Inquiring minds

What do people want from newspapers?

I was reading an old article, where I found that the percent of the adult reading newspapers fall to 55 from 70 in last three decades. Various agencies have been continuously trying to figure out the reason. Most of the times it appears that people want better services, more local news, reader-friendly presentations involving graphics and narrative-style articles and advertising.

“Intensely local, people-centered news ranks at the top of the list of content items with the greatest potential to increase overall readership, ” says an American university, which is conducting the research. Better coverage of national and international events and more investigative journalism are not necessarily what readers want. And newspapers feel pressured to give people more of what they want.

Now the question is what I want from these newspapers. Seriously, I have never given a thought to this. After quickly reading the headlines on the first page, my habit is to start reading the news from last page, which generally covers M S Dhoni and Sania Mirza, sometimes Schumacher also. After going through the sport pages, I quickly flip through the pages and stop at the second page where all the movie timings are listed for television or for the theaters. The whole process also involves some reading about the proposed f**king reservation policy.

Yesterday I spent seven minutes on the newspaper. I admired the beauty with brains, which was there on the first page (She looked like a doctor protesting against the proposed reservation policy). I read why Zidane is considered to be such a high value sportsman for his country, what are the implications of Dhoni being at the top of ODI ranking, what are the future plans of Sania Mirza and Sikha Oberoi, what Sachin thinks about the number of ODI’s played annually and also what is the future of Schumacer with Ferari. 

But its not like I am totally dumb about all the issues. I listen to the discussions regarding the business issues, social issues, and current socio-political issues also. I want to read other news in the paper, but somehow I can’t. Therefore I am asking you all, what are the points you think which should be taken care by newspapers.

There is no doubt that a democracy like us need the newspapers to make the people aware of every activity going all around them and also to give them a platform to express their views regarding all those issues/ activities. It’s also the collective responsibility of all the educated citizens to learn about all the happenings, and then to contribute, criticize and I think that the newspaper is a very ideal platform for that.

What do you think?

Long time. Almost forgot that

Long time. Almost forgot that I am having some place at the internet called anandz.blogspot.com. But now onward I will try to be little bit more consistent. 

In-between, I am now out of the tale of two cities. It’s a third city called Mumbai.Will post some more updates afterwards.

Girl with fair cheeks

To a very different note, here is the story of a man which can be symbolized as the final goal of a MAN. Note that this man holds a great repute in the Greek mythology. It's none other than Achilles. To be very honest, I had never heard the story of troy and Trojan horse, before I saw the movie TROY two years back. But what a fantastic movie. This movie portrays the life of Achilles in a very exhaustive manner.

If you have seen that movie or you are aware of his story; can you guess what the two important things in his life were. By the way, there will be no prizes for guessing that. Do have a look on a brief summary of Achille's life.

"The ancient beach smoked with campfires, hecatombs,
and funeral pyres. And there sat Achilles
weeping like a girl, gesturing to his mother,
who slipped her arms around Zeus's knees

A tale of two cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

This is not the blog of Charles Dicken, so don't expect the summary of his book here. I have just borrowed the name of his book and opening lines as well (Though I must tell you these are among the very best, you will ever read). The name of this book just clicked, as I thought to write about my workplaces. After joining the present company, it so happened that I am continuously moving between two places Baroda and Surat. Now often or then I found myself comparing the two cities. Whenever anybody asks me about my place then the answer comes without a second thought, I am living in Baroda. But to be honest, I have spent more time in Surat.

But the reason behind my proclaimed affiliation with Baroda seems to be the apartment, which I have been

Confused thoughts about public reaction

Overreactions of the public have been often identified as the major reason behind any of the controversial issues ( sometimes doing good, some other times doing no good to the society), which can be regularly found in the newspapers and 24 x 7 news channels. Weather it be the case of Ganguly's exclusion from the Indian cricket team, khooshboo's idea on premarital sex or the discussion on the length of skirt worn by Sania, everytime some self-proclaimed contractors of social justice and euphemism try to use these as the tool to make themselves alive in the memory of general masses. If you are putting various politicians in this category, then you are pretty close to whom I am actually referring to.

An incident, which can be irrelevant to everybody except those who are directly involved; is being blown out of proportion. You must have witnessed the various interpretations made by some media geeks regarding the mute discussion between Dravid and Ganguly just before the start of the first test match in Lahore. Everybody is having their own opinions about everything which they see, observe or feel. If people are expressing it, sometimes this is categorized in the overreaction category as in the case of Ganguly's exclusion and Swami

Vegetarian Engineer

"I am working in energy sector and it's my moral responsibility to save energy. Now onwards I will not eat chicken; so that it can have a natural death and in future, will generate some hydrocarbon." - reply of a young engineer, when being asked about the reason behind his vegetarianism.

Hats off to the fantastic thought.

But even if you eat it my dear friend, I guess it will ultimately convert in hydrocarbon only, subject to many other favorable conditions.

Swami Ramdev

These types of things make me laugh. I am referring to the current Swami Ramdev episode. Let me tell you that I am not an ardent fan of him, but yes respect comes naturally for the people who are serving the people selflessly. Now the CPI leader has alleged him of selling drugs, which contains animal residue. I don’t know weather there is any truth in the allegations made by Ms Brinda Karat, but I do know that there are many more important works, which should take precedence over this whole issue.

Most of the followers of Swami are attached with him due to his wonderful knowledge of Yoga, which cured many of them, and not because of any religious reason. He is giving the Hindutva some weightage, but only after the full course of Pranayam coupled with many more yogas. So he is developing himself as a secular practitioner of Yoga and Ayurved, who is trying to restore the lost pride to this age old form of medicines.

Significant drop has been observed in the soft drink consumption, majority of which is being seen as the

To serve, not to be served

Education and literacy are two totally different things, albeit many people don't know the difference between them. Literacy refers to the ability to read and write, while education is the whole process of imparting or acquiring knowledge and skills. Though it's a very limiting definition of the word education, but you must have understood the basic difference.

Now , for understanding the situation in context of our country, lets go through the census results. The total population of India as at 0:00 hours on 1st March 2001 stood at 1,027,015,247 persons. With this, India became only the second country in the world after China to cross the one billion mark. The population of the country rose by 21.34 % between 1991 - 2001. The sex ratio (i.e., number of females per thousand males) of population was 933, rising from 927 as at the 1991 Census. Total literacy rate was returned as 65.38%.

One night @ call centre.

After reading the last few blogs of mine, you might be thinking that, this blog will condemn the harrasment of the woman working at call centres, which the country has witnessed recently in Banglore. But no, that's not my intention here. As nobody can write about all the bad things happening in society all the time, so its altogether a different blog. "One night @ the call centre" is the name of the latest book read by me. It was written by the same author, who had written "Five Point Someone". Both the books are great, but I particularly liked the later one.

There was only one confusion about this five point thing. In IIT Kanpur the grading is based on a ten point scale, which nearly characterizes the students having five point something (Though many people believe that grades are not the true reflection of the intelligence). In my college, grading was based on a five point scale. So I guess that if the author had been a student of my college, the name of the book had been "Two Point Something". Though I should tell you very frankly that it's tougher to get two point something grade as compared to five out of five, because you have to pass in all the subjects while maintaining a perfect D in all the subjects (I know that many four pointers will not agree to that, but I am).

Sorry man, here I was supposed to write some thing about his other book. I'll not write any comment on this book, rather I'll try to give the brief introduction to that book, which may help you to make your mind for

Concept of NON - MALE

Hey, you shouldn't worry, as I am not going to write anything about the 50:50 public or stuff anywhere related to that world. In this article I'll write about the empowerment of woman in highly technical fields especially in engineering side.

When I search my database for the name of the women who established themselves as the leaders in this field, I found that there are very few entries. You can blame it to the traditionally male dominated society or to my poor general knowledge. I have left this decision to you only. The very first name which strike my mind is Kalpana Chawala. Some others are ......... no, there is no other name in my database. Even if I will try to do this recalling exercise for rest of the world, Marie Curie is the only name. Even she is a chemist by profession, whereas we will limit ourselves to the core engineering only.

Nevertheless, hats off to these ladies. Also I don't think, if the similar question will be asked to any normal citizen of this world (a.k.a. normal IQ, normal EQ and normal SQ), he will be able to tell about more ladies.