2011 in review

Happy New Year 2012!

2011 has been the year of protests. Be it Tunis or Theni, they had one thing in common: protests!

1) Arab spring: The beginning of 2011 saw the protests in Tunisia topple the autocratic government and ouster of the ruling president Ben Ali. Soon the protests spread like wildfire to other Arab countries under autocratic rulers. These series of protests were termed as Arab Spring. Egyptians ended the longtime dictator Mubarak’s rule and reinstated democracy and Tahrir square became world famous. Yemen’s Tawakkul Karman was awarded the Noble peace prize for her contribution to the Yemeni revolutions. Similar protests were held in various other Arab countries but failed to achieve any significant change. One country that saw the protests escalate to a full scale civil war was Gadaffi‘s Libya. Gadaffi’s 41 year old regime came to end with his brutal killing.

2) Ombudsman Bill protests (Anti-Congress) in India: Indians finally responded to the decades of corruption by the government (Congress party). Thanks to the civil society, media and their demand for the Citizen’s Ombudsman Bill or Jan Lokpal Bill, protests were organized throughout the country demanding for a corruption-less government. It should be noted that these protests were unlike the Arab spring which occurred for the want of democracy. Indian protestors who participated in this movement were against any political party and any form of government and especially the Congress government. Corruption is so rooted in Indian government organizations that the only way to satisfy these protestors (or protest organizers?) is bringing an autocratic authority to punish all evil-doers in the government and society. May be the participants of these protests have not put much thought on this but the ultimate aim of the organizers seems to be establishing an autocracy in New Delhi.

3) Anti-capitalism protests: Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests were organized against the 1% by the rest. The 99% has suffered so much in the flawed economic system of USA that they started to revolt against the 1% who is rich. Even though these protests had very good reception among the public, the government was successful in curbing further growth of this movement. This is mostly because of the media’s non-cooperation to the movement since the media itself is run by the 1% and the occupied parks were cleared of the protestors by ‘casually pepper spray everything cop’ technique!

 4) Koodankulam Anti-nuclear protests: India decided to build a nuclear power plant with the help of Russian technology in the southernmost region of Tamilnadu more than 25 years ago. After decades of delay when the plant was getting ready to be commissioned, local people started to protest against the nuclear reactor citing the adverse impact it would bring on environment and livelihood of the locals. The latest Fukushima incident and the Chernobyl accident were used to educate the people about the impact of nuclear disasters. Continuous protests and hunger-strikes attracted media attention. The protestors were successful in gaining recognition from the state government. Meanwhile, in the power hungry Tamilnadu where nearly 4 hours a day of power blackout has become the norm (except for Chennai where it is 1 hour), pro-nuclear groups which are generally small business owners are protesting against the anti-nuclear protestors. The anti-nuclear protests are not whole heartedly supported by people in the rest of the state other than Koodankulam area since the need for power is still not fulfilled. This is a very crucial ongoing protest not only for the people of Tamilnadu but for the whole world since the technology in question is the dreaded nuclear energy whose ills at any time and condition exceed the benefits. Will the 14K crore project be decommissioned by the government of an emerging country like India? 2012 may hold the answer.

 5) Mullaiperiyar Dam row: Another protest involving a future problem the whole world is feared to experience decades from now. Water is going to be scarce and water wars are said to be inevitable in the future. This Mullaiperiyar (Mullaperiyar) dam row can be taken as a precursor to this. Tamilnadu derives water from the Periyar reservoir by diverting the flow of the westward flowing river with the Mullaiperiyar dam which is located in the Kerala state. Since Tamilnadu owns and maintains the dam and the catchment area, the breach of its sovereignty is irking Kerala. Due to the current setup, Kerala’s plan to generate surplus electricity from its hydroelectric plant downstream has been unsuccessful and the illegal settlements, resorts in the catchment area risk being flooded. Now Kerala wants a new dam citing that lives of 3lakh people is at risk. Tamilnadu people who depend on the diverted water for their livelihood became agitated and started protesting. Theni district solely depends on this water along with 4 other districts in the south of Tamilnadu. Theni’s daily water consumption for day-to-day usage and agriculture is from the Mullaiperiyar water. From the first few days of protests in October 2011, Theni hasn’t seen a day without demonstrations and processions. Soon protests spread to other districts which are not even directly affected by the dam row. Some group or the other stages a protest against Kerala each day in many towns of Tamilnadu. This is one of the largest people driven movements Tamilnadu has ever witnessed.

Okay, enough with the protests! I did not participate in any of these protests. So looking back, I blogged a little bit in 2011.  The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Old songs, new ads

I like the following two ads so much mostly because of the songs that make the background music. These two songs from Hindi cinema’s different era’s stand as examples for the quality of music made those days.

First one is a very hilarious ad. No need to explain the concept. So funny and creative. The originally-made-as-a-romantic old song seem to be complementing the situation portrayed with utmost compliance. Also not to ignore the fact that the song is remixed.

The song used in the ad is ‘Jawan hai mohabbat’. This song from the 1946 movie Anmol Ghadi was sung by the legendary Noor-E-Jehan and also features her. Easily becomes one of the gems of Hindi cinema’s black and white era. Now enjoy the song…

What makes me wonder is that how such a romantic and happy song helps this ad to be as funny as it is meant to be.

The next one is the Nestea ad featuring animated kangaroos. Surely a hit among kids, this ad is also an example for India’s very own sentimental marketing. Original song is used in the first half of the ad and then its remixed version. Both rock.

This song comes from the 1969 Hindi movie Aradhana featuring Sharmila Tagore and sung by another legend of Hindi cinema, Lata Mangeshkar. Till date no other song of this kind is made which qualifies to be compared with this one.

Unfortunately very few songs these days are worth a listen. I bet that is the reason ad film makers use old Hindi tracks for their ads.

Epic Browser: Reviewed by a fanboy!

Epic is a brand new browser specially made targeting Indian netizens. Complete with a tricolor orb icon and a default peacock theme, it promises to become the favorite of Indians. Bangalore based company Hidden Reflex has developed this browser based on the Mozilla technology. As there are already enough number of players in the browser market, the developers must have chosen to create Epic as an Indian specific browser. And it has turned out as a great browser, satisfying the needs of a typical Indian user.

Epic is all about India. Right from the icon you get to double click on the desktop to the themes to the sidebar news content RSS, everything is custom made with an Indian flavour. The sidebar is topped by the tricolor India Content icon, clicking which slides and expands the sidebar where all the news from India can be viewed as RSS and upon selection from a drop down menu bar, state-wise news headlines from region specific websites can be viewed and that too in your own language. With the Devanagari ‘ka’, there is the Indic Text Icon which enables the user to type in Indian languages. This feature is supported by the Google Transliteration Service. Also a drop down menu appears whenever the user proceeds to type in a textbox. Typing in your own Indian language is not going to be difficult task anymore. For sure, this is going to make the Indic script usage in the Internet to increase.

The Epic sidebar is built with shortcuts to all the features it has to offer. It has this word processor called ‘Write’ which opens itself in a new browser tab and the user is suddenly equipped with all those features needed for creating a formatted document. And there is the Snippets feature which can be invoked by clicking its own sidebar icon letting you grab anything from text to image in the webpage next to it and make a mash up of the stuffs and tag it as you want.

And the big surprise is, it comes with a built in Antivirus suit which lets you clean up your system right from the browser window and download virus definitions as they are released. Isn’t it a cool feature? This special and unique feature is powered by ESET.

Coming back to the colorful stuff, there are hundreds of wallpapers and themes. Each and every one of the collection comes with the Indian connection. With such awesome reflections of India in each and every bit, it keeps the Indianness intact no matter wherever the user surfs on the World Wide Web.

Also awesome are the video feature on the sidebar which lets you search and view Youtube videos right on the sidebar, the My Computer feature that lets you access your files right from the browser window, To-Do, Timer, file Back-up powered by Gmail, Collections feature that lets the user save a couple of open tabs as a group, online games and numerous apps to make the browsing experience comfortable and more efficient.

And not to forget the cool feature that enables the user to access their Facebook, Orkut, Gmail, Twitter, Yahoo! accounts and see the recent updates on the really handy sidebar. You can also make use of the Travel, Maps, Jobs features that fetch you online content based on your query on the sidebar.

Usual essentials like the elaborate bookmarking feature with yellow star buttons right next to the close button of every tab that is open, one click private browsing facility (in the toolbar, an orange icon with a lock), easy web history management, file download support, error console, and simpler Add-ons management among such other things are also there. Every new tab comes with a text box and button to make a quick custom Google search and results are shown along with the WOT (Web Of trust) rating identified by colored rings. The ring also appears on the address bar right next to the address of the current web page. If this is not enough, you can go ahead and kill the Flash cookies, Epic is the first browser ever created to kill them.

And the final verdict is: Epic is a cool new Indian browser with lots of awesome features and it has lot of potential to give the biggies of the browser market a run for their money.