Gonna Write For Technorati

Image via CrunchBaseI got an email from Technorati a few days back saying they want me to write for them. I promptly agreed. This is not a big change to my lifestyle, if any. All they ask is that I first publish a post at their site. After I do that I can go ahead and publish the same at my own blog.

Why did I say yes? Are you kidding me?

1. There's not going to be additional work for me. I have been an avid blogger on my own. Now I get to cross publish. 
2. This will bring me more visibility. 
3. I get to link to my own blog from my posts at Technorati. That is going to jack up the traffic at my personal blog. This just might be the number one reason to do it. 
4. Technorati is a Top 30 property on the web. I am okay being associated with their name. 
5. They asked for my Google AdSense ID. They will run ads on my behalf to go with my posts. So I guess there might be some money too. I am not complaining. 

Economic Reforms In India

My friend Ashutosh Tiwari posted an article of his on his Facebook wall. It was first published in the Nepali Times.

Guru Of Business: Ashutosh Tiwari

During the 'licence raj' in the 70s and the 80s, while India was posting its so-called 'Hindu rate of economic growth' of around 3.5 percent a year, Bollywood portrayed industrialists as villains. These were rich men who lived in palatial buildings, befriended politicians for licenses and permits, smuggled goods, evaded taxes, and exploited labourers....... Since the mid-90s, however, with India's annual economic growth averaging about seven percent, Bollywood has churned out decidedly pro-capitalist movies. The bad industrialists are gone. So too are the pitiable poor who tug at the heartstrings of socialists everywhere. It's not labour and factories that make up the plots of today's movies. Instead, they are about the intra-family relationships of wealthy multi-generational clans with roots in India and branches elsewhere.

The current Prime Minister of India started economic reforms in the country in 1991 when he was Finance Minister. Thanks to those reforms India has seen almost China like growth rates for almost a decade now.

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Music is an integral part of our lives, our being and our existence, irrespective of what the others may have to say on the subject. It lifts, cajoles, caresses, envelopes you in a bind which never leaves you. A piece heard at an impressionable age remains with you for a life time. Music and song collectively is a force, which has serious physical ramifications. We have heard of the great Tansen stories and the effect his music had on weather conditions. We have seen strong and sharp classical music notes and chords, demolish glass and shatter it to pieces. We have seen and heard the power of religion when it encompasses the rituals that connect it to sound. The prayer meetings of different faiths - the ‘bhajans’ the ‘azaan’ and the hymns bring a feel of religiosity. Strengthening belief with its repeated recitation. The Gods are pleased it seems when they are sung to. Music has the power to impress them to. And of course I miss mentioning the singing of Anthems and the fervor of patriotism it invokes. Your own anthem of your own country does something to us. It instills in us a sense of belonging. This is my land, my country, my flag and my anthem. I belong to it, and it belongs to me. That is a lot to be said about any other music heard.

There is that other little matter of football and the singing crowds and the belief that the energy of collective singing shall most certainly move mountains, or least of all a goal in favor of your home team. The beauty of all this being that the singing invariably gets carried along from the playing field to the nearest bar for most of the day. Sometimes many days !! And when it does it may not all turn out to be pleasant.

So …. melody ! And the strange effect it has on our psych irrespective of age and place and moment .. !!