Mumbai Help issued one of the first calls to desist showing gore in the name of journalism.

Kishore at All in a Day's Work poses this question:

With a mind blowing number of news channels cropping up, each showing different angles of the same news, spiced up with suspense filled animated figures re-enacting the events forming the news and a live feed straight from the happening place, a very fundamental question pops up in my mind. Can news reporting be equated with entertainment? The Reality shows and stuff?

News describes some of the gore and I find it quite chilling:

The CNN-IBN screen was full of blood during the Mumbai blast coverage. Rajdeep was anchoring from one of the bombed first class coaches. He kept on pointing at and showing blood splashed window glasses of the train for a good 10 minutes. As if this was not enough, what followed were blood smeared bodies of injured people. Then there were limbs and other body parts of the dead on the platforms and rail tracks. Blood blood and more blood. One thing needs to be checked: is the Indian audience ready for so much blood on screen? Or better still is it okay to pour so much blood into people's living rooms?

Surya has a very relevant uggestion for all:

Plz people (Specially Media) show some concern and accountability..Stop sensationalising the things and give ur constructive contribution in facing this challenge rather then thinking about TRP rating…God Bless !!!

Sujatha at Blogpurri puts a particular news channel under scanner.

CNN/IBN cannot get over itself. In the middle of the coverage of the Mumbai blasts, Rajdeep Sardesai could not prevent himself from repeatedly reminding his viewers (and at one point, his reporter as well) that the images were being carried live on CNN world wide. He was practically salivating over the fact that one of his reporters happened to be on one of the trains on which the blasts occurred and couldn't stop smiling at this stroke of fortune.

Prashanth has the following question to ask:

But, what I don't understand is why on earth these media have to show all those bloodstained photos and videos. Just for the heck of publicity. Just to make a name in the media world?

Dhoomketu is equally irritated with the images flashed on the screen.

Thus, it's time to rant about TV. Close ups of the dead bodies, which should be captured and pasted all over Rajdeep Sardesai's house were not the only distasteful sight on TV. Advertisements for houses (Flats at Bhiwadi, Lucknow etc. from Mtech developers, thank you, on IndiaTV), underwear (Dollarclub Innerwear on Aajtak) and education institutes (Coaching classes on Zee News) proved that whatever happens in this world, the commercial spirit will not flag.

Pooja watched it in the US and felt for people back home.:

The Indian Media seriously needs to reconsiders what they show - the other night when I switched to Zee News to see how things were in Mumbai (Sitting in US, that is my one source of information on India besides reading news online), I was stunned. They were actually showing dead bodies lying on the track and injured people being dragged to rescue. Even sitting this far from my country, I could not help but feel for everyone back home who were probably seeing these images continuously and how disturbing they must be for everyone. I mean I understand the gravity of the situation and how shocking it is for everyone, how painful it is for everyone, but to rub it in like this - it is just not warranted.

Amrit points out that such was the haste to show the images that a few of them had to apologise later.

I’m putting national in quotes because they are supposed to be “reputed” channels. They are tripping over each other trying to show images and small video clips sent to them by what they call the “citizen journalists” and they are in such a hurry to show the pictures that even as known a journalist as Barkha Datt on NDTV “apologized” that they didn’t have enough time to edit the shocking pictures and video clips.

I think a serious debate is required on this issue as this has not happened for the first time.

Dilip at Death Ends Fun in short post talks about people who leave their villages and come to look for work in the cities.

In taxis and rickshaws in Bombay, you'll often see a brightly coloured sticker of a young woman sitting under a tree, her head on her elbows on her knees. Below, these three words: “Ghar kab aaoge?” (”When will you come home?)

The reference is, of course, to the number of such drivers who have left their wives and families in small villages while they work in the city.

Vasukumar at his blog Shadamarshanavasu writes about visiting a village school that turns out to be an unique experience for him.

Had a very unique experience yesterday, visiting an institution,Sevalaya. It is not yet another orphanage; neither is it yet another old age home; it is not another village school either; nor is it a charitable institution with an eye on media publicity.

It is a unique experiment of the dream of 3 young men who wanted to follow the teachings of swami vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Subramanya bharati, in letter and spirit.Started in a thatch hut with 3 children, is today a big family of hundreds of students,teachers and staff.I liked the environment which is very friendly.I found all the inmates both old and young and all ages in between genuinely at peace with themselves and happy.There was a sense of being partners in the entire process. The villagers also participate actively in the school activities in return for free education and upkeep of their children.

Stolenchildhood.net reminds us that the practice of childhood marriages is still prevalent in India.

India is a country largely facing poverty, where the common mass hardly has money to buy itself two meals a day. This is precisely the reason why many parents from the poor class gets their girls married in return more money.

Although the Indian Government says that the economy is fast improving and the IT sector is booming the rural parts of India have hardly changed.

Ramesh G. Deshpande at Economics India looks at some figures and debate surrounding the reduction of proverty in India.

For the past several years, there has been a considerable debate going on among “real” economists and “political” economists about what happened to poverty in India during 1990s.

The debate concerned both political and statistical issues in India's poverty. Following the introduction of economic reforms in early 1990s, India witnessed high rates of economic growth but the effect of this growth on poverty remained a controversial topic. GOI’s official numbers showed an acceleration in the rate of poverty reduction from 36 percent of population in 1993-94 to 26 percent in 1999-2000. Many economists challenged these numbers as showing both too little and too much poverty reduction!

Abhas writes at A Few Hundred Words and doesn't seem to like his second school.

Why is it that a boy must come home from school, only to find his mother forcing food in his mouth, all because he doesn't want to end up being late fore the bell rings at a second school? Hell yes, I'm talking about coaching, and while I'm at it, put in those tuitions and extra classes, too.

School is not what it used to be, or so I believe. You can't go there alone and expect to learn what you need. And what's worse is that every teacher knows it, and so does every student.
Kids decide that they'd rather not waste their time in school studying, and brush up on their facts at a nearby coaching institute. And problem two originates because teachers know this, and keeping it in mind, they also go: “what the heck…”

Chronicals of Semi-Geek Living talks about the pressure to do well in Math in India.

The average high-school goer in India is a curious mix of conflicting ambitions. He even likes (gasp!) school sometimes. This is because most of the horror stories he was told as a pre-schooler about schools being torture houses and teachers being demons (who spreads these things I wonder) have proven themselves wrong by this time. He has favourite subjects (sometimes one of them is even math), and many a time nurses fond dreams of making a career out of them.

He persevers in his pursuit of better grades in the face of an overflowing schedule (tuitions, curriculars etc). He is secretly guilty of his ineptitude with the numerical and does his best to measure up to his more gifted peers. He spends hours struggling with the well established rote system. Hours that may have proved more gainful if employed in practice of things he enjoys more. Say… literature, or drawing, or music.

Abi at Nanopolitan talks about how good are enterance tests like JEE that lead to admission in Indian Institute of Technologies (IIT) are at discovering merit?

This problem is much worse in JEE, because even the ones who get through (i.e., get a JEE rank, called the All India Rank - AIR) are people who are able to attempt only a small fraction of the questions. In the year I took it, I attempted barely 25% of the questions in chemistry, as well as in math (physics was slightly better, at about 50%!). The JEE questions continue to be brutal.

Remaining with the admission to Indian Institute of Technologies we discovered this strange motivational strategy ‘walking on fire' by one coaching institute and Veena at Yossarian Lives comments on it.

Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, all the goats have already been slaughtered and I only get to see the rasam being cooked. I chat with the cook for sometime and then sneak off to the hot coals place. A lot of kids stand around and are hedging this other kid to walk on the coals. This poor thing, hardly 8 years old, his face pierced and painted looks at the coals and starts crying. His mother rushes in and explains to him that it wouldn't hurt and that he can go in after other kids.
…

Why did I think of all this now, you ask? Because walking on fire is apparently back in fashion. … Now if only someone had told us this sometime ago, the blogosphere would not have had to have an ugly fight about the merits and demerits of reservations. All we need to do is to get aspiring students to walk on fire.

Anil at Windy Skies while traveling through Goa (India) finds an unlikely bar in a small village: White House.

I find the atmosphere surreal, but I cannot imagine Goan bars fitted with anything other than these dim yellow bulbs for it would simply kill their character. Better still if they were to operate out of brick structures held together in mud covered walls painted red or blue, or left to themselves like some village bars out in the countryside, the red laterite bricks exposed to the elements. “White House is an unlikely name for a bar,” I say aloud as Raju walks up to the counter to ask for a quarter of Cashew feni, and soda.

No longer Kerela's (India) best kept secret, Munnar is still very beautiful. Abhi at Blue Marbel takes us through Munnar

Nestled amidst the Western Ghats and the greenest of tea plantations; this quaint little plantation town is Kerala’s best-kept secret until recent times. Munnar derived its name from ‘mun-ar’, which means ‘three rivers’ in Malayalam. Located at an altitude of 5250 feet above msl it makes for an ideal tea county. Today it’s coming up, and coming up fast as a hot-spot hill station full of moony eyed honeymooners, tea-tasters and the backpackers!

From the Western Ghats we move to Auli (Uttranchal Himalayas, India) with Arun from India Travel Blog

I noticed a few people playing cricket just below the snow line, taking advantage of the warm weather. And some one had already set up a tea stall there! Climb a little higher and the cricket ground gave way to ski slope!

VJ from VJ's Travelogue takes a trip to Mcleodganj and brings back some lovely pictures and an account of his trip.

Mcleodganj ('Ganj' means market and McLeod, a Scotsman.) is truly special city. An impromptu trip again . Till I boarded a bus to Dharamshala , I wasn't sure , if iam going to make it or not .But I knew this was happening, finally.

Kiran at Beautiful Earth recounts his experience with porters he met while trekking in Jomsom (Nepal).

The porters were a hardworking lot
They would carry trekking gear all day as much thirty kilos a man while the people who employed them carried fancy walking poles and photography equipment

A little early in the night all the porters got together around a fire and began to cook
A little later into the night dinner was being served amongst themselves
They all gathered around a table where there was plenty of meat to eat and arrack to drink
They even invited some from the trekker group who employed them for a night of merry