South Asian Good News Contest

The objective of South Asian Good News Channel is to spread happiness – to spread the news about good things that are happening in the SAARC region.  South Asia is a beautiful region where each country can get inspiration from other South Asian country. We want to spread this message in a play-way though a contest.

[For those who don't know, SAGNC is a social media channel which shares 'good' news from the SA region. Check out the Facebook like to get an idea about the channel -  https://www.facebook.com/SAGNChannel]

Objective: To post an article on the SAGNC wall about good things happening in the SAARC region

Rules:

1.       The post should be a link to a news article or a blog post or a website

2.       The news should be ‘good news'

'Good News' are news about:

a.        Grass-root development and innovation

b.       Citizen’s initiative

c.        Acts of kindness

d.       Inter-community harmony

e.       International peace initiatives

f.         Green initiatives

g.        People welfare

'Good News' shouldn’t be about

a.        Criticizing other nation, community, religion

b.       Calamity, Accidents, Death, Riots, terrorist attacks

c.        Corruption

d.       Anything that is offensive

e.       A film star dating another one.

3.       Go through the SAGN Facebook Page to get an idea of what constitutes ‘good news’. An example of a good news post:

SA GOOD NEWS CONTEST: Dhanam, like millions of rural women across India, is a housewife first and bread-earner second. And just like those other women, making some extra money after finishing the housework would greatly improve her family’s lifestyle.

For this 38-year-old living in the outskirts of Coimbatore, the low-cost sanitary napkin maker designed by A Muruganantham is a boon. Working for a comfortable 6-7 hours daily, Dhanam makes close to 400 pads, supplementing her family income by Rs 3,000 per month, which is going towards her daughter’s college fees.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/TamilNadu/An-entrepreneur-helps-women-stay-free/Article1-819048.aspx

4.       We understand that there is a lot of subjectivity involved and there is a huge ‘grey’ area – in the definition of ‘good news’. But there, definitely, are clear ‘white’ areas – news that are definitely good. We are looking for those news items only

5.       You may write explanatory text giving a brief about the news article in the post

6.       The post should start with the following phrase - ‘SA GOOD NEWS CONTEST:”

7.       The news posted will be moderated. Links that are not ‘good news’ articles will be deleted by the moderators without any intimation

8.       The decision of the moderators will be final

9.       You can post more than one good news article. There is no upper limit.

Submission:
Go to https://www.facebook.com/SAGNChannel and like the page. Only participants who ‘like’ the page will be considered for the contest 

Selection Process:

1.       For each participant a ‘score’ will be computed as the sum of ‘shares’ of all the posts posted by that person

2.       Person with the highest score will be the winner.

3.       For e.g., if you posted 2 articles through two different posts such that the first article was shared by 20 people and the second was shared by 36 people, then your total score is 20+36 = 56. 

Deadline:

1.       The contest is open from 5^th March till 20^th March 2012 23:59:59 IST

2.       The score for each participant will be computed for his activities till 15^th March 23:59:59 IST

3.       It is advisable that you post the link to the good news articles as early as possible to let your friends and theirs and theirs enough time to share the news.

Reward:

1.       The person to win the contest would win so because his posts have been shared (and possibly read) by the highest number of people. This spreading of happiness in the form of good news is the biggest reward.

2.       A customized goodie! (Only if the winner is based out of India)

In case you need any other information please feel free to contact us at sagnchannel@gmail.com. 

Let’s show the world and more importantly start believing ourselves that our SAARC region is amazing and there are a lot of good things happening!

South Asian Good News Channel

Modi bribed my lawyers to derail PIL on riots: Sarabhai

15 hurt in Agra hospital blast, UP on high alert

Bharatpur riot: Rajasthan seeks CBI probe

Illegal mining: CBI finds goldmine in Reddy aide's locker

Dey murder: did weapon come from Nepal?


The above are the headlines from leading newspapers of the country. There is one thing that's common among them - negativity. The mainstream media is somehow focused more on the negative news and goes extra mile in spreading them. I am sure they have their reasons for doing that. The 'Good News' somehow gets dug in the 12th page bottom left 2"x1" corner of the newspaper. In such a scenario all that is available to aam admi is negative news. And being the most intelligent species, he discusses them at office tea table, in college canteens and shares it on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. These creates a vicious cycle where we subconsciously breathe in the negativity and participate in spreading such negative news. Being cognizant of the negatives happening around is one thing and propagating them is another.

When being constantly bombarded by the media with the negative news, we tend to create an image about things and makes us lose objectivity - Politicians are corrupt. Pakistan is giving space to terrorists on their soil. Traffic police take bribe. These are some of the dogmas many of us have. I had a few of these. And the reason is we are not told of the good side of things. We are not told of a politician who is truly working towards making the life of his people better. We don't come across news of how a christian nun is improving the life of several children in the streets of Kolkata. How a farmer is innovating to pump water efficiently and in an environment friendly way.

Clearly, there is a need for source of Good News where good deeds happening around us are highlighted. These news would act as positive stimulus to our brains to think about solution, to get inspired. It would make us believe that life is not all that bad and that there is hope , there are good people and good things do happen. South Asian Good News Channel is a small step towards spreading positive news.

Now the question in your mind would be - Why South Asia? The seed of this idea - South Asian Good News Channel - was sown at SAYC 2011 where delegates from the SAARC nations got together to discuss real issues. We found that there was so much in common among the South Asian Nations. Not only history and culture - but the tastes, the likes and dislikes, our behavior, our take on issues was also very similar. At the end of the Conference, if was difficult to identify a Pakistani from an Indian and an Indian from a Sri Lankan. If such harmony exists at people level then this definitely needs to get highlighted. Pakistan is not India's enemy nor is Afghanistan Pakistan's. The media, to a certain extent, is over-emphasizing the conflicts and under-emphasizing the people-to-people harmony. The South Asian Good News Channel will help in highlighting not only good things happening around us but also happening across the borders to foster international peace among South Asian nations.

At the end of the day when you are tired after a day long work or frustrated by your irrational boss's unreasonable expectations - you can tune into the South Asian Good News Channel for your dose of inspiration.

To get the Good News from South Asia - subscribe to the Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/SAGNChannel or the twitter handle http://www.facebook.com/SAGNChannel