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 – Logo Competition

Objective:

 To develop logo for South Asian Good News Channel that it could use in various communications

Rules:

1.       The logo should be original and shouldn’t be copyrighted

2.       The selected logos cannot be used for any other competitions or for any other organizations

3.       The logo should depict the ethos of South Asian Good News Channel. South Asian Good News Channel aims at providing good, happy, development news from the SAARC nations through Social Media. The primary audience is youth (15 to 30 years old) of the SAARC nations. More information about SAGN Channel can be obtained from the SAGN Facebook page or from the following articles (article 1, article 2)

4.       The logo should have a maximum of 4 colors

5.       The logo should preferably be distinct and simple

Submission:

1.       Go to https://www.facebook.com/SAGNChannel and like the page

2.       Upload the logo image in the ‘Logo Competition’ Album. Only photos uploaded to this album are eligible for the competition

3.       If selected, send a high resolution version to sagnchannel@gmail.com

Selection Process

1.       The winner will be selected based on the number of likes and comments a logo gets on the Facebook page.

2.        For each ‘like’ on the logo the designer will get  1 point and for each comment he/she will get 1.33 points

3.       The likes and comments on the album will not be considered for determining the winner

Deadline:

1.       The count of the number of likes and comments will be done on 5^th December 2011. Likes comments after 5^th December 2011, 11:59 pm will not be considered for the competition

2.       It is advisable that you submit your logo as early as possible so that there is enough time for people to review it and give cast their ‘vote‘ - likes/comments

Reward:

1.       The winning logo will get a chance to be the official logo of SAGN Channel

2.       A strong resume point for winning an international logo design event and creating official logo for a social imitative

3.       Customized goodies which will have your own created logo (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

                                                                                                                                

Fast Leadership

[All characters in this article are fictitious and bear no resemblance to any person living or dead. Any similarity with anything living or dead is purely coincidental]

The leadership fever has engulfed the nation. Everyone wants to be a leader. The person walking ahead is leading from the front while the one walking behind is leading from the rear. And the 'education industry' wants to bridge this gap - the craze among people to be leaders and their leadership skills. This is nothing new for the education industry. They have effectively tapped the obsession of nation with CAT. Now, they have risen up the value chain and have started courses on developing leadership skills.The pioneer in the field of leadership training is 'Fast Leadership'.

'Fast Leadership' training institute claims that they provide holistic training to transform a normal person into a leader very quickly. They also update their curriculum with the latest trends in the leadership domain. Their program is very comprehensive. One of their key courses is on delegation. According to the Ramesh Babu, director of Fast Learning, a leader should delegate work to his team. Since he is leading the team, he should delegate all the work. In times like these, when no one wants to work, a leader should effectively and authoritatively delegate work. 'Decision Making' is another very important skill that is taught at Fast Learning. A leader should take his own decision. Listening to his team, only means that his team is better than him. Even if he doesn't have a clue about the problem, he should make the decision.If one knows something, it's very obvious that he will be able to take decision. But what differentiates a good leader is his ability to take decision even when he has no clue about things.

According to Ramesh Babu, 'Communication Skills' cannot be over emphasized. A leadership should be good at talking to an audience. Even when he is having a small meeting with a couple of members of his team, he should behave as if he is talking to a gallery of 5000 people. The logic is very simple - if something is said with an intensity that 5k people can understand, then definitely 2 will. A leader has to Make Decision, Delegate Work and Communicate Effectively. The leader should represent the group at forums and should take credit for the success - after all, he is the leader. A leader should have good 'Evaluation Skills' to evaluate and identify the improvements. A leader should constantly let his team know where they are going wrong so that they can improve.

Apart from the comprehensive course structure what really differentiates 'Fast Leadership' is their updated curriculum. There is a research team which studies the recent trends to incorporate them in the curriculum. Looking at the recent events, Fast Leadership has started a course on 'Fasting'. Ramesh Babu believes that this course is going to truly transform their students into real leaders. He gives examples of Mahatma Gandhi, Anna Hazare and recently Narendra Modi to show the importance of fasting skills in becoming effective leader. Anna Hazare wasn't a bureaucrat nor a lawyer. He did not have the background to understand the nuances of the Govt. Lokpal bill or to draft the Jan Lok Pal bill (which was not drafted in January) all by himself. However, Anna Hazare was the face of the movement. One of the key skills which he had was 'fasting skills'. If Anna Hazare couldn't control his hunger or taste-buds, would it be possible for him to create such a vast movement? Perhaps an Arvind Kejrival or a Kiran Bedi could have driven the movement. The skill that Anna had honed was 'Fasting Skills' and that contributed to a huge extent in making him a leader. He also goes to the extent of saying - Imaging if Gandhi couldn't stay hungry! Perhaps, the Britishers would have left a couple of decades later. Gandhi's fasting skills made him a leader.

He mentions that one of the features of 'Fast Leadership' is 'upgrade-ability'. Even after a person passes out, he can still get access (for a small fee) to newer courses that are developed. On asking about the past record of 'Fast Leadership', Ramesh Babu mentioned that they have developed great leaders out of ordinary people. Narendra Modi graduated from our institute in Feb 2002. He recently also upgraded and took our new course on 'Fasting'.

'Fast Learning' is all set to shape the leadership coaching industry. With knowledgeable people like Ramesh Babu, who know the worth of every pinch of skills that goes to make a true Leader, backing 'Fast Learning' it's clear that even sky is not the limit.

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

Man is a pest

[Acknowledgment: This article is inspired from Ranjan Malik's TEDx Talk, "Fool and his kind of innovation"]

Big Bang, as he was fondly called, once decided to make a time piece. A time piece - he would make just once and will run forever without any intervention. He designed the time-piece as self correcting as possible and vowed to not touch the system after it is made.

Being a connoisseur of art, he created several spherical objects and kept them such that the force between them kept them "stable" as well as in motion. They repeated their motions after specific periods. It was a pretty complex time-piece as it contained hundreds of particles - each with its own motion and time period.

Big Bang painted one object with utmost interest. He painted 70% of it blue and 30% of it green. He, then, added texture to the surface. There were areas that were higher and rocky while others that were plain.

Slowly and steadily the termites started increasing their colony on this most favorite object of Big Bang. They had their king and queen termites along with worker and soldier termites. Worker termites undertake the labors of foraging, food storage, brood and nest maintenance. The soldier caste has anatomical and behavioral specializations, providing strength and armor. Many soldiers have jaws so enlarged that they cannot feed themselves, but instead, are fed by the workers. [Source]

Soon, their nests started reaching above ground forming what is called mounds or anthills. In certain areas the mounds became very high. Then, there started a crazy competition among the different colonies of termites to create the tallest of mounds. The termites eventually forgot the purpose of creating mounds and started digging into the surface of the-once-upon-a-time-beautiful object. They started making the object weaker and weaker. A few, too few, worker termites realized that making such insanely high rise mounds is only going to bite them back. They tried convincing others. But the kings, the queens and the soldiers didn't listen to them. Other worker termites were too busy doing their daily chores to even think of long term repercussion of the high rise mounds.

Eventually, the object that Bing Bang had created with immense love and affection was dotted with high-rise mounds. The balance that the object was to maintained changed slightly - though not significant enough for the termites to perceive. The termites kept eating their own 'home'.

Big Bang helplessly watched his most favorite object in the time-piece rot.

Price Rationalization

When you buy something - anything - say an apple, what do you pay for? You pay for the cost incurred in procuring the raw material - seed, fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides. You pay for the services used - water, electricity, transportation, storage. You pay for the human resource at each point of the supply chain right from the wages of the farmer to the salary of the salesman. You pay for the taxes and the profits for each party involved.

Is that all you pay for? Given the inflation and the macro-economy, I wouldn't want to pay for any of these things! But then there are a few things we don't even consider we need to pay. But as the law of Karma goes, one has to pay for everything one has used.

Nothing is free.

Have you considered who pays to neutralize the pollution created by burning the  fuel used in transporting the apple from the field to the retailer? Who pays for the decomposition of the plastic bag that is give "free" along with the apple?

There are umpteen initiatives by the civil society to counter the climatic deterioration - plant trees, car pool, turn-lights-off-for-an-hour. These all are great initiatives and does help. However, to reduce the problem the pricing in the whole value chain needs to be rationalized.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we have started adding value to things based on the price (the converse,  however, should be true). So, if we really want people to stop using the plastic, the best solution, in my opinion, is to 'rationalize' its price. The moment we start adding the 'cost' of decomposition to the costs of the plastic considered currently, its price will go up and will automatically deter people form using it.

Basically, the idea is that people who does the crime pay for it. If someone is using more plastic or more fuel then he should pay for the treatment of the pollution he creates. Currently, everyone pays the price - either in terms of tax which is used in green initiative by the government or in terms of the diseases we gets because of the pollution.

It's analogous to going for an equal-contribution-lunch with a large group to a very expensive place. Each one in the group thinks of ordering the most expensive item as the value he gets by eating it is much less compared to price he pays (given, it is shared by a large number of people). When everyone starts thinking in that way - the overall bill becomes much higher and so does each person's share. However, if we change the system to - pay-for-what-you-eat instead of equal-contribution, then each person will only order things he likes and are within his budget. This reduces the personal bills and hence the overall bill.

But currently, everyone is paying.

Sadly, changes will not happen over-night. There are huge vested interests that believe in ordering the most expensive dish in an equal-contribution system. These influential people will obviously not allow the system to change to pay-for-what-you-eat. Perhaps, I'll explore in a later post the topic of how these 5% of the people make policies which are beneficial to themselves but still impose it on the 95%

As civil society, we should start thinking and discussing the rationalization of the prices in the value chain. There a host on intangibles involved and converting them into dollar/rupee value will be challenging. Convincing the powers that be to incorporate these challenges will be even more difficult. We have seen a glimpse of this brazen futility at Copenhagen in December 2009. However, it's only when we start debating and discussing about price rationalization and more so questioning the price of things that we buy, we'll be overwhelmed by the "irrational" prices. And as a society, we might want to pay in money than by deteriorating our health due to environmental issues.

I guess, i now understand the proverb better - There is nothing called a free lunch.

Zabaan Sambhal Ke

Ramesh is an ordinary middle class child with ordinary middle class values and ordinary middle class sensibilities. Ramesh goes to a local school and leads a very peaceful life with his parents. Ramesh’s parents are not educated and run a small shop that just saves them from falling into ‘lower’ income group.

Scene 1:

Ramesh gets an opportunity to visit a big IT MNC. Ramesh’s parents were always fascinated by the professional looking, fluent English speaking employees of such MNCs and wished that he gets a job in one of the MNCs when he grows up.

Ramesh enters the office and attends the guided tour. He is amazed at the infrastructure. He thinks he is ‘living’ the movies he saw on Doordarshan. He is awestruck at the fluency in which they spoke English. However, he gets separated from the group. He feels like being in a maze which looks similar in all directions. While trying to get his way out, he gets the slice of the lives of IT professionals.

He hears a man addressing his female colleague as a female dog. He hears a professionally dressed girl laughing and exclaiming at the coitus. As he makes his way through the maze, he sees a man near a coffee vending machine. His facial expression said that he was drinking some really bad tasting drink. However, Ramesh was surprised to hear him say that the coffee drank instead of he drinking the coffee. He sees the symbol of a staircase and walks towards it. On the way, he finds a suited employee asking his colleague to copulate off. He finally reaches the staircase where he finds his group.

Being a reserved person that Ramesh is, he didn’t share his experience in detail with his family.

In the night, after a long day's work, Ramesh’s father urges him to be like the IT professionals he visited that day

Scene 2:

It’s 7:00 am and the mercury reads 40. Ramesh’s father is dropping him to school. He is taking his usual route which passes through a slum. Ramesh sees two women fighting for a bucket of water. The communication which is in Hindi is decorated with expletives. The women did not forget to bring the relatives of the other in the conversation and gave creative adjectives to them. Ramesh was observing the fight with curiosity. Ramesh’s father pulled him and increased his speed. A few steps ahead, a group of children from the slum were playing cricket. While playing, what appeared out of camaraderie, the children referred (in Hindi) to things related to the biological process of reproduction. Ramesh was again listening to them.

Ramesh’s father briskly walks past the slum. He tells Ramesh that people from good families don’t talk in such a language. Only people from slums do so. He urges Ramesh to not be like them.

Ramesh is left confused.


PS: I wanted to write this post a couple of weeks back but was thinking of how to write it without using the actual expletives. Hope, I was able to convey the thought without the use of any 'such' words.