The Earth Day Special: Cleaning up broken CFL

I have now replaced almost all incandescent lights with CFLs. Did you know there are yellow CFLs too, a bit more expensive but if like me you like the soft yellow lights, they are great. Hopefully LEDs will become cheaper soon when I'll move to LED lights.
What many of us don't realize is the CFLs contain mercury and such rather dangerous elements (do you know that mercury is dangerous for health? ). India rather helpfully doesnt even have such information publicized on the CFL packs and our recycling efforts are joke. While ultimately our toxic trash might still end up in some landfill untreated because there are no recycling centers at least we can ensure that we do not poison our living spaces. So here are some tips on how to handle a CFL breakage.
Now that you know how to handle CFL waste, go ahead and replace incandescent with CFL. And don't worry while more CFL means more mercury around, it is still less than the mercury our coal fired power plants put into air to power the incandescent lights.

State of Hindi Publications and What can We do About It.

I often keep searching for Hindi magazines to read. As it happens Pune does not really have good outlets keeping Hindi books barring the occasional Premchand, lot less magazines. So the only option is to search online. I came across this very well written piece that talked about the current state of Hindi Publishing.
It is indeed sad. I remember the time I was still a middle school boy, there were Dharmayug and Saptahik Hindustan that carried great pieces in Hindi. Alas both folded up. I was surprised to read that Dharmayug was printing over 4 lakh copies a month during those days. It was a pity that the very rich Times of India group and Hindustan Times group could not manage to keep these two periodicals running.
Most of the few remaining Hindi journals have an monthly print of 5000 copies or less. Its sad to see that Hindi state governments can spent crores every years in erecting statues and like but cannot spend a couple of crores in subscribing to these magazines that preserve a whole culture and provide for intellectual dynamism of the masses.
This is one thing that I admire about Maharashtrians (its also there is south from what i hear but I know about Maharashtra since I now live here). Average educated Marathi takes a lot of pride in sustaining the Marathi cultural pursuits like literature and theater etc. And its not just some notion of philanthropy that makes them pay money. The fact is that people genuinely enjoy the local art forms.
Hindi heartland probably suffers for its poverty. The big towns has its literary minded citizens reading English. and the small towns probably find the whole trouble to getting writers to contribute, print and distribute a quality magazine too expensive for its general public. I think there is also a lack of certain awareness. I and many of my friends would love to read Hindi magazines of literary kind. And I do spend money buying books so yes given a quality periodical, I would buy it. Same would go for so many of people like me, people in cities like Pune. Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad, California and New York.
There is a surprising lack of online presence of these magazine. This especially comes in way of expats, a lot of whom feel nostalgic about the literature and culture back home. An online - subscription and/or ad based magazine I am sure will find takers. We already have Hindi Newspapers seeing very healthy circulation. So a large group like HT or TOI should find restarting a web based Hindi magazine maybe chump change.
There are I am sure lots of writers who still write in local languages. If these online periodicals start accepting stories online getting submissions may not be tough. There could even be some sort of a view + ratings based system where all submissions are up for view and those that cross a viewership/rating threshold gets money proportional to the number of views. To get around the usual moronic vandalism that happens on online sites, maybe a submitter needs to open an account with the site for say INR100/- so only serious authors get online and INR100/- is so low that any author will be able to sign up.
Similarly deals can be made with corporates to buy a few copies for reception areas, schools for libraries. Language schools teaching Hindi could be another target demographics. In short I think embracing new technologies, newer channels of distribution should easily allow for another 50000 a month copies for a quality journal. Even at that tiny volume, a small profit can be made.
Another idea could be that some of these magazines can even double up as literary agents. Yes there can be certain amount of discomfort with this idea but maybe a separate marketing function can take care of it. So a magazine can hook up with say a TV producer so serialize a story or have a story and episode kind of format. Both the existing publisher and the author can share the royalties from it.
Lets see if any of this is realized. Who knows one day if I have some money I might start some venture of my own. After all dead of a language is too painful to be allowed.

Driving me crazy

Since the theme this month seems to be ads, a few more thoughts have to be foisted here.
First that IPL and more so KolKatta Knight Riders (KKR). There ads are more ubiquitous than stink in a roadways loo. You can have 10 min of peaceful channel flipping without running into these days. I suspect if the IT department were to investigate the costs incurred on ads, we may be able to avoid personal income tax imposition at all.
Coming back to ads IPL ads (and 99% of which are KKR) all show a contest where there is a winner but each one of the contest has a winner winning by a means other than cricket! Sometimes its dance, sometimes it some ball game involving kicks, sometimes shouting. Sign of times? This circus promises to be everything but cricket if the ads are any indications.
There is a BSNL ad that has a babe agreeing to a good match till she discovers that the prospective in-laws place has no landline! I mean hello couldn't the ad agency pick a more plausible reason than equating a BSNL landline with identity?

Then there are those good ads. The new Vodaphone ads are typically cheeky and fun and the theme goes well with the target audience of teenagers.
-- to be continued (when I can recollect the other ads, KKRs carpet bombing has pretty much left no ad space left for other folks).

Another recent ad I like is from a plywood firm. The ads shows a couple of lawyers arguing about a case with the judge hammering the desk (made of plywood) to adjourn the rather comical debate. And the debate goes on. While being fun it is also a powerful satire on the justice system where a simple case goes on long enough for an adolescent to be a creeping old.
Similarly there is that ad from a radio station that has someone inside a manhole singing a happy song with a message that our listeners are always happy. Simple, yet conveys the message that its channel that will play fun songs.

Is it debate, Is it poetry? Sounds like Abuse to Me :)

The old timers got many things right. I came across this - an impromptu abuse session in a paper today. Abuse as an art form! Come to think of it why not. In colleges there used to be "creative abuse" contests which were well very creative at times.
Satire as an effective form of commentary on social conditions or happenings has been in existence for long. But "abuse" as a commentary on social conditions and happenings I found rather novel. If we look at our modern day politics, so much is about abusing the others. Now at least these leaders can claim to be artists. So folks doncha worry no barbarians at the gates any more. Its an infestation of art spirit.
On a more serious note, yes there is something in satire/abuse that often brings out the creative best in people. Why not have this as a form of creative expression and let off steam? Since these are public events often with neighbours/friends in attendance I doubt if the sessions would degenerate into crass name calling - which the participants insist is not there. Then it seems more like what they call in Hindi as 'Haasya Kavi Sammelan' - humor poetry session. and such sit down social events can only lead to more fraternal spirit. The only difference is that one is allowed to retort to an 'abuse'. A debate in poetry format - what fun!
This is a model I'd like to see happening on a bigger scale.

Non resident resident

There is a recent report of an MP involved in some controversy in delaying an aircraft. What I find interesting is that the said member of Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Indian Parliament) is apparently an NRI based in Dubai.
Isnt it an eligibility criteria that the candidate for a RS seat be a 'resident' of the state? How is a non resident Indian a member of a house of parliament meant only for residents of a state. While it may be legal because he is a citizen, isn't it against the spirit of the house?

The future is advertising?

The future is advertising? Going by the almost universal demand on everything on internet being free,- just look at emails/chat etc, it stands to reason that ad supported free sites will only go on. Now there are paid sites that also use ads, and some of them pretty obtrusively too and they are tolerated. I foresee eventually every other site will have heavy ads. But lots of ads itself does not help much. What the advertisers will of course like, are ads that are effective. Ads that actually interest the viewer and here comes in the success of sites like Google and all that do a lot of data mining and come up with targeted ads based on certain well researched assumptions of the user interest.

Even non internet ads – especially those that rely on broadcast media do a lot of research based on the preferences of the target audience before deciding on the exact ad message. Recently there was a report in Guardian of UK that talked about neuro-research driven ads. Here the advertiser actually map a sample’s brain waves/cell conditions in response of specific types of ads and based on the ad that generates a more suitable mental reason, come up with the campaign.

In some distant or not so distant future once net connectivity is ubiquitous so that broadcast networks can actually have appliances in user homes which can feedback data and receive targeted content (esp. in case of ads). This is not far fetched since cable modems already have capability to feedback data to the service provider. Such a setup can have a sophisticated sensor that can actually sense the brainwaves from a distance. Or maybe there is a headset based system that may be able to capture brainwaves while projecting a 3 dimensional image of the programming directly onto the retina. What prevents us from then say putting an ad for a similar whiskey on the screen when the hero in that flick is swishing a stiff one and the viewer indicates a similar wish?

Interesting case would be when instead of a headset, there is just one device in the room and all see ads based on whichever person it focuses on. Imagine a set of conservative parents and some interestingly iconoclast adolescent sitting together and the unit latching onto some of the viewers randomly?

Or a case of a hall full of people with a large TV set (like in sports bar and all). Might be quite some fun to speculate who trigger that ahem ad!

Olympic torch in India and Tibet protests

India does have a delicate balancing act in the whole Tibetan - China issue that is right now taking the world's center stage. While justice demands that we strongly oppose the cultural annihilation of Tibet being conducted by China, real politic demands that the government conducts itself with India's best interest in mind and not being guided by emotions.
That said as a genuine democracy India must not repress any peaceful protest against China or the Olympic torch. Democracy as the most participative of the current political systems needs to emerge a winner here. So all the security and all being planned for the torch relay into India is fine, let no harm come to the torch that is a symbol of human athletic achievements.
At the same time nothing should stop us from letting peaceful protests happen in background. What is the harm is allowing black armbands? Or people staging plays depicting the concern in the backdrop of a torch and our TV covering it? Will China like it? Of course not. But so long as the torch is not harmed we must be firm. No one respects a lap dog, a lesson many of our senior politicians and powers to be will do well to realize. Yes China will fret and fume and that is their right. And it is our right to show how a competent democracy works and how people are free to do their will in India so long as they do it peacefully,.
China will respect a confident India and not a groveling India.

Equal society or Tyranny of the Clique?

Judging from what the fine intelligent patriotic intellectuals in our left politics (and across the globe) say about communism being the best politico-economics system that really fosters equality and liberates mankind from tyranny, I wonder why all communist countries so heavily repress their own people?
And to those who counter this by saying that no they don't its merely the pro capitalist media that spreads disinformation I'll ask if that is true why do countries like China have so much state control over media, do not allow foreign journalists (or human rights workers since journalists apparently are all rabidly pro-capitalist) to freely interact with people?
Why are communication channels so heavily controlled (China has a state firewall that actively screens content)? If all are so equal why do only communist party members have only real power in such countries?