Guys, It’s not all that ‘friendly’

As a brother I am not of a very over protective kind, at least that is what I try to be in front of my sister. I’ve always wanted her to tackle things on her own and I am glad to say that she’s never disappointed me at that. One over protective dad is enough for her, I guess. ;-)
I have always hated going to pick her up from some place or having to drop her to some place, just because she is a girl. However, despite hating it I have always done it considering the dangerous society we live in. Don’t get me wrong, I can do any thing for my sis but doing something for her which she should ideally be able to do on her own, but for the fear of ‘unsafe’ streets of our cities is something that puts me off a great deal. I hate having to live in this society which makes it compulsory for my sis to be dependent on me for even the smallest of the things.
 
I consider her to be a strong person as well, as she’s never come back to me crying and complaining about some guy or some event. I hope this means that she is capable enough to handling things on her own. So it came to me as a surprise when one fine evening last year she told me about some guy who was following her from the bus stop till the next traffic signal near my house, for past few days.

Blogger’s Block

There is much of hulla gulla going on over the blocking of blogspot and many other blogsites. And as it often happens in such cases, rhetoric has once again taken precedence over sense. We have seen some very strong reactions from bloggers across India.

I am sure no blogger is happy about their blogs being blocked or about being unable to read others’ blogs. And it surely is frustrating. However we must put things in perspective before crying out loud….

Was the ban imposed to stop certain people/organizations with doubtful integrity from exchanging information via blogs ?

Now, if the answer to this question is Yes, then I’d say the we the bloggers should take a chill pill for a while. Though no one likes to be blocked, but this is least of the inconveniences we should not mind suffering, given the delicate nature of times we are going through as a nation.

The recent 7/11 ( or as per Indian/British convention, should we say 11/7 ? ) bombings have caused an red-alert situation at a national level. Everyday there are hoax calls threatening another bomb attack at one place or another. So it is understandable that in the larger interest of National Security, we the people of India might have to go through some inconvenience. Aren’t we already frisked at multiplexes, airports etc? The India Gate bomb hoax caused disrupted traffic and inconvenience to the people visiting India Gate, but that was necessary. Security forces can not take chances, just because people are inconvenienced.

So in that sense, if the idea behind blocking blogs was to stop terrorists/anti-national outfits from exchanging information via blogs, I do not mind at all if for a few days I am unable to blog. I think government can, in such a scenario, take a decision of temporarily blocking websites. Bloggers & blog readers in India after all form an extremely small percentage of over all population, and blogs are not a critical and mass means of providing information. Though the manner in which Government went about this decision is still questionable.

However if the answer to the question above is NO, then there are several more questions to be asked. As it has been reported widely in media, there were some 20 odd websites which government wanted to be blocked. Which in my opinion was a ridiculous step to be taken in today’s time and age. In such a case government has actually overstepped and violated our freedom to voice opinions, and our freedom to know what others opine. There are questions which need to be answered by Government and ISP’s and air needs to be cleared.

Both the government and/or ISP’s have shown their technical incompetence by thinking of blocking only a handful of blogging servers (like blogspot, typad) and leaving others (like wordpress, live journal, and many others). There are various ways of how these blocked sites could still be accessed. The lack of clarity, the clandestine approach and no clear cut statement from government till now only puts them on a slippery ground.

A group of Delhi Bloggers, of which I am also a member, has taken lead to put an end to various speculations being made in blogosphere about the whole issue in absence of any clear message from government so far, and Abby - another member of this group - has invoked an RTI petition. The motive is not to challenge and corner government but to understand government’s point of view (which unfortunately has not been communicated to the nation). Based on what comes out of this, if required, bloggers may as well think of challenging government decision. The media has also been highlighting this issue prominently and CNN IBN was supposed to cover reaction of Delhi Bloggers earlier today.

Hopefully the unanswered questions will be answered, till then let the sense prevail over rhetoric.

We don’t deserve this

After the shocking news of 7/11 blasts in Mumbai, I tried to contact all my relatives n friends thru phone, SMS, e-mails. This is what a Banglore based friend who’se family is in Mumbai wrote back….

“Dad was travelling in the same train (mahim) the blasts took place…fortunately he was in the first class toward the rear of the train… apart from slight pain in the ear due to the impact of the blasts…he is ok and reached home safely 4 hrs later… at the same time my sister was travelling to borivili and the blasts took place when their train left kandivili and was nearing borivili… they had to jump of the train and walk to the borivili station…where they saw dead bodies being carried away… all phone lines were jammed…i got to know they were safe…thanks to yahoo…but got to speak to them only after mid night…

hope all other families are safe and not affected like mine… we always talk about the victims being one among us…but this was so close… thank god i was not affected….but i do feel for all those who lost their near and dear ones…

they were just getting back home from a hard days of work….and didnt deserve it… i am so angry with this incident….i feel its high time some action is taken… we need to march to karachi once again!!! and this time not hand it over back…“

In this moment of anger and shock, I think what he said is right - that we dont deserve this. Would we continue being a soft state and wil our political leaders keep chanting the age old matra of ‘this won’t derail the peace process’? Peace Process!!! my foot. How many innocent lives later will our government dare to take a decisive action?

Who are you?

He comes out of his home and on the road he stares at girls, whistles at them, passes lewd remarks, in the bus he keeps his hand on the hand of unknown girls, purposefully stands in a way that all of his body touches theirs, and touches them without permission. Many times he crosses the limit and in crowded places he grabs or pinches breasts of ladies or other parts of their bodies.

He laughs these things off, he does this ‘just for fun’. “So what? I just had some fun with a girl; it’s not a rape or murder?”

At home, he has a mother, a wife, a sister and a daughter. Poor ladies, they don’t know that their own son/husband/brother/father, teases girls ‘for fun’ just like many men on road tease them. Every-single-day.

So are you victim, perpetrator or a mute spectator to eve teasing?

BlankNoiseProject is doing interventions tomorrow in 5 major cities of the country, against the evil of On-Street Sexual Harassment. Details Here.You don't want to be  a mute spectator, do you?

Terrorists in Uniform

Yes, I am talking about the Police force in India. Though every state has it's own Police Department, and they function independently - there is something which is very common among the police forces of various states of India. It's corruption, it's being a puppet of politicians, it's being Terrorists in Uniform.

I know I can be accused of Generalizing here. But what else can you say when you see that a group of students protesting against Reservation policy of government, are beaten up brutally by the police force? Are we living in a free democratic country? I hear that the students were dealt that way because they were obstructing traffic. Okay, I agree that obstructing traffic is totally wrong, but is this the way you treat a peaceful protest march? And what about those VIP's who obstruct the traffic every time they travel on the road? and what about those various political rallies which see the entire city coming to a stand still, and what about those rowdy rally supporters and party activists who think they own the entire city's infrastructure and go on destroying public property and mistreating (even beating up) common public on roads/trains/buses, just because they think that this is the way to exercise there right to protest? What does the Police do then?