http://viveks.info Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:59:25 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en India's Olympic aspirations were clearly reflected in this poll in DD News (see image below).  Expectations are so low about India's performance at Beijing that even the government run new channel runs a poll asking if India can win a gold at all! http://viveks.info/indias-olympic-dreams Tagore wrote a beautiful poem called "Playthings" that I was reminded of when I saw this child play [simage=9,400,n,center] [simage=10,400,n,center] Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning. I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig. I am busy with ... http://viveks.info/playthings-by-tagore Horray, Google News is now available in Tamil I have been a great fan of Google News for a few years now.  So much so that I read most news starting here rather than through news papers or their websites.  .  A big lacuna with it was that Tamil news was ... http://viveks.info/google-seithigal-google-news-in-tamil I was impressed with Obama’s talk on race during the primaries – particularly his ability to deal with difficult issues. What he did with race, he does not with international relations Obama’s ability to draw attention across the globe is incredible. There are even posters of him with a ... http://viveks.info/obama%e2%80%99s-worrisome-idioms-in-reaction-to-his-berlin-speech MS Word is one indication for the newness of Obama in politics. It does not recognize his name. Instead it keeps offering "Osama" as an alternative to it! Of course, it will change in the next edition. http://viveks.info/ms-word-shows-how-new-obama-is-in-politics No Man's Land Year: 2001 Writer: Danis Tanovic Director: Danis Tanovic Category: Drama Rating: 4 out of 5 Three wounded soldiers Ciki, Cera (Bosnians) and Nino (Serbian) get caught in a trench in the no man’s land. Cera is lying on a mine that would burst if he moves. There is ... http://viveks.info/no-man%e2%80%99s-land-by-tanovic-gripping Today, I had a great boat trip on the sea with a fisherman friend. Was joined by Biraj and Meesai Mariappan. The highlight of the visit was catching up with some dolphins in the sea. I am told that there will be hundreds of them if we ... http://viveks.info/pondichery-from-the-sea I had been concerned that the huge list of documents I have from the Right to Food Campaign may become unusable over the years when we move from older versions of doc to much newer ones. When the 'doc' format gave way to the radically different 'docx' format, my fears ... http://viveks.info/converted-all-doc-to-docx-files-phew This post is in reaction to a friend's post about Mani Ratnam's brilliance when it comes to handling children.  Citing Kannathil Muthamittal and Anjali he says, The master director’s known for his ability to extract the best from the kids - Anjali had proved that way back in eighties. But, then ... http://viveks.info/children-in-mani-ratnam-movies The IAEA text that was not made available to Indian Parliamentarians is available online through DC think tank! The Government of India has been claiming that that text of safeguards agreement with IAEA is a secret document that will not be circulated even to members of the Indian Parliament. Considering ... http://viveks.info/iaea-agreement-freely-available-in-dc-secret-for-indians American Visa IMDB Year: 2005 Director: Juan Carlos Valdivia Category: Foreign Rating: 3 out of 5 What better movie could I review waiting outside the US Consulate for an American visa? This satirical comedy is about Mario’s dreams to join his son for a comfortable life in the United States. After ... http://viveks.info/review-of-bolivian-american-visa-as-i-wait-for-mine By cheaply twisting facts, media makes headlines to bash the Left Parties After spectacularly winning 13 out of 17 Zilla Parishads, CPM and it's partners woke up to see the following headline in the Indian Express, "Not just Singur and Nandigram, CPM gets battered across rural West Bengal". Some sections ... http://viveks.info/communist-bashing-in-indian-media It’s difficult to imagine that the suave Bombay girl and I will have a common attitude to clothing (see note on cloth shopping). In my recent trip to Bombay, I discovered just that. Priyanka and I both prefer loose cloths. We just seem to do it from ... http://viveks.info/in-our-own-style Joie de vie could just be another name for Jubeet. Even in the exam season of D.School, you could count on her to see a perpetually cheerful person…and it was infectious. “Oh Vivek, I should tell you about this”, she’d often start, her face brightening as she broke ... http://viveks.info/the-umbrella T R Vishwanathan was one of the founding members of the communist movement in South Arcot District I met TRV for an interview two weeks ago. Though he was unwell and very old, he insisted on speaking to me. "I may have a heart attack and pass away anyday", ... http://viveks.info/obituray-to-a-great-soul-t-r-vishwanathan-trv A report by the Dy. Commissioner, and SP Palamu indicates that police in Palamu is not serious about pursuing Lalit Metha's murderers One of our colleagues, Lalit Mehta, was brutally murdered  in Palamu, Jharkahand recently.  A sloppy report has prepared by the Deputy Commissioner and the SP, Palamu indicates that the ... http://viveks.info/jharkhand-police-enquiry-or-cover-up-in-lalit-mehtas-murder-case Mozhi Year: 2007 Writer: Radha Mohan Director: Radha Mohan Length: 152 Category: Drama Rating: 4 out of 5 Entertainment with purpose - to the hilt Mozhi is one of the finest Tamil movies to come in this decade. It’s worth watching, and watching again. Karthik (played by Prithviraj) falls in love ... http://viveks.info/mozhi-with-jyothika-fantastic-tamil-movie Here's a news item from the Real news network on India's refusal to sign the cluster bomb treaty along with China, US (not surprisingly), Israel, Russia and Pakistan.What is shocking though is the paltry coverage it got in Indian media for an issue that is clearly important. ToI, NDTV, ... http://viveks.info/india-refuses-to-sign-cluster-bomb-treaty-video Eisenhover in a memorable speech talked of the danger of the military industrial complex.  His warning has sadly been borne out time and again in the decades following the speech. In this context calculations of gain overwhelm concerns for morality in foreign policy.  Thankfully, the same decades have also seen ... http://viveks.info/american-war-par-da-song-by-jayashree The murder of Aarushi, a 14 year old girl, has taken over the news channels in the last few days. At prime time today, there was practically nothing else in the major English news channels. In what is undoubtedly a gruesome affair, it looks like the child was ... http://viveks.info/electronic-media-forget-aarushi-cover-lalit In one of the worst cases of attack on an NREGA activist, Lalit Kumar was murdered this week in Palamu Right from the word go combating corruption in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been a major agenda of activists of the Right to Food Campaign. Needless to say, ... http://viveks.info/murder-of-lalit-kumar-nrega-activist-in-palamu-jharkhand A growing collection of Ambedkar's works are available online at Ambedkar.org Ambedkar is easily one of the finest Indian thinkers ever. Academically, he has a degree in law, a Masters in economics (from London School of Economics), and a doctorate in social sciences (from Columbia University). At Columbia he ... http://viveks.info/babasaheb-ambedkars-works-online-books-articles-talks Dreams of trespass : Tales of a harem girlhood Rating: 5 out of 5 Author: Fathima Mernissi Year: 2002 Category: Feminism, Auto-ethnography, Institutions Publisher: Perseus Books Moroccan feminist and author weaves pure magic “Dreams of a trespass: Tales of a harem girlhood” is an auto-ethnography and is written from the perspective of ... http://viveks.info/mernissi%e2%80%99s-dreams-of-a-trespass-best-feminist-work-i-have-read-yet Creating neat bibliographies can be a pain, Word 2007 makes it easy There are hundreds of formats for citations like Chicago, APA, etc.  The only thing in common between them is that each of them is a nightmare!  I cannot imagine how people did extensive citations before the coming of automated ... http://viveks.info/citations-using-word-2007-bibliographies-made-easy O India produz mais filmes que todos outros país do mundo... ...Muito mais. Tal vez tu sei que há muitas linguas na India. Muitos disso tem um grande indústria do cinema. O muito famoso é o indústria do Bombay chamo “Bollywood”. Muitos estrangeiros pensem que só Bollywood ... http://viveks.info/introducao-aos-cinema-indiano