts because many people change their origins (values, beliefs, etc), thus ensuring that the society also goes through that same shift (although much more gradually). A fact that would have been a taboo for the society would be a norm today. Take mini-skirts for instance or gay rights. Society changes its norms, because the collective changes their norms. The origin has shifted!!

One of my colleagues in a presentation remarked – that the problem these days is not about lack of information, it is about visibility of that information! These days the sheer volumes of information has reached such an extent that one cannot make out the differences between relevant and irrelevant. How many times have you clicked “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google in the past month? The answer is zero for me.

The way Google has chosen to solve that problem is idiotic at best – they let you indicate the relevance of the search result for that particular term (you have to be logged in to your Google Account and search for checking this feature out). The problem with this solution is that I still have to search for the solution which is most relevant to me. Visibility of the most relevant solution is an issue. What would have been great, if Google could have taken the relevance out of my social circle (read Google Contacts) and shown my contact’s relevance to me as well!! So my social circle is defining the context of the search and they are doing the search for me; not Google.

Social search, is what I am talking about. The new paradigm now is not to show all the possible searches – nobody has time to go through 567,198 results, show me what is relevant to me. Know thy customer. Take an application like Twitter and Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck lets me set search through the Twitter community, that way, the relevance and context comes out through the users. That is the way of the future – we used to talk about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but now it should be Social Media Visibility (SMV).