Sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/blogbang
The members of the “Bloggers of Bangalore” community would like to bring to the attention of the media and society at large, certain unfair and intimidatory actions undertaken by the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) against members of the Indian blogging community.
In June 2005, JAM, a popular youth magazine published out of Mumbai, ran a story on IIPM titled ‘The Truth about IIPM’s Tall Claims” pointing out blatant exaggerations in the institute’s claims about infrastructure, courses, affiliations and placements. For instance, the magazine article pointed out how IIPM continues to use certain rankings conferred upon it AFTER those rankings have been withdrawn by the bodies conferring them.
The magazine ran an ethically researched investigative story on IIPM, revealing what was a marketing fraud by the college.
Alongside, the editor of JAM magazine and a former student of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, who is also a blogger, published the same on her personal blog. In August 2005, blogger Gaurav Sabnis, another Mumbai-based blogger, posted about this on his own blog, linking to JAM’s original story. Soon after this, he received an e-mail from the IIPM legal department threatening to sue him for a huge sum of money unless he withdrew his comments. Simultaneously, he was also pressurised by IIPM through his employers, a global hardware manufacturer. Rather than put his employers in a tight spot, Sabnis decided to quit his job. Meanwhile, Varna Sriraman also got a mail from IIPM threatning legal and police action Continue reading ‘online petition for the right to freedom of expression’
There are various professions (interest groups) inside HP that cater to varying interests of the employees. Some of the professions are ‘Linux Technology’, ‘Unix Technology’, ‘Microsoft Technology’ … I’m a member of the Linux Technology Profession. We meet every month and October meet was on 7th. We had two presentations
- Remote Development using eclipse by Bala
- Diskdump and netdump tools by Masa San (he is Linux Technology Profession Japan lead).
(Those of you missed Bala’s talk can attend his talk in FOSS.IN ) Continue reading ‘October Linux Profession meet’
Last Sunday we attended KEA (Kerala Engineers Association) annual get together at Shikshak Sadan opposit to Kaveri Bhavan in KG Road. I went there with my classmates at NITC – Harry Thomas and Anoop Bhagyanath. Vijaya Krishanan was also there. The inauguration was done by TG Ravi – who is a movie actor and alumnas of GEC Trichur.
The Orchestra and Ona Sadhya was superb. The day was filled with those beautiful songs by G Venugopal like Thamasamenthe varuvan… Onnam Ragam paadi… Unarumee gaanam…. The Orchestra was compered by Jayaraj Varrier. He also kept us laughing with his comedy show.
The Sadhya had 14 dishes and two Payasam. The Ada payasam was superb and it was unlimited 
The crowd turn up was more than 500 and we got first prize for Pookalam (Rangoli).
Our seniors Barathan (BG) and Narayanan was also there. After the meet we walked till Brigade roadand I brought a new mobile Nokia 6030. It has got a FM radio with it and now I need not be bored in Hosur Road traffic everyday.
So folks don’t miss next chance.
I attended blugmeet this September 30 (my second blug meet — also second meet after a long break). This time I sit at registration desk. I left early from office and reached there by 5.45 (I was the first to be there, then came Surjo Das then Devdas Bhagath then Gopal V and his Yahoo Team (3 guys) and altogether 19 guys).
Read Surjo’s posts about this blug meet
Blogs:
The September BLUG Meet
Meet v/s BoFs
Posts on blug non tech mailing list:
Meet Vs Bof
Meets v/s BoFs ….contd
It was a really nice meet as I could get to know some more of those online folks. I met Tejas Dinkar whom I had mailed some times back about arranging a FUDConf (Fedora Users and Developers Conference) during next (06) FOSS.IN. The discussions started with blug.in website content. Then we discussed T-Shirts for FOSS.IN. I reported about some problems with planet.foss.in DNS (now solved by Atul Chitnis). Then we discussed about Cities (comparison between Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi over Dinner) and Traffic and other stuff. The discussion is now to move away the meets from Akshaya. Amit Sharma offered a room for 25 folks in blug non tech mailing lists in Indiranagar.
We stayed back after the meet and a whole lotta topics from gentoo to evolution to Miguel to fedora to Mplayer … came to discussion. Shyam was defending Gentoo’s way of doing things and there was Sreyas in support for Suse and Tejas for Fedora… I didn’t realise that mplayer doesn’t need X to run ! and I tried it after coming back. Mplayer rocks !! Shyam droped me at BTM after that.
Surjo asked in blogbangs group
Is Bloggers.com good ? I mean is it like
Bloggers.com rocks and LJ sucks or vice versa ?
This was my reply
* I started with LJ (now I’ve installed worpress and it rocks !!). It is a great community and you are well connected with friends (LJ even have their own song). The friends list is the thing I like the most.
* Blogger is completely customisable.
* Some dumped Blogger and came over to LJ and some the other way.
* You can use any other feeds for LJ (only for payed members), like Atul Chitnis’ blog.
* Blogger is from Google and LJ is completely Open Source.
My vote is for LJ. If you want flexibility to full extend I suggest you use wordpress.
Any comments welcome
One weeks back (24th September) I talked at BMS College of Enginering of Free and Open Source Software. Dilip and Thejesh Already wrote about it (I was kinda lazy to write).
Now we are trying to improve ourselves so that we can have a better impact on the audience. It was our alpha edition and so it had many bugs, we didn’t have any idea what to expect. But I think this experience gave us a better picture and will help us (hopefully) in our next ventures.
All this started with Thejesh’s mail in fsf-friends mailing list enquiring about any plans for Software Freedom Day. We discussed many possible events in August blugmeet. But nothing materialised since we were very late and many colleges had exmas. We got positive reply from Nirmal Thacker of BMS College and it took us till the week before the seminar to confirm the date. Kudos to Nirmal and team to make it a grand success. Continue reading ‘FOSS Day at BMSCE’
Traffic seemed horrible during early days of coming to Bangalore. But now it is the saviour for me !! Everyday the HP bus comes by 8.25am and we (me and VR) mange to catch the bus for somedays. But we started missing bus by minutes and even seconds. Many times we saw the tail of the bus but we were helpless. One day we took an auto and it burned our pockets and we were forced to think of alternatives.
One day the I saw the bus moving ahead of me and I ran past it and hoped to catch it in Udupi gardens signal, but by split second the bus moved past the signal and the vehicles from the other direction poured in and I was helpless and watched others boarding the bus on the other side and when the traffic cleared for me the bus left 
That was very disappointing.
The next day I was waiting in Udupi Gardens signal (near petrol pump) and this time I got the bus when it breaked while crossing the signal. Another occation when the bus didn’t stop fo us, evryone was clueless as to what to do but I knew it can go far and I ran behind it and caught it. Other also followed me.
The traffic is proving very much helpful for me. I don’t wait for the bus but the bus wait for me One day after I shfted near to MICO layout Over Bridge I vitnessed the best traffic jam ever after coming here The jam started from the Madivala over bridge to the BTM over bridge. Vehicles passed from one signal to another. I walked till Uduppi gardens to check out if any bus is waiting for me but I couldn’t find any so I walked back and on the second round I saw VR waiting (he is still at our old PG) and now we were scanning the long queue of vehicles for HP bus and to our dismay just when our bus came the jam cleared and the bus sped past us. OOPs
But we didn’t lose hope and we ran behind the bus and to our consolation the bus was waiting at Uduppi Garden signal. It would have been very disappointing if we had missed it as I refused the invitation of private buses to take me to EC (ie, Electronic City).
Today I ran from our home till Uduppi Gardens and got the bus. It has been a cat and mouse game and I’m looking forward to the next day
So I like the traffic jams in the morning, I enjoy it, and I can’t live without it now
I had called for a BoF last Sunday at Woody’s Restaurant Jayanagar. Thejesh picked me up near BTM water tank and we reached Woody’s by about 2.50pm. First one we met ther was Kanti from Nagpur and working with Oracle (he was the only one with a laptop). Surjo couldn’t come because he had some other engagemnet at home. So we waited outside for some more guys to join. Then Abhishek from Hyderabad and working with Novell came and the fifth one was Lakshmi Narayan Kamat. We moved in and started the session with a bried intro and agenda of the meet. Gopal V (dotGNU hacker working with Yahoo and he is from Ernakulam) and Yathiraj joined us to make the count to 7. Only Gopal and Abhishek were the regular BoF guys and the rest of us had the frst BoF (It was third FOSS meeting for me in Bangalore the first one being Debian Developers Conference and the second one Blug meet. Also I went to Belgaum for VTU Floss Campaign).
Continue reading ‘BoF at Woody’s Jayanagar on 4th September’
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