Why is Sania’s marriage such a big deal?

I mean, seriously, why is it a big deal?? Why are Rajdeep Sardesai, Arnab Goswami and other supposedly great Indian journalists fawning over this piece of utterly irrelevant news? Is it because she “was” once touted to be India’s ace female tennis player? Is it because Sania is marrying a Pakistani cricketing ex-captain (one with a shady history of marriages) ? Or is it because she was supposed to be a representative for feminism in India who never lived upto the expectations? Is the ridiculous Aman ki Asha campaign sponsoring this marriage?

As far as I can remember, Sania has never been in an exciting tennis match except for that one with Serena Williams. And her engagement got way too much attention than was required. And now this ridiculous thing about her marriage. I am not sure why serious journalists consider covering Sania’s marriage as a good use of their time. I mean, aren’t there other more consequential issues which need a hell lot more attention than this one?

This, I believe, is just an indication of the serious rot in today’s news media (primarily the television news media). Seldom does one see a prioritization of news based on their relevance. Sensational news trumps useful news. Bad news trumps good news. Panel discussions are more fights than meaningful debates with an aim to reach a conclusion or to at least start a solution. The line between real news and paid ones are blurring constantly, while our newsmen (and women) are busy slapping their own backs for the good work they are doing.

I don’t mean to come across as a person who has turned a blind eye to the various developments in journalism and news media that India has seen over the past 10 years. I like to be updated on the happenings in the world and a good piece of journalism, like some that were reported from the field in Afghanistan and Iraq are appreciated by yours truly. I like the fact that news is on my fingertips and just a channel switch away. I am glad that I have the opportunity to know a lot more about the world today than I would have had 10 years ago.

But I can’t help but wonder -

• Why isn’t there that one program in the day in any news channel, which I would like to catch no matter what I am doing?
• In a 24 hour news channel isn’t there even an hour worth of good news that can be showcased? I am talking news about those silent achievers, those things that make us proud to be Indian. Why isn’t investigative journalism ever used to dig up good news or inspirational news?
• For all the adulation that journalism receives (one hears about journalism awards every now and then) we have to wonder where the forum for receiving negative feedback is. The media doesn’t take lightly any criticism (remember Bharka Dutt?) and there doesn’t appear to be any constant effort to improve its current condition.

I fear the day when we’ll have somebody on our television mirroring Glenn Beck’s interview with Sarah Palin. And to think that I ranted this much because of Sania’s marriage. Well lets all join the news channel in wishing the newly-to-be-married couple all the best.

Rohit Bal Suffers Heart Attack

[Link]Now we know why he was buying spinach in the Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara Video. [Link at 3:44]

Has Chrome finally started catching up to Firefox?

You remember my short post on browsers. You could also see me cribbing, crying out loud and seriously risking injury to my throat, shouting about Firefox’s speed while in the same breath gushing about Chrome’s snappy speed. The one bone I had to pick with Chrome was the fact that it didn’t support any extensions, specifically the ad blocker. Internet is a dirty place(and no I am not talking about that) without an ad blocker. An epilepsy patient runs the risk of suffering a seizure looking at all those flashy ads. So Firefox’s Adblock Plus is like a godsend which does the dirty job of cleaning up web pages off ads (and in turn provides access to the real distraction that internet offers from our actual lives )

Now, the reason for this post. Chrome, today, started supporting extensions officially. And it supports a nifty little ad blocker. Now this one’s not actually a URL based blocker like Adblock Plus but instead is a CSS based content blocker. All said and done, it does its job, making chrome (with its already lovely speed) a very tempting option. And to top it all it’s open source, making it more endearing. In the small time I have used it, Chrome has screwed relatively less number of sites so that’s a plus point.

Maybe in another 6-8 months the feature set in chrome will probably justify the full move to chrome(except for those websites which some idiotic developer developed to work with Internet Explorer 6 only). However I have not lost hope on Firefox yet, it’s a beautiful browser, and development is continually going on. So lets see what surprises Firefox will offer in the future.

Meditation from Thais

I recently stumbled across this video thanks to abstrusegoose. What a beautiful piece of music this one is. I have never actually listened to music from classical opera and the few that I have stumbled upon never made a lasting impression on me. But this has got me thinking about this genre of music. It’s very emotional but relaxing at the same time. Listen to it once, relax yourself and let me know what you think.

How many of us have built a windmill???

“I saw the picture of the windmill in the library book. So when I saw it, I say ‘Aah this picture in this book, I think I can also build’ “, says William Kamkwamba. A truly inspiring story, I wish I could have done something cool like that. I saw his interview on the Daily Show, its very interesting, and I liked the “where was this google all this time” comment. Also watch his ted talk, where he tells the short story of how he built his windmill.

A new start!!

A fresh attempt at blogging.. Here’s to a new beginning!!