|| स्वक्ष ||

|| linuxchix-india moves to india.linuxchix.org ||

VID — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:31:00 +0530

Its been some months since LCIN got a new home on Ketan's server and moved to a wiki at :

LC India Chapter website : http://india.linuxchix.org/
Planet : http://india.linuxchix.org/planet
Mailing list : http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/indichix
IRC : #indichix on the server irc.linuxchix.org

Well, Terri updated the official chapter page for India, so its high time Radha (i need your blog uri please !?) and Kadambari who completed the move and admin the server with Ram and Ketan helping them all along, got due credit. Thanks a ton folks - y'all r0ck

Lazy /me should have blogged about it earlier but i've been preoccupied with stuff. After wrestling with it for ages I finally started putting down my thoughts on all the linguistics stuff on a second blog earlier -- gee, i hardly have the patience to scribble on this blog and here i am creating another maintenance blackhole. *sigh* what was i thinking !!

Atm, in all probability it will remain a private space for me to distill my thoughts from the pen and paper khichidi which was turning me scatter-brained each time i ask someone for their opinions and thoughts. Last week, MM and me were out and over-enthusiastic 'me' spent all my cash on some books (not that there are many great publications by Indian authors, but...duh !!), instead of that dress i wanted.

I was planning to attend the fosscomm meet in delhi, mainly as an excuse to meet Hassath, an LC'er with whom i've only corresponded online in the last 5 years. Maybe on Sunday, which gives me a day to extract my money's worth from the dead-tree versions before the trip.

|| fosscomm delhi meetup ||

VID — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:13:00 +0530

The Fosscomm.in coalition of like-minded volunteers, NGO's and individuals is planning a meeting of the FOSS COMMunity of India in Delhi, to discuss key issues facing the community and strategies for dealing with them. All are welcome. Details below :

Date and Time : On Saturday 2009July04, the meetup will start at 10.00 AM and is planned for the whole day.

Venue : JNU, South Delhi. (exact venue within JNU is awaited)

Proposed agenda:

1. Reporting on the Bengaluru FOSSCOMM first meeting and follow up. Here is an update.

2. “Open Standards” Follow up on the Department of IT's draft policy on open standards
(http://www.mit.gov.in/download/Policyonopensandards.pdf).

3. FOSS in Education What the FOSS community can do in : a) School Education ,b) Higher Education

4. Open formats and open standards

5. Legal issues

6. Building political consensus around FOSS as India's best bet for development.

The travel costs as well as the cost of stay will have to be borne by the participants.

Outstation folks who require accommodation should contact Prof. Andrew Lynn <lynn.andrew at gmail.com> and "rajesh kalithody" <myidrajesh at gmail.com>. Lunch will be provided at the venue.

[/Updated : 20090703]

|| aid for srilanka ||

VID — Mon, 25 May 2009 09:16:00 +0530

Reproducing a mail from another list calling for aid for Srilankan victims :

A call for Aid: Collecting items to distribute among Refugees in Sri Lanka

This is a call from individuals concerned about the state of refugees in SriLanka at the end of this military conflict, the brunt of which, many refugees, dead and alive have faced. Its is expected that around 313,000 IDPs refugees are in various camps in Sri Lanka. It is important to remember that a large number of these refugees are women. Please keep this in mind while making your contribution.

Who are we: we are a group of individuals who have been involved in a range of work related to the conflict in Sri Lanka over the past few years in Sri Lanka and India. For further details on our work please contact us and we will be more than willing to furnish any information you may need in this regard.

Distribution: We have made arrangements with organizations in Colombo to duly distribute any amount of items we may collect. It suffices to say that these organizations have been involved in work around conflict and human rights in Sri Lanka since its very inception. For further details on these organizations please contact us and we will be more than willing to furnish any information you may need in this regard.

What is needed:

Medicines: Any basic medicines such as tablets, band aids, cotton etc although it might be preferable to give money for the acquiring of medicine there locally as it might be easier to transport within the country rather than from outside, although any contributions in a large enough scale of medicines themselves would be very welcome.

Clothes: All kinds of clothes for men, women and children are welcome. Also, bed sheets and towels are also needed. Please refrain from sending any clothes that are not useable. Books, notebooks, pens, crayons, sketch pens, colour pencils: all of these items would be very welcome to distribute among children in the camps.

Money: Money is needed for buying of basic items such as sanitary pads, medicine and food and of course drinking water, which is of enormous scarcity in the camps as of now. All those who wish to contribute money, kindly contact Ponni Arasu at mailponni@gmail.com or Priya Thangarajah at ipriyat@gmail.com for further information.

Collection Points:

Chennai: Corporate Accountability Desk, 42a, First Floor, 5th avenue, Besant Nagar, Chennai - 90 Phone : 044 - 24463763 and 9840398852 - Jeny

Mumbai: Women's Centre, 104/b, Sunrise Apts, Above Canara Bank, Vakola, Santa Cruz (East), Mumbai, Maharashtra 400055. Ph: 9987398629; 022-26680403

Bangalore: Alternative Law forum, 122/4, Infantry Road, Opposite infantry wedding hall, Bangalore -1 Ph:080- 22868757

Delhi: Nirantar, B-64 (2nd Floor), Sarvodaya Enclave, New Delhi 110 017 India.

Phone: 91-11-26966334, 91-11-26517726 (telefax), The drop in time is from 10 - 5 monday to friday and 1st and 3rd saturdays.

Kindly contribute generously and at the earliest so we can begin to provide the bare minimum for the people in Sri Lanka who are now in the midst of one of the largest humanitarian crises in recent history.

|| summer hell ||

VID — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:24:00 +0530

I hate (indian) summers for its heat (and the heatstroke and conjunctivitis I am recovering from), the humid and sweaty conditions, the water cuts and worse the electricity cuts.

The sane bits in this horrid summer are my family + friends + good food :) Belated Gudi Padwa and (advance) wishes for a happy Baisakhi/Vishu.

Summer still sucks bigtime though !!!!!

|| sexual assaults in public spaces ||

VID — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:35:00 +0530

I've changed the title of this post thrice and refuse to call sexual harassment/assaults as eve-teasing and trivialize crimes against Indian women.

India in the 21'st century is definitely unsafe for women, even if she is accompanied by a man and nobody seems to care enough about public sexual harassment to act on it. I've had to warn many female (and male) friends visiting India to NOT travel alone or even in groups of 4-5 women as they dont know the local language and without men in their group its inviting trouble. Saying that about your country sucks big time.

On Monday after a protest was held outside the police commissioner's office, Shankar Bidari, the police commissioner of Bangalore said :

"Bangalore people are so cultured people they will never tolerate any indignity, harassment or assault on women. Even without police and without government, the dignity of women in Bangalore city is perfectly safe and protected,"

I wish !! One of the women who was attacked describes her ordeal and after reading this article, its deeply disturbing that the PC who is responsible for the safety of the city's citizens has trivialized the issue with insensitive press statements but didnt the Home Minister Dr V S Acharya and District In-Charge Minister J Krishna Palemar called the pub attack and MLA’s daughter’s abduction as ‘small and common’ incidents and scream at the media reporter to "not waste his time with silly incidents" ?! There was a photograph of the Police Commissioner (check out "After hrs" last page of Bangalore edition of DNA newspaper dated 2009mar05) calmly enjoying the Mysore Maharaja's birthday bash on Tuesday at Palace Grounds Palace because : None of the women noted the assailants bike numbers, hence NOTHING can be done.

WRONG, Mr. Bidari, Bengaluru is not safe...... INDIA is not safe for women. I can narrate my experiences too BUT do you even want to listen to women like Archana and others who were attacked ?!

Join us :

Women in Bangalore are facing serious violence and attacks - for wearing jeans, going out in the streets, fighting back the moral police etc and we need to stop these attacks. This is a letter to the police commissioner/home minister/press release regarding the recent attacks on women in bangalore,

Endorse the petition at : http://www.petitiononline.com/petition.html

FRI, Mar06 :
Please come to ALF [Phone : 080-2286 5757] on Friday anytime between 2-6pm to make posters for the protest at the DGP'S office on saturday.. Charts and colours will be provided but feel free to bring your own and you can bring money you would like to contribute. Alternative Law Forum, 122/4 Infantry Road, (opposite Infantry Wedding House), Bangalore 560001, (nearest bus stop- Shivajinagar Depot)

SAT, March07:
1. Gather at Nrupathunga Road at 15:30. (Parking available at YMCA, DG's office compound, etc.) Stand on either side of the road, outside DG-IG's office, holding placards, silently.
2. Either the DG-IG comes out at 16:30 collects the memorandum and addresses the audience, or a small representative group goes in to his office when called and present the memorandum.
3. If the latter, then the representatives will address the gathering, when they come out.
4. Gathering shall disperse at 17:30.

SUN, March08:
0. On Sunday 2009March08, International Women's Day,members of the group and other citizens will walk down various prominent roads of the city. Its called "Take Back the Night Walk" and is being held by women to reclaim our lawful right to be safe at night across India. It starts at Indiranagar, Ulsoor and the other two places where the women were attacked
1. At 18:00, people will gather at the five locations as designated by the area coordinators. They will interact with the audience (in as many languages as possible), and spread awareness about the various goals of the Fearless Karnataka campaign. This will involve spreading of information flyers and testimonials, conducting bystander polls, and other such forms of interaction with the people on the streets. This can go on till 20:00. (Volunteers for poster-sticking will do so around this time.)
2. At 21:00, people gather at the designated spot in Majestic, bringing along with them necessities such as food, water, and community spirit. There will be further performances, video projections (if possible), songs, and other such activities there.
3. This will go on till 23:00, when people will disperse in their vehicles (pooling as much as possible), in public transport, tempos (which are currently being investigated), etc.

[updated, from FKNK]

|| of meets ||

VID — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:32:00 +0530

Living in different countries means syncing oneself across the timezone span and after the fever and sinus torture of last weekend I was not sure if I'd have it in me to stay awake till midnight staring at the screen or making any coherent statements in the current heat wave. I hate Indian summers but I digress ...

Technology makes it easier to sit at home and meet various folks online in real-time so we (read Ubuntu-Women) did just that and had an IRC meetup last night as a kind of stock taking on the project founded (by yours truly :)) three years ago. Gosh 3 years already !! Everyone agreed that UW was doing well and that we love it in its present form We would like to do more but given that each of us is handling more than we can as is, its stretching things to take on additional responsibilities. Mamarok volunteered to do a series of interviews for Ubuntu's Full Circle mag so that is something to look forward to.

On saturday, someone asked me if I was attending BCB8 this time too and i remembered that Jose's talk (now postponed) was scheduled on the same day...darn !! Since Ram's office was hosting us it was imperative that we release the space for others. Jose was in great demand from a lot of groups who wanted him for a talk at their college/lug meetup so I will need to see when he is free next.

Talking of Barcamp bangalore, there was a lot of angst (on the list) over the undue focus on technology to the exclusion of non-techie technology enthusiast. The wiki has been replaced and one has to register an account now for bcb8. I completely understand why the blogger or general technical enthusiast would feel excluded but in retrospect I also realise why there is a tech-focus (even if it is forced on us, the unwilling junta). I have attended only 2 barcamps thus far, loved BCB6 the most, with BCB7 lacking the magical spell that I had so come to take for granted at a barcamp.

I dont really want to see a sales pitch, even if it is a startup and they have done something cool or got VC funded and hence the listener must endure a monologue, one-way conversation. Whoever wants to be talked down to? How boring. I want to be able to interact and talk to people and share ideas. For me a barcamp would mean seeing someone talk about linux and not really about sessions on astrology and Kamasutra/dating. Even if they had maximum participants and maximum laughter was heard from the rooms where these sessions were being conducted, I didnt plan on attending the dating/KS session and Tania and me sat through the astrology session at bcb7 because that was the only room where we could charge our laptops Gah, so much for attendees. Travelling 32 kms on a weekend suddenly seemed a waste of time

I hope bcb8 @ Y! changes into an upswing with the magic of bcb6.

|| raga - bhairavi ||

VID — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:19:00 +0530

"Bhairavi" is another name for the goddess Shakti and is one of the forms of Kali. In Sanskrit, Bhairavi means "fierce" and frankly I've been trying hard to find those elements in the Bhairavi raga :)

arohaṇa: S R2 G2 M1 P D2 N2 S
avarohaṇa: S N2 D1 P M1 G2 R2 S

The notes used are chathusruthi rishabham, sadharana gandharam, shuddha madhyamam, chathusruthi dhaivatham & shuddha dhaivatham and kakali nishadham. Notice that the two daivathams are used in the Arohana : chathusruthi (D2) and Avarohana uses the shuddha (D1) daivatham.

Considered to be an ancient raga its 15 centuries old and a hot favourite with all performers and teachers too. Heh, my teacher started out with this after my break and I desperately try to search for the fierce emotions whilst listening/performing this raga. Since summer has already started I do get hot under the collar but daresay that we cause more heat for others than anything else.

Older composers have numerous compositions in this raga which is a janya of the 20th Melakarta of Nataibhairavi. Surprisingly this fierce raga is well loved and widely used in both Hindustani and Karnatic padhattis and the Hindustani Bhairavi is, as usual, vastly different from the Karnatic Bhairavi, where the latter is a Sampoorna raga (scale of 7 notes) with two different dhaivatham's in its scale. That pushes it out of the Melakarta ragam classification, which is another blog entry sitting in the drafts folder ....sheesh !!

|| A cappella ||

VID — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:01:00 +0530

mmm... so I have not blogged about music for such a loooooooong time and resuming class after a very loooooong time was funtastic. Guess what the teacher started with ?

No prizes to guess that it was a Bhairavi, no less ^_^

So what is the juice with bhairavi and revati ? Both are ragas that I like (well, they did grow on me over a period of time), are tough in terms of scale, definitely not less than a todi but a todi is a todi is a todi :D and it would be utterly unfair (and even stupid) to compare these ragas in terms of laya and shruti and term any one as superior to the other.

Masti is a mild term to describe the storm we generate at music class week after week. That we are a loud, boisterous bunch is an understatement in itself. That our 'a cappella' renditions can be heard till the end of the street has brought many a new student wanting to join and start performing like us. Talk of tall expectations

Thus far we have only broken a tube-light, sung (in a group ofcourse) special notes for special people, who just dont `get` it which dissolves the kids into bouts of giggles. Gah... really kids, you dont have to make things so obvious. Hmpf !!

VS, non, I have still NOT forgiven you for the group attack and those lousy pictures. /meh plots..............

|| cellf-help ||

VID — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:09:00 +0530

This week had more newspaper reports that gangs of fundamentalist men are attacking women in Bangalore for wearing jeans. The DeccanHerald and Express buzz also carried the news and local groups in Bangalore sprang forward to support women but this usually dies a natural death after a few days. Frankly I dont expect passers by to do anything, much less help a stranger and I say this with prior experience in multiple situations in the past.

As a mark of protest against the jean-hating facists, I am going to attend the next hindu wedding wearing jeans. So there !! But before that I thought of blogging the whole specification that I had discussed with Ashwin Mahesh (of Mapunity). At the last barcamp (BCB7) I heard that they have implemented my idea.

Ideally facilities like these should be available akin to the '911' service that North America has, but well, we live in a country where life and safety has lost meaning so I hope someone can take the idea and convert it into a social instrument of change and safety for Indian women, instead of the greedy entities that one gets to see always. Millions of people dont use GPS enabled devices in India and I wanted them to be able to utilize this tool and get help in an emergency too. Here is the spec :

APPLICATION ONE

[A] MOBILE user (requester) seeking route information to reach a destination

1] Mobile user to send SMS to '12321' typing the text message containing parameters like :

+ names of destination,
+ landmark,
+ street name, etc...

Mobile service provider software with 'XYZ feature' to :

- Analysis of the senders GPS location (starting point)
- analyse the destination parameter (by searching the database)
- decide their geo-spatial location on the city map,
- identifies the road name, junction name, etc... along with the route from starting point to destination.
- links traffic congestion details generated by 'transport information API' to select alternate route.
- and finally list out road names, junction names to be passed through to reach the destination.
- generate a 'reply SMS' containing the above details and transmits to requester.

SMS charge can be recovered from user and shared between Service provider and others.

USECASES:

0] local hospitals/shops/companies can advertise if the person passes through a locality.
1] The 'XYZ feature' can in normal situation be availed to obtain route details to reach a new destination or call/invite/give directions to a new place.

APPLICATION TWO

Pressing a combination of One or two buttons to initiate and send a distress/alert message to more than one person together with information like 'his/her location' and 'how to reach that location'

PROPOSAL-1

Present day phone sets offer only single button (speed dial) feature to initiate a call to one single receiver/destination.

In a situation where the person finds herself in danger/helpless, it may not be possible to use the instrument for dialing or typing out an SMS. Hence the need for an emergency button feature. Besides, the emergency button when pressed can dial single numbers only which can be introduced by the handset provider. It is therefore necessary to introduce another emergency "2 button press" feature to initiate sending an SMS text message containing one or more telephone numbers to the Mobile service provider software running at the base station.

[ The SMS text along with the list of Cell# (max10) will be provided and stored during normal times. ]

Delivery mechanism to be built in base station software.

The software at the base station should be able to recognise this 'distress SMS', scan the message and read, select and dial mobile numbers, get the dialers location, decide destination from/to route , pass the parameters to 'XYZ software, get the route details for person in distress and send the SMS/call to all the listed receipients in the users data file.

PROPOSAL-2

Current feature set in the mobile instrument hardware allows a single key to be associated with one single number store in the phone-book.

Change needed in software :-- Instead a new feature of storing and attatching a list of member (say max 10 numbers) is made and on pressing the 'hotkey' like # or * along with the 'call' key, the mobile can dial and send SMS (as explained in the XYZ paragraph above) one-by-one automatically till all the numbers stored in the list are exhausted.

Features :

- ease of navigation
- does not need gps phone
- user creates the config say star + 33

USECASES:

The new feature can alert upto 10 people, including maybe the police, and help can be provided in emergency cases. The feature is extremely useful in unforseen situations like accidents, hijacking or kidnapping, rioting, dacoity, rape/assault cases, etc...

|| feb26 ||

VID — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:04:00 +0530

... Its been three months since the first terror attacks on Mumbai on Nov26 last year which was a haute topic of debate for the media ; certainly not a day easily forgotten. It should'nt be forgotten until justice is done either. By the time our Republic day dawned two months later, the heat reduced to glowing embers and it seemed that we would have to live with a failed police and judicial system, yet again.

Even though the Indian prosecutors managed to get their act together yesterday, with the Mumbai police filing a 11,280-page charge-sheet in the 26/11 attacks case, naming 35 Pakistanis as wanted suspects out of the 47 chargesheeted for terrorism ; I wont be alone holding my breath (literally) on this one, despite the public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam's promise of justice in 3-6 months.

The 284 VOIP calls the terrorists made have been traced to a serving Pakistani colonel but there are also news reports of an Italian link while the Japanese were into nuclear business with Pakistan which is intent on being as uncooperative as possible by raising polemic questions :

Pakistan has sought an explanation, for example, why the terrorists’ maritime movements did not come to the attention of the Gujarat and Maharashtra governments and how their ship escaped the attention of India’s costal radar defences.

Given that Pakistan’s investigators are well aware that the terrorists reached Mumbai in a hijacked Indian fishing boat — a fact India’s dossier of evidence makes clear — the question is mystifying.

Its no secret that the US army is training Pakistan with a number of US military advisors but the USA has virtually no control on how the Pakistanis use the training against them (like the 26/11 attacks) a fact acknowledged for many years now. Even the FBI is going to find it hard to get Pakistan to unravel its terror networks, especially when terrorists are intent on razing their home.

|| national libre coalition ||

VID — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:56:00 +0530

Nah, I didnt have a free weekend nor did I go out as planned, the crick in my neck and painful shoulder not withstanding. Maybe there is some truth to the old adages which i am loathe to believe in. Rather I spent this weekend attending two Libre software events. I use the term "Libre" to denote "free software" simply because the latter confuses many people into the "i-dont-need-to-pay-money" mode which is very misleading and erroneous description. Hmm... who does not like free stuff but the English word, "Free" != "phukat/muft" and the term "libre" is more close to the Indian translation of philosophical "liberation".

LUG meet

It was a meet i was gonna miss but things got sorted and I walked in at 6:30 pm to find the meet was still going on. Err.. imagine listening to Manish for 2+ hours....poor attendees :P ! A coffee break later (which I'm sure the listeners craved by now) Ritesh spoke about DM and we wound up at 9 pm. Yeah, its inconvenient for a lot of folks. Completely agree with kingsly that we need a bouncer to pull speakers off the stage. Any volunteers :-D? I saw a number of new faces, so we are definitely growing. Yippieeeee !

National Coalition for Free software

Initiated by ITfor change, CIS-India hosted a meetup in Bangalore on Sunday where the objective was to get feedback from different groups working and volunteering in Freesoftware communities. Leaving my friends at MG Road with a promise to return in an hour, I walked out at 7pm :). When I walked in there was a pre-meeting going on and later the room filled to around 35-40 people. Currently many individuals and organizations are acting in isolation and that dilutes the effort so this meet was to find out how we can collaborate and help each other out. COOL !!

Met Kenneth, Radha dropped by, as did Sriram and Kingsly, besides many other folks I had met at different time spans including Prashant from AltLaw forum and 2 more lawyers. Vinay who was taking minutes of the meeting has a complete picture captured in words. I am waiting for Vinays synopsis of Sunday's confabulations to hit the list:).

Introductions started and Abhas was perhaps the only company there with the rest of the motley crowd comprising of volunteers and NGO representatives. Each of us spoke about our contributions to Libre software, discussed the challenges we faced and the common recurring theme was lack of support on the ground level. Kenneth spoke about the work NRC-Foss was doing in smaller 2/3- tier cities and how they promote learning and sharing via wiki's, which received a sum total of 3 lines worth of content contribution in the last 2 years of its existence, if i remember his words correctly. Kingsly suggested we should have smaller events all around the year to increase the participation and reach. I had spoken about the lack of women contributors/volunteers in libre software, where I do draw a distinction between people paid to work in Free software and those that do it in their spare time. Both are important but there is a significantly less amount of spare time the non-paid female volunteer gets and that is where the "be nice, be polite" LC philosophy helps in making the transition easy. While there are many female Linux users, the contributors are definitely a smaller subset of this set.

While encouraging more people to adopt Linux is important, Sebastian and Yann echoed others with "Increase contributors, not just consumers of Linux". They summed this up towards the end but I highlight this here because the first thing a volunteer/contributor encounters is the community which is largely via the mailing lists/IRC and forums. If she encounters a hostile atmosphere where aggressive flaming and posturing is indulged in by a handful of vocal flamers, it is bound to turn this person to be a passive observer, lurk quietly and most people (including men) usually leave quietly, all of which are a loss. Yeah, feel free to disagree that you are immune to nastiness and that assholes should be ignored. Umm...naa, I dont have to tolerate assholes to use Linux/Libre software, much less while contributing my time for free. No one should have to tolerate assholes. Period !! For a change, stand-up to bullies around you and say "Stop being an Asshole". It works.

License issues arose but by and large the most common and recurrent theme in the discussion was the lack of support, with almost everyone agreeing that Linux support sucks, commercial and community alike. They are right, there is no local framework where people can communicate face-to-face. IMHO, a local lug is perfect space to plug this gap. I touched upon why its important to have more local meets and more sessions, install fests aimed at newbies where they can have face-to-face community interactions and participation and this was in the "what do we plan to do" section. There are probably lakhs of people who dont know how to use a mailing list and/or IRC. Hey, I certainly dont expect my family members to log onto IRC to ask for help and would rather help them out. Nah, I dont think they should not have to RTFM, google or any other bull-shit that one gets to hear from nerdy geeks. Well these are the folks that would solve a Linux problem for their own kith and kin so why not others? What of those folks who would still be open to trying out Linux but dont have kids to help them out. Suparna was explaining how hard it was for her to make this switch to Linux and she ploughs on because she has nice people around her willing to help her out.

Libre software in Education was discussed and related an incident of ICSE schools treating computer education as a money-spinner. Heck, education has become a "get-rich-quick" scheme instead of the original goal, that of imparting knowledge. Somewhere in the rat race we seem to have allowed education to be overtaken with money and greed. *sigh* !! There were many good ideas and a number of people signed up to various tasks. Another suggestion I had was regarding the the government encouraging small and medium scale entrepreneurs in Libre software (not just the large software export houses). If the manufacturing industry can gets tons of sops for women entrepreneurs why not replicate the same model for women in Libre/Free software which is a great start-up enabler. Besides Tax-incentives, this would also solve the problem of women leaving the work pool after marriage/kids. It will also allow the creation of more jobs and increase the employment rate since Libre software needs a learning attitude more than fancy expensive degrees. The benefits are many but this needs a detailed analysis, so I'll pen those in a separate blog entry.

When it came to a coalition, most opined that it would be better to have and independent NGO for this purpose and many organisations would not be comfortable to go under any existing banner. For example, FSF-India has a limited agenda and would not be interested in local meet-ups and such like. When the question of signatories was thrown up, I mentioned that since LC and UW are not registered entities, I am not an elected representative holding any office of power so cannot represent the project legally or aim to speak on its behalf unless authorized to do so. I was just a volunteer donating my valuable time. This was true for many individual contributors who are now welcome into the coalition. It was also suggested that atleast one such meeting be held in Chennai (which KG agreed to do), Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkatta. Sunil was the most gracious host with pastries, samosas, patties, and coffee being served to each guest and we wound up by 7pm, with the post-meeting discussions being very interesting too.

But right now I need to go pen a rant on why I hate this city's one-way roads. No really they suck big time... starting with a nice kick for that idiot auto driver for giving me directions to Frazer town from Cunningham road, instead of MG Road. Neither do I have that bad an accent and nor does MG road sound like Frazer town. Sheesh, can someone start a "NO Oneway roads" campaign please !!

|| moral policing and hooliganism in bangalore ||

VID — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:46:00 +0530

There is more to Bengaluru than the "Indian silicon valley" tag and there is no dearth of self-styled goons masquerading as culture-vultures.

From, http://vishshanker.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/02/this-happened-in-bangalore-bengaluru-shocking.htm

A few of my friends and I were just paying our bills and coming out of our regular Friday night watering hole and dinner place in Rest House Road, just off Brigade Road, and most of the women in the company were already standing outside. Some of us outside were smoking, people were happy, there was laughter and jokes, as there were many other people in the street, all coming out, satiated, in the closing hour of the various pubs and restaurants around.

Suddenly from up the street a massive SUV comes revving and speeding, hurtling down, and stops in a scream of brakes and swirling dust, millimeters away from this group of 4 women, barely missing one of their legs. A white Audi, imported, still under transfer, with the registration plate of KA-51 TR-2767. Some millionaire's toy thing, that in the wrong hands can kill.

Naturally the women are in shock. And quickly following the shock comes indignation. These are self made women running their own businesses, managing state responsibilities for global NGO firms, successful doctors. They are not used to being bullied. So they turn around, instead of shrinking back in fear. They protest.

And as soon as they turn around in protest, the car doors are flung open, and a stream of 4-5 rabid men run out towards these women, screaming obscenities in Hindi and Kannada against women in general, fists flailing. Some of us who came in running at the sound of the screaming brakes now stand in the middle in defense of our women, and then blows start raining down. One of the goons make a couple of calls over the cellphone, and in seconds a stream of other equally rabid goondas land up. They gun straight for the women, and everyone – a few well-meaning bystanders, acquaintances who know us from the
restaurant, basically everyone who tries to help the women – starts getting thoroughly beaten up.

Women are kicked in the groin, punched in the stomach, slapped across the face, grabbed everywhere, abused constantly. Men are smashed up professionally, blows aimed at livers, groins, kidneys and nose. A friend is hit repeatedly on the head by a stone until he passes out in a flood of blood.

A plain-clothes policeman (Vittal Kumar) who saunters in late stands by watching and urging people to stop, but doing absolutely nothing else. A 'cheetah' biker cop comes in, with our women pleading him to stop this madness, but he refuses action, saying a police van will come in soon and he cannot do anything. Everyone keeps getting hammered. Relentlessly.

The carnage continues for over 20 minutes.

Finally when the police van does come in it is this vandals who are raging and ranting, claiming to be true "sons of the Kannadiga soil", and we are positioned to be the villainous outsiders, bleeding, outraged. How do the cops believe them, especially seeing the bloody faces of our men and the violated rage of our women, while they carry nary a scratch on their bodies? Don't ask me! Yet, it is us who these goondas urge the newly arrived law-keepers to arrest, and the police promptly comply, and we are bundled into the van, some still being beaten as we are pushed in. Some blessed relief from pain inside the police van at least, even if we are inside and the real goons outside, driving alongside in their spanking white Audi. The guy who was hit by the stone is taken separately by the women to Mallya hospital.

Inside the police station at Cubbon Park it becomes clear that these goons and the police know each other by their first names. The policeman in charge (Thimmappa) initially refuses to even register any complaint from me, on the purported grounds that I am not fluent in Kannada and I have taken a few drinks (3 Kingfisher pints, to be precise) over the evening. No, it doesn't matter that I didn't have my car and was not driving, and no, it doesn't mater that the complaint will be written in English. We watch them and the goons exchange smiles and nods with our our bloodied and swelling eyes and realize in our pain-clouded still-in-shock brains the extent of truth in the claim of one of the main goons when he claimed earlier in the evening in virulent aggression: we own this town, this car belongs to an MLA, we will see how you return to this street!!

This was the turning point of the saga, I guess. For we refused to lie down quietly and be victims.

One of our girls, a vintage and proud Bangalorean who is running one of the town's most successful organic farming initiatives, took upon herself to write the complaint, when I was not allowed to write the same. Another Bangalore girl, a state director of a global NGO firm, wrote the other molestation complaint separately on behalf of all the girls. Some of us called our friends in the media and corporate world. Everyone stepped up. And even when the odds were down and we were out, we did not give up, and as a singular body of violated citizens we spoke in one voice of courage and indomitable spirit. That voice had
no limitation of language, not Kannada, nor English, or Hindi. It was the voice of human spirit that cannot be broken.

And in the face of that spirit, for the first time, we saw the ugly visage of vandalism, hiding behind the thin and inadequate veil of political corrupt power, narrow-vision regionalism and self-serving morality, start to wilt.

We spent 6 hours next day in the police station. The sub-inspector of police who filed our FIR, Ajay R M, seemed a breath of fresh air inasmuch that he did not appear a-priori biased like others, even though the hand of corruption and politico-criminal power backing these goons was still manifest in many ways: a starched, white-linen power-broker walked in handing over his card to the sub-inspector in support of the goons; the goons got an audience with the Inspector because of this intervention, while we had to interact one level lower down in the hierarchy; the plains cloth policeman of last night, even though he had arrived far too late in the crime scene, gave a warped statement, passing it off as a "neutral" point of view, repeatedly stressing that we came out of a pub and hence were drinking, positioning this as a 'drunken brawl', while completely forgetting to mention the unprovoked attack against the women and the one-sided vandalism and violence that ensued. I guess one cannot blame the low ranked police officer – the criminal connections of these goons must be pervasive enough for him to be careful.

Thanks however to the impartial handling of the situation by Ajay, soon the goons were all identified. The lead actor was one Ravi Mallaya (38), a real estate honcho and owner of a small property off Brigade Road which he has converted into a "gaming" (you know what that means, don't you?) adda. The others identified are Mohan Basava (22) of Chamarajapet 12th Cross, R. Vijay Kumar Ramalingaraju (25) and Shivu Rajashekar (20). All are residents of 12th & 13th Cross in Vyalikaval. Their bravado and machismo were by that time evaporated. It was good to see their faces then.

Of course nothing much happened to them, nor did we expect it. They were supposed to be in lock up for at least the weekend till they were produced in court, but we understand that they were quickly released on (anticipatory?) bail. The car, purportedly belonging to an MLA, also does not figure in the FIR, apparently for reasons of "irrelevance to the case".The media also have given us fantastic coverage and support so far, strengthening the cause.

The goons meanwhile, as an after thought, also filed the customary reverse complaint on the morning after we filed our own complaint: the women have apparently scratched the car! (Why did they not file the complaint the same night, considering they came to the Police Station in the same car? Why was the car allowed to be taken off police custody? Why is the car still irrelevant to the case and not in the FIR? Questions.. questions..).

Is this the end of this saga? Probably not. Are these women, more precious to us as friends and wives than most things in our lives, safe to walk or drive down Brigade Road from now on or are the goonda elements, slighted by this arrest and disgrace, are lying in ambush, waiting, biding their time to cause some of us more grievous harm? We don't know. Is there reason for us to remain apprehensive of future attacks and victimization? Perhaps.

But here is the point.

We stood up.

We believed in the power of individual citizens even in the face of hooliganism, intolerance, corruption and power mongering. Even though many of us have the option of leveraging political or government connections, we deliberately chose to fight this battle as individuals. Sure, these connections have been activated and they have been kept informed, should the worst case scenario unfold tomorrow. But we have chosen to not leverage them. And in every small win we
register as a group of individual outraged citizens of Bangalore and India, however insignificant these milestones may be in the larger scheme of things, there is one small notch adding up in favor of what is right, one small notch against what is wrong. And we believe that every such small notch counts, each such mark is absolutely invaluable.

It is the people who make this city, this country, this world. It is you and I, as much as the terrorists inside and outside. And in our small insignificant little ways, it is my responsibility and yours to not shirk from investing effort – not just lip service or any token attempt, but real effort – in backing up what we ourselves believe in. It is so easy to logically argue that everything is corrupt, nothing is worth it, there are so many risks involved. We must not fall trap to this escapist trend. We must not fail to try.

Next time you feel outraged, violated, abused, don't let it go by and add up to your list of litanies and complaints. Stand up and take it to the limit - at least your own limit. Not in the same way as they wrong you, but in the way that every citizen, at least in theory, is entitled to complain and protest. Do not let the hooligans power rant scare you or prompt you into submission. Do not allow the corrupt cop make you give up trying. Carry the flame forward. Try harder.

If are up to it, start right now.

Forward this note to everyone you want to be made aware of this. Post it in your own blogs. Talk about it amongst your circles. And if anyone of you should like to step forward with a word of empathy or advise, talk to me. Comment.

It is not Bangalore that is going to the dogs. It is us. We have far too long become accustomed to let everything go. And the more we let things go without any protest or fight, the dormant criminal and dark elements of the society get that much more encouraged. Every time we turn the other way, the hooligan next street gets incentivized to push the boundary a little further, provoke a little more, try something a little more atrocious. It is time for us to refuse to let this go on. We are responsible for making ourselves proud. Lets believe in ourselves. We can do this.

My name is Saugata Chatterjee. And I am standing up.I refuse to let Bangalore go to the hooligan slumdogs, even if some of them are pets of corrupt power millionaires.

|| bengaluru lug meet on feb21 ||

VID — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:18:00 +0530

From : http://groups.google.com/group/ilug-bengaluru/msg/25b35d77e6514b9d

ILUG Bengaluru Meetup - Saturday 21st February 2009

Time: 1630 Hrs onwards.

Venue:
ThoughtWorks Technologies
2nd Floor, Tower C, Corporate Block,
Diamond District, Old Airport Road

Agenda:

Introduction to the Android Platform - Manish Chakravarty

- Introduction to Architecture Components/Subsystems
- State of the Android Platform
- Developing for the Android Platform
- Demo of the current state of the platform

Device Mapper - How it works and why you should be using it - Ritesh Raj Sarraf

- Design of the DM Framework
- Advantages/Disadvantages
- Using Device Mapper

Regular Activities:

GPG keysigning - http://www.debian.org/events/keysigning
Open house where participants can interact / discuss other topics.

RSVP at http://ilug-bengaluru.wikia.com/wiki/Meetings

|| go pink ||

VID — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:20:00 +0530

I've always had an intense dislike for pink, "red" being a favourite but this post is not about my colour preferences. My last blog post on women being assaulted and the Sita Sene, elicted a response on irc from HBD that a women's gang already exists. Calling themselves the Gulabi Gang, these women form a co-operative of sorts to help suppressed women like themselves in UttarPradesh. Back home, our local chakkiwala is from UP so I must ask his wife about the GulabiGang. Gosh, the video with lathi-wielding lessons are cool but someone should teach these women better self-defence techniques, especially sans weapons. Women can but its inconvenient to walk around with a lathi always.... but I digress. If the lathi delivers results for them, it stays

Moving south, as if the assault on the MLA's daughter was not enough, now the RamaSene plans to send hooligans to spy on Bangaloreans on 14feb. These thugs will be armed with turmeric (yeah in their excitement the culture-vultures forgot the difference between kumkum and turmeric) and anyone found celebrating Valentine's day, would be forced to marry each other. Huh?....right there on the road? So what will the sene-thug do if they find : two men are holding hands, a brother and sister are holding hands, two women are holding hands or an already married couple are holding hands? ...Erm... Will they be forced to apply ~~kumkum~~ turmeric and marry each other? On a pedantic note, between two men holding hands, which man gets to be the man(?), since its usual practice for a man to apply the kumkum on the woman's forehead. Now the Taliban-Sene has to use this body part (instead of brawn) to realise that the religion they (mis)use does not discriminate .... Nature is cruel, but ..wait, isnt nature feminine...?... so its all the loose woman's fault. Yeah, right !!

Renuka Chowdhary's threat to send roses to Muthalik on a day which very few celebrate was too simple so Nisha thinks he needs pink chaddis and if you are reading this, spread this message, by blogging, tweeting, etc.. and do your bit.

[Update] Since the Alternate Law Forum office in Bangalore was flooded they want you to send your contributions directly to the Taliban-Sene at : Pramod Muthalik, Sri Rama Sene Chief, #11, Behind New Bus Stand, Gokhul Road, Near Lakshmi Park, HUBLI - Karnataka. [/Update]

I'd rather see the police and judiciary react with more spine and keep these criminals behind bars but heck that seems like a remote possibility in India. These goons have never been to temples or noticed the idols of Durga and Kali, each of who carries multiple weapons and are especially known for their war-like ferocious nature. Someone should enroll these jokers for literature and history lessons and parcel them a copy of the Kamasutra with tickets to Khajuraho in MadhyaPradesh so they can get better acquainted with the real Indian culture. On the other hand, the truth about Vatsyayana being an A(ryan)merican Westerner out to corrupt the pure bharatiya nari (indian woman) might be revealed now.

|| sita in an ice cube ||

VID — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:58:00 +0530

Indian women are indeed blessed !! We now have a convict of the 1993 Bombay blasts contesting elections for a parliament membership, who opines that every Indian woman should give up her identity and take her husbands name after marriage. Pearl's of wisdom indeed ... from a man who has had multiple adulterous relationships whilst being married (thrice if you must know), an ex-drug addict who never bothered to care for his young daughter Trishala or wife Richa Sharma, both of whom were conveniently abandoned although he knew for years that Richa suffered from cancer. Morally inspiring for all those women in his life who hanker for dutt (pun intended) lastname, provided they manage to stick around dutt long.

Dutt may have munnabhai'ed the media and even ruffled Renuka Chowdhary's feather's, but it was definitely not enough masala for the media spotlight to dwell on him for long. The confused-plastic-faced-ac(h)tor-wannabe-politician was quickly upstarted by the street-thugs "Shri Rama Sene" in Karnataka. India now has its very own homegrown wannabe "Taliban-Sene" who orchestrated and videotaped the molestation and attack of women in Mangalore in the name of god. Apparently physical violence and a public molestation of women is the easiest way to be in the news. Tsk-Tsk ...dutt's what happens if you wash Pri(vate)ya Dutt(y) linen in public, Sanju baba. Politics is gonna be a steep learning curve for you. If the Muthalik-meets-Dutt scenario had occurred some years ago, how many times would Dutt have been married off on Valentine's day ??

All in a Go(o)d days work, given that Indian politicians have certainly run out of issues to solve in the run up to elections, where the mastermind of the Mangalore attacks is known but yet is allowed to abscond. Targeting 49% of your population is good enough to get eye-balls, never mind that politicians dont have the balls to address important issues like eradicating corruption, ensuring proper supply of electricity, proper public infrastructure, good primary education, water and so many other social issues which jostle for attention...but none of these silly issues are as important as women visiting a pub.

Any woman who visits a pub instead of making rotis at home, feeding her husband and pressing his tired legs at night, is fit to be called a prostitute according to the Rama Sene while enlightened souls (in the NCW too) went a bit further to justify the attacks in the name of stemming immoral activity in the Mangalore pub. Since the police and judiciary have outsourced their work to local thugs and hooligans its high time the government stopped wasting the tax-payee's money on maintaining a police force and judiciary, both of who cannot ensure law and order nor keep justice. Well if India can be the outsourcing manna for the world why cant we outsource the police's work to these self-appointed custodians of Indian culture ?!? Think of the Tax benefits!!

Fundamentalist Hindu bigots == fanatical Islamic radicals ?! If there is a logic to the methodical madness being unleashed across each state one has to give credit to their inspirational idol, the Taliban. Nothing less will do. If the ShivSena and MNS in Maharashtra can rail and rant against the South Indians and then drive away the North Indians, then why should the wannabe-power-grabbing-southern-politician be left behind. He can jump onto the "lets control the corrupt Indian woman" bandwagon which is a problem that has taken on global hues today, with gullible Indian woman being lured by the foreign hand... what sacrilege!!

Mytholog(icall)y

Not to be left behind, some women feel they should form a Sita Sene to counter the increasing attacks on women and the debate on "Indian culture" is ferociously raging on the idiot box and in the print media. Every person I have met thus far, has an opinion (or two or three) by which time my grey cells stop parsing the string "indian culture" correctly. The word "culture" tickles my phunny bone (and I've been told I have f3w of those) enough to delve into some mythology since religion is the thread that binds retrograde chauvinists across the world masking their selfish desire for control and power.

Kalpana Sharma summarized it more eloquently :

The Sri Rama Sene is a fringe element. But lurking under the skin of many men, irrespective of caste or community, is a similar view of what women should and should not do. Men fear women’s autonomy, for, it challenges their power. And they fear women’s sexuality even more. Hence, the desire of fundamentalists of all types to control women’s sexuality.

Is that why every river has a feminine name and Earth is called MotherEarth and the country is called motherland and not FatherEarth and Fatherland respectively !? Culture-vultures never miss an opportunity to letch on mytholog(ical)y to explain that women should be frozen into this ice cube of patriarchy, certainly fit to be seen and admired, but she can never stir or voice herself.

Were the women of yore beautiful icy figurines trapped in an ice cube?

Not Sita, Rama's wife, who left her husband when he asked her for an "agnipariksha" (trial by fire) to prove her chastity. She epitomises the courage (that many Indian women lack) of leaving her twin sons with her husband Rama and returning to her mother's (Earth) after around 20+ years of marriage.

Draupadi practised polyandry, perhaps the only woman with 5 husbands at a time when it was more common for men to practise polygamy. She is the only woman in mythology over whom a war, the Mahabharata, was fought to avenge an insult to her. In that epic, she refused to tie her hair until her insult was avenged.

Mirabai had no compunctions about leaving her husband for Krishna and would the brainless religious fundamentalist idiot dare to brek the idols in the Radha-Krishna temples(?), since Radha was never married to Krishna and left her husband for Krishna. Its called adultery in English, but for millions of Indians the name Radha-Krishna is synonymous with love, bhakti and devotion.

Wendy surmises the position of women in Vedic literature, especially the Chandayoga Upanishad where Jabala asks her son to take her name so he calls himself "Satyakama Jabala (the son of Jabala)". Interestingly, dutt (pun intended) may have been completely missed instances in Indian mythology where the children take on the mothers name and not that of the father (who was sometimes unknown, or got just a passing reference....).

Gowriputra (son of Gowri, an epithet for Parvati, Ganesha's mother who is supposed to have sprang from the scurf of her body) ;

Krishna was called "Devakiputra" (son of Devaki) ;

Skanda, one born of 6 mothers ;

Pandavas were called Kuntiputra's ; ... so on...

The Sene has surely not seen this aspect of Hinduism. Moving on to the men who are commonly addressed with the prefix Sri/Shri which is the feminine subjunctive in Sanskrit. It is also an epithet for Lakshmi whose husband (Vishnu) is commonly referred to as "Lakshmipati/Shripati" (the husband of Lakshmi) as is Sitapati (Husband of Sita).

Shiva's epithet is "Umapati", the husband of Parvati/Shakti (the female energy) without whom he is considered to be a shava (corpse). Are there instances of Parvati/Shakti being addressed as "Shivapatni", not that I know of.

There may be more but I am not inclined to dig out lores of yore when I can blithely snore away the night, sans the pita-pati (pun wholly intended).

|| do you lug ||

VID — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:51:00 +0530

Theodore asks if your local LUG is active at all? A very pertinent question, given that information, documentation and bandwidth access is freely available today. Today collaboration across the world is a lot easier with better communication, easier and cheaper access, more Linux toys, including an excessive overflow of data and irrelevant information. It makes is harder for the average human to sort and pick out bits and bytes relevant and useful to her.

However, I would extend that bar a bit higher and ask "what did you do?". Yeah, I could have asked "what does your LUG do?" but isnt the LUG made up of its people and if YOU are waiting for someone else to invite you for a meet or get things going, its going to be a long 'n cold wait Umm, lets see...Bengaluru definitely did not have any LUG community activity. Local LUG's are an easier entry point for women and getting the local LC chapter to sync itself within other user groups in their respective cities is something that I've seen LC'0rs around the world do. Collaborating and assimilating within the community is the best way forward.

In 2008, Bangalore had one Linuxchix meetup, interspersed with FSUG meets but does'nt the silicon valley of India need more !?! When a new bengaluru-LUG was started in October it reignited things but not enough. I've always wanted regular meets which are technical in nature so when Ritesh came up with the idea of themed discussions for LUG meets, we did just that.

We had a LUG meet today which was kindly hosted by Thoughtworks (thanks :-)) and attended by 10 people, which started off late and went on till around 5pm. If ever there is a competition for long LUG meets I'm sure this group will be good contenders :-D. We didnt have a dearth of topics to discuss and after some ranting on "handling a$$holes" and "making LUGs work", ... we moved on to some stimulated technical discussions on server side configuration using ldap and pam integration, puppet, opensshd-server (and how to compresses your ssh connection). Ketan spoke about git and how he runs a daemon for ssh in git and pushing code upstream, hardware based encryption, port forwarding with ssh. openVPN, some rants on Indian ISP's blocking ports and the eternal nerd complaint : blocking all sip/voip traffic in India.

Ritesh spoke about BACKUPS (dont we all know why :-P), device mappers to take snapshots and he clued us in on rsnapshot a file based system, rdiff-backup, zfs (solaris), rsync which takes diffs of a block. He was not entirely happy with the current tool state and wanted to take diffs between blocks that could sync over different sized disks, etc. Now he is the "bakra" for the next meetup :: to do a live demo on backups in Linux. We ended with the PGP key-signing and dispersed for lunch at 5pm that is also a reminder that should probably reschedule the bi-weekly Saturday meets to a post-lunch session, given that most folks have personal engagements during evenings.

Even if a lot of information on Linux is available online, with some excellent documentation and lists/irc help, its definitely lots more fun to meet and chat live with people who share a common interest. The connect is easier and a lot nicer than I can describe five hours worth of discussions on a blog.

|| republic@60 ||

VID — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:38:00 +0530

As the Indian republic turns 60, it also ironically marks the second month-versary of the Mumbai attacks on 26 Nov last year. There was the initial outrage, brouhaha, etc.. for about a month ; then the dust began settling on the terrorism issue. Not surprising at all since the Indian media had jucier bytes to beam like the Satyam financial fraud issue, the Obama's oath ceremony and who can forget the desi stylists falling over themselves to comment on Ms.Obama's fashion sense.

When the attack occured 2 months ago, our politicians went into a tizzy in the ensuing media frenzy and gleefully gave media sound bytes bordering on hyperbole. The ex-CM of the Mahanarashtra state and his actor son took a film producer/director to the Taj hotel so he could get a first hand look at the terrorist's killing and carnage and faithfully reproduce an exaggerated over-hyped masala film with some sexy dance/item numbers thrown in for the masses.

Even the Dalai Lama called a spade a spade instead of pussy-footing like most others or hiding behind diplomasque. With politicians like the minister Antulay, who in Paliament indirectly suggested that the terrorists may not be from Pakistan but may be Hindus, India does'nt need enemies. Despite Ajmal Amir (he also has a wikipedia page *eye-roll*) revealing that they attacked Mumbai to avenge the Mid-East/Israel gridlock, David Milliband manages to put his foot in his mouth with some faulty logic. Since access to the USA is harder for Al-quaida, the ocean not withstanding, it makes strategic sense for Islamic jihadists to kill/strike at US citizens outside the USA in other countries like Mumbai and other parts of India, the probability of which is scarily plausible in the face of the ISI training women in terrorism tactics and not just poor Ajmal Amir's who want to become famous for all the wrong reason. Besides the geographical advantage, India is has amazingly high levels of corruption and scores of idiots who are inefficient and inept when it comes to delivering justice and clamping down on criminal activities. No really, you can get away with murder in India, literally !

Is Pakistan a terrorist state?? Not according to ex-Gen.Mussharraf who has a good sense of humor when he berates the USA (Obama government ?) thus :

"If you compare what you spent in Afghanistan, I believe I read an article where roughly 143 billion dollars have been spent in Afghanistan. What have you spent in Iraq? Maybe over a trillion dollars?"

Now that sounds like a subtle blackmail toned as whining for economic aid. Hmpf, so Pakistan is essentially telling the US and the world to "pony up the $$$ and then FO". Indirectly he just showed USA the middle finger as the $$$ will be used to create Al-queda sancturies.

Obama did not take kindly to being shown the middle finger but its too early in the game as Pakistan has always been good with international diplomacy while the Indian governtment fails abjectly on that front. They even managed to get China, (a communist country with abject human rights situation...Tibet anyone?) on their side by giving them carte blanche power to “sort out” this diplomatic tangle. Duh, now how did that happen ??

Pakistan managed to steal the limelight thanks to the jingoism our politicians indulged in, the sound bytes about how India reserves all right to wage war. A heir-in-waiting, Rahul Gandhi, is busy scoring brownie points with a morality spiel on how Indians only respect people who have money, authority and positions...err, how about giving up that Z+ security and Lyuten's bungalow for starters, Mr.Gandhi !?

Other ministers, including the Prime minister, did nothing beyond condemning the act vehemently as "outrageous" and engaged in empty rhetoric's. Although India had all the evidence in the form of : records of telephone conversation that took place between terrorist at Mumbai and coordinators in Pakistan ; written statements from the arrested terrorist ; his parents admission and identification that he is their son ; confirmation by international intelligence agencies (including US, UK, etc) ; captured weapons used by the terrorists with markings of ordinance factories located in Pakistan ; etc..... it appears that our external affairs ministry as usual failed to present the available evidence effectively ; to Pakistan Government as well as to international community. It is indeed pathetic to note that we are still sloppy in preparing our case sheet and are struggling to ensure 'to fix the offence committed on the offender without leaving any loophole'.

Amidst all this media drama, Pakistan was smart enough to deflect attention and play the victim while our government babus patted themselves on the back for the perfect media pitch, empty threats and sabre rattling, which only annoyed a lot of countries (including China the epitome of democracy). Red-herring's like "joint probes" and tangential unrelated issues like the Malegaon blasts and other diversionary tactics helped them subvert and play the innocent victim to good effect, leaving India foaming at the mouth. By the time the police and other criminal investigation agencies compile evidence to prepare the FIR, years would pass affecting the resolve and anger of the International community to punish Pakistan for promoting terrorism on its soil.

That is the crossroads India stands at on this 60th Republic day and its ironic that Netaji was choosen the youth icon on the occassion of his birthday last week. with politicians gleefully going the whole media hog over his janmashtami BUT yet every successive Indian government has always maintained a mysterious and deafening silence on Bose's death. Even his daughter thought we didnt do enough to remember her father. Hmm... maybe Dhar's book reveal the unknown mystery behind the PMO office destroying documents. India may be a democratic state turning 60 which is a second coming of sorts, but frankly unless we pull up our socks and develop zero-tolerance to *corruption* we will not reach our full potential.

|| kili ||

VID — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:30:00 +0530

I laughed so hard while reading about Barney who likes to boss around dogs and by the time I finished reading and discussing about the second Barney behaving like a foul-mouthed flipping bird I was in tears. Parrots are more fun than a lovable dog and way better than a scratching cat. Both Barney's have company in K who has an equally colourful and mischievious personality to match, maybe even a devlish streak at times.

Just watching K taking great pleasure in pestering C (a German Shepherd) to come a play with him right after C has gobbled a heavy lunch was a treat. C would flop down for siesta but that was when K wanted to play. As I replay the picture of K nudging the dog's nose, who'd quickly cover the exposed sensitive area, and in frustration K would aim for the eye, it always makes me smile. Then C would quietly turn or move away to change the position and this is when things get interesting. Not having made any headway with diplomatic means K would waddle over to the sleeping dog and sharply nip at the dogs tail and immediately flap his wings and start screeching loudly, tricking us mortals into scurrying into the room thinking he was in danger of becoming the dogs lunch. Doh...hardly, all we found was the dog rolled into a ball with his tail tucked under him and face tucked under both his paws for safety, peacefully sleeping and watching K waddle across the room, muttering under his breath (very loudly), his indignation at being rebuffed and ignored by a mere dog was side-splitting. *grin*.

Hmpf, now that the secret (that parrots are great exhibitionists and usually behave like a 2-3 year old human child) is out, lets see why its so destructive for them to be left alone at home. Being social they like people, attention and lots and lots of attention or talking, etc... In terms of mischief they are at the forefront and K came up with some really annoying tricks. His favorite was to imitate the phone ring. No, not just any phone ring, he knew which tune would summon which member of the house. The ISD call and the cell ring would get the master of the house on his toes and an STD the mistress of the house and the kids for locals calls.... he had got that down pat and boy oh boy, was he good or what :-) Each time he was at our place he would do the same whenever he was left alone in the room. Yup he hates being ignored and will do anything to get our attention.

When in the room, he'd better not be ignored by us humans, else he would be muttering something loudly under his breath interspersed with "kJ, baaabyy" (the emphasis on the vowel was particularly strong) which is supposed to be a reminder (or reprimand?) that we are ignoring the baby (him). He takes great pleasure in pulling a fast one on people around him by imitating the lift doors closing/opening sound and he's been trying to pass his skills on to another companion with not much success. I'd like to see if he still retains that smart touch since KJ was very sensitive and like Barney reacted differently to different people. He could tell the difference between an Alphonso mango and the rest and used to waddle closer if we enter the room with an "Aapus", which means "gimme some aapus".

Once we had a 2 year old kid visiting us and never having seen a bird this close, the scared KID would cry loudly upon glancing in K's direction. Strangely that affected K a lot and whenever KID was around he would go silent and not mutter even under his breath. He could obviously sense the feelings from the crying and stress reactions. Amazing !! After a few days, he'd managed to win KID over who got to the level of being ready to share fruits with K, but he still played safe and kept his mischief to a minimum so as to not overwhelm KID into tears. That was so touching and unexpected from a bird. Nobody had taught him that and he does not have other clan birds for company to learn such skills from the wild either.

Many times my friend, who wanted to record his voice would keep a small portable recorder a few feet away from him but 'NO'. He simply refused to give her the sound samples and IIRC, we had spent the whole weekend trying to figure out how to get those sound bytes out of him. No luck... and trying to teach K to appreciate the nuances of Carnatic music was another failure. He loved it but maybe it was too much too soon...but the next time I visit DEL or MUM I plan to experiment again. That should be some fun

Another interaction I recall is with a neighbours long-tailed parrot as kid of 8 years. He was KK and around 5-6 years old but by gosh he just hated kids. Friday was the most awaited day of the week as I could hop over to the neighbours and say hi to KK, even if he hated the sight of kids and would start screeching very loudly to express his disapproval. But I was besotted with watching him for hours and was not going to give up. So after a whole year (52 weeks + 3 hours each Fri, Sat and Sunday) he grudgingly stopped the noise and drama over my visits. I'm so in love with each birds quirky personalities :P

|| registering a non-profit in india ||

VID — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:18:00 +0530

Many many many moons ago I got a low down on registering non-profits in India (thanks Kallol :)) but I took a few months to blog about it so thanks for the strong poke :)

NON-PROFIT ORGANISATIONS in India

There are 3 kinds of Non-Profit organizations that can be setup : a trust, a society or a section 25 company.

1. Trusts:

A trust can take donations and is meant for charitable purposes. Validity extends only in original state it was registered in. Example: If the NPO was registered in Karnataka state it is exempt from I-Tax only there and 80G is applicable.

TAX : Donations and any other form of income (membership, registration fees, sponsorships) in trusts are exempt from income taxes.

REG Cost (as of 2008) : Around INR.5000 to register and in Bangalore, the registrar of societies office is on Church street.

2. Society (or association):

Not very different from a Trust but a Society (or association as it is sometimes called) has a little more scope with a slightly open organisational structure. A society cannot have chapters (branches) outside Karnataka, although members could be from anywhere in India.

If it is registered in Karnataka state it is exempt from ITax there. It needs 7 members including 4 office bearers (chairman, vc, treasurer, secretary) and all of them must be from the state where the society is registered. Annual meetings : treasurer prepares all the accounts year ending and get them signed by the secretary and the chairman and vice chairman and the secretary files them.

TAX : Service tax on sponsorships. Membership income is tax free (including service tax). 80G again requires the accountant. Donations and any other form of income (membership, registration fees, sponsorships) in trusts are exempt from income taxes.

REG Cost (as of 2008) : Takes 14 days to register and costs around INR5000 to register the same. In Bangalore the registrar of societies office is on Church Street.

3. A section 25 company :

Sec25 companies are different from a Trust and Society in every way. Some salient features ::

Sec25 can be registerd as a private or public limited company and the difference is in the number of minimum directors the company needs to have.
If the sec 25 company is private limited, then 2 directors are required, otherwise, 3 or 5 are required.
Directors can be from anywhere in india
Its different from normal companies, as in, that they can not distribute dividend to promoters/founders.
Exempt from ITax.
One time Pan-India registration.
The difference between a Society and Sec 25 is that the latter can enter into contract with any national or international institution. For example : a Sec25 NPO can sign a MoU with another organisation/firm/company
It need not be registered in every state and like a society its recognised all over the country, but for it to enter into a contract with another organisation that is outside the state it is registered, it need needs to be registered in that state as well.
It can have branches anywhere in India and have people working part / full time as regular employees.
Annual meetings : Regular AGM (annual general meeting) like all corporates do But the AGM requires quorum (members to be present or be represented by proxies) and annual returns and IT returns are filed by the accountants/company secretary. This depends on the MoA (memorandum of association) which will contain these details.
Donations and any other form of income (membership, registration fees, sponsorships) for sec 25 companies needs a separate application to the IT dept to get tax exemption. Sponsorship income attracts service tax everywhere. {HINT: Add service tax to sponsorship fee and invoice sponsors including taxes.}

REG Cost (as of 2008) : INR.15,000 + small expenses. Requires 2 months to register including a visit to the Regional Director's office in Chennai (if you are in South India).

GENERAL NOTES :

Although Trusts, Societies and Sec 25 companies are pan-India NP bodies, only a sec25 company can sign contracts with bodies outside the state. Societies and Trusts have limitations in this regard.
Members of a non-profit are not assessable or liable for taxes for income raising out of the organisation's activities. It applies to trusts, societies and sec 25 companies.
Even if the not-profit does not have any annual income, it WILL need to file a IT-return. The return will simply put income as 'zero'. For activities in the adhoc period of operation, one can lump it as 'pre-operative expenses' and include it in the books when the not-profit is formed.

Below is a comparison chart for the main differences between a trust, a society and a section 25 company

	Public Trust	Society	Section 25 Company
Statute/ Legislation	Public Trust Act like Bombay Public Trusts Act of 1950	Societies Registration Act of 1860	Companies Act of 1956
Jurisdiction of the Act	Concerned State where registered	Concerned State where registered	Concerned State where registered
Authority	Charity Commissioner	Registrar of Societies	Registrar of Companies
Registration	As Trust	As society (and by default also as Trust in Maharashtra & Gujarat)	As Section - 25 company
Main Document	Trust deed	Memorandum of Associations and Rules & Regulations	Memorandum and Articles of Association
Stamp Duty	Trust deed to be executed on non-judicial stamp paper of prescribed value	No stamp paper required for Memorandum of Associations and Rules & Regulations	No stamp paper required for Memorandum and Articles of Association
Number of persons needed to register	Minimum two trustees; no upper limit	Minimum seven; no upper limit	Minimum seven; no upper limit
Board of Management	Trustees	Governing body or council/managing or executive committee	Board of Directors/Managing Committee
Mode of succession on board of management	Usually by appointment	Usually election by members of the general body	Usually election by members of the general body

Source: Mathew Cherian, Director CAF India, New Delhi (Source : Internet)

|| relationships ||

VID — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:58:00 +0530

While chatting the other day I was reminded that the common thread we share in this Planet is "relationships". Our capability to refine, understand and maintain a variety of relationships makes us superior to animals who also share this human-like trait.

However we have created an institutional art-form (or business as I was told) called marriage which for better or worse is here to stay and everyone wants to taste it once. Hmpf... so in all this whether its getting married or staying married, hardly any attention is paid to the whole process of where the relationship is going, or not.

Quoting from Jacinta Richardson's message :

I think such a group (in fact, I think schools should also do this) should teach about relationships. About what things make a good and successful relationship; vs what things should be considered warning signs of a bad relationship. I know this would be controversial, but I think it's important to tell young people all of this stuff. Not all of them will have had good examples of adult relationships to learn from. Once you've been in a few relationships, you generally have a good idea of what works for you. I think the following are important:

* Your partner makes you laugh
* Your partner can make you smile even when you're really grumpy or upset (even if the smile is only for a few moments)
* You look forward to seeing your partner at the end of the day
* You feel confident sharing bad news with your partner
* You feel safe when (gently) criticising your partner's behaviour (nobody is perfect, sometimes they will mess up)
* You feel safe when being criticised by your partner
* Your partner stands up for you against negative comments from their friends or family and asks the offending party to refrain from such.
* Your partner never insults you, and never criticises you in front anyone else, and neither you, them.
* Violence of any form is not part of the relationship.
* You are never afraid *of* your partner.

All of these should be true most of the time. Most of these should be true all of the time. Even in a bad week, you don't want more than 2 of these to be false at any one time.

Wow...... That kind of sums it up right there with respect and love forming the foundation for the best relationship, not necessarily marriage !!

|| democracy.in ||

VID — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:27:00 +0530

The one thing that refuses to go away from my mind .... reading reports of the Jewish hostages being tied up and tortured before being killed. That they were killed painfully is extremely disturbing and for personal reasons. Around 195 died and included Hindus, Christians, Muslims, who who were killed in the attack but the terrorists didnt ask any of them the religion before they killed them except the Jews, who they decided to torture and then slaughter. That sounds so much like Aurangazeb torturing the last Maratha Peshwa alive, slowly skinning him whilst hanging him by his legs, for refusing to convert. That the last Peshwa chose to die a slow painful death on the 21'st day of torture, instead of converting to Islam, was something never taught in our history textbooks.

That lack of tolerance for another is similar in this singling out of the Jews. It irks me because I've lived for years in close proximity, shared innumerable laughs, tears, jokes, Sabbath's and Puja's with one such family who treated me as they would their g'kid. They were more Indian than most Indians (think long hair, sari, bindi ....) and I still remember the disapproving look I got for cutting my long hair. Its disturbing that people you know for years could be cruelly killed because they follow a different religion than you do.

Julio Riberio says his ancestors were Hindus from India and they never had an issue with getting along with other religions. I cant argue with that fact but its scary to think what India is degenerating into. We Indians are selfish, as after walking at a protest rally or blogging (like this), we will return to our excitingly mundane daily life until the next incident occurs and its time to repeat the circus all over again. Not to forget all the publicity-hungry stars who will hog the media bytes with inane comments about the spirit and tolerance of the the great Indian (re)public !! Talk of collective amnesia !! Easier to hold hands, have a candlelight vigil, and just impossible to control who gets voted from our constituency. THAT and Corruption would be two root causes of our misery. Our apathy is just icing on the cake for a public servant.

For a change the US got tough talking with Pakistan who acknowledge the terrorists were its nationals trained by the army and LeT. This has significance for both USA and other countries. Now that the LeT has tasted success it can strike at will anywhere in India, target all foreigners who come to India whether for business or pleasure. Since the LeT wants to take Jihad all over India and Jammu&Kashmir is their entry point in India they can almost succeed because there is not a single state in India without a sizable Muslim population which Indian politicians love to play around with. Its their vote-bank politics of divide and rule. If nothing else we have something to learn from the Americans who after 9/11 changed the way the world looks at terrorism. Yeah individual freedom and liberty was curbed but who wants a democracy where one can get away with murder, just like that!! Almost impossible in India due to vote-bank politics and public servants (read politicians) who will equate slain martyrs with dogs, whilst claiming the tag of 'world's largest democracy' ... but that exists only for them with the Z+ security, government bungalows and other perks that they enjoy at the expense of the tax-payers money. They need to learn a thing or two from TATA's generosity.

This slaughter would not have been possible without local traitors to help them in planning and logistics. Do we have the courage to kill the enemy within our midst? Isnt the quintessential chalta hai (take it easy!!) attitude responsible for the current mess? We talk of corruption, corrupt politicians, but are unable to do anything because it needs collective action. One individual cannot do it. It has to be a mass movement and should start with the public servant's accountability to the Indian tax-payer and voter(s). Each voter has a right to petition for a "Reject Candidate Vote" which was lost when the electronic voting was bought in. Earlier one could stamp on two candidate and nullify one's vote as a form of rejection. With electronic votes that is impossible. So I am forced to vote for a candidate I dont like (or choose the lesser evil) or Not vote at all (which is not even an option imho). So do we really have it in us to stop corruption once and for all or are we going to turn the other way because it didnt happen to us. Why are we waiting instead of being proactive? It should be mandatory for every 18 year old person (including women) to serve in the military for a period of 10 years. That would give people a real life perspective and force them to be more patriotic and live *equally* as common citizens which is not the case now.

In all this I feel sad for Moshe, the 2-year old orphan ...i wonder if he will ever overcome the trauma of his parents brutal murder just two days before his birthday. That will be a horrific fact he will have to relive all his life just days before his birthday each year. How cruel !!

|| living your dream ||

VID — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:58:00 +0530

I must've read Randy's Last lecture a zillion times, for moving me personally and yet kept postponing this blog entry. My take-away .......

And as you get older, you may find that “enabling the dreams of others” thing is even more fun.

Is that when you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted

Loyalty is a two way street.

...now I wonder if I will ever muster the courage needed to send that email !!!

|| the taj of terror ||

VID — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:10:00 +0530

Now that the 60-hour Taj seige by terrorists in downtown Mumbai is finally over its time to take stock of the past present and future events.

PAST

Terrorism has never been new to India and although lakhs of Indians have been killed in terrorist attacks in India ever since the Kashmir problem escalated in the 1980's, India has never got the world's attention or sympathy when it came to acknowledging across the border state-sponsored-terrorism. Besides the fact that our governments dont give a damn about Indian citizens, the US, UK and every other developed nation always ignored us screaming that Pakistan was a petri-dish for mushrooming terrorism. The US always had a soft (blind) spot for Pakistan because of the latter's support during the Cold War and showed their gratitude with billions of dollars in Financial aid and the decades old green-card lottery system, whereby 50,000 visas each year would be doled out to Pakistani men who could later bring their spouses and family members on a dependent visa whilst educated Indians had to make do with a cap on the H1 visas annually. I came across a former Intelligence chief Vikram Sood's blog entry on Terrorism which makes an interesting read.

PRESENT

The Pakistani terrorists were able to strike at will as they had complete terrain knowledge especially the Taj Hotel and it was only when the terrorists singled out Americans and Britishers and Jews that the world smelt the coffee. 'Kashmir is just an excuse to kill at will in the name of religion'.

The Jews came to India more than 2000 years ago and one of my neighbour(s) in Mumbai was a Jewish family, which was my second home and I can never forget that they would never eat non-veg in my presence out of respect for my beliefs. Even my non-veg eating Hindu friends have never respected my beliefs as much as they did !!

One captured terrorist admits that they thought they would return to Pakistan alive and didnt know it was a suicidal mission. Duh.... anyone with half a brain would know that the moment you pick up a gun you become a terrorist, and for someone who has no qualms about killing other human beings, he wants the mercy of life for himself. The suicidal mission was well-planned some months ago when they had visited Mumbai pretending to be Malaysian students. By breaking it up into small modules with each unit having 'need to know basis' information, the Pakistani bosses had ensured that brainwashed souls would be remote-controlled at every stage and re-create an Indian 9/11.

FUTURE

Terrorists do not believe in the philosophy of any religion ...they are just selfish in action and motives, either professional or political. India has never been good at politics and has always been bad at selling itself, the lack of spy intelligence notwithstanding. Our political parties will never take a stand and reach a consensus on tackling terrorism firmly. Rather they will indulge in debates about terrorism which will turn into a debate about Muslims being a minority in India, which directly benefits the terrorists. When will our so called secular politicians come out of this false cocoon and face terrorism with conviction without worrying about vote-bank politics ?!

While the politicians will have to bury their hatchets and work for a national agenda, we also need a neutral media which has the guts to focus on the truth and not just sensationalism and regional appeasement tactics to get maximum viewer ratings. The likes of Shabana Azmi, Arundhati Roy, Teesta Setelvad and Barkha Dutt could do well and stop insulting our intelligence with their biased babble. Do they have the courage to live the life of a military commando or that of good officer(s) who get killed due to poor quality bullet-proof jackets in the line of duty ? Ofcourse not... instead we are bombarded with their brainless chatter from those cosy news-rooms 24/7. For a change the media could focus on facts instead of sensationalism and minute-by-minute analysis. Why do we forget history in the form of the unforgettable hijack of Indian Airlines IC184 where we were unfortunately negotiating with terrorists and who can forget the time V.P.Singh released a dreaded terrorist Masood Azhar for securing the release of Rubbaiya Sayyed in Kashmir who went on to setup the LeT.

Today we are glued to the moving images on TV but tomorrow as a nation we just move on, certainly not any wiser or more unified on the issue of weeding out terrorism. We conveniently forget about it till the next episode. That is our history and unfortunately this horrific incident is no less tragic than the gazillion terrorist attacks all over India but our esteemed politicians will grab media bytes to lob accusations and counter-accusations on who is more serious about fighting terrorism than actually doing something about it. Will we ever learn from history ?!

Atleast let's not forget to pay our tributes to the military martyrs and their counterparts - the civilian heroes.

UPDATE : Wanted by Interpol, sheltered by Pakistan and Dubai, Dawood Ibrahim, provided logistics to the terrorists. From the ET : "Instructions were passed on to the jihadis outside using satellite phones. Also, some terrorists were tracking the movements of ATS officers on TV and accordingly instructed the jihadis located closeby to attack them. Even after the agencies realised this and switched off the cable/satellite TV feed to the hotels, the terrorists continued to get updates from their local handlers having access to TV channels". Besides, they were also instructed to kill till death and used Google Earth Maps for geo locations of their targets. Apparently four terrorists are still believed to be at large and a hunt is on for them..... Scary and depressing !!

|| mumbai 11/26 ||

VID — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:34:00 +0530

First, thanks to all those who mailed me to find out if I am ok and I realize I should have blogged but then...... its raining, cold and depressingly sick and ..well, never mind ! So although I moved out, half my life is still in Bombay and it was very upsetting to read that Mumbai has been held hostage yet again .... "The most audacious terror attack in Mumbai began Wednesday night, when militants attacked high profile landmarks, including the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, Oberoi Trident Hotel, Metro Theatre and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus) railway station." says NDTV.

Nothing new that all of these are landmarks especially when the terrorists had ample resources like google and yahoo maps to trace each path of attack and plan maximum damage physically and mentally. This is not just Mumbai's 9/11 as this time the terrorists targeted British and American nationals and not just the aam aadmi (common Indian)..... " The involvement of westerners, including Americans, Britons and Israelis as victims and hostages in the ordeal also ensured greater coverage than usual with US experts trying to connect the dots and link the attack to Kashmir and al-Qaida, and its possible repercussions on United States." says the TOI.

Their planning and accuracy shows the goal was to instill fear and dread within the Indian economy and business industry. Although Indian lives may be cheap, its nice to note that the US and EU dont treat their citizens as dispensable objects. But since I dont have very high expectations from the Indian ~~government~~ political parties as this terrorist attack will be used as another vote-garnering tool for the next elections.

I have no great solution or suggestions to a very large problem that is now poised to be a world problem and the US would indeed be smart if it stopped doling out 'development aid' to Pakistan. Its not difficult to see how your Financial Aid Dollars create a (b)lasting impact. Another root cause of all of India's problems and evil is CORRUPTION and until such time that every citizen does not learn ethics and values, to say "NO Bribes", we will accelerate the downward spiral. The same goes for foreign businesses that come to India. Take a stand, say NO to corruption and kickbacks. Life is circular.... and I'm done with Mumbai !!

Updated the title to 11/26, not 28.

|| linuxchix & bengaluru-LUG dinner ||

VID — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:59:00 +0530

IndiChix and Ilug-Bengaluru are having yet another dinner meetup at MG road today. An earlier meet was at the ThoughtWorks office and I hope they are kind enough to allow us to use the place in future too !! Granted, last week its was a farewell dinner but the fact that this is the fourth meetup in one month is a good sign of a live 'n kickin group !

Date: Wednesday 26th November 2008
Time: 1900hrs (That's 7o'clock in the evening!)
Place: Hotel Shelton Grand - MG Road/ Church Street @ 24hr Coffee Shop - BTDT (Been There Done That)
Food: All you can eat Buffet for INR.199+taxes = INR.235 (all inclusive)

Directions to the Dinner meet : The Shelton Grand entrance on MG Road is right next to the Deccan Herald office and they have a vertical neon light which should be viewable from a distance. They also have an entrance on church street in case you want to park on Church Street/Museum Rd/Resthouse Rd and walk to the venue.

The IndicChix mailing list has the map details so go register using the link therein. Feel free to join us and pass the word around....See you there !!!

|| zazen ||

VID — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 23:01:00 +0530

It was a feeling of déjà vu all the way. Living with a Frantic Tornado means one gets to hear a "you are not helping me!!" cry very often. How is it possible for a FT to have a yen for numbers, math and logic and yet forget keys just beats me alltogether.... Is that the complexity of the human brain and the way each individual processes information ?...i dunno but would love to decipher this one !! Meanwhile, my suggestion to tie a small bell to the keyring was shot down coldly.

UPDATE : her lip theory is another hoot !!

|| hit a nerve ||

VID — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 16:26:00 +0530

................ do not want to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

|| hdd health ||

VID — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 09:35:00 +0530

Noel wrote a nice article on smartmontools, a tool to detect and warn of impending disk failures, a must have if you like to maintain your system.

Adding the line "sudo hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda" in my /etc/rcS.d file to reduce the Load_Cycle_Count (ID#193) results in the Temperature overshooting the limit (it should not be more than 45ºC). This is apparently not good for the disk health. Activating laptop-mode means it fails to function in the battery mode....not nice either!!

According to Noel :

hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda causes that your disk can NOT spin down nor make any kind of power management. Remember always that every single KiloWatt-hour you spend in your computer (or any piece of it, like a hard disc) is a KiloWatt-hour that turns into heat and a KiloWatt-hour you must manage with the cooling system. I strongly suggest against that kind of aggresive performance setting except for dedicated servers in 24×7 attended rooms.

I suggest changing the hdparm value to 127 (or simply to delete that line) AND to better ventilate the disc.

It seems, folks at seagate forums have been complaining about it too... So is there another solution available to protect laptop disks from frequent head (un)parking AND managing temperature at the same time or are they mutually not feasible in SMART?

Forgot to add about the Bengaluru LUG met yesterday (which was my first LUG meet in this city, the earlier meets being FSUG meets) with Sriram, Kingsly, Rajshekhar, Sandip Bhattacharya, Deepika and me in attendance. The tasty lunch kept up an interesting exchange on a lazy Saturday afternoon and I need to find a way to stay away from Cauvery on MGRoad.

|| vijaya dashami ||

VID — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:58:00 +0530

Vijaya Dashami/Dashera heralds the end of Navaratri (and nine nights of dancing :-)) and DurgaPuja. But most importantly for students dashami marks the anniversary of being one ... My respects to one of my past guru's!

Hmm,... well the correct version is : "vijaya dashami' is the first day (of learning, or vidyarambha) for any classical arts student. This is the day a new student visits the teachers home (with guru dakshina and tambula) and requests her/him to accept them as a student. A tip : on any other day the guru may reject to accept you if s/he finds you are not up to the mark, but this day is such that they will not turn any student away.

Although the ritual is small and should not take more than a few minutes, it can (and does) stretch for an hour(s) or more when hundreds of students throng the teacher's home, so one has to wait for one's turn. Students who learn dance + an instrument, or multiple forms of art have a mad rush between 3-4 teacher's homes and lotsa patient waiting

The best part of it all is getting to eat 'sweet chundal' but by the time we went it was over :-( but our guruji had made salty ones for us and it tasted just like Ma makes it so I didnt care so long as i got to eat it and she taught a new song [named Sarasvati, after the Raga] after we sang an old one. Talking of music, some time ago, I had started a wiki page on NCVasanthakokilam and her song 'yen palli konder ayyaa' reminds me that i need to get out of my slumber and finish the Mohanam raga notes soon.

Sending out hundreds of dashera sms's was not such a good idea afterall ... weirdly half the messages got deferred and some group messages were just dropped ... I really dont feel like texting/thumbing again, so Shubh Dashera y'all !!

|| reply to comment ||

VID — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:17:00 +0530

My previous post, elicted a fairly long clarification from Tejas (thanks) and since a tiny comment box is insufficient for a reply, here goes...

TEJAS: I whole heartedly agree. FOSS.IN is one of many many many indian FOSS events. Many of these FOSS events have a completely different focus than FOSS.IN

ME: Right, different events should have different focus. As I wrote earlier "Maybe the intention is generate more blue-blooded kernel code from India. Good for them". Any private event organiser has carte blanch freedom to decide the focus for his event, even at the risk of alienating the same community which contributes to the distro he uses. I suppose the distro you use would indeed be very usable minus the artwork, translation and other assorted grunt work since they are NOT considered equivalent to "real code".

Freedom works both ways and the Libre community users, contributors, and other by-standers who do the grunt work will either decide to attend if they feel wanted, else boycott the event. It would be their choice, hence freedom (as in speech).

TEJAS: Team FOSS.IN, like the head of other major FOSS projects is a meritocracy. I joined the team after I volunteered in 2005, and was asked to lead the volunteers team in subsequent years. If someone wanted to be on Team FOSS.IN, they should have proven themselves in some way. And in fact, that is how every member of the team was picked up.

ME: Great to know that. BUT This is the kind of financial transparency one expects in any community event, especially if it is touted as the biggest free software event of the Indian community. It is wonderfully organised event IMO, with due credit to all the volunteers hard work. Well, feel free to talk to anyone across the world who is involved in organising and managing a LIBRE software community event, where openness and transparency is the norm. Be it Debconf, linux.conf.au, or any other Libre SW event, where every part of organising the event is always discussed publicly (which usually includes the bidding, finance and sponsorship rates,etc...) within the community and public archived. From what I have heard of foss.in, this is not a practice followed BUT being an organiser you would be in a better position to throw light on whether this was (or is) being done with foss.in. So please do provide links (or archive url's on the foss.in mailing list?) to those discussions and I shall update my blog entry to reflect your corrections.

[UPDATE : Being a community project the Gnome foundation openly discusses its budget on the mailing list whilst candidate elections to the board is yet another example of a transparent process. Fwiw, past foundation members include Indians too. Some upstream best practices are worth emulating locally too.]

TEJAS: It isn't elitist arrogance. We are focusing on FOSS development efforts. There are enough and more events all over india focusing on translation and bug fixing and so on and so forth.

ME: Please do define the terminology "FOSS development efforts" AND what would they entail? In your definition where do people who manage servers, do bug testing, do packaging, maintain order on the communication channels, help out with localization and translations and produce all those funky icons and beautiful artwork ; figure in the scheme of things?

For a lot of people the above is not a part of earning daily bread...read, they are NOT paid but they do it nevertheless because _they want to_, not because foo-bar MNC is paying them as part of the day job to hack on the kernel or translate 500 strings per day. If people who really work for free (no salary gain) are not welcome, it is propagating the elitist and arrogant stance that only a kernel hacker is a real contributor and the rest are worthless. While you/foss.in are free (as in speech, not beer) to focus on anything you like, dismissing and insulting contributors by twisting terminology is not very friendly. Feel free to choose to ignore the difference, whence, we are not even discussing things on the same page.

TEJAS: Every event, has a focus. That's what makes it a memorable event. The focus of FOSS.IN has been becoming narrower and narrower, as other events have been coming up.

ME: I've replied to this earlier so wont repeat it.

TEJAS: In 2007, FOSS.IN strictly had no talks that were not related to some FOSS project, and about getting involved (ie, there were no more "How to get FOSS in govt" and "How to get FOSS in education" talks). By this time, there were a stack of other community events, a few of which Team FOSS.IN offered to sponsor (as a silent sponsor)

ME: I know, I attended them.

TEJAS: In 2008, we have reached the stage where there are loads of community events out there, and FOSS.IN can focus on what it wants.

ME: TBH, Tejas, I would have thought that is a decision for the community to make. Anyway my objection is about foss.in giving credence to only kernel commits (in which case it should be called a kernel-summit), rather the objection arises when you start judging others contributions and whether it fits your objective or idea of what a true contribution is. That is arrogant and unfriendly and helps alienate and push the community people away. You are a better judge of your event goals but its NOT ok to judge others by your yardstick.

IMO it is a very well organized event. BUT 'Freedom' is no excuse to diss on contributors who dont measure upto YOUR standards. That is negative community karma but if that is the route the event organiser wishes to take, so be it. There is not a single upstream project which discriminates so blatantly, under the guise of increasing contributions. Either way the local community will vote with their freedom : to attend or not. Fair enough.

TEJAS: Does the indian public really need one more event on the same thing? It's quite simple.

ME: See above

TEJAS: I think you, like so many other people, are missing the definition of (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/...) "Low Hanging Fruit"

ME: Oh, NOT at all !! Other than questioning the English skills of everyone who protested, questioning their sanity, and falling short of irreverently dismissing them as 'dumb' or calling them 'stupid', Mr. Atul Chitnis was just being his usual arrogant, egoistical and dismissive self. Old stuff, nothing unexpected (...and I say that from first-hand experience, as the recipient of archived abuse on the Indichix list, in the not too recent past).

TEJAS: I don't see how this is remotely true. Every single detail of this change has been explained in the various lists. Just because we made a decision you didn't like doesn't make us a closed and non-transparent conference.

ME: Feel free to make any decision you like but dont confuse that with openness and transparency in community functionings. For the rest of your charge, Ditto from above ..... BUT This is the kind of transparency one expects in an event, especially if it is touted as the biggest free software event in India, albeit a wonderfully organised event IMO, with due credit to all the volunteers hard work. Well, feel free to talk to anyone across the world who is involved in organising and managing a LIBRE software event, where openness and transparency is the norm. Be it Debconf, linux.conf.au, or any other Libre SW event, where every part of organising the event is always discussed publicly (which usually includes the bidding, finance and sponsorship rates,etc...) within the community and public archived. From what I have heard of foss.in, this is not a practice followed BUT being an organiser you would be in a better position to throw light on whether this was (or is) being done with foss.in. So please do provide links (or archive url's on the foss.in mailing list?) to those discussions and I shall update my blog entry to reflect your corrections.

TEJAS: I'm sorry that you feel this way. I'd encourage you to form another event, with another focus, if you feel that is appropriate.

ME: Thanks for the encouragement, but as you said there are many events and its much more productive to redirect the 600 bucks there instead. I'm sure I'll hear a 'thankyou' at the very least.

TEJAS: Let me just warn you, from personal experience, that leading a volunteer team (which is exactly what FOSS.IN is) is a LOT of hard work. Often working sleepless nights on the CfP when you have an exam next day, and start studying for it at four in the morning. Do you know why we do it? Because at the end of the day, we know that we ARE boosting the contributions from India. Last time we boosted the number of contributors. This time, we are boosting the volume.

ME: Would love to see the latter happen but like others have said people who are contributing will continue to do so, despite being unwelcome at foss.in. Anyway, whatever gave you the impression that another volunteer does not put in hardwork ..... just because its not kernel code?

|| vegetarian contributors musings ||

VID — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:12:00 +0530

What constitutes contribution in a Libre software project?

I had attended foss.in 2007 for the first time because LinuxChix-India had a BoF and most importantly to meet friends who were speakers and gave talks. I also attended talks on some topics which were of interest to me personally. This year, ever since the organisers have taken a "holier than thou", "show me the code (and only 'real code' counts)" route, there has been a lot of heated debate over this partisan attitude. Christian, your analysis is spot on, but here are some facts :

#1. This is not the only major Libre event in India.

- The organisers team at foss.in, for the most part, hardly changes and is never publicly elected, let alone publicly discussed. Its definitely unfair to compare it with other international conferences like Fossdem, Debconf, http://linux.conf.au/ and suchlike nor compare it with other Indian events mentioned below.

- Each year, Indians are treated to fossconf.in@Chennai, Freed.in@Delhi, mukt.in@Hyderabad (at which i spoke) and Gnunify@Pune, among the various local events held contiguously all over India. Its unfair to bill these events as any less since they are free, open and transparent. Besides, the biggest issue some of these events face is chasing sponsors before each event. Why? Well every big IT company out there, does not want to support small libre community events in India, a blinkered attitude IMHO.

Ideally every major IT firm _should_ be encouraging the smaller events to grow and creating variety by sponsoring freedom. This will reduce the pressure the volunteers undergo in worrying about 'funds', 'management', and suchlike. Another possibility is to hold a debconf or fossconf event in India but that is tough for a lot of reasons.

So why not sponsor {add project name here} speakers/participants for smaller events like gnunify, mukt.in and freed, which will increase interaction and participation in the local Indian community!!

#2. Contributions, Freedom and you.

- Secondly Christian, maybe the organisers goal is NOT to encourage more "Karolin, Ana, Miriam or Clytie to be part of Indian FLOSS game" but well, they are free to promote elitist arrogance, even if women's groups have been fighting against it all these years and succeeded just about to make libre software projects more inclusive and friendly.

- Most major projects encourage contributions such as localization, packaging and bug squashing which are important tasks in the evolution of a libre software project. Apparently _that_ is not good enough and foss.in wants to focus on people who code and only 'real' code while condemning bug testers, translators and such like which according to their definition are low hanging fruits (read un-important tasks?). Maybe the intention is generate more blue-blooded kernel code from India. Good for them.

Aditya Godbole summed it up quite well here among other folks who dared to raise their dissentive voices (but I feel lazy to scout for links on a Sunday afternoon). He is partly right, one ought to think if you really need a conference to prove oneself !?

The beauty of the Libre community is such that *you* get to decide how much you want to contribute. Just as they are free to dismiss "low-hanging" fruits, we are just as free to attend another conference which is truly free, open and transparent. So if one wants to contribute please go *directly* to the respective project and start whatever work you want to do according to your time constraints and interest.

That said, I would respect those who respect me, my time and my contributions. If someone thinks my contributions dont measure upto their blue-blooded standards, its their choice, just as I can choose how I spend my 600 bucks this year. Being a vegetarian, i dont eat omlette's, but fruits are very good for health so join us and help us pick some low-hanging fruits, There's more... but I guess you know your way around Libre software projects by now which is freedom defined by you

|| india inc ||

VID — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:45:00 +0530

Is India, increasingly portrayed as the fastest growing economy in Asia, the best place to do business with ??! What is the ground reality for a business (it could be a startup in the manufacturing industry) when a CEO is murdered in broad daylight, abetted by an inactive police. Instead of booking the murdering criminals the labour minister warns the industry ...for what ... conducting business and generating employment?? Maybe the negative impact on foreign investment will pass the message across in future. Sadly, this too will be forgotten after a few days when the media finds another juicer piece of news.

If the ministers reaction is intended to provide more spark by indirectly telling people to take law into their own hands, it works very well. What would they have done if an Indian newspaper had advertised Mandela, DalaiLama and Gandhi (will someone tell Jyllandsposten its not spelt as Ghandi) like the Nordic Jyllandsposten did?? Salil Tripathi opines that these Jyllands-Posten " life is easier, if you don’t speak up" ads are intended to send a message across to Muslims across the world that if Indians, Tibetians and South Africans around the world are not offended by the posters then they should not take law into their own hands.

My guess is that there will be Indian people who will find offence with those posters because its so easy to overlook the philosophy like satyagraha, truth, no corruption or ahimsa, which Gandhi (recycled from the older B.Gita and Upanishads) propagated than deal with mundane issues like poverty and terrorism. Today, dont be too surprised to see Gandhi benignly smiling at you from the portrait on the wall he is hung on, in a government office, whilst the employee sitting under the duly garlanded photograph asks you for bakshish/chai pani (== bribe).... Welcome to modern India!!

The movie, Gandhi - My Father explores Gandhi’s role within his family and Akshay Khanna (would love to see AK pair up with Aamir Khan in the play Mee Nathuram Godse boltoy which is N.Godse's perspective on why he did what he did) brought to life what we had never learnt in school or wrote in examination answer sheets but always knew, the humane side of Gandhi -- the spectacular failure he was as a father whilst being hailed as India's Father (Bapu). How ironical and yet he has morals and a strong character and many qualities worth emulating, which are (sadly) completely absent in modern politicians.

|| linuxchix jobposts list ||

VID — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:27:00 +0530

At the OCC meetup on Sunday, I met folks who mentioned the tough time they had finding women who were comfortable working on the Linux platform in their startups. Naturally I asked them to use the job-posts list at LinuxChix if they were not picky about a physical presence in Bangalore.

WHAT is ... ?

LinuxChix is global, and Job-posts can do better if we have a bigger range of jobs, thence being the resource for LC'xers all over the world in the computing field. As a company you can advertise junior and intermediate positions on this list.

WHAT to do?

Post your job requirements to jobposts AT linuxchix DOT org ! (You do NOT need to be subscribed to mail us-- even if you are, your message will be held for approval, so there's no point subscribing.) Even if your job is open to, say, Indian citizens only and requires that people move to Bangalore without relocation expenses, that's OK (although you should state that in your mail-ad).

If you are looking to hire for your company, just send a copy of your ad to jobposts@linuxchix.org with this information ::

- specify the country you are in and if international applicants are eligible to apply.

- would they need to relocate to your city/country, etc...

- do you accept applicants without current work visas (or telecommuters).

- provide an email id people doing the hiring can be contacted.

UPDATE : a longer set of guidelines for this list is available here.

|| bengaluru deserves better ||

VID — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:54:00 +0530

The Airport Authority of India says that BIAL airport is already saturated and so does the experience of hundreds of passengers, a few of whom get this platform to air their grievances. Harish Bhat, COO of Titan Industries, has a very interesting take on the Bengaluru airport's toilets. Among other grievances he mentions important factors like travel-to-airport time, space, functionality, aesthetics, etc.. which press releases always ignore.

Strangely the wikipedia page on BIAL has only glowing reports and nothing negative about the company in the wikipage. It has no links to the negative press reports at all. Checking the wiki page history shows edits by just IP's and not a registered user. I wonder why???? Is this their spin doctor (PR agency : Macromedia Research And Development Private Ltd ???) at work again using fake mail-ID's to leave anonymous comments on my earlier blog entry.

In one interview to the press, Mr.Brunner, the CEO, openly states that they are looking to commercialise the 4000 acres of land given by the Indian government. So did the government give BIAL 4000 acres of land to make profits at the expense of the Indian taxpayer? He blames everyone else (ground handlers SATS, to the taxi service, other agencies, etc..) for all of Bial's problems except perhaps their shoddy planning. He says : "Peak-hour capacity (is what matters)". According to the CEO airlines should fly during non-peak hours (ala 24/7). Pray, how many people want to travel by the 2:00AM ETD Bangalore-Delhi domestic flight?

Would Mr. Brunner be able to construct an apology - like BIAL - for an airport in Europe and call it International....worse, they are now pressuring the government to allow them to charge an additional User Development Fee of Rs.675 (plus 12.36% service tax) per passenger who uses the BIAL airport. Gah, 770 bucks for an airport that does not even have adequate restrooms, charges 400 rupees per HOUR for parking charges, and has snacks bars where the average cost of a patties or pastry is between Rs.50-85 bucks. Whoa, that is some mega money sucking giant there!!!

Since the Karnataka government found Bial airport is not up to the mark, it can restrict BIAL to only International flights and reopen the old HAL airport for domestic routes. THAT would make better business sense for domestic travellers. Even Infosys is not happy with Bial, and yet the high court stayed the August 18 order by a full Bench of the Karnataka Information Commission (KIC), which had declared BIAL as a public authority covered by the RTI Act, 2005.

If infrastructure projects meant for the public, using public taxayers money are not accountable and will not come under the Right to Information Act, the best recourse is to stop privatising infrastructure projects and keeping the government accountable under the RTI. Indian cities dont need basic infrastructure like airports, railways and bus stations which are 100 kilometers outside the city limits. THAT is NOT smart city planning at all !! Please stop trying to fool citizens with sugar-coated words about infrastructure projects gone wrong! Its the tax-payers money being wasted by private companies, hence inexcusable!

|| open coffee club bengaluru ||

VID — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:39:00 +0530

I wrote this in July'08 but for a lot of reasons it had to wait to see the light of the day... or maybe attending yet-another-OCC meet today motivated me enough to push out my draft, finally

What is OCC?

OpenCoffee Club is a regular, open and informal meeting place for people involved in bootstrapping or yet-another-startup to meet. It was started in London by Saul Klein and now has mushroomed into various independent OCC groups around the world (and we still keep Saul in the loop). In Bangalore Vaibhav and Ramjee sowed the initial seeds with a mailing list in August 2007 and a year on we have grown and how !!! Being a 'social networking site challenged' person, i categorize myself in the old-fashioned mailing list kinda person vis-a-vis reading TEXT mails in one convenient place - my mailbox BUT yet we needed a space online. So we now have our very own website, a wiki and a blog ; in addition to the mailing list which has grown to 800 members in the last year. wOw !!

OCC is purely volunteer driven and each of us is a stakeholder in promoting it, expanding it and creating a buzz so to speak. It does not own or have a permanent meeting space but (going by Saul's initial idea) our meetings are very regular. In Bangalore we meet biweekly, on Sunday's at 10.30AM at venues which alternate quite a bit so keep track of the same on the m-list (an existing member has to invite you). Did I mention that its a FREE (as in cost) event to attend.

What happens?

OCC meets are by nature unstructured and un-conference like. So we DONT have formal presentations (too boring, right?), ppt's or long lectures or product demos. Typically at one of these meets you can introduce and talk about yourself, your idea (or the lack of it :-P), find a co-founder, jam up with a person who is just as lost as you are and find direction, get answers or feedback for your product and idea, criticise an idea, find incubators for your idea, share unsolicited advice with others, or get another perspective for your product from a complete stranger and the fun-nest part is the networking, the meeting, the getting to know people. It definitely gives you a perspective of all the good stuff that is happening out there and opens your mind to various possibilities. So dont be very surprised to find a person talking about YOUR great Idea that s/he is already working on ... it happens, all the time !!

Who attends?

Bootstrapping entrepreneurs many have similar issues and if you are an existing, or doubtful, yet wannabe entrepreneur and want to meet-up with like minded crazy people, be sure to show up for the biweekly Sunday meets. Being a part of the OCC ecosystem means you can go to cities all over the world and get to know more people, know which places (and at what times) you will most likely meet other entrepreneurs. We also have many venture capital firm partners who are regulars at some of these meets. Bangalore with its technology professionals, IT companies and bootstrapping entrepreneurs is the hot-spot for angel investors (which we have less of in India), incubators and VC's.

Why is OCC different ??

The USP of OCC is its free-flowing, unconference style format and is one of the main attractions for me. I find formal events which tend to strait-jacket the listener to listen to yet-another-technical-product-presentation very boring, but that's me. Luckily we have a lot of other pro-entrepreneur events catering to different tastes and a mighty bit of of overlap, in terms of people, with Barcamp and Headstart/Startup Saturday, although to their credit they have a different format and cater to a different niche in the entrepreneur ecosystem. Just like HS and Barcamp, OCC is a FREE networking event and we dont charge you to come and go yakkity- yak about your cool startup, product or service.

Tips to Remember !!

As is with any unconference-styled event, the signal-to-noise ratio is quite high and at times it can get frustrating when people misuse the platform. Here are some tips to guide you to being unto others as you would like them to be to you Please remember :

+ Dont spam the list : OCC is not a medium or platform to advertise yourself, or your company or your product/service for free or a job portal so please dont spam 800 people with CV's. Its going to annoy 800+ members and just imagine if each of them decided to return the favor. Sounds scary doesnt it? -- so help us help you create value for your time and ours too !

+ Volunteer : Since we function purely on self-driven adrenalin, drive and initiative we are never short on ideas but are constantly short on willing hands to help us out. These could be in the form of creating content for the website, or adding content to the wiki or the blog.

+ @Meets : If the meet is at a local restaurant/bar/club, please do remember that the restaurant/club owner is doing us a favor by allowing the group to use his premises for 2 hours and at the very least we should BUY drinks or food (and please SETTLE the BILL before you leave) in exchange for having used THEIR space for more than 2 hours.

Pan India network !

OCC is now present in 8 cities in India - Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi, Noida, Kolkata. Here is a list of the existing OCC-India network. If I have missed any , please leave a comment. If you want to start one in your city, go ahead and tell us about it so we can keep a track of how we grow.

OCC-India (feed for the pan-Indian OCC network) : http://pipes.yahoo.com/siddhi/occindia

Delhi ~ http://occdelhi.ning.com/main/
Noida ~ http://groups.google.com/group/occnoida/about
Kolkata ~ http://groups.google.com/group/occ-kolkata/about
Pune ~ http://punestartups.ning.com/
Hyderabad ~ http://hyderabadopencoffee.ning.com/
Bangalore ~ http://groups.google.com/group/bangaloreocc
Chennai ~ http://chennaiopencoffee.ning.com/
Mumbai ~ http://groups.google.com/group/opencoffeeclubatmumbai/
~~OCC-Mumbai is missing so please leave a comment if you have the link.~~ [updated thanks to Mitesh]

In summation, at OCC there are no experts doling out gyan (knowledge/advice) since each of us helps bolster the other person by creating a shareable network of knowledge and an interactive ecosystem. So go for it !!

|| SFDweek in bengaluru ||

VID — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 19:37:00 +0530

At our last meeting we decided that SFD-2008 will stretch into Software Freedom Week in Bangalore.

From tomorrow ...

2008Sept20 : SFD with students at ChristUniversity from noon to 3pm.

2008Sept24 : Its time to say STOP SOFTWARE PATENTS on World day against Software patents.

2008Sept25: BMSE SFD Celebrations organised by BMSLUG and SUN Club.

2008Sept27 : Gnu turns 25 and you can sing Happy B'day Gnu at RV College which is organizing the 25th Anniversary.

Besides these FSUG-Bangalore in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society are conducting an essay competition all over Karnataka state for school students. Check the wiki page for regular updates on SFWeek.