Giri at 0630am on 13/March/2011
Hello and welcome to yet another post from my end.
First of all thanks to all those who have commented on my earlier log. I am still wondering why a few of these have not been automatically tagged at the bottom of my post, and hope that this will be resolved soon.
Specifically, one reader has brought to my notice that there are already 30 or odd countries that have moved away from a progressive tax structure to a unified and simplified tax structure (one is Russia) and that there are studies that show that net tax revenues have increased as much as 25%. Thanks Padma for referring me to the article by Chinese commentator He Bolin in the China Daily of 01/04/2010. And thanks also for Baba Knucklehead’s views that it is perhaps the materialistic approach to living (which has forgotten that elders are a font of wisdom who need to be respected) that is primarily at the root of the rudeness that we see in urban Indian society. I think that this is too simple an explanation. I would like to suggest that Rudeness is a valuable trait that most urban Indians are likely to imbibe as part of their early childhood education, and is a habit that they get so addicted early on, that they carry it for a lifetime!! In fact there is passive encouragement from parents, teachers and peers at school. And added to this the behaviour of the icons of todays’ youth on television and one is left wondering what the fuss is all about?
So what caught my attention in the week that went by?
First was Fridays’ tsunami and its destructive trail in Japan. Or more accurately, the extensive television and social networking coverage of the disaster and its global economic impacts! I suspect that the coverage played its own role in actually preventing or minimising what could have become even greater losses to life, property and economic loss. Which leads me to suggest the following: Can social networking sites and community radios become the vanguard of disaster management infrastructure in countries such as India? If yes, what protocols need to be in place to ensure that such networks can really add value to loss-prevention, relief and rehabilitation? How can they be used to train a vast array of resources (that is geographically, culturally and economically disparate) in various aspects of managing disasters? Is there a PPP opportunity waiting to unleash its potential?
The second is more of an observation, rather than any event or development. The whole of last week, as I drove to work early in the morning, I was surprised to see a bunch of eager cyclathon enthusiasts, pedalling furiously in the inner lanes of the expressway without utter disregard for the motor traffic. All of them seemed to ride trendy sport bicycles, but only a few of them had safety gear on themselves. I think they are all preparing for some upcoming competitive events in Mumbai and Thane. This left me wondering: Are they and their families not bothered about their safety? Are they not bothered about the safety of others who use the motorway? And, most importantly, are the organisers of such cyclathon events and the traffic police not aware of the problems and nuisance that these people create? Where does their responsibility stop? Which leads me to suggest: Event organisers such as Mumbai Marathon or Cyclathon as well as public bodies such as Municipal Corporations and law-enforcing organisations need to identify practice venues and routes and times and keep the general public informed about these too. The costs involved have to be borne by the sponsors and the participants.
And before I sign-off, I refer you to the following interesting sites that I located. They make great reading on the subject of the power of suggestion. One is a site called whatdoyousuggest.net, which has been developed as a response to Google Search and Web Seer. And then there were several sites and blogs that talked about IKEA’s power of suggestion through their IKEA Rooms. Several blogs actually suggest that the IKEA Room concept can be used for enticing and ensuring customer-pull. Interesting!
Keep sending me your comments and views and suggestions. My next post, should, hopefully, be on schedule on 20th March.
Till then......
2 comments:
I am a great believer in the power and wide reach of social networking sites. They are far more effective than conventional methods of getting the word around. It is fun and today anything we do has to have an element of fun to make it appealing to the target audience.
Nasscom to recognised the power of social media and is conducting it's first event on Social Media and it's effectiveness in April this year.
Happy Holi!
During the time of holi we find that the environmental NGO’s and activists start their slogans on celebrating holi with safe colours, by using vegetables as dyes, or using rice or maida as the base ingredient, conserving water and so forth. I feel that with the water scarcity in Mumbai and the inflation of food and vegetable prices perhaps there is a need for seeking some alternatives. This made me think as to why can we not have a double or triple bonanza holi ie celebrate this festival with colours, and at the same time offer more job opportunities and also conserve on water, vegetables and foodgrains! Sounds good dosen’t it?
I think that if one can intake coloured soft drinks like Coke, Pepsi, Mangola, Miranda (having brown, black, yellow and orange colours),I am quite sure that the other basic colours like red, blue, green, pink can also be safely produced with a bit of research. Existing artificial food colours that are also safe for the skin and body pores also be considered.
Water with such safe colours may be produced and sold in water cans of different capacity say 5ltrs, 10ltrs,25ltrs. This conserves water because it is limited to the number of such water cans one has bought. The water cans may be of reusable/recycled materials.
People can use different type of safe and stick-on tattoos that just imprints different colours on a person’s body and on the dress. This may be of the washable type or like a coloured ink stain that disappears after sometime say 3 or 4 hours.
I believe that such activities can generate employment opportunities that will further help to build our economy.
So lets really make an effort towards a fun loving, carefree and safer Holi!!
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