07 Aug 2013
· media
I wrote my first piece of code in 1988. And over the years I have abandoned coding for many different things; but I seem to keep coming back to it, like it were my one true love.
In the latest iteration, I started teaching myself PHP and MySQL because I wanted to create a data-heavy, user-editable, personalized website – PublishersGlobal.com. The effort did push the limits of my knowledge of database design and my skills with PHP and MySQL.
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07 Aug 2012
· cycling
Perhaps more appropriate to say ’trying to’ cycle across the Sach Pass. And failing. We did our best, under the circumstances, and failed. No shame in that!
15 odd kilometers short of the Sach pass we had to turn around . The trail (can’t call it a road, even though it was wider than a typical single track) was so steep, and so full of slush that our bikes had no grip. The fact that we had too much weight loaded on the cycle, did not help either. Add to all of this, the fact that I had just recently recovered from a bout of somewhat prolonged illness, and was perhaps not as fit as I thought I was.
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10 Jun 2012
· media
I started CommunityVoices.in as an experimental project to find, collate and share information about community media in India. The first phase is attempting to create a directory of community media in India.
CommunityVoices.in is being beta tested. At this time you can add a community media organization to the database, but the website itself is not ready for public viewing, yet…
Go to CommunityVoices.in
CommunityVoices.in website CommunityVoices.in website
Continue reading →12 Sep 2011
· comment
I must confess that I was not entirely surprised to read that the results of ‘mass-produced agriculture’ can sometimes be less than satisfactory. Allow me to summaries some of the human and environmental effects of using using ‘modern industrial production systems’ to grow tomatoes :
Hundreds of herbicides and pesticides are sprayed on the fields. Many of these are known to have negative health impact. There are known documented cases of birth defects among the farm hands. Tomatoes are picked hard and green and then they are artificially ‘ripened’ by spraying ethylene gas. The fruit is bred for volume and not taste or nutritional value. Which has led to yields tripling while the amounts of calcium, vitamin A, and vitamin C has dramatically reduced. Perhaps one of the key cost-saving device being employed is modern-day slave labour. Yes, they are bought and sold. They work horrendously long hours and can not negotiate their terms of ‘employment’. If they escape they are tracked down. There are many known cases of children being used a slave labour. What I was surprised by however, is that this description is not from some small village, in some third-world country. This story is unfolding just a couple of hundred miles south of Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
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11 Sep 2011
· multi-media
When you throw the clay you literally have little idea how the end product will look and feel… not even when you glaze. Well, at least, I don’t. Or perhaps, not yet. And I love that. Reminds me of my days in the dark room. One used to wait eagerly to see how the picture would finally emerge on paper, the wait for the ceramics to emerge from the kiln is almost similar, for me.
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11 Sep 2011
· others
Some recent street art
Some recent street art
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08 Sep 2011
· adventures
She knew. I could tell she knew that I was in pain. I had been making sure that the violent negotiations between my calves and knees were kept to, well, myself. But she could see through it.
I was determined to take myself and the 20 kilo pack on my back, safely to wherever the trail ended. This was the last, and particularly gruelling, day of a 6-day-trek across the Buran Pass. And I was not going to let my knees or calves come in the way of my finishing the trek. I was not going let myself get distracted by a little bit of pain.
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27 Aug 2011
· community-radio
Now, listen to Gurgaon Ki Awaaz sitting anywhere in the Net-enabled world. Our icecast link page is made possible by the collective efforts of Gramvaaniand Nomad India Network and the support of the Radiophone project.
Click here to listen to Gurgaon Ki Awaaz: https://radio.gurgaonkiawaaz.in
[Note: This post was last updated in November 2019 to reflect the new link]
Continue reading →10 May 2011
· media
Through this project I attempt to highlight independent, non-corporate, alternate news media across the world. The aim is to give ‘air time’ to views that much of the advertising-sponsored corporate media ignores. On occasion that some mainstream media gives space to an alternate voice, we try to point to that too.
You might find this site useful if you are interested in listening to alternate and dissenting voices, whatever your reasons. You don’t need to agree with everything you read here. I don’t – it would be a cause of worry if everything nicely stacked up along my existing views.
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04 May 2011
· photo-features
Our documentary film was first shown as part of an exhibition & seminar ‘What makes India urban?’ at AEDES Am Pfefferberg, Berlin, a gallery that focuses on architecture.
In less than two decades, the rural landscape of Gurgaon has taken on an urban identity. Yet, without a shared vocabulary for spaces, zebra crossings are “peopled” by buffaloes and busy mall roads have “herds” of shoppers making suicidal attempts to criss-cross a sea of racing vehicles.
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