The Voice In My Head…

I was quoted by The Economist - am rather psyched right now!!

Read the entire article here: The road to e-democracy (Feb 14th 2008, The Economist print edition)

edit: Thanks Manish Vij, for the shout out @ Ultrabrown

Hindustan Times picked up a little something I wrote for My India Report a while back in yesterday’s paper. Click on the image if you’d like to read:

The latest Blog Meet - the Blog Brunch in Hindustan Times, 19th November, 2007

(Click to enlarge & read entire article)

One thought & one correction though -

-> 1148 registered blogs in Mumbai? Where-huh? Wha-huh?? No one told me I had to register?

-> Bloggers in Mumbai have been meeting offline for a while now (long before the two years mentioned in the article). I attended my first meet two years ago (in Jan of 2006) and if I remember right, Amit told me there was about 8 meets in 2005 itself!

Well, something like that. Today’s Hindustan Times, Mumbai edition.

(click on image to read)

The “Ram-Lakhan Jodi”, as we’ve been called, strike again!

Saks & I are now part of the Channel [V] team - we’ve been roped in by the guys there to write a blog for their new show My India Report along with the 6 participants of the show.

We’ve been spending lots of time (on & offline) with a team of three (very cool) producers from Mumbai; Rakesh, Tatum & Aditya. The blog still needs a bit of tweaking in terms of the layout, but is already online, so do have a dekho (& come back for more, it promises to get better!)

My first post is about “Smoke Free Cities” as the team is now in Chandighar - and as Chandighar is the first smoke-free city in India .

Just little over a month ago, on 15th July 2007, Chandigarh became the first Indian city to go the London way and become 100% smoke free.

This means that no person is allowed by law to smoke in any public place. Offenders are liable to pay a fine of Rs. 200/- for the first offense and within the first five days, 764 people were fined in Chandigarh.

Environmentalists pushing for more smoke-free cities in India, cite studies such as the Seven US City Study conducted between March 25 and April 17, 2004, involving 53 bars and restaurants in 7 cities – which came to the conclusion that Bars and Restaurants in Smoke-Free Cities Have 82% Less Air Pollution Than Cities That Allow Smoking.

The topic is a hot one with Environmentalist pitted against Giant Tobacco Companies – with the Health Conscious against the Perennial Smokers.

What’s your take on the situation?

For people in Chandigarh:
Do you want this law to continue being active in Chandigarh?
Do you agree with the funda behind the law?
Are people really adhering to this law strictly though?

And for people everywhere else:
Do you think more cities in India should become smoke free?
Would you stop smoking if it became against the law?

With (partial) relevance to my post above, how many of you remember my post on Saket? lol.

Do visit the blog - My India Report - for daily updated diaries of the participants - and for posts on various topics from Sex to Success, the Environment to Entertainment from Saks & me!

And that’s not all, I’m a Blogger too.

Just in case you doubt the veracity of either, read diGit’s article below:

(click to enlarge & read article)

If you’re in Mumbai & you pick up a copy of the Hindustan Times, you may just end up reading this:

(click to read)

Edit Monday, 16th July: Have been informed from Delhi that they’ve gotten this in today’s papers. So for the Delhites reading, you know what to do!

It’s a nice to thing to wake up on a Sunday & see your picture in the paper isn’t it? Now I know what baby celebs feel like

(click on image for related article)

More, further to this. This time from Hindustan Times.

(Click on image to read entire article)

I really enjoyed the article & I thought it captured the true essence of the Pune blog camp, including some funny excerpts from the introduction section, where one guy said:

“My blog is for guys who have no girlfriends”

And, yours truly did also get a few (more) seconds of fame with these kind words:

Sakshi meanwhile, like a true celeb, is least affected by all of this. While I am all *yayyyy* & jumping about in spirit (ok, in reality too), she’s like “What’s all the fuss about woman?”

Cannot think of a suitable comeback since I’m still yayyyy-ing & jumping about.

PS: Thank you P for telling me about this article first thing in the morning!

CNN-IBN interviewed me at the Pune Blog Camp last Saturday. Unfortunately my interview did NOT seem to make the final cut! However, you can see me in there though, next to my dear friend Sakshi whose interview thankfully did make it (congrats babe!).

You can also see screen shots of TheVoiceInMyHead flashed in the visuals!

Y’all, please, feel free to comment what a great loss it is to the world that I didn’t make my TV debut