Ask The President

We have Agony Aunt columns in all newspapers and magazines. They are extremely popular – people ask questions that they are tormented or distressed about. Polite wise and extremely friendly aunts (and sometimes uncles) answer in simple English (or whatever the vernacular in use).

So now we have The White House Open For Questions. Americans can ask questions to their President. Questions range from “when will the war in Iraq stop” to “If Marijuana becomes legal, then money will from bad drug dealers to good businessmen”.

Not all questions need to be answered, of course. The White House Website guys have put a simple voting system where citizens vote on the questions put up – whether it is Ok or not.

Obama’s image as a social media friendly President is being extended willy nilly. It is commendable if he personally answers all these questions. Having a straight one-to-one dialogue between two citizens – one of whom is the Head of State – is a practice few countries have.

There’s a fun side of it. A blogger (also called Open For Questions lists all the “funny” or “stupid” questions (what he considers stupid anyway).

Been a while

Well, it’s been quite a while since I have blogged. There’s been work and work and work.

Much has happened since I last blogged. Let’s quickly summarise and then let’s see if there is anything to write about

1. Cricket gets outsourced from India to South Africa, check
2. Elections announced and lots of new voters and new candidates out to change the world (at least the country), check
3. Kasab is a Pakistani, check
4. Manmohan Singh is a weak PM says Advani, check
5. Advani will make a weak PM says Manmohan, check
6. Advani for PM maybe the biggest advertiser on the Internet, check (They even appear on Hindi porn sites, Pakistani news sites and, one has to check, maybe even on the Al-Qaeda website)

Right, fair bit of happenings. Treat this post as a loosener, like when a fast bowler comes back for a spell, he does a quick job up and down the track before bowling.

Politics of advertising on the internet

“Advani for PM” must be the biggest spending advertising campaign on the Internet today. It seems Obama’s success of using the web as a key marketing tool is permeating through the geriatric think tank at the BJP. Otherwise how would you explain this?

Advani ads in the Guardian

An old archive link of The Guardian with a fresh ad served to me, no doubt, because of my India IP.

Those who use GMail are of course aware of the lkadvani.in blog ads that appear via Google Adwords.

The question is does it work? Will the Indian janta, at least the ones who are net savvy, buy it? Elections are maybe a few months away. The buzz on the net will surely become more and more loud. It would interesting to watch.

Left Right and Centre

I do not know the origin of this phrase. But given the current situation of the government – The Times Of India calls it the Left-BJP pincer attack. Inside the government, there’s turmoil within the allies, the party itself.

Is this the right context to use the phrase “The government under attack left, right and centre”?

Doublespeak Modi style

He said it

‘‘What happened one-and-a-half years ago is something which should not have happened in a civilised society.”

‘‘If anything regarding discrimination comes to my notice, I will correct it.’’

“Minorities are best protected in the state and Muslims have the highest per capita income in Gujarat,”

Guess who?

Narendra Modi was at the CII conference discussing “Competitiveness of States” and was the target of a protest led by Shabnam Hashmi and Nafisa Ali.

“Fascist Modi come down” said one banner. Just to make it relevant to the conference, one closing banner – “Market economy down down”

Source: The Statesman