Lord Ganesha

Ganesh Chaturti (or Ganapati), is celebrated as the birthday of Lord Ganesha who is popularly known for his wisdom, power and auspiciousness in Hinduism.  On such an occasion, big idols of the elephant-faced Hindu God is decorated and worshiped. The festival is celebrated all over the country, but more enthusiastically amongst the Marathi Indians. They celebrate the festival continuously for 10 days making it the biggest, most opulent & a highly popular festival of the state Maharashtra. The festival ends on Ananta Chaturdasi Day (this year suppose to be September 2, 2009) when people in a huge procession carry the idols of Lord Ganesha and immerse it into the nearest water source invoking for his blessings.

This year’s Ganesh Chaturti date is August 23, 2009 (Yes, the Ganeshotsav celebration has already commenced and people are out of their home since early morning to pick up Ganapati idols ). And as you would join in the celebration, you will observe 2 major themes depicted through paintings, decorations, mannequins and tableaux across the pandals – 26/11 terrorist attack and swine flu.

This Ganeshotsav, the puja pandals in the city (here I’m basically talking about Mumbai) are all set to bring to the fore some of the recent occurrence that has left an indelible mark on the mind of the masses. Lately Pune has been reeling under the grip of swine flu cases and about a year back Mumbai city was scarred by the 26/11 terror attacks when all over the world people were facing difficult times in business due to the economic downturn. Apart from such highly hyped topics; the insufficient rain and the situation arising out of it have also managed to find a place amongst numbers of theme registered for this year’s celebrations.

Having discussed so much about Ganesh Chaturti and the celebration that accompanies the festival,  I had wish to draw your attention to a fact that a large section of the society is unaware or conveniently forget to think about — the pollution and environmental damage that plaster of paris idols and chemical paints cause due to immersing of the same into the water body. Before anyone opposes me on this idea, I had another mention to make. Widespread campaigns for eco-friendly Ganeshotsav is already on and some large Ganesha Pandal Committees have gone an extra mile (besides just pondering on the themes) to make this year’s celebration a memorable one with a demand of more Eco-friendly idols and statues. WE appreciate the organizers of the Ganesh Chaturti 2009. Great effort and appreciated by all humans throughout for giving a special thought for ‘OUR Environment’ which is another issue of concern for the coming generation (will be discussing about it in details in the coming posts ).

Is swine flu panic marring Ganapati celebrations?

Although government is taking stringent measures to contain the swine flu and the health authorities are optimistic about the happenings, still swine flu is successful to an extent in dampening the spirit of the festival. By the end of the last week, on Saturday, the toll number from swine flu climbed to 34 from the state Maharashtra alone (including the toll amount to 20 from Pune itself). Even when people are excited about the celebrations in this festive mood, they are apprehensive to participate in it as enthusiastically as they ever do. Somewhere down the line panic has become the story of the day yet there are few people who are optimistic and brave enough to celebrate the festival.

Considering Ganeshotsav as a youth festival, are youngsters planning to stay back home on this splendid festival? Or will they be brave enough to rejoice it flamboyantly? What’s your say?

India Celebrating 62nd Independance Day

Barrack Obama, The President of America, acknowledges India’s power and the stimulating developments it has been making in the evolution of mankind. Whatever it be (viz., nuclear science, industrialization, world economy and etc); India is there standing tall in all the spheres and topping most of them. India is shinning isn’t it?

The sky scrappers, mammoth money spilling malls, boutiques, branded stuffs, ATM cards, massive 7 star hotels, pricey gadgets, discotheques, pizza culture, industrialists and many other such ciphers showcases India shinning “bright” isn’t it? Your answer would be in the affirmative probably. If yes, then answer these questions for yourself:
Is India shinning bright on the unemployed huge population of people who are directionless in their lives?
Is India shinning bright on the malnourished men and women dying daily at the roadside?
Is India shinning bright on the large number of children below 18 working in factories?
Is India shinning bright on the family of those martyrs who lost their lives for our independence and have no importance in our mind?
Is India shinning bright on the women who loose their bodies for our lustful hunger in return just to feed their young ones?

Is India shinning bright? It may be shining bright for all, except me. I can’t find it shining…but I want it to…

Do you remember ‘Aila’ recently that came in Kolkata? I do it vividly as I came across some emotions that struck me hard…very hard indeed which lent out my feelings on such a tender topic. That evening we offered our maid some clothes — she refused. We asked her to take back some food to her home — she politely refused that again. Finally on being refused to accept the money we gave her, I was inquisitive to know the reason and I did. She said that she lives on the pavement and resides with her family on a plastic sheet. So the clothes, the money and the food we offered would all get destroyed because of the rain. She wanted nothing from us except to understand her and help her get some medicines for her child who was dying of tuberculosis. I was appalled at the moment and now I find our honorable ministers go on to say that they provide ‘health and basic facilities’ to the lower section of the society — recurring myself on the point of ‘Basic facilities’.

Every day poor people are starving out of hunger and dying because of fatal epidemics in huge numbers and their bodies are left back untreated to be played with the street dogs. But we are still growing with a faster pace than America and shining bright (huh! It feels utterly distraught when I type that statement) so forget the dying people and the miserable all over; let’s party and party harder because it’s 63^rd year of Independence. (Can’t we again be the saves under those Englishmen, thinking it was all the same now and then!)

Why is the government sending truck of military to kill and suppress those at Lalgarh. You know why? The reason is obvious — They (people in Lalgarh) have raised their voice in the requirement of basic things such as land, water, employment and etc but the government hates it the most when these ‘bloody poor helpless people…’ ask for something.

We have the right to one vote and even they have the same but then we are enjoying the weather today, celebrating the occasion, watching new releases and they are suffering and dying. Let them die. Who is concerned! Forget the questions I have raised, forget the picture I have shown you, kill the ‘Indian’ inside you and celebrate Independence Day. Forget that ‘shirtless farmer’, forget those stupid people dying at Lalgarh, and forget those dying at the footpaths near you.

I guess you can see India shinning but not me…I can’t…but I want it to…

If you can’t — stretch your hands, move on for a change even if you are alone and make the difference that you want… And then celebrate Independence Day as you would have done justice to the country. Wake up!

“Jaage hai der tak hamein kuch der sone do..thodi si raat aur hai..subah toh hone do..aadhe adhure khawab jo pure naa ho sake ek baar phir se neend mein woh khawab bone do…”

Swine Flu

The outbreak of Swine Flu in India has vexed everyone. According to Mumbai-based Dr. Rajan Bhonsle, the key to this problem is to educate oneself and others about the virus.

Here are few facts about swine flu that you should know and tell others:-

About swine flu?

• H1N1 (commonly known as swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by Type A influenza viruses.
• It was first detected in 1987 and is not a new infection.

What are the symptoms?

• Fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat, lack of appetite, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue.

Transmission method? (Is wearing a mask helpful?)

• Easily transmittable through droplets on the skin, direct contact, sneezing and coughing of the infected person. Hence, wearing masks are of limited help until it’s worn as a fashion statement.

Note: However, a well-fitted, FDA-approved mask together with other preventive measures MAY reduce the risk of contracting the flu.

(source- CDC)

What is the best way to keep from spreading of the virus?

• An excellent technique of preventing swine flu from thinning out is by asking the person having the symptoms of flu to take rest at home, so that the virus is not transmitted to someone else.
• Avoid crowded places as virus density multiplies in re-circulated space.
• Wash your hands or clean it with some alcohol-based cleaner on regular basis. And avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth frequently.

• Have healthy food. Consume food (such as beans, nuts, meat, and poultry) that has minerals such as selenium and zinc because it keeps the immune system strong.

How long can a flu infected person infect others?

• The infective period of swine flu is 5 days (one day before onset of the symptoms and 4 days after). Therefore, an infected person can affect others before himself/ herself knowing that he/she is sick
• Patient (adult) may infect others for next 7 days from shedding influenza viruses. Number of days may exceed in children and aged.

Are there medicines to treat this pandemic flu?

• Yes. The US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommends the use of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) for this pandemic flu.

What should be done immediately?

• Identification as a swine flu influenza A virus requires sending the specimen to a hospital laboratory for testing. You can refer to the information below to take immediate steps on swine flu infection.

Outbreak Monitoring Cell (Control Room, NICD): 011-23921401

Websites: www.mohfw.nic.in and www.nicd.nic.in
Toll free number 2392 1401 at the National Institute of Communicable Disease

Can people catch swine flu from eating pork?

• No, it’s not a foodborne illness. It is transmitted just like a normal flu — through airborne droplets from a sick person’s cough or sneeze.

Media is just blowing swine flu out of proportion and trying to build frenzy among lay people. Keep in mind, the virus is in the air, no one can stop it — however our body is already developing immunity so there is nothing to panic.

Indeed I am surprise to find people selling masks of Rs 20/- which are available to less than a rupee in the market!

Who is benefitting? Don’t join the bandwagon but stick to science and extend your help in spreading the scientific knowledge to all — this should be the order of the day.

What’s surprising is the fact that the press seems to have completely waived off it’s responsibility in publishing such an advertisement. The fact that an advertisement like this has actually made itself to the print edition of such a premiere newspaper explains why we need more attention towards monitoring of advertisements in the country. Surely, such an advertisement would be laughable if it ended up on the frontpage of the New York Times, perhaps followed immediately by a lawsuit. Why should things be different in India?

As requested by someone, here’s what the advertisement reads:

• 2GB memory card
• 3.0″ TFT Screen, MP3, MP4 & FM Radio
• Breakthrough internet device
• 2 Mega Pixel Digital camera
• Touch screen & hand writing
• Dual sim cards working same time
• Shake function
• Bluetooth, support T-flash card & GPRS system.

Each èphone has an unique IEMI No.

FOURDY Wlog! - Winning Best Elevator Pitch Award @ Kolkata Blogger's Meet 2009

I have no clue from where to start it off and how to wind it up. But for present, I’m more concerned in explaining the exhilarating experience that me and my companions: Rahul Bharadwaj, Khushboo Nangalia, Shikha Kedia, Anurag Ahuja and Yogesh Goel (better identified by the populace at the meet as ygoel.com) had at the Kolkata Blogger’s Meet 2009 on 8th August, 2009 at Café Coffee Day, Salt Lake (Sector V), Near Adlabs Cinemas, Kolkata.

I couldn’t perceive how 5 hours flew like few minutes, and the programme was over. I only did when the Prize Distribution (which was supposed to be the last on the agenda) commenced and FOURDY Wlog (led by my brother Rahul) won the ‘Best Elevator Pitch Award’.

Returned home happy, relaxed and obviously very proud. All the way back to home late at 11o’clock, we all were in a joyous mood evaluating the event and sharing our thoughts; when I actually sat back in the car recalling every incident that happened to occur before the event. I remembered the message of Yogesh Bhaiya about the KBM’09 which I deleted instantly as I read and didn’t even give it a second thought (just in an assumption that it was a meet for the bloggers as the name suggested). Just after two days what I found that Rahul had already seen through the message, surfed the webreps.in site, have gathered all the knowledge about the organizing group, the meet, their history, the scheduled plan of the programme and has already punched in an idea at their site, posted an article at FOURDY Wlog and the best of all — Registered all of us for the event. He personally took me on a brief ride through his discoveries and in turn ignited within me a yearning to be a part of Kolkata Blogger’s Meet. We kept in touch with Kamanashish Roy (one of the organizers) for details of the event.

Only when a day was left for the event, Rahul and me found each other writing on our Facebook Wall: “Bloggers Meet this Saturday… looking forward to it eagerly” (this was my update). Although we both were very excited for the thing but were not able to pull in time to discuss about it further due to the work pressure and approaching project deadlines. Coincidently, on the morning of 8th August (evening KBM was scheduled) at around 5o’clock we broke in to a conversation (similarly to this fine morning, we usually sit back discussing about different issues coming our way on daily basis at this time when we are relaxing) where after a concurrent suggestions and planning we finally darted on our ‘strategy’ for the meet.

Just as decided I moved out early in the morning at 10 o’clock executing all the tasks set aside for me and back at the base Rahul worked further on the idea, gathered everyone, accomplished some itinerary works and set forth for the meet. All set they moved out at 3 o’clock and picked me on the way from the ‘Poddar Court’. Before we could have tasted the thrill of the evening at the CCD, we had to go through an unpleasant adventure — mind it I choose calling it adventure (on a sarcastic note) while the tyre of our car got ruptured in the midst of Salt Lake (on the road taking you to Nicco Park: just few kilometers away from our destination) and incidentally stephanie (an extra tyre) has experienced the same a day before. Nothing but ‘Justdial’ comes to your mind at such a situation. We were so off the city and had thin chances of having any car servicing garage nearby. Nevertheless, from the list of many contacts forwarded to us by Justdial, like a god-sent Arihant Enterprise has a tons of gratitude to be expressed from our end. We left our car at Nicco Parking area and somehow managed to reach the destination on time with the help of a taxi.

We rushed and reached the venue almost on time. As we entered and had our seats, we had Kamanashish (part of an organizing team and personally my favorite host who had the power to rise the lethargic audience in his persona) officially announcing the beginning of the Kolkata Blogger’s Meet 2009. Soham Pal (the youngest blogger present in the show) inaugurated the show by cutting the cake. Later during the programme when Soham and I had a talk then we happen to know each other. In fact, he had also commented on one of my post at FOURDY Wlog.

Next, we had Elevator Pitch event, where 1 minute was scheduled for a blogger to describe their blog. A lot of bloggers participated amongst which one of them was Rahul Bharadwaj, who just took 45 seconds to place his thoughts on FOURDY Wlog (he was on a hunt of good authors for a blog as he wanted them to blog under one roof — FOURDY Wlog) . The event followed by a chain of superb presentations covering various topics on internet by Abhishek Rungta, CEO of Indus Net Technologies, Arun Agarwal of Ebizindia, Aji Issac Mathew of SEO for Clients and Saptarshi Roy Chaudhury of SEO Kolkata. If you ask me what I enjoyed most in the entire programme, Abhishek Rungta’s presentation on the Blog Monetization would be my answer.

Between the event a survey to test the blogging trends in Kolkata was conducted by Indus Net Technologies. The result of the same has been published on their website. Though none of the pens supplied by them worked, yet the enthusiastic bloggers filled up the form and returned back to the Help Desk. Indus Net also presented a T-shirts & ELearning CD to all the participants. (God! We almost had a CD over all the topics…)

In the Launch a Product event, FusionCharts (represented by Sanket and Saptarshi) presented FusionCharts Google Gadget. Their style was unique — they prepared some really good looking banners apart from the slides. Mitesh Ashar, presented his app – twit discuss, which did not work at that time, but the concept was good. It allows one to monitor conversations on twitter based on the hash tags.

Followed by a dinner arrangement, we had the definite chance of conversing with people there and we did it very well. Tasting the de-facto café coffee day coffee and snacks Rahul, Khushboo, Anurag, Yogesh and I essentially went on explaining our perception of FOURDY Wlog to the populace. What surprised me most were Khushboo and Ekta becoming friends the very night at Facebook just after the meet and consequently the mails for authorship rights in our email addresses just the following day. Had a wonderful response from the interested people, either calling directly or mailing us.

The Prize Distribution event was really fun-filled (may be the reason is that we bagged one). Anirudh Lohia (a webrepper) got the Best Idea Award. Though we didn’t win the award here still I’m satisfied by now with scores of people who have shown interest in our idea and joined their hands to make it realism. The Best Elevator Pitcher Award went to Rahul Bharadwaj of FOURDY Wlog & the Best Marketer Award went to Devanand Agarwala from Bima World.

Kolkata Blogger’s Meet has finished and is over but what I carry forward as a legacy is a huge number of – online and offline friends. Had a brilliant opportunity to make friends with Anirban Saha, Saikat Sengupta, Kamanashish Roy, Bijay Rungta, Rajesh Rana, Shirsendu Sengupta, Pallavi Banerjee, Ekta Khetan and many more.
Kolkata Blogger’s Meet 2009 got over on a blissful note and left an indelible mark on us, especially me. In the end all the bloggers decided to share the stage again to have ‘India Internet Summit in Kolkata’ soon. Just looking forward to the event with an equivalent enthusiasm!

Best wishes forever to the organizers (Webreps) and gold sponsorer (Indus Net Technologies). Wishing to have more turn-ups in the next meet! I’m definitely in…

Facebook has become very popular in North America over the last few years whereas Orkut is extremely popular in India. Facebook has an origin at the Harvard University and was launched in February, 2004 (just a month after Orkut was launched). Orkut is run by Google and was named after Orkut Buyukkoten (Its creator).

The picture below of the Alexa traffic graph shows how Orkut and Facebook are going in opposite direction. If the circumstances continue to be identical, I bet the day is close when Orkut may close its doors and is scared out of its wit.

Facebook compared to Orkut

DESIGN

Facebook is a great deal professional looking networking website where as Orkut looks to some extent unfinished and the themes make it cartoonish. In Facebook everything is closely integrated in the home page from messaging, to friends update, invites, status update, news feed, links, suggestions, highlights, requests, chat, events and Etc where as in Orkut everything is limply coupled which made it less likable compared to Facebook. There is an issue that – ‘Facebook has a little entry barrier for new folks…’, rather I would like to comment that FB has a simple and professional user interface to which an intelligent user can easily understand at first glance. Though I found ease of accessibility, simplicity in the design and quick access through all the pages within the profile earlier at Orkut, but recently when Orkut introduced its new feature of ‘Themes Library’, I personally started disliking the site on the issues of speed and appearance. Users could change their interface from a wide range of colorful theme library and this lead to slower downloading of the whole system.

APPLICATIONS

With over more than 10,000 application in numbers, Facebook Apps are much better than Orkut. Despite the fact that Orkut was head of Facebook in the beginning it failed to provide new features and updated apps that Facebook provided in the longer run. I’m not astonished to find Orkut ripping several features and ideas from its competitor product in utter despondency. Another annoying thing what most of the user don’t like and Google did not refrain by displaying it is- ‘Bad Bad Server, no donut for you!’ dialogue. It seriously irritates anyone.

STATUS UPDATES

Facebook, much similar to Orkut has a micro-blogging feature of “status updates” which allows users to inform their friends of their current whereabouts, actions, or thoughts. Nevertheless, Facebook proves to be far improved than the latter here again for it allows the people in the network to post their comments and express their likeness towards the post by clicking on ‘like it’ option. Above all, ‘What’s on your mind?’ preference at Facebook let the user share photos, videos and links through attachments within their networks itself.

SECURITY

The security feature is more powerful in Facebook compared to Orkut, On FB one is able to view the profile of others only when the latter is among your connections. Within Orkut you can view people’s profiles details, communities joined, photos, friends, etc regardless if they are a ‘friend’ or not. Open scraps and profiles hence owes to less security.

CHAT

Just as Orkut allow its users to integrate Gtalk within their interface, as of 23^rd April, 2008, Facebook Chat was released for the entire FB user base enabling chat with friends on a one-to-one basis. Though both Facebook and Orkut has the feature of chat within their site, well again Facebook is better at this aspect too on the point that it has the facility where one can be invisible to an individual or a group of people.

ACCOUNT NAME

One of the most important reasons why I love Facebook and give full points to it is the directness and the reality that they expect from the user when asking for the ‘Account Name’ or the profile name as one may say. Worst part about Orkut as I mentioned before is that it seems to be more like a cartoonish thing to me. At times it is really difficult or an impossible task to decipher the actual owner of the account from the disgusting and irrelevant profile names they have (above all the profile picture is uploaded of a celebrity and the list of communities and friends are endless and indescribably weird).

COMMUNITY & GROUPS

Groups and communities found on Orkut are most of the time repetitive and have untold figures of duplicates (that too existing together with the same community name). Facebook on the other hand maintains a feature of unique groups and communities. From my personal experience I add that at Orkut people are more concentrated at number and quantity but Facebook strives for the quality. All the more in Orkut beyond 80% of the communities are a waste and are filled with craps of ideas and classified advertisements from individuals as the forum topics within the community with no relation with each other from anywhere. Orkut has now become a mere place of advertisement, unhealthy entertainment and exponential spamming.

Some of the applications and elements to which I give a share for actually making FACEBOOK a fun and the ultimate leader in the internet social networking race are as follow:

MINI FEED

Facebook’s Mini Feed Feature (notifications) is useful in viewing a quick snapshot on the latest happenings within the network.

MYORKUT

The application named as ‘myOrkut’ connects the Orkut profile of the user to Facebook Profile, so that one can see his/ her Orkut friends and read scraps right from Facebook without actually logging into their Orkut account.

GIFTS

This is a virtual gift feature that Facebook added to its website in February 2007. With the help of this application friends could send gifts to each other along with a small text message. Gifts given to a user appear on the recipient’s wall with the message of the giver, unless the giver decided to give the gift privately.

MARKETPLACE

With the launch of the application named as ‘marketplace’ in May 2007, Facebook allowed its users to post free classified ads.

EVENTS

‘Facebook events’ is an application that helps the user inform the people in the network know about the upcoming events in their group and to organize social gatherings. Events can be open, closed, or secret depending upon the event creator.

VIDEO

Facebook video is an application built by the Facebook developers for sharing videos on Facebook, Users can add their videos with the service by uploading video, adding video through Facebook Mobile, and using a webcam recording feature.

URL CHANGE

The most recent and the last change on the Facebook website was ‘URL Change’. Facebook introduced this feature in June 2009 that allowed users to choose a Facebook username to make user location easier. The user is able to direct others to their page through a simple link such as www.Facebook,com/username rather than an otherwise complex URL. This feature spread very quickly on Facebook, with more than 55,000 users registering URL change within 24 hours after the launch.

CAUSE OF REAL DECLINE OF ORKUT

What I feel to be the main reason for the downfall of the ORKUT in India was its sudden gain of popularity among youth. Yes, it’s shocking to accept, I know. Since Orkut had once become the talk of the teens and young, the site started flooding with new members. Having a registered account on Orkut became a must. Above and beyond Orkut started facing very peculiar problems of fake profiles, flooding, spamming & even track of criminal activities going over the interface. Owing to the deactivation of the jail system and high number of profile counts, the unnecessary profiles were often left unremoved or, when removed, recreated easily. Such profiles were normally created to troll, to spam, to flood or just for fun. It was not hard to find users owning more than one profile, with some stating they own hundreds..!!

Another signpost to the collapse of the networking site, Orkut, was Floodtudo (a freeware program made in Delphi in August 2005, by a Brazilian developer). A big spam wave struck Orkut soon when this program which was specifically meant for flooding Orkut was massively used by thousands of spammers all over. There are several more causes for Orkut losing against many other networking sites like Facebook; but aforementioned are some of the points that I feel to be the root cause.

According to me Orkut had earlier proved to be dominating and better than all other networking sites in every aspects for it be in ease of accessibility, GUI friendliness, up to-date apps and softwares, strong security & Etc. But Microsoft’s cunning plan to suppress Google’s such domination over internet by heavily funding Facebook at the right time helped Facebook to get good data centers, and boost its overall performance (finally resulting in the victory of Facebook in the tariff race among the social networking site)

I think that Google really needs to work hard on Orkut to regain the part of market share it actually deserves. It would not be very tough for Google to do so because it already have the user base, all it needs to do is to pull the uses back to Orkut. Also, if the fall of orkut continues it is destined to have the same face as Yahoo! 360 degree which have already called it’s service a close on 13 July, 2009. Wishing that Orkut does not follow it’s lead because after all I have an account at Orkut

Best of luck, Orkut (I think it needs a lot of those)!