How to Start a Blog

Over the past few days, I have many requests from people wanting to know ‘How to Start a Blog’. For the benefit of all, I am writing this post:

What is a Blog?

In simple words it is a personal website where people express their views, opinions, concerns or share their experiences. Therefore any short write-up expressing a person’s views on any topic of his / her interest is a blog.

Platforms to start your own blog:

Many platforms are there for starting a blog where no programming / html skills are required to prepare a webpage. These blogging sites / platforms also give you a free sub-domain, such as standupforacause.wordpress.com; in this case wordpress.com is the domain where your blog resides and standupforacause is the name of the blog. These blogging platforms offer wide customization features such a themes, font colours, styles etc to suit your needs. The backend and SEO are all handled by these platforms without user intervention so that you can focus on your writing. A short list of some of the blogging platforms are:

• www.wordpress.com
• www.blogger.com
• www.tumblr.com
• www.medium.com
• www.svbtle.com
• www.sett.com

What do you need to start your blog:

• A catchy blog name – This will be your subdomain name such as in my blog’s case standupforacause is the blog name. The blog name should not long and should be easier to remember and spell. Always try to choose a blog name around the main theme of your writing.
• An email address for registering on the above blogging platforms
• Content: As a blog is expression of your opinion, quality content is a pre-requisite. Do remember to spell check your articles and use correct grammar. There is nothing more frustrating reading an article having incomplete sentences or full of spelling errors. As the attention span of the people on the net is limited, therefore always organize the article, keep it short and crisp and use simple language.

Howto promote your blog?

• Write interesting content
• Join blogging communities where you get an opportunity to showcase your work. A few such communities are
  • www.indiblogger.in
  • www.blogadda.com
  • www.writeupcafe.com
• Comment on other’s blogs
• Use facebook and twitter to your advantage

Care to be taken:

Certain points to remember while blogging:

• Donot defame any individual / company
• Donot copy content from the web without the author’s permission
• Always link (refer to) content, data or research you are using in your post
• Donot use explicit language on your blog
• Moderate comments on the blog as you may also responsible for the people commenting on your blog. In most blogging platforms comments are only visible once you approve them
• Use an appropriate theme, colour scheme and font style and size on your blog which does not hurt the eye and easy to read

All the best for your blog!

And here comes the netizen brigade of moral police…

Today I read many bloggers blogging on the topic of Virginity, and is it a character certificate. Many posts which were on the topic stated that people who seek virgins are uneducated, should be virgin themselves, should be slapped, should be kicked on their butt etc…

My response to these moral police:

• Is the person asking for a virgin bride infringing any of your rights?
• Open any of the matrimony column, there is a list of requirements by brides for grooms as well
• Similarly a groom has a requirement, if anyone has a problem with that requirement, the mature thing to do is not respond to the grooms advert

Guys, appreciate that marriage is a personal thing and people have their own preferences. Imposing ‘your’ preference and morals on the other is infringement of the other person’s rights. What 2 people do, till the time they are not infringing on anyone else’s rights, should not matter to you.

In my understanding the people who are imposing their own morals on others are no different than the moral police.

Kaun Bangega Narakpati – A comical play

CraftInImages, a production house in the domain of theater, movies and celebrity / model /portfolio management, is organizing a comical play on the eve of father’s day – Kaun Banega Narakpati. The play will start with a dance performance by Soul 2 Soul followed by a performance by Sapna Pathak, a vocal artist.

The play is about a comical journey of the King of Hell (Narakpati), who is the one which has been the reason for most deaths. From Cancer, the reigning king in hell, who is challenged by AIDS and in the end the position of AIDS is challenged by another contender…

Further details:

• Day and Date: Saturday, June 14, 2014
• Time: 8.30 pm
• Venue: Veer Savarkar Auditorium, Dadar (W ), Mumbai
• Tickets: contact Husein on husseinalia [at] gmail [dot] com or Mohan on mohan [at] craftinimages [dot] in
• Facebook link

Process and Method of Change – Part 2

 

This is the second part to Process and Method of Change. The part 1 can be found here.

4) The Education of an Organizer: Saul discusses what makes the person emerge as an organizer from the group. Organizers should be flexible and adaptable and their experiences should be their teacher. Organizers should be flexible depending upon the audience they are dealing with and a lot of this comes from the experience and the motivational level they have. There are certain traits found in all successful organizers –

• Curiosity: They are inherently curious beings constantly searching for patterns. The prime function of an organizer is to ask difficult questions and challenge status quo.  These questions bring out the internal revolution in people in the open political arena.

Can a person eat a scrumptious meal with Rs. 12? – A Data Backed Analysis

Recently many politicians have remarked that a scrumptious meal can be eaten at Rs. 12, Rs. 5 and even at Rs. 1. Let us try to scientifically analyze these statements with backup data.

As per Indian Council of Medial Research[i], the average daily calorie need for a working man (ie. Labourer) is 3490 Kcal. For a scrumptious meal atleast the daily calorie requirement needs to be met. Let us assume that the labourer eats only the staple food, say wheat.

Process and Method of Change – Part 1

There are many issues, policies and rules around us that we want to change for betterment of the society. In other words bring about a positive change for humanity. Societies in general discourage and penalizes ideologies that request change. Change is difficult to fathom as it challenges status quo. The other party at that point of time comes out with justifications on why the status quo is required giving examples of history, religion, political reasoning or legal issues. These justifications are generally motivated to prove such movements are unfair, unethical or illegal.

‘Rules for Radicals’, a book by Saul Alinsky provide implementable suggestions on the issues faced by people wanting to change status quo. It suggest howto organize the resources and then use it in a way to carry out change, in a peaceful manner. Below is part 1 of the 3 part series having a short summary of Saul’s book with my interpretations and twists.

Parental Alienation

Parental Alienation is not an extra terrestrial parent or an alien but a psychological syndrome where a child starts rejecting one of the parents. This primarily happens at the time of divorce / separation. The prime instigator of Parental Alienation is the parent who has custody of the young children. Constant programming and brainwashing of the child by the custodian parent, causes irretrievable damage to the child’s relationship with the other parent. As per Clawar & Rivlin, 1991[i], “In most divorce cases where there is animosity and conflict between the parents, there is some degree of brainwashing and programming {of children.}”

As per Clawar and Rivlin (1991):

• The programming may be willful (conscious) or unintentional (unconscious).
• The goal is to control the child’s thoughts and/or behavior.
• The program usually contains themes intended to “damage the child’s image of the target parent in terms of his or her moral, physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and educational qualities (as well as his or her parenting abilities).

Uttrakhand Floods – Strict implementation of environmental laws may have prevented the tragedy

The Ministry of Environment and Forests’ (MOEF) report for Uttrakhand on Biodiversity and effects of Hydro projects in the state and the CAG report on hydropower development through private sector participation pointed to risks due to the rampant hydropower projects in the state of Uttrakhand. The report by the CAG was for the year 2008-09 and the MOEF report (primarily on effects on biodiversity of the state) was for 2012 .

The salient points / extracts from the CAG report which discusses 42 operational hydro power projects and 203 under construction / clearance stage projects.

1. Negligence of environmental concerns was obvious as the muck generated from excavation and construction activities was being openly dumped into the rivers contributing to increase in the turbidity of water. The projects seemed oblivious of the fact that such gross negligence of environmental concerns lead to deterioration of water quality and adverse impact on the aquatic biota. (Page 25, Summary).

Response time of emergency services – Fire Department

Today I saw a fire in a building at Kalina. This Building which had the fire had Bharat Bank at the ground floor and the the “Fire Training Academy’ next to it.

So we immediately did the following –

1. Called up 101, but as always in India no emergency numbers are ever responded. There was no response on 101 for over 5 minutes
2. Then to get the number of the local fire station we called up a leading phone directory search engine. The lady responding the call was more interested in my mobile number as opposed to providing the emergency number.
3. We got the fire station number and called the Santacruz East fire station on their number 022-26829197. To my horror they were least bothered if there was a fire at Kalina.
   • First a person came on the phone to understand where was the fire. They did not know where their training academy was. It took me 2-3 minuted explaining them the detailed location. Then he handed over the call to another person.
   • The second one again wanted to know the exact location. Post which he concluded that ‘THIS WAS NOT HIS JURISDICTION’. To which I inquired atleast give me the number of the fire station under whose jurisdiction this area comes. He was least bothered to help. On pressurizing, he told me to chill out and ‘RELAX’. Anyways after a few minutes he gave me the Marol fire station’s number.
   • I called up Marol at 022-29200940, here the operator was genuinely concerned and informed me that the fire trucks are on its way from BKC. (This fire was not under the Marol jurisdiction).

After a wait of 7-8 minutes the first fire truck arrived (do remember that this fire was just next to the fire academy).  For the next 10 minutes they were deciding what to do. It seemed as if a group of untrained men were sent to do the job. A few more fire trucks arrived after 15 minutes of the call. The actual fire fighting work started after roughly 18 minutes of arrival of the first truck. 18 minutes after arrival ……… such a response time is completely not acceptable for an emergency such as a fire in a building.

In essence, once I called, it took over 30 minutes for the fire trucks to start the fire fighting work. A response time of over 30 minutes in a critical situation of a fire is a new level of low for India for its emergency services.

I will post the videos of the fire trucks at work today evening where you can see for yourself how untrained they seemed at the job.

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