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1. India Uncut    Jan 13 2006 / 7am:

   [...] The Blog Mela comes around Welcome to the Blog Mela, the third hosted by me. (The first two are here and here.) As usual, putting this together took a lot of time, but was worth it. I discovered some new blogs, rediscovered some older ones I’d stopped going to, and had a good time, though my neck now hurts. As usual, I’ve kept editorial comment to a minimum. All these posts are worth checking out, and this mela, I hope, will have something for everybody. Without further ado:Society: Hemangini Gupta finds her personal space invaded on a train, but instead of ignoring it, takes action. NS Ramnath has some piercing thoughts on citizen journalism. Sumanth writes about the abuse of elders in India. Roshan Revankar writes about vibratory condoms. Dina Mehta shares the Louisiana Manifesto with us. Secular-Right India writes that courts should not legislate.Business and economics: Ravikiran Rao writes about the Ambanis and game theory. Ashish Hanwadikar writes that “many regulations in India and elsewhere are designed for corruption”. Surya writes about what we can do about microfinance. Vikram Arumilli tells us what American grocery stores can learn from Blockbuster. Subra Srinivasan muses on the bottom of the pyramid. Reuben Abraham examines the emigration tax idea.Music and Films: Samit Basu gives us some inside dope on how Parineeta was translated. Rakesh Chaudhary remembers Nana Patekar’s Prahar. Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta describes how the folksy elements wins over the folk in Amol Palekar’s Paheli. S Anand describes how Steven Spielberg created the sound effects in some of his films. Soultan of Swing gets nostalgic about “Kokomo” by the Beach Boys. J Alfred Prufrock 2 writes about writers who rock. Lazy Geek is unimpressed by War of the Worlds.Literature: Jai Arjun Singh finds much to like in the work of Alexander McCall Smith. Amardeep Singh finds Norman Mailer’s comments about Michiko Kakutani distasteful. Arun Simha writes about “Babul Mora”, a thumri by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh. J Alfred Prufrock 1 writes about, well, words.Creative writing: Chandrahas Choudhury gives us “The Ring”. Ammani writes about where the heart is. Manjula Padmanabhan gets Sudoked. Ravages finds himself near death. The Bride says, “Give the Bong a Fish”. Kingsley Jegan reports that God has sued Google. Aditya Bidikar writes about India’s greatest resource. Bridal Beer shares with us “A Potential Advertisement”. Ramya Kannan writes about the transformation of Akila. Rajesh Advani, remarkably, finds 100 things to rant about.Politics and foreign affairs: Nitin Pai asserts that “[w]hat passes for ’secularism’ in India is largely political expediency”. Ajay Bhat writes about how this US government “has done more than any in the recent past to weaken the position of the US in the world”. Harini Calamur finds herself agreeing with the RSS on at least one matter. Ennis of Sepia Mutiny writes that Henry Kissinger apologized for the wrong thing.Sports: Prem Panicker exposes the logical leap made by the ICC. Gaurav Sabnis yearns for a great tennis rivalry. The Great Bong remembers June 25, 1983. Tifoc wonders if sports “has been the silent benefactor in the liberation of the Indian economy.” Sonia Faleiro finds occasion to write about Sania Mirza and Shane Warne in the same post.Technology: J Ramanand finds himself getting sceptical about application technology. Kiruba Shankar writes about how he uses Gmail as his personal diary. (In addition to his blog, of course.) Aadisht Khanna writes about the bottomless buckets of Reliance. Dilip D’Souza discusses artifical intelligence. Patrix’s blog speaks while he’s away on vacation. Swaroop CH writes about Apple’s Mac OS X.Places in time: Ramakrishnan Parasuraman observes a line at the US Consulate at Anna Salai in Chennai. JK of Varnam examines “the only world that matters”. Arnab Nandi writes about the “shameless bus conductors” of Bangalore. Nandan Pandit sees the suburbs of Mumbai stick their tongue out. Sameer Gharat writes about monsoon craters. Annie Zaidi steps into a hall at Doon School and is awed. Neha Viswanathan tells us what she misses about the Delhi rains. Roshan Paul is surprised by the birdlife in Uday Park in Delhi.Education: Vikrum Sequeira finds that “a child’s demographic information almost exactly forms him or her as a student”. Cipher writes about a problem that blind students face. TA Abinandanan shares some ideas on Real Universities with us. Charukesi Ramadurai asks whether rural schools should insist on a school uniform for their students. Alexandra Mack introduces some kids to India. Shivam Vij asks some larger questions through the prism of Manoj Rawal. Atanu Dey says that Vipassana might just be the model for a new education system.Miscellaneous: Rajesh Jain gives advice on life to a 2005 baby, in five parts: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Tony Tharakan find that India’s stray dogs are the world’s sexiest. Nilu wonders how the cow made it through natural selection. Varun Singh remembers some forgotten heroes. Kunal Sawardekar finds that he’s erudite. Saket Vaidya writes about the phenomenon of crapblogging. Anand of Locana shares some excerpts from his father’s memoirs with us, in three parts: 1, 2 and 3.aNTi introduces us to his sitcom alter ego. Leela Alvares shares with us some of the Google searches that have led to her site. Vinod of Sepia Mutiny examines the Pew survey on International attitudes towards the US. Sunil Laxman writes on “The Quest For a Perfect Dosa”. Jitendra Mohan writes about a train journey where something almost happened. Shanti Mangala points out the perils of living in the past. Manish of Sepia Mutiny writes about waiting in line. Amrit Hallan tells us that he likes it when the mobile phone does not buzz..”All bloggers hope to be Shilpa Shetty one day,” writes Megha Murthy. Anita Bora writes about the Honnemardu Blogout Weekend. So does Suman Kumar, here and here. Peter Griffin blogs about Peter Griffin. Rashmi Bansal writes that it’s perfectly okay not to have a boyfriend. Zainab Bawa writes about Comrade Tara. Rahul Bhatia bemoans that he belongs to “Bombay radio’s forgotten generation”.Phew.Update: Nilu is hosting the next Blog Mela. Go here for details, and here for Blog Mela schedule, and to volunteer for one. amit varma, 1:40 AM| write to me | email this to a friend | permalink | homepage |   [...]