Change is permanent

The modes of entertainment or social networking have become too dynamic these days. I remember my engineering days when surfing was not cheap. It used to cost somewhere around 40 to 50 Rs per hour to surf net in cyber cafe. For a student in early 2000s it was quite costly. Initially, like many youngsters, I was obsessed with chatting. Yahoo Messenger and Hotmail messengers were major source for chatting. Whenever I was able to save good amount of money, I used to go to cyber cafe to login into yahoo chat rooms and chat with people in different parts of the world. My major foray in social networking came with Orkut.
 Many of my friends insisted that I join Orkut. But I refused all the time think it is one of the many worthless sites that have suddenly surfaced. When I shifted to Delhi for work I took a good net connection and joined Orkut. Since then for around 4-5 years my love for Orkut bordered addiction. Apart from making new friend, I spent lots of time in communities where numerous debates and discussions took place. Every morning after coming to office the first thing I used to do was login into Orkut. I made a separate gmail Id and never revealed my true identity on orkut for long time. Best part is I made many new friends not only from India but from other countries as well.
Along with 'Orkutting' I started maintaining blog. Blogging was a new phenomenon at that time and internet was full of Indians who were expressing their views, telling their stories on blogs.
Then came Facebook. Slowly all my Orkut friends migrated to Facebook. On Facebook we made group called Orkut India Community( Great!). Since then facebook is the popular medium for networking for me and many Indians. About a month back I tried to login in to my Orkut account. Unfortunately I forgot my gmail Id and password for that account.
A week back I decided to blog again. I was not surprised to see that most of the regular bloggers have quit blogging.
By the way today morning on NDTV India I saw a bhajan singer was interviewed for his new album. It was very amusing song. In the song singer tells people to stop wasting time on chatting and facebook'ing' and pary to Mataji. I searched the song on Youtube and Google but did not get any links. Will share it with you once I get it.

Breaking News

Every morning before leaving for office I watch Tv for news. Within half an hour I try to catch up with happenings in and around the world. Most of the channels are good in giving crisp news in morning like Subah Fatafat, 100 khabarein 5 min, Superfast news etc. Logic is that in short time you get to view lots of news. When I come back to home at night I surf news channels again. I usually see English news channels as they are bit less on dramatics and more on facts as compared to Hindi News Channel. Hindi news channels exaggerate a lot. Sometimes the news are utter nonsense. Of Hindi news channels NDTV is bearable.

I have also stopped listening to debates long back. I do not listen to debates on news channels unless there is good discussion, most of the time there is none. Arnab Goswami is uncrowned king of television debates. He is the supereme authority .... who decides what is right and what is not. No matter what the guests say during the debate he gives verdict whether they are right or wrong as per his wish. My Dad is a fan of Arnab where as I (and many people) consider him Mallika Sherawat of TV news. He knows how to create controversy, make antics, exagerrate views with theatrics and put words in mouth of guest speakers. There is brilliant article in Caravan Magazine (Fast and Furious) about his rash blind ambition to keep Times Now at top in TRP.

There was great buzz created around a month back when Editors of Zee News were sent to jail on allegations of extortion charges alleged by Navin Jindal who is Congress MP and promoter of Jindal Power and Steel. Navin Jindal told media that during a sting operation Zee News Editors demanded 100 Crores in advertisement deal in lieu of which Zee News will down play or stop media campaign against him. Footage from hidden cam was shown to media where Zee News Editor and its Business heads were negotiating a deal. No matter how Zee News defended this later, the dirty corrupt world of news media was thrown open in public. Issue of paid news and lobbying by senior journalists including Vir Sanghavi has already been brought in public.

Later Zee News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary was thrown out of the BEA (Broadcast Editors Association). Wrongdoing was again alleged in this (Read Here). How come peers throw out an Editor? Peers who are also Competitors.

Another article in Caravan Magazine brilliantly points out the issue of ethics in media (Read: On the Success of Ethics).

Kissa Kursi Ka

After elevation of Rahul Gandhi to the post of Vice President of Congress there has been spurt of artciles on him. 'Open letters' has been written to him. Pritish Nandy has given yet another analysis of Rahul Gandhi here. This article, like most of them written on RG, does not speak any thing new. Every article does indirectly stress that since sooner or later he will become PM (assuming Congress will form government in subsequent elections), he should try to take pro-active steps and first reform his party which is nothing more than group of Gandhi family sycophants.

The rise of Narendra Modi in Gujarat has made him face of BJP. Hence the comparison of NM and RG as probable PM candidates has begun. There are many other interesting news (or views?) floating around in media. Saga of selection of Rajnath Singh and dethroning of Nitin Gadkari has not died down yet. There is pretty interesting and laughable conspiracy theory by Ajay Singh mentioned in Firstpost Magazine. According to new theory the conspiracy to overthrow Nitin Gadkari was hatched in Madhya Pradesh and it was masterminded by RSS Sarsanghchalak Suresh Soni who wanted to settle scores with Mohan Bhagwat.

Suresh Soni

 I sometimes feel that shortest route for News reporter or Journalists to hog limelight is to target Narendra Modi or RSS. Even being critical of Rahul Gandhi, Congress or BJP does not attract much attraction from news readers, specially online news readers. The best evidence of that is the cyber war that happens in comments section of these articles. I came across this funny 'comments war' in TOI.

  While we are discussing Modi and RSS bashers we should not forget Ashis Nandy who has built his career over Modi-bashing (not even BJP or RSS bashing). Read here , he never even hesitated to take over people of Gujarat for electing NM as their leader read here. Recently at Jaipur literary fest he quoted controversy by stating that corruption in India is due to lower caste people i.e. SCs and STs. Now I don't know what made him to make this comment he got support from an unexpected source Kancha Ilaiah.

Face Off 2014

Even though it is not official, it is expected that in 2014 elections Narendra Modi will be the face of BJP and Rahul Gandhi will be the face of Congress. Narendra Modi, after is re-election as Gujarat Chief Minister for the thrid time, is very jubliant and has all elements in him to encourage the lethargic  workers of BJP. During his first victory speech after winning Gujarat Elections his supporters shouted "PM, PM" giving clear indications whom they want to be their leader in next general elections. This has definetly made many people in BJP uncomfortable as Modi is not acceptable to most of the allies of NDA, especially JD (U).

Rahul Gandhi on the other hand was prince in waiting. It was expected that sooner or later he will be announced the face of Congress. His elevation as the Vice President of Congress and Chairman of coordination committee for 2014 elections was step in that direction. Congress has not yet announced whether Rahul will be projected as Prime Ministerial candidate or not because many doubt his ability to steer Congress towards electoral victory. Congress faired very badly in state elections in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where he was the star campaihner. Seeing the popularity of Narendra Modi in Gujarat and chances that he will win elections, he was not given much exposure during campaingn.

MJ Akbar has beautifully described in his article here how low expectations can be good for Rahul. With both these politicians, 2014 elections seem very interesting.

Rajnath Singh: New BJP President

Finally it has been decided that Rajnath Singh will be the new President of Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). This sudden turn of events must have brought a great relief to BJP supporters. It was expected that election for post of President will create more ruckus after Mahesh Jethmalani announced that he will jump in the fray. Things were expected to be more complicated since ex Finance Minister Yeshwant Sinha also announced that he will fight election for presidentship. Rajnath Singh came out to be the better option as he is suited to both BJP and RSS.

Rajnath Singh, who was a Physics Professor, is blamed for promoting factionalism during his previous term as BJP President. But BJP during his previous tenure was an over confident party that had recenlty lost election. After departure of Atal Bihari and falling importance of L.K Advani, second rank leader started creating problem. This time BJP is comparatively more stable. Rajnath Singh is also held responsible for eroding the support base of Brahmins in UP. Being a Thakur he tried to undermine Brahmins who formed major support base for party in Uttar Pradesh.

Hope Rajnath Singh learns from his past experiences.