An attempt to save children. Please help.

When I opened my blog on Blogger, I was not only glad with all the UI and the features that Blogger had to offer but also happy about SocailVibe which is such an easy way to spread the word and help the needy. As you can see in my blog’s sidebar (to the right) that I have added the SocialVibe badge. Through Blogger and SocialVibe.com, I have joined the “Keep A Child Alive” Cause that fights for children with AIDS in India and Africa. Please do click on the badge in the blog sidebar and give those children few minutes of your time. This cause has earned around $2000 till date and we need more. Just a free click, and you can save a child’s life! Don’t look at this as an advertisement, or those irritating surveys for torrents, etc. Its not!!! This is just an intelligent idea to save and contribute towards a good cause, by using the internet to its full extent.

I have joined the “Keep A Child Alive” Cause which provides free treatment to the AIDS affected children in India and Africa. India is one of the worst AIDS affected countries in the world and also, being an Indian made me choose this cause. After all, little children have no reason to suffer like this. So please… all I’m asking of you is ONLY 3 minutes of your time.

Click the badge in the sidebar to you right and follow the instructions. Its not going to take you more than 3 minutes to complete the whole process. The company that is enrolled with us for sponsoring will ask you a few questions for their surveys and to advertise their products (within 3 minutes). You will have an option to choose whether you want to move further for the next activity. The more activities you try out, the more treatment hours will be added to the counter and therefore, more help to the helpless children. So please make your contributions.

Again, my earnest advice to you is not to look at this as an advertisement because it’s not!! Just 3 minutes of your time, and your contributing to an ocean of help that is going forward to save these innocent lives. For more info, visit SocialVibe.com. Thank you so much. Let’s make this world a better place to live in, in whatever small or big way possible.

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Small steps to the Big Screen

Are you a movie buff? Do you love watching movies for more than just the entertainment? Do you dream of becoming an actor, director, film technician one day? Here is a group of special people who with only their limited resources, have created this little masterpiece. This is a very respectable piece or work and creativity but not the best, because I’m sure their best is yet to come!

Rochershake Productions presents “The Law”. The Law wasn’t planned under a scheduled meeting or taking ideas from experts. One day, this group of friends, all about the same age group of 22 years were hanging out with each other, playing poker and killing time during their vacation. It just occurred to them, that they could possibly make a movie, and from then on the idea just grew!

Were they worried about light setting, filming, editing? Naaa… they knew they had the talent and the will! What else do you need! As their game of poker carried on that evening, each of them were given a character casually, and slowly it began developing into into a story... and behold… The Law. Click on the following image to watch the entire film.

The Law was made was shot over a span of 3 days from 10pm to 4am every day and night. What’s amazing to me and I guess to everyone too is that they have used practically ‘nothing special’ to create this simple yet intricate film.  All what is used in this film is normal house lighting (tube lights, bulbs) and street lamps (for the road scenes). The total budget was 900 bucks, which was for the tripod they bought. For the video, a Cannon 8.1MP digital camera was used, without any expertise in acting, shooting or editing. All this… and Windows Movie Maker! Amazing isn’t it?

This is not uploaded on YouTube because then, the limit was just 10min, while the film is almost 15min. Currently Rochershake Productions are working on their next release “Citius, Fortius, Chronos – A boon or a curse”. I’m more impatient for this release than any other main stream movies like SALT or all the recent crappy Bollywood flicks! The minor problem they’re facing now is to condense the new film to 15 min which is the upload limit of YouTube. For now, watch the trailer of Citius, Fortius, Chronos and then I’m sure you’ll be awaiting the release too!

Aditya Aggarwal, Akanksha Shah, Daksh Bajoria, Karan Shah, Meghna Amin, Nishil Davawala, Parthiv Shah, Pulah Shah, Rushil Shah and Tulsa Bhatt constitute this amazing team. I applaud all of them for their amazing use of time in their vacation and for inspiring us. All the best to all their future creations and efforts!

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Inspirers: Shourya Saluja

This is the first of my Inspirers series of posts. This is to highlight and showcase special people who from an ordinary life make extraordinary things, through their ideas, determination and talent. The first post here is about a 17 year old boy, Shourya Saluja. I read about him this morning in the Times of India and I thought that I must share this with you.

Shourya Saluja, a Class 12 student of Bangalore’s Indus International School is devising a curriculum For Classes IX to XII which will create awareness about cyber safety. While most kids his age are freaking out on social networking sites, he’s rather wary of dangers lurking within these. Now, he’s developing a curriculum on cyber security with the help of Infosys which will be taught first in his school and later perhaps adopted by CBSE.

"Children disclose too much information in their profiles, they upload photos and accept random people as friends just to increase the number in their friends’ list. They don’t know what dangers this can lead to," said Shourya. Kids will also be taught how to protect themselves from dangers like phishing messages, things to look after in a Local Area Network (LAN), internal security. Shourya plans to rate the success of his programme after six months and then seek the Central Board of Secondary Education’s approval to include it in the curriculum. He says he got the idea when his 10-year-old sister asked him to create a Facebook profile with all her information. "I realized that many children are ignorant about consequences of this," he said.

While I searched the net for more info about this inspiring kid, I came across one more of his positive endeavours that will help society. Shaurya organised a Squash workshop, which was conducted by Satinder Bajwa, Harvard University Head Squash Coach, with proceeds going to a Squash academy that coaches rural children. “The best way to promote sports is through communities. If we can support the needy through such initiatives, even better,” says Shaurya. The proceeds will go to Khelshala, an organization in Attawa village in Chandigarh, which was founded by Bajwa himself with the aim of making squash accessible to underprivileged children in the villages nearby. A good squash player himself, Saluja plans to train further and play professional squash. He was ranked ninth in Malaysia, where he lived a few years back, in the Under-15 category at the Kuala Lumpur Junior Open Squash Championship 2007.  After moving to Bangalore a couple of years back, he has been participating in interschool and state championships.  His other interests include basketball, judo and football.

I’m sure Shaurya has more plans and ideas up his sleeve, that willgeneral brighten up this society more. Imagine if we could all take measures to imitate his work in the way we can. Are you an expert in singing? Couldn’t you train your watchmen’s children to sing if they’re earning just to pay for the singing classes? Imagine the speed at which our country will develop if all of us share our powers. Shaurya is a name truly deserved. Keep it going…

You can find Shaurya on Facebook or Twitter… but yes, I guess he will add you only if he knows you well. You can also visit the Khelshala Fan Page on Facebook.

Courtesy: The Times of India, Mangalore, Monday August 2nd, 2010 and Citizen Matters, Bangalore

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Mangalore's City Centre: Reality or Rumour

Today we all are witness to the undoubtedly most marvellous man-made structure in the city of Mangalore, Karnataka, India. Never did Mangaloreans ever see such a location in this small city before. City Centre is that one more feather in Mangalore's hat! But there are certain realities or rumours that one must know while there is a great part of the world that still lives in poverty and they cant afford to even look at such structures.

City Centre and buildings like these don't stand up on their own and with straight ways. This is known truth and in India many kinds of such "truth" go unnoticed for a long LONG time. But I want to shed light on certain things that at least all Mangaloreans must know:

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  There was a big furore and quarrel on the land sharing or land acquisition before the construction began. Built close to Lighthouse Hill in Mangalore, posed a risk to acquiring more land than given. Now this was a danger to the buildings near by, apartments and houses that stand on the Lighthouse Hill and have been there for years. By 'digging the land' below for the mall, could have loosened the ground and could have led to the collapse of the nearby buildings. We don't know how this case was pushed under the table, or how did the nearby residents keep silent later, or whether the case is still pending!
  
  


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  There were rumours that the management of the mall did not submit the completion report on time and hence the Municipality did not approve of electricity to the building. Yet, the mall was opened without it and supposedly is running on diesel ever since using electricity generators! What a waste of fuel!
  
  


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  The disputes did not stop there. There are sources from the Mangalore Corporation who have said that City Centre was supposed to have three more floors above those of the parking lot. If that had been done it would have been the 5th biggest mall in India. Currently its at 10th position. The reason being that the corporation again did not give the necessary permission to build those additional floors. Hmmm so do we have a strict Corporation here? I hope so.
  
  

Mall culture is increasing at a rate that is just not necessary at times. If it adds to the economy without hampering anything else and eating through other important resources like land, etc... then we need more malls! Mangalore is a small city and there seems to be race of "mall building" and its crazy! Currently there are 3 malls open (including City Centre) and 3 (or more) under construction! Here is how we stand in Karnataka:

1. Mantri Square Mall, Bangalore, 1,625,000 sq ft


2. City Centre, K S Rao Road, Mangalore, 800,000 sq ft


3. The Forum, Bangalore, 625,000 sq ft

The Plama Mall, Kulshekar, Mangalore is under construction with an estimated area of 900,000 sq ft which will make it the second largest in the State and thus Mangalore will be that city having two of its malls in the state's top 3! Here are the stats for the malls across India:

All said and done I love malls and its the best place to meet up with friends or spend time when you have no other place to decide on, especially in this "busy" world today. My concern is to the incredible speed of just 2-3 years that change the faces of small cities, States and India too. And while we're at the topic of malls, Mantri Mall is not going to be the biggest by the end of next year, because its position will be taken by the upcoming Mall of India, in the National Capital. Check out the list of malls in India.

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