A discovery

This may be stale info for most of you!
For some this may reflect how slow I am to get on the web 2.0 bandwagon
but i just figured out a way to contribute to my blog directly through my gmail account!

Well this is a significant discovery for me as i can see that jhola hopefully should be a more active blog!
the inertia of going to a new website and writing in a text box which makes the whole process formal will go! Posts will be like writing yet another email - perhaps to a wall , perhaps to the fans of jhola !

Or maybe  if the posts become regular - a big if - jhola may just acquire a few loyalists -

yours ambitiously
harsh
--
Harsh Taneja
Bombay

Contact : 09820116899
Mail works just as fine

Respecting the right to information

My last post was about the ease of using the right to information act.
The friend whose blog i linked to who had described his RTI application, has received a reply from the Public Information Officer (PIO)

Every question asked has been answered.While I would say that the answers were not 100% satisfactory but not far from it either!

They give you the information which is a good start point for pursuing the cause further. The RTI gives you the ammunition to take what are the recognised facts to the authrities. Media can quote this information as this is on record.

The authorities can be questioned as to the whys and why nots of what the PIO tells you. More importantly it gives you an indication as to who is responsible for the problem /issue at hand and you can think of a targeted approach to this

I am through the experience of this friend convinced that RTI is a good starting point and we all must use it as and when

Update on personal front - second post in not such a long time - so the 'revival' attempt seems on track - too early to say though

Gymming has begun to happen three days a week at least - and it has been more than three days :)

I have an interesting angle to the Raj Thackrey point of view on us Non - Mumbaikars which i shall reserve for the next post!

adios

'Reviving' something that never took off

If I say that I am making an attempt to revive 'jhola' I run two risks -

1)Of attempting to 'revive' something that never really took off - which in this case is the blog

2)Of making a promise that I may not be able to keep up with - blogging is one of those good to do things which often get left out in the race to finish all the "required to do things" which may not be as good to do. Will I or most of us ever achieve a convergence of the 'good to do' with the 'required to do' things

So a smart way of reviving was to proxy blog - ride on someone's post which i found extermely useful.

how-to-file-rti-how-i-filed-rti

A student of IIT Powai has used the right to information act to inquire into why trees in his hostel were shown the axe.

I personally gained from this as I always thought using the RTI would be like another bureaucratic tangle where the formalities of it may be too burdensome to reap the benefits

This post will tell you its otherwise.

Not the best way to 'return' but hope i will blog more often now, like I hope i will go to the gym, read more regularly and a never ending wish list...

Here's inviting all of you to share your perceptions, knowledge and experience about RTI as i feel like filing a couple of RTIs on a few issues myself.

Of Human Weddings - - and the Super human ones

The Wedding Day - I am told - hopefully I am still far from the experience - is one of the most significant days of the couple's life.

Having said that, celebration is a very broad term, a feeling that can be expressed in a variety of formats. A large gathering,an elaborate dinner, lighting, music and dance are some forms of expressing this feeling that have come to been recognised as celebrations.Does the lack of pomp and show therefore reflect lack of celebration? Does the need to eliminate a large group from joining in take away from the feeling.

The recent attempts of coverage made to cover Ash-Abhi wedding by the Indian and International news channels is a stark example of forcing a format of celebration. A celebrity wedding must be covered for the people as they are the ones who made them a celebrity! This arguement has been put forward by the broadcasters to Justify their attempts at somehow trying to capture footage of what they have made to appear like a Super Human Wedding. This arguement is as fallacious as all employees of a company wanting to be a part of their CEO's wedding as they are the people who run the company which makes him the CEO. Abhishek and Aishwarya have the right to feel human on a day that will shape the rest of their lives.

My parents had a court marraige and most of their close friends also were not invited becuase they preferred it that way. That according to them was a way of celebrating as they wanted to celebrate the moment that way. We often respect similar sentiments of our near and dear ones, then why not respect such feelings of people who we only know remotely through mass mediums.

The Indian society at large, (it is the fault of society, in my opinion, and not media as media only reflects upon what the society at large wants to see) can only see celebrations as a stereotype song ,dance and good food sequence.