I’m pleased to inform you that India Uncut has been nominated in two categories at the 2008 Weblog Awards:
Best Asian Blog.
Best Political Coverage.
As far as I can tell, it is the only blog written out of India to be nominated in any category. It is also one of a handful of blogs nominated in more than one category. And will it win a prize? That’s in your hands, kind reader.
Wins are decided by voting, and readers are allowed to vote once every 24 hours, so if you enjoy reading India Uncut, go forth and vote. The category I have great hopes of is Best Asian Blog, so do vote there wholeheartedly. I’m most unlikely to win Best Political Coverage, where giants like Daily Kos, Townhall and Politico have also been nominated, but hell, we’re the world’s largest democracy, we know how to vote, so do vote there as well.
Interestingly, I seem to be the only nominee in that category writing about non-American politics, so I guess that’s an honour in itself. My posts on politics are here.
Posted by Amit Varma on 06 January, 2009 in
Blogging |
Personal
Rediff reports on the Thirumangalam bye-elections:
For the people of this assembly seat in south Madurai, the poll process is more a ‘buy election’ than a bye-election. Nobody here talks on issues like price rise, power cuts and shabby roads. The only topic of discussion is ‘who is giving how much money and when?’
One voter admits to rediff.com that he received Rs 3000 for his vote. He expects more money to come his way, as there is still a week to go before the votes are cast.
Well, every election is really an exercise in buying voters. Either you can buy them with promises of good governance, better infrastructure, law & order and so on; or you can buy them with money and material goods. If the promises have no value, and both voters and politicians know that every promise is an empty one, then what’s a pragmatic voter to do? Take the money, of course. A self-perpetuating cycle duly begins, and there you have it, democracy at the grassroots.
(Link via email from Rajeev Mantri.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 05 January, 2009 in
India |
News |
Politics |
Small thoughts
Why sack them when you can use them for fuel?
(Second link via email from Udhay. And no, I’m not making fun of overweight people, but being, in a way, self-deprecatory. Much exercise is needed...)
Posted by Amit Varma on 05 January, 2009 in
India |
News |
Personal
Here’s a short news piece that appeared today in The Times of India print edition (I couldn’t find it on their website) that I’m reproducing in full:
Pipe row: 20 ‘strip, rape’ HP woman
Shimla: At least 20 people allegedly stripped and raped a woman after a dispute over the laying of a water pipeline at Theog in Himachal on December 27. The group also allegedly thrashed the woman and her husband Bir Singh. Police denied the allegations of rape saying she did not mention it while recording her statement. Instead, an FIR has been registered against her husband for theft.
It’s hard to comment on the news when so little information is available. But I found it fascinating how just a one-paragraph news report can contain multitudes, not just in terms of the different stories that it hints at, but also in the way that it is written. No?
Posted by Amit Varma on 05 January, 2009 in
India |
News
My good friend Prem Panicker puts it superbly on Twitter:
Oh wow. DNA meanwhile tells me Thackeray’s outfit has told city outlets not to sell music by Pak singers. That’s really getting tough.
We can’t touch Hafeez Saeed and Lakhwi and such so let’s put the screws on Ghulam Ali! I so love Raj Thackeray’s thought process.
The MNS’ bollywood wing boss Ameya Khopkar says shops who sell such music will be dealt with in the MNS way. For those who don’t know how:
Hide when the city is attacked. Wait a month, till you are sure all is safe. Then beat up people for selling books and music.
Twitter forces one to be concise, and you’d think that might be a problem for someone like Prem, who is famous for his detailed cricket reports, running on to many thousands of words. But those fed a certain need (of the far-off NRI hungry for every scrap of information); and these feed another. Prem’s Twitter updates are marvellous: always precise, always hard-hitting. He makes blogs seem so outdated—so 2008.
Posted by Amit Varma on 05 January, 2009 in
India |
Media |
News |
Politics
Two quick plugs:
1] Girish Shahane, who used to write a column for Time Out Mumbai, was one of my favourite Indian columnists, for his crisp insights and analysis of contemporary culture. I always wondered what kind of blog he would write—and now we’re going to find out. Girish has ended his column and begun a blog, Shoot First, Mumble Later, that I have very high expectations from. Watch that space.
2] Four years ago, I had the pleasure of welcoming Desi Pundit to life. It has now been reborn in a new avatar, which young Patrix elaborates on here. Once again, I wish them all the best. May a thousand blog posts bloom.
Posted by Amit Varma on 05 January, 2009 in
Blogging |
India |
Media
Stanley Fish tells us about how he called up AT&T to activate some services, and got the greeting above. At the end of the conversation:
… I couldn’t resist returning to the greeting, with its double and ungrammatical “with.” I explained that the second “with” was superfluous, as the second “to” would be if the offending question had been, “to whom am I speaking to?”, or the second “about” if the question had been “about what are you worrying about?”
Somehow that didn’t make much of an impression on her. She said that her instructions were to greet callers in that way and that she would continue to do so. I replied that it was scandalous that a multi-billion-dollar world-wide telecommunication corporation would order its employees to commit an egregious (and comical) grammatical error millions of times a day.
She said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
I lost it. It has nothing to do with feelings, I ranted. It is a factual matter as to what is and is not syntactically correct.
Delightfully anal—and like so many interactions with call-center employees, completely futile. But Fish did get a column out of it, and that’s good.
*
Language snobbery can be immense fun, but it can also get tiresome to those on the receiving end of it. I recently wrote to a friend of mine, “Hopefully the publishing industry [in India] won’t be too badly affected by the economic downturn.” He wrote back to berate me for using “hopefully” instead of “I hope”, and said, “People should not say ‘Hopefully the weather will be good today’ when they actually mean ‘I hope the weather will be good today.’ I expected better from a professional writer.”
Well, I expected better from a language snob. This is actually a fashionable complaint, but an entirely baseless one. It cropped up in another discussion I was part of in an email group a couple of weeks ago, and I settled the matter by citing Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word:
2 : it is hoped : I hope : we hope <hopefully the rain will end soon>
usage In the 1960s the second sense of hopefully, which dates to the early 18th century and had been in fairly widespread use since at least the 1930s, underwent a surge in popularity. A surge of criticism followed in reaction, but the criticism took no account of the grammar of adverbs. Hopefully in its second sense is a member of a class of adverbs known as disjuncts. Disjuncts serve as a means by which the author or speaker can comment directly to the reader or hearer usually on the content of the sentence to which they are attached. Many other adverbs (as interestingly, frankly, clearly, luckily, unfortunately) are similarly used; most are so ordinary as to excite no comment or interest whatsoever. The second sense of hopefully is entirely standard.
So there it is. Hopefully you won’t ever try to explain to an AT&T call center worker what a disjunct is. Ok?
Posted by Amit Varma on 04 January, 2009 in
Miscellaneous |
Personal
Mint reports:
The next time an Indian parliamentarian says in the House that a “communist” member of Parliament (MP) is up to his usual “tricks” in making a “boring” speech, the book could get thrown at him.
At least if Parliament decides to go by the book: in this case, the latest edition of Unparliamentary Expressions, a 900-page tome published by the Lok Sabha secretariat that governs speech in Parliament and also state legislatures.
“I did not know words such as ‘stern school master’, ‘unfortunate’, ‘shy’ and ‘stunt’ were unparliamentary until I read this book,” said a slightly confused Tathagata Satpathy, a Lok Sabha MP from Orissa. For good measure, the good book says even the word “confused” is somewhat unparliamentary.
[...]
For Rs850, the book tells you that one cannot be “ashamed” in Parliament and cannot address a lady presiding officer as “beloved”. Neither can one simply say “hello” to catch the chair or Speaker’s attention.
I’m dying to know which MP addressed which lady presiding officer as beloved. What context could there possibly be for that? And I can imagine an MP rising to his feet and shouting ”Hello” at the speaker. The speaker turns to him.
“You scoundrel fellow,” he says, “you dusht shaitan. Do you not know it is unparliamentary to say ‘hello’ to me?”
“Sir, I wasn’t saying ‘hello’ to you,” replies the MP. “I was merely answering my mobile phone. I’m on hands-free. And now if you’ll excuse me… Beloved, can you call later, please? I’m in parliament.”
*
A ToI report has more examples of this silliness, informing us that calling the president a “poor fellow” is not allowed. Considering that Pratibha Patil is our president, I don’t see why anyone would bother, but I guess every precaution must be taken. “Weed” is also an unparliamentary term, so I guess it’s a good thing that Matthew Hayden is not an Indian legislator.
(Links via separate emails from Gaurav and SK.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 January, 2009 in
Dialogue |
India |
News |
Politics |
WTF
Savita Bhabhi’s husband may get laid off. (Not laid.) Just imagine—he’ll be home all day then. What is she to do?
(Link via email from Anantha. More on Savita Bhabhi: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 January, 2009 in
Miscellaneous
John Brockman poses the question:
What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?
Check out the answers, by some of the most interesting thinkers on the planet. Many of them may seem in the realm of science fiction—but had this question been asked in 1985, the internet and all the things we do in it would also have seemed unbelievable. Can we defeat mortality, as a couple of the respondents now discuss? Seems unlikely to me, especially at the rate I’m putting on weight, but who knows?
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 January, 2009 in
Miscellaneous
