Not done yet.

This blog is not dead. Not yet. Studying Engg does not guarantee you free time. Blog should be up and running in May.

tweet tweet.

Fact: Another Twitter controversy. This time involving @BDUTT and this Outlook article


This is ovbiously small news. But I do have views about this. I think I can write more about this than about Manmohan Singh's visit to the USA.

Opinion: So the article claims that Barkha's views or tweets are irresponsible and "silly".
Even if for a second we consider that Barkha's views were silly, my question is and always has been why thrust the responsibility to being responsible on anyone else? Isnt Barkha Dutt not entitiled of being silly and having a trivial opinion? Can't she even think wrong? Why is it that she must have an opinion which is right? I pride myself for having my thoughts and my opinions. It makes me the person I am. And I dont want to be told what to think and what not to.

What I really think about all these twitter controversies is that they are an attempt to make trivial issues a gimmick. Now many people in Inida who dont use much twitter associate twitter only to controversies. Shah Rukh Khan said that, or Tharoor said this has just become redundant and ridiculous. Its their personal opinion and everyone need not judge their opinion. And I think every once in a while everyone should make nice, silly, trivial statements. I mean seriously why cant famous people make silly remarks!

Anyway, all that assuming what Barkha said was silly, which I very much doubt was. Umair seems to advocate the need to know Naxalite views and so does Roy and some how believes that Dutt does not want that. What I think what Dutt does not want is making heroes out of Naxals. Reasoned or not, moral or not, the Naxals killed 76 jawans. The Naxals cannot be made heroes in this Story. The point is, and I agree with Umair and Roy, that there is a need to know the Naxal point of view, because this war is not about so much about bullets and land as it is about ideology.
No one can still claim to know what exactly the Naxals want. I dont mind more 32 page articles about Naxals, nor do I mind stories from their point of view. All I would not like to read stories in which 76 jawans die villans in a story in the Naxals are made out to be heroes. Mainly because the 76 jawans were innocent, its not like a story in which they raped and tortured the villagers and we dint know about it. In fact I have read enough articles claiming that villagers too are forced by the naxals to be on their side.

3G

Fact: The Govt. finally held the 3G e-auction today. Five rounds of the auction happened today and the Govt. held the e-auction because it did not want predatory bidding. In an e-auction a bidder can only accept or reject a bid but cant raise it. The raises are fixed and happen after every round.

Opinion: The 3G spectrum will be the most revolutionary technology to enter India in the field of Cell phones. 3G users can browse high speed internet and watchin live streaming content because it provides much faster internet download speed. This technology is currently provided by BSNL only. BSNL offers this service as an add on and at a very low cost for activation but charges for download. These charges are much more compared to normal broadband services on the computer.
The major problem faced by 3G bidders even after entering the market will be the fact that only the latest models of phones have the 3G technology. Also the costs of setting up 3G is very high and the hardware will be very exclusive. The major problem for users will be the fact that they can only video call another 3G user.
Making adverts for this service should be real easy though. The whole video calling sentiments should work fine. Again, I think, that the cost of making such calls may be very high in the starting but will drastically reduce soon. Remember the times when calls would be more than Rs. 2.5/min about a year back?

3G is the kind of technology which takes us into the future. We are finally at a point which would have been sci-fi 30 years back. But no matter how cheap 3G becomes, the expensive gear, i.e, latest cellphones will ensure that 3G will not be used by all. It might even take many years for it to really spread. But the technology is so powerful that it can not be easily pushed away.

The strongest contender for the 3G bidding seems to be Bharti Airtel, if you ask me. They have even announced that they will start their 3G services by October 2010. The long delay in the start of the bidding was due to several reasons including problems with the defense and security. Anyway, lets hope its cheap and nice. If it is it will be wonderful to finally look at people when you talk. On the phone. That too.

not the most sincere of posts, but then again, nothing much happened today. dont want to write about ipl and about Dantewada again.

Maoists Take on CPRF.

Fact: 200-400 to 800-1000 Maoists attack CPRF camp in Dantewada and kill 76 security personnel.

Opinion: What does is attack tell the world about India? Waking up in the morning, drinking tea, or perhaps a glass of wine and reading about a Maoist insurgency in India. If you dint live in India would you skip this news article, just like how we skip articles about people being killed in the rest of the world, or is 76 security personnel too big a number?

From the time I have been reading about the Maoists, these attacks on both civilians and policemen have been consistent but never really eye catching(except the one where they blew up the Rajdhani about two weeks back). Its at the back of our mind, like someone is continuously knocking on the door while we lay in deep slumber. But the knock has never been this loud, finally for us to wake up and take notice. Seventy Six is a big number. Its so big that no one is even going to print a single name or follow a single person's story. Its a big step from the Maoists' side too. They have finally taken the plunge but are they willing to fight the center on it?

But I still feel like until something happens for the next week or so, day in and day out, shootings and killings, day after day, the govt. will let this one pass too. without any serious action. I think the govt. doesn't want to do anything about it. Cause they can if they want to. Its not like there are too many Maoists or anything. But there will be too many if the govt. lets every event pass just like this one. Both parties are at the brink. Any new developments should make this situation interesting.

Other than that, I can't really say what is the final Utopian situation the Maoists want. They do seem to operate in regions which the govt. seems to neglect. And it always appears that villagers in the domain support the insurgents but then again I think that the villagers are simply choosing the better of the two evils. Or at least the only evil which even bothers presenting itself. Really, a good option for the govt. would be to show interest in poor villages in remote parts of India and try to get the people back on its side. Its easier to do that than to be pricked every Tuesday night by insurgents. And sometimes they are more than pricks are nasty and leave a deep scar.