Stories from and

India General Election 2014: Branding of Candidates Via Social Media

  7 April 2014

Social media is also the space for innovation and creative thinking. Milind Deora [Union Minister and incumbent MP from South Mumbai] boasts of being the first candidate available to the electorate on WhatsApp and BBM, and provides an interactive mashup map to track all his activities and initiatives. Like BJP’s...

The Perils Of The Dams Coming Up for Mumbai Region

  24 March 2014

South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) blog reports that as many as 12 dams are either being planned or are under construction to satisfy the increasing water demand of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) in India. The Tribals and other affected groups have long been strongly opposing...

Is India's New Rape Law Helping Women?

  20 March 2014

We got a law that upped the punishment for rape, as well as broadened the definition to rape in a grand promise to more and more people – when the fundamental problem was that people who were raped as per the old definitions and punishments weren’t getting justice already in...

11th Century Kannada Literature Available On Wikisource

  18 March 2014

Vachana Sahitya is a form of rhythmic writing in Kannada language that evolved in the 11th Century C.E. and flourished in the 12th century. Subhashish Panigrahi reports (co-authored by Pavithra Hanchagaiah and Omshivaprakash HI) in Wikimedia blog that Two Wikimedians along with a Kannada linguist have converted 21000 verses of...

[Video] Can We Also Celebrate Daughters in India?

  8 March 2014

Video Volunteers Community Correspondent Gayatri documents in a video one obscure ritual of India, the ‘Saptami Beti’, where women celebrate having a son. She comments: It is important to talk about this. I want to show this video in all the areas where ‘Saptami’ is celebrated. People give it so...

[Video] Decoding Indian Headshakes in Less Than Two Minutes

  1 March 2014

Many people are confused about the meaning of Indian “headshakes” and how to communicate using them. That may explain why a satirical video deciphering different types of Indian headshakes has gone viral. The 1:44 minute-long video, titled “Indian headshakes, what do they mean?“, has attracted more than 1.2 million views...

[Photos]: Kolkata’s Street Dog Doctor

  27 February 2014

Kaushik Sengupta, a self-taught social documentary photographer, is the creator of a photo essay featuring Mr. Sandip Karan of Kolkata, India. Mr. Karan is known in his area as ‘street dog doctor’ because of his caring love for street dogs. Till-to-date, he has rescued and treated around 2500 street dogs...

Thoughts On India's Biggest Blogging Conference

  22 February 2014

#WIN14, India's biggest blogging conference and awards, hosted by BlogAdda, took place on February 9, 2014. Blogger Dr. Roshan Radhakrishnan, who won the best creative writing blog in India, shares his thoughts and pictures.

An Info-Activism Tool-Kit on Women's Rights Campaigning

  9 February 2014

The Women's Rights Campaigning: Info-Activism Toolkit by Tactical Technology Collective is a new guide for women's rights activists, advocates, NGOs and community based organizations who want to use technology tools and practices in their campaigning. This has been developed in collaboration with advocacy organizations from Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Kenya and...

A Video That Made 50 Schools Safe

  8 February 2014

Video Volunteers Community Correspondent Amit Topno from Torpa Block, Jharkhand talks about making a video that brought about a positive change that had potentially saved the lives of 5000 people across 35 villages in his state. When his video explaining the problem of lightning strikes and the inaction of the...

Birds Avoiding Bhopal

  31 January 2014

Bhopal, the capital of the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh, lies in the North-South corridor of the migratory path of birds coming from Northern Asia, Russia, Afghanistan, China, Mongolia etc. Blogger Proloy Bagchi reports that several species of migratory birds which used to congregate in and around the Bhojtal (former...

Outdoor Air pollution in Bhopal

  26 January 2014

Proloy Bagchi reports that outdoor air pollution in Bhopal, the capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, has risen to an alarming proportion mainly from the emission of the transports. The blogger slams at the inaction of the state government and stresses the importance of reducing this pollution. According...

The Other Side of Social Media

  26 January 2014

That’s Twitter – it makes a joke out of serious issues and takes jokes seriously. - comments blogger Purba Ray while discussing Sunanda Pushkar’s sudden death who underwent a Twitter spat with a Pakistani journalist. The unusual death of the wife of Indian minister Shashi Tharoor has created a lot...

Protest Against Rape : WordToon by Subhendu Sarkar

  25 January 2014

In India women often fall prey to sex crimes where police fail to take proper action. Subhendu Sarkar, an artist from Kolkata created cartoons from words (see Youtube video) in an workshop called “wordtoon” urging everybody to protest against rape.

The Biggest Indian Blogging Conference In February 2014

  25 January 2014

The WIN – Blogadda conference will take place in Mumbai on February 9, 2014. This conference is claimed to be the the biggest offline Indian blogger conference where a mix of Bloggers, Industry Specialists & Influencers will talk about how blogging today has grown to be an optimum platform for...

Why Rape And Sexual Violence Continue

  5 January 2014

“I will not forget what happened today, one year ago” This video was released by Video Volunteers on December 16, 2013 to commemorate Nirbhaya, who died in the 2012 Delhi gang rape incident. The incident was the only conviction of 706 reported cases of rape in Delhi that year. Statistics...

Aam Aadmi Party Clone In Bangladesh

  5 January 2014

Blogger An Ordinary Citizen writes: Many in Bangladesh are inquisitively looking at the development of Aam Aadmi Party in India and hoping that a similar phenomenon may develop in Bangladesh. Co-incidentally the success of the Aam aadmi party has inspired a group to float an Aam Janatar Dal –Common Man’s...

An Open Letter to Arvind Kejriwal

  28 December 2013

Satire blog AmreekanDesi writes an open letter to the newly elected chief minister of Delhi, anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal: Now that you’ve given us this hope, please don’t let us down. Please don’t become another party that goes giddy with the prospect of power. Please don’t become a party that...

Impact Of Social Media In The Delhi Elections

  25 December 2013

Prior to the Delhi Legislative Assembly election (4 December 2013) the Delhi Election Commission vowed to monitor the social media for political campaigns looking for breach of model code of conduct by the candidates. However the commission later said that there were loopholes in monitoring and it is virtually “impossible”...