TED Talk – Women Sheryl Sandberg
Ne Aaja Veh…
Love the Ice skating in tha Taj Mahal Backdrop 
Who’s on Your Fridge? – Peter Bregman – Harvard Business Review
Pleas from MMSingh to Anna
MMSingh:anna mere pyaar ko na tum jhutha samajh jaana..
accha lokpal bill laane ki baat chalo humne hai maana..
ab toh tum plz kha lo khaana…
Hare Krsna Hare Rama…
Mohana Mere Rama Mere
Mann Ke Aangan mein Padhaaro
Mann Mein Ghar Banaaye Rakho
Mere Ghar aao…
The Pandora’s Box opened: the IT Act 2011
After attending the conference headed by Medianama’s editor Mr. Nikhil Pahwa to discuss the new IT Act, I really appreciate the great work that they are doing to bring awareness to the general public regarding the devious way the rulings of this new Act are being formulated. Read on…
Following is an excerpt from Medianama.com :
The Centre for Internet and Society has published a point-by-point rebuttal of the statement issued by India’s Department of Information Technology on India’s Internet Control Rules.
In its press release on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 , the DIT stated:
The attention of Government has been drawn to news items in a section of media on certain aspects of the Rules notified under Section 79 pertaining to liability of intermediaries under the Information Technology Act, 2000. These items have raised two broad issues. One is that words used in Rules for objectionable content are broad and could be interpreted subjectively. Secondly, there is an apprehension that the Rules enable the Government to regulate content in a highly subjective and possibly arbitrary manner.
There are actually more issues than merely “subjective interpretation” and “arbitrary governmental regulation”.
- The Indian Constitution limits how much the government can regulate citizens’ fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. Any measure afoul of the constitution is invalid.
- Several portions of the rules are beyond the limited powers that Parliament had granted the Department of IT to create interpretive rules under the Information Technology Act. Parliament directed the Government to merely define what “due diligence” requirements an intermediary would have to follow in order to claim the qualified protection against liability that Section 79 of the Information Technology Act provides; these current rules have gone dangerously far beyond that, by framing rules that insist that intermediaries, without investigation, has to remove content within 36-hours of receipt of a complaint, keep records of a users’ details and provide them to law enforcement officials.
So to equate the effect of these Rules to merely following ‘existing practices’ is plainly wrong. An intermediary—like the CIS website—should have the freedom to choose not to have terms of service agreements. We now don’t.
“In case any issue arises concerning the interpretation of the terms used by the Intermediary, which is not agreed to by the user or affected person, the same can only be adjudicated by a Court of Law. The Government or any of its agencies have no power to intervene or even interpret. DIT has reiterated that there is no intention of the Government to acquire regulatory jurisdiction over content under these Rules. It has categorically said that these rules do not provide for any regulation or control of content by the Government.”
The Rules are based on the presumption that all complaints (and resultant mandatory taking down of the content) are correct, and that the incorrectness of the take-downs can be disputed in court. Why not just invert that, and presume that all complaints need to be proven first?
Now coming to my take on this:
I believe that blatantly removing an individual’s post on frivolous accounts is a mighty misuse of the freedom of expression. But that said, anything that jeopardises safety of any person, group, community or country such as threats or harrassing content or content that sparks extreme communal and religious fanaticism should be brought to book.
The pen is mightier than the sword as we saw in recent times how Egypt and Libya and many such other oppressed countries could break themselves out from the shackles of dictatorial anarchy. And these positive changes are brought about only thanks to this new voice of the middle class youth that is getting a platform only due to the internet. We dont want this positive voice to be stifled and told to shut up.
So in my opinion, what we need here is a comprehensive list to be generated to classify incidents and scenarios between what is frivolous or attacks person’s freedom of expression and what can be a potential cause of extreme repulsion or hatred or fanaticism which is threat to a person or group or country.
And this list needs to be very tightly grounded on the principles of fairness and democracy in our country. Any case should be water-tight ,i.e, able to be classified as one or the other. We need the rules to be mature enough to be such. And I think there should be some way of making people realise that frivolous complainants can also be pulled up for wasting other people’s precious time. I know this last idea in itself is a double edged sword but it isnt difficult to implement if we have work done on the two specific mutually exclusive scenarios that I mentioned earlier in this paragraph.
Whats happening now is really interesting… from the Medianama article… it can be seen that the GoI is overlooking all the comments sent by Civil Society voices, Companies and Industry Experts pointing the concerns regarding the provisions of this new Act. On one hand it calls the process transparent and this is the grossly undermining the people’s voice even before the Act becomes officially enactable.
The latest on this can be found on Medianama’s site if you follow this link:
Comments are welcome guys and gals!
-therhymeoflife
THE PLAN OF THE LORD
THE PLAN OF THE LORD
Once there was a sweeper in a well known temple and he was very sincere and devoted. Every time he saw thousands of devotees coming to take darshan of the Lord, he thought that the Lord is standing all the time and giving darshan and He must be feeling very tired.
So one day very innocently he asked the Lord whether he can take the place of the Lord for a day so that the Lord can have some relief and rest. The Deity of Temple replied, "I do not mind taking a break. I will transform you like Myself, but you must do one thing. You must just stand here like Me, smile at everyone and just give benedictions. Do not interfere with anything and do not say anything. Remember you are the deity and you just have faith that I have a master plan for everything." The sweeper agreed to this.
The next day the sweeper took the position of the deity and a rich man came and prayed to the Lord. He offered a nice donation and prayed that his business should be prosperous. While going, the rich man inadvertently left his wallet full of money right there. Now the sweeper in the form of deity could not call him and so he decided to control himself and keep quiet.
Just then a poor man came and he put one coin in the Hundi and said that it was all he could afford and he prayed to the Lord that he should continue to be engaged in the Lord’s service. He also said that his family was in dire need of some basic needs but he left it to the good hands of the Lord to give some solution. When he opened his eyes, he saw the wallet left by the rich man. The poor man thanked the Lord for His kindness and took the wallet very innocently. The sweeper in the form of the Deity could not say anything and he had to just keep smiling.
At that point a sailor walked in. He prayed for his safe journey as he was going on a long trip. Just then the rich man came with the police and said that somebody has stolen his wallet and seeing the sailor there, he asked the police to arrest him thinking that he might have taken it. Now the sweeper in the form of Deity wanted to say that the sailor is not the thief but he could not say so and he became greatly frustrated. The sailor looked at the Lord and asked why he, an innocent person, is being punished. The rich man looked at the Lord and thanked Him for finding the thief. The sweeper in the deity form could no more tolerate and he thought that even if the real Lord had been here, he would have definitely interfered and hence he started speaking and said that the sailor is not the thief but it was the poor man who took away the wallet. The rich man was very thankful as also the sailor.
In the night, the real Lord came and He asked the sweeper how the day was. The sweeper said, "I thought it would be easy, but now I know that Your days are not easy, but I did one good thing." Then he explained the whole episode to the Lord. The Lord became very upset on hearing this whereas the sweeper thought the Lord would appreciate him for the good deed done.
The Lord asked, "Why did you not just stick to the plan? You had no faith in Me. Do you think that I do not understand the hearts of all those who come here? All the donation which the rich man gave was all stolen money and it is only a fraction of what he really has and he wants Me to reciprocate unlimitedly. The single coin offered by the poor man was the last coin he was having and he gave it to Me out of faith. The sailor might not have done anything wrong, but if the sailor were to go in the ship that night he was about to die because of bad weather and instead if he is arrested he would be in the jail and he would have been saved form a greater calamity. The wallet should go to the poor man because he will use it in My service. I was going to reduce the rich man’s karma also by doing this and save the sailor also. But you cancelled everything because you thought you know My plan and you made your own plans."
God has plans and justice for everyone….
We just have to have patience!!!!!
-Interesting story in a forward…
God is great and I love u God! Praise the Lord…..
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