Upheaval vs News Vs Upheaval

It is quite a known fact/trend that upheavals in economy or politics or social structures cause news. It is a modern trend that news cause upheavals in economy or politics or social structures. What could be the reasons that news cause such an upheaval? Experts cite reasons such as inter-linked economy/society. They also attribute to wide spread presence and growth of news based media of all sorts. As a person who is curious and obsessed about words and their possible influence on human beings, I first came to know about this word through Alvin Toffler, who is more than a writer, vide his writings/works. He used this word in the context of information and knowledge. When I read his works in the 90s, I never realised the importance of the context and relevance. He rather predicted/envisaged that there will be widespread media and plethora of options for the consumer. During 90s the office I used to work had only a Telex facility. They never had a fax facility. There was only one email node and to access that we had to go through many procedures. Only landline phones, with STD and trunk call facility. The information and knowledge sources were TV- only one channel, radio- only govt controlled one, newspapers, magazines, books and journals. So at that time I really wondered how can upheavals in news be there at all! Now with the ubiquitous presence of news sources such as mobile/smart phone/phablet, now I understand and realise how continuous supply of news backed up by solid demand, not necessarily subscribed/paid for by the user, mostly/may be paid up by a vested interest, may influence the mind of the news user. Sometimes it can have a devastating as well as a positive effect/influence. The emergence of social media has only further fuelled it. The expansion of TV into multiple and HD type channels just added thrust to the same. Mobile and internet convergence has reshaped the availability of the news across multiple nodes enabling the readers to access from any source. Anybody with an access to internet or related sources can access any information and knowledge in the public domain. Worldwide there were many incidences where the social media and news sources have fuelled social movements/upsurges. If the recent upheavals in Delhi rape case, Anti corruption movement are any indication, they proved that India is not immune to news creating upheavals. Thus news in an interlinked economy has potential to cause upheavals. But mostly these are viral in nature. Lately we have also realised that virality is not leading to long lasting results. But the situation in future would/may/likely to be much more dynamic, vibrant , chaotic and upsetting!

NACO advertisements- my view

The latest ads by National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) aimed at youth- to motivate them to get tested at the ICTCs - are slightly better than previous versions as the ads are snazzy! But the frequency/repetition of appearance in the Telugu channels at this point of calendar year is too much! May be they are looking at the winter season as a potential messaging time. But India is really a vast country! Paratha with butter may be related to only by selected youth population of South India- if the food item has any significance in the message! I am not being too cynical! They can introduce variations to suit South Indian youth audience, if their time and budget permits! On the whole there is quite an improvement in the way the message is being presented. Really appreciable!

on a marathon translation

On a massive marathon of translating a huge questionnaire from English to Telugu. Huge because the no of pages could be more than 200 pages! Now I understand my difficulty with my native/mother tongue as well as professional tongue! Luckily Google Translate is coming to my aid for word to word translation if not sentence to sentence translation! Mumbling the - Hum honge Kaamyab- silently and to the extent I remember. The song was later part of the first movie of N Chandra and Nana Patekar- "Ankush"- if I am not wrong! Reminded of the reciting of the same by most/many of our IRMA batch mates in the lawns of the campus- may be just after the convocation! Repenting why I did not sing properly at that time itself! The above mentioned huge questionnaire is part of an intensive research project of about 10 months implemented by University of Berkely, World Bank, Innovations for Poverty Actions, BMGF, Westat, DRS etc for SERP/IKP.

Vishwaroopam- my view and review

Vishwaroopam- where the North do nat necessarily meet the South! Yesterday I saw the movie Vishwaroopam in a movieplex in Hyderabad. The price I paid was Rs 30 towards the ticket and Rs 10 towards the parking charges. The movie was worth the viewing for the money I spent on the movie. But what about the people who spent Rs 100 and above?. First let us reflect on the reviews. The North Indian and Bollywood critics written the movie off. It got the ratings of 2 and odd out of 5. In the southern circuit it has got decent reviews/ratings of 3 and odd out of 5. One thing that I could notice is that the bollywood film circuit did not grow on Southern heroes such as Kamalahassan, Rajanikant like the southern circuit. During my days of youth and partly later I enjoyed watching Kamal for his versatility and experimentation with roles, that too with so much of ease. There are many admirers for him in the south. Having said that Kama needs to be faulted for his too much of experimentation. Vishwaroopam was made on a lavish scale and with huge budget and reasonably good technical values. For the story he might have depended on some original incidents, write-ups and related things. So far so good. Though Kamal has not been very well educated, he developed good understanding of modern science without loosing the sight of basic and simple science. Since the story unfolded in different situations & regions and at different timelines and as the pace is racy, we may not be able to identify the loopholes in the story very easily. But screenplay or the story can be ripped apart quite easily. At the end of the story I was quite clueless about the pigeon/ dove part. What exactly happened to stop the menace? There are many such loose ends in the story like that. Another example is that how he could come back to India from Afghanistan and moved to USA without the knowledge of FBI and other agencies? The final bomb in the climax is too silly to be dreaded with inverted test tubes and some sort of wires. Using the Farady grid (that too with electric oven) was too simplistic. He did the same for Dasavatharam- using the common/sea salt to curb the virus menace!. It may be his way of telling that simple solutions exist for complicated subjects/ problems. No doubt he has taken dramatic/ story telling/situation liberty to tell the story in the process hurting some people's sentiments. Kamal also should accept that people have their liberty to use the legal angle. He can no longer afford to have grudge against any of them. If he is financially hurt, the other communities might have sentimentally hurt. One can not wish away the scope of being hurt by both sides. While it is true that he made his money based on his his talent, histrionics- he can not deny that common people of all hues and cries paid for him through visits to the theater or watching on TV/DVD etc. It was their money which is legally in his kitty. In this movie the actor in Kamal Hassan is subdued and the director in could be seen more. One more saving grace this is not a song and dance drama. He raised so many questions than he answered. What is the final fate of Afghans that he left behind? But among the Indian movies shot in Afghanistan, that I have seen- Khuda Gawa, Kabul Express and this- this movie is definitely better- if not the best. The movie is worth seeing for Kamal fans like me! The critic in me is quite uneasy. My advice to kamal hassan would be to reduce the make-up and avoid multiple roles in any movie and rather focus on the drama, emotions and expressions. He may try the make up part only occasionally. This is one of the movies where the North may not necessarily meet the South!