As the countdown begins for another Women’s Day, I have a few thoughts that are bouncing around in my head. So here I go.

The buzzword that is heard around these days is women empowerment. For women to be empowered, independent & free of any form of oppression is essential for a positive evolution of the society. The blame for women not being any of these has traditionally been dumped on the males. The Indian society has long had a patriarchal setup, which had gone unquestioned for centuries. Even laws like the Hindu Marriage Act, and the Hindu Undivided Family Act had been biased for several years in the favor of men. Now this is all changed. CBSE has made the Mother’s name an entry with equal importance as the Father’s name, a women has equal power, and can demand her fair share in family property or her husband’s property.

The number of educated women in the country has gone up. More and more women are taking up higher education, and becoming doctors, engineers, lawyers et al. The Times of India in its buildup to Women’s Day writes, “Its a women’s world!!”

Is it?
Read the rest of this entry »

I have the following message coming up when I log in to my flickr account:

Hey ashchopra! About your photos…

You’ve run into one of the limits of a free account. Your free account will only display the most recent 200 photos you’ve uploaded. All of your photos beyond 200 will remain hidden from view until you either delete newer photos, or upgrade to a Pro account.

None of your photos have been deleted, and if you upgrade, they’ll all come back unharmed.

So basically, if I ever want to see all my snaps, I better pay Yahoo $25…hmm….sounds like one of those extortion calls we hear so much of in the movies. Shame on you Yahoo. If you are so short of cash, maybe you should have let Microsoft buy you out!!

Bad bad yahoo…!!!!! No $25 for you!!!

Wondering why states in North-East get so little media coverage on any news channel, even when they seem to have loads of reporters lying around to cover irrelevant news like celebrity love affairs & the like?

Sitting on the floor on Nik’s home with his family a day before his wedding, I wonder what is it that actually keeps such a big family together. The one immediate clarification I need to make here is that Nik’s family is not a joint family, where all members are staying in the same large house. The family is very much scattered, with relatives living all over Gujarat, Mumbai & some even abroad. With this diversely located family, I was amazed when I heard that the family always came together for important occasions.

So I caught up with Nik’s mama(maternal uncle), and got him talking about his family. How were they managing to stay together so close, even though they were physically living at far off places. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the name of the latest music band on the block. Their music, well, easy listening, smooth with lots of acoustic guitars playing all over. So why does it have me interested?

Because this band is Indian! Yes, believe it or not, we finally have an Indian band that belts out easy listening songs in English. We did have bands who were more into the heavier rock & metal, but I do not recall any Indian band that sings so clean, and has music that is easy to listen and that could appeal to the masses.

Now, where is a b(r)and manager when you actually need one?

This is what this band is up to. So what do you think?

Learn more about this band & its members at Gigpad

Update: If you want to listen to more of this band, visit their profile at MySpace

Blogging has been around for quite a few years now. From technical evangelism to personal ramblings, blogs serve as a media where one is free to write what one wishes. However, after all these years of having blogs around, it is time we ask ourselves, how important is this media to the society? Can a blog really act as an agent of social change? Is all the new media that is mushrooming around us really useful towards our society?

We are set to ask these questions on 14th Feb in Delhi. The Delhi Blog & New Media Society cordially invites you to a seminar on “Blogs: How important are they to society?”, where we discuss all the questions raised above, and try to find ways in which blogs & new media can acts as catalysts for social change. Please consider this as a personal invitation to the event. The event details are as below:

Event Structure:
Bloggers have shown themselves to be a force for change globally, and this is coming true in India too as some examples have shown in the recent past. Going forward, what can bloggers do to play their roles as citizen journalists of change? We will discuss this in an interactive session divided into the following parts:
* Cases of how bloggers have been instruments of change
* Best Journalistic principles and practices to follow for bloggers
* How bloggers can collaborate to make it happen

Date: Thursday, February 14, 2008
Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Location: Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre
Street: Lodhi Road
City/Town: New Delhi

There is no participation/entry fee for the event.

In case you are coming over, kindly leave a comment here so we can have an idea of the attendance.

Do come over, and put your opinion on how blogs are important to our society. See you there!!

Continued from Part I

26-Jan-2008:

The air-conditioned bus had a gamble involved. I had the option of going for a semi-sleeper or a full sleeper berth. Knowing that I am not very comfortable in buses, I decided on the semi-sleeper option. Now luck played its game with me. Read the rest of this entry »

The land of Gandhi and Modi beckoned me in late January, for the wedding of my closest college friend Nik. I was looking forward to this trip, one because it had been over four years since we had met, and second coz I wanted to see a Gujarati family function up close and personal.

This post will be divided in three parts, the first part(this one) is about my first evening in Ahmedabad, the second part would be about the Nik’s wedding ceremonies and gandhidham & the third would be my learnings from a big Gujarati family that sticks together.

Parts I & II were written on my mobile phone on the spot, & I will reproduce them in verbatim. Part III is where I search inside my empty head

Here goes part I Read the rest of this entry »

In the second ad review, I take a look at the HCL ad that has been on air for a while. HCL technologies is a software outsourcing company in the vast Indian IT space. Take a look at the ad first, before proceeding to read the review.

Now this ad portrays software professionals in very bad light. Being a part of the fraternity, I can certainly say that software engineers are not the self-loving baboons that this ad shows them as. The overall temerity of the ad is taken to new heights at the end when there is an HCL branded chopper waiting to take the guy abroad!! If there was a chopper to pick up the guy, why did he need a ride to get to it in the first place? The ad makers probably thought the best way to highlight HCL’s work and achievements was to put an overconfident & preachy developer with an investment banker to ride to a helicopter. What were they thinking??

Relevance: * & 1/2
The question to ask here is, what is this ad relevant to? It fails to show HCLs technical prowess, it totally fails to establish its credentials as an employer in the IT industry & it confuses the viewers. I fail to find this ad being relevant in any space that an IT company might seek to target.

Acceptance: *
The IT community most certainly has not taken this ad very well. And I do not see why a potential HCL client would be attracted towards it by looking at this ad. There is little realism in this ad, made worse by the helicopter at the end (I am sure HCL employees don’t get any helicopter rides to “go overseas for a life sciences project”. Totally unacceptable.

Freshness: *
There is nothing really fresh about this ad. A lot of creative liberties could have been taken to highlight the technological prowess of a company, but this is really a plain jane ad. Boring & monotonous all the way through.

Nonsense Factor: ****
This is the only parameter this ad scores very highly on. The amount of nonsense dished out is magnificent. And it is bad nonsense, that drives a viewer up the wall. Most of the nonsense comes out of the passenger seat of the car, actually all of it comes from there. The final nail in the coffin is the helicopter. What I cannot understand is, if HCL can send a chopper to pick the guy up, why not give him a HCL taxi too to take him to the chopper. And make the whole ad a monologue, with the engineer babbling on to himself. Pathetic.

Recollection Factor: *
It is difficult to say if this ad is easy to remember. The amount of nonsense served can actually make you remember the ad very well, though for all the wrong reasons. I’d rather advise you to not remember this ad, it is poorly conceived and the execution is pathetic and cheap.

The final verdict for this ad? Poor, pathetic, pretentious, smug & in bad taste. Such an ad will do a huge damage to HCL’s image. If you don’t believe me, look at all the comments this ad gets on you tube here.

If I were HCL, I’d ask for my money back from the ad agency.

Do let me know your opinions on this ad, and which ad would you want reviewed next.

One of the forgotten legacies of the Father of the Indian nation, Mahatma Gandhi, was the talisman he gave to the masses. It goes,

I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.

But like Gandhi’s other ideals of peace & non-violence, has the talisman also faded away in the information age? Let me try and translate this talisman today for the corporate world.

Read the rest of this entry »