Last year, on the occasion of Independence Day, we ran a contest. We ran it with a motive. We wanted this platform to be known by more people & to survive. We wanted people who were willing to contribute. The contest picked up well & we got a very good participation response. But unfortunately, the expected growth did not get triggered. We totally take the responsibility for not having delivered what we promised, with regards to the prizes.

Today, being the Republic Day, we have decided to stand up and apologise to all the participants of the competition, to whom we did not deliver the promised prizes.

We apologize to each one of you for not living up to our word:

@s4sukhdeep, @simardeep88, @jishita, @ArchisM, @pluckyprob, @atm_215, @agrimsingh, @amanpreetsarora, @jasdeepjon, @nish7x & @knayam

Unfortunately, we’re stopping the blog officially. The content will remain hosted. But, we won’t be posting anymore.

Wishing everyone a Happy Republic Day again. Goodbye.

It is 19:47 hours and time to announce the winners of our 5-day twitter contest. It was great to see the amount of enthusiasm shown by all of you towards the contest!

There were 171 tweople who played the contest a total of 674 times. Thanks for your participation friends.

Also, this quiz wouldn’t have been possible without the support provided by myntra.com & all the help provided by gyaan.in by sponsoring the questions!! Thanks to both!!

Both, myntra.com & gyaan.in have just started off on twitter and have assured to come on to twitter in a much more active manner. Do follow them on @myntra_1 and @gyaanin

We will start off with the winners of the keychains. Since it was the 63rd Independence Day of our nation, we offered every 63rd quiz-taker a keychain to take home! The winners are:

@s4sukhdeep, @simardeep88, @jishita, @ArchisM, @pluckyprob, @atm_215, @agrimsingh, @amanpreetsarora & @jasdeepjon

All of you get a myntra.com keychain each. Congrats to all of you!!

The following are the daily winners:

• Day 1: @nish7x. Score: 85.28
• Day 2: @atm_215. Score: 82.95
• Day 3: @pluckyprob. Score:72.96
• Day 4: @s4sukhdeep. Score:87.61
• Day 5: @knayam. Score:88.76

Each one of you gets a cool @JaiHindIndians t-shirt, courtesy myntra.com. Congrats folks!

Coming down to our mega-prize. Hold your breath friends! The top scorer of the contest wins a cool myntra.com watch!!

The top scorer scored 90.77 whopping points!! It is @shan_adhicary. Congrats Shan!! You get a myntra.com wrist watch for yourself.

All the winners may please email us on contests [at] targetgenx [dot] com to know more about how to get your prizes!!

*The organizers’ decision on any matters related to the quiz is final and binding on all participants.

Given below is the complaint:

Title : Unauthorised Charge for Caller Tunes
Complaint ID : xxxxx
Complaint Details : I am subscribed to a Vodafone Prepaid Mobile
connection with the number 9xxxxxxxxx

Automatic incoming calls from Mobile Service Providers is a norm. One type
of such calls was missed by me on the morning of 09/03/2009. These numbers
are normal 10 digit mobile numbers and not distinguishable as promotional
calls.

I called back the number. I was told by the IVR its a free call. I
realised it was a call for Caller Tunes. Incidentally, I had been planning
to activate it around that time. So I thought of going through the options
of songs available.

I was listening to the songs on the Bollywood menu I had entered by
pressing the specified key.
After the songs in that menu exhausted(I had not pressed any key
indicating selection of song), I was asked whether Caller Tunes was
already activated for me. 1 for Yes. 2 for No. I pressed 2. Suddenly the
system tells me that the caller tune had been set. After disconnection of
the call I received their sms’.
I was charged Rs. 45 in an unauthorised fashion, without my consent.

I called up their Customer Care twice on that day. They heard me out and
said we’ll transfer your call. And in that process the line disconnected.

Today, I had called them up again & the call was eventually
transferred to one of their special CC executives.

I explained the whole thing to her & told them to reverse Rs. 15 &
I would change my caller tune to one of my choice.
She told me that what I said was valid, but they didn’t have any procedure
to reverse it if I had called in the number, and even if I visited their
Gallery, it wouldn’t be reversed. Only it had got activated on the
incoming call & not the outgoing call would have it been reversed.

Consequences:

The amount is small here, but the concern here is the
(maybe intentional) glitch in their system, which must be charging all the
users without consent. Most users think it is a small amount and let it
be, but with these drops they making an ocean of unauthorised revenue at
the cost of their customers. I would call this openly robbing the
consumers.

It would be great to have an explanation from Vodafone about the fact that
their systems are prepared or programmed to rob us, but when one of us
realises we’ve been robbed, they say there is no procedure(or their
systems arent programmed to reverse this amount). WHY?
And first of all, WHY should such a major glitch be existing in their
software.

Moreover, there is a small issue with the CORE website as well which I wanted to blog about right away alongwith this.

Today is 03/11/2009(11th of March, 2009) & I lodged the complaint at around 5 PM. Look at the snapshots below and they should be enough to convey what I want to say.

CORE Email Snapshot

CORE Snapshot

We had done this blogpost in October of 2007 called “You think you know what India’s National Language is?”, and it is till date one of the most commented posts on our blog.

It’s an eye-opener which talks about the citizens of India being under an hypnotization by the system, which has very widely embedded in the minds of all of us that our National Language is Hindi. Our blog post has got around 4,500 odd views, which is not even 0.01% of India’s Internet population. People have the right to not stay under this hypnotism. The people of India need to know that India doesn’t have a National Language instead of blabbering around that Hindi is the National Language.

This post is an attempt to raise awareness about this fact.

What we need to do is very simple. If you are sitting here and reading this post, you are definitely present on atleast one of these channels on the Internet:

• Email
• Chat
• Social Networks(Orkut, Facebook, etc)
• You own a website
• You have a blog
• Microblogs
• Lots more…

What you need to do is leverage each of these mediums you are on to let people in your circle know this fact.

• If you are on email, send this to all Indians in your contacts list
• If you have a website or a blog, publish this.
• If you are on Social Networks(most of us are), use the different mediums(scrapbooks, walls, communities, groups, etc) to spread the word
• If you are on microblogs like twitter, post it there. Retweet it.
• If you are someone from the media, communicate this fact through your medium(TV, Print, Radio, etc)
• Make it a part of your dinner-table talks, party discussions, gossips.

• Most importantly, when you communicate this, insist your friends/readers to pass on the message to their circle/network

• Motive: JUST SPREAD THE WORD

I hope this initiative takes some concrete form and we can see lesser people living with the misconception.

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Founder, Art of Living, has conceptualized this march to awaken and empower citizens in order to create an on-ground structure that will actually effect a change in societal circumstances and situations, in keeping with His vision and mission of a stress-free, violence-free planet where individuals contribute towards the goal of a One-World Family. The objective of the march is to awaken and empower the people of India, especially the youth, to participate in the democratic process. This march is the first step of a nationwide campaign aimed at amplifying the collective voice of the citizens and propelling the youth of India against Corruption and Terrorism. We Endeavour to catalyze this movement, across the nation, with a 3 fold solution: AWARENESS, ACCOUNTABILITY & ACTION.

With this motive Youth for Equality along with WAYE and AOL has planned a march on March 1st, 2009. India has been badly hit by terrorism in last decade or so and yet our government hasn’t done any concrete step to enhance the security and intelligence of the country. Corruption, another evil in our system is eating up all the progress which we are making towards becoming a developed nation. If we want to prosper it is very essential to uproot terrorism and corruption. As a country, we need to actively start moving in a concerted way against these twin evils that are now threatening our very existence. So let us send out a call to our country to create a safe society. A society where there is no fear in walking into an airplane, a train or a bus. Or when we enter a mall, a cinema or a hotel, with our children. Or even our very own homes.

Let us take responsibility and bring the change – for our future and our future generations. Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what can you do For your country.
We need to take future in our hands; see it resting on our palms and take nation ahead.

Change is inevitable and it is important that Indian Youth takes the responsibility to bring the change. So, here is the call for all the citizens whose conscience is yet awake and they want to make the system effective. Be the Change.

Join the march

Website: http://www.themarch.in

SMS MARCH <Your Name> to 56767 to get the latest details about march.

You can also register with YFE by sending ON YOUTH4EQUALITY to 09870807070

Remember, It’s no good when citizens of nation only complain and expect someone else to fix their problems.

SunniestGnome did a post on Jai Hind in October last year about the section 49-O. The post carries a discrepancy, viz. the provisions for cancellation of results or disqualification of candidates.

A discussion on twitter with @Sengupta, @nikhilnarayanan & @sh00nya ended up into a collection of some useful and determining material about this.

I follow this up with excerpts of the complete discussion below. Going through it and the enclosed links can really clear a lot of myths about this highly discussed but not very prevalent provision:

nikhilnarayanan: There is no section 49-0 on voting right! http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-chatteranti/394809/2

imba: RT @nikhilnarayanan: There is no section 49-0 on voting right! http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-chatteranti/394809/2

Sengupta: @nikhilnarayanan @imba There’s no 49-O in the constitution. 49-O is a Rule in the The Conduct of Elections Rules.

Sengupta: 49-O is meant to prevent electoral fraud and has no provisions for cancellation of results or disqualification of candidates.

nikhilnarayanan: @Sengupta so, Shekhar Gupta is wrong? :O

Sengupta: @nikhilnarayanan No. He’s absolutely right. He said it’s not there in the constitution- just hasn’t mentioned where the confusion stems from

nikhilnarayanan: @Sengupta ok. http://www.hinduonnet.com/2004/04/28/stories/2004042805150500.htm

Sengupta: @nikhilnarayanan The article is fine, but unfortunately the The Conduct of Elections Rules don’t specifically say what will happen (contd)

Sengupta: @nikhilnarayanan if the number of 49-Os is greater than the number of votes for any one candidate. This is one of it’s biggest problems.

Sengupta: @nikhilnarayanan I do believe there’s some work to be done yet to bring some clarity into the whole issue.

sh00nya: @Sengupta @nikhilnarayan has any one read this in its entirety http://lawmin.nic.in/legislative/election/volume%202/conduct%20of%20election%20rules,%201961.pdf

nikhilnarayanan: @Sengupta Agreed. Someone has to clarify.

Sengupta: @sh00nya I’ve read this bit: http://txtb.in/nY That’s all. I’m no expert on the rule. Just putting in my $0.02.

Sengupta: @sh00nya @nikhilnarayanan This seems to explain the status quo fairly well: http://www.49-o.info/ [MUST SEE]

sh00nya: @Sengupta true that’s there in the Conduct of Elections Rule 1961 going thru the 139 pg doc lemme see if i can get any details

Sengupta: @sh00nya Here: http://lawmin.nic.in/ld/subord/cer1.htm About halfway through the page.

sh00nya: @Sengupta precisely was going through the info there

h00nya: Point 11 of ECI guidelines says same http://www.eci.gov.in/ECI_voters_guideline_2006.pdf [MUST SEE] abt 49-O. only a note is made in Form17A, the secrecy of voter is nt protected though

nikhilnarayanan: @Sengupta Mutiny says somethin on 49-0 http://mutiny.in/2008/12/07/the-real-deal-behind-49-0/ [MUST SEE]

I hope this clears a lot of your misconceptions about the provision and keeps you better informed about the same.

Jai Hind

Thousands of citizens have lost their lives and millions have been displaced or otherwise affected.

To get an idea of how destructive these floods have been, you can take a look at some of these news reports:

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7580587.stm
• http://lin.cr/18f
• http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-35254220080831
• http://in.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/01guest.htm
• http://lin.cr/18h
• http://lin.cr/18g

You should even take a look at the following videos:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOtC8YtkjUo
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhWwOAhjwxw

In this situation of crisis, we have joined hands with the organisation Doctors For You to raise funds for the people affected in the floods. Click on the ChipIn! button on the page that opens on clicking the below link, to donate money to our Bihar Relief Fund.

DONATE NOW

We will publish on the blog & the Doctors For You website, the names & amounts of each and every person that joins us in this fund-raising drive, whatever may the amount be.

I’d gone to watch The Dark Knight 2 days back in a multiplex in Kolkata.

The rule of playing the National Anthem before the movie starts is something that has been introduced in various parts of the country at different points in time. It was already there in Maharashtra when I had moved to Mumbai four years back. Out here in Kolkata, it seems to have been introduced just lately.

An old schoolmate who had accompanied me to the movie and has also studied in Maharashtra blabbered out when it started – “Yeh Maharashtra ka rule yanha kaise aa gaya”! I really flared up at him saying what do you mean by Maharashtra’s rule. Aren’t we standing up to show respect towards our country, or are we doing it because it is the rule? And isn’t Kolkata in India? Also, I noticed some people just stand up for the sake of standing up and never really give a damn about the National Anthem being played. Then bloody why do you stand up if your intention is not to respect the Anthem?

There have been incidences of prominent Indians not even standing up when the National Anthem was being played and such statements where corporators have asked to play a recording instead of singing it. What kind of an example are they trying to set for their fellow citizens?

I pity those who do not understand the importance of the National Anthem. And I pity those who care more about giggling when A.R. Rehman sings the last Jaya He part, than giving our National Anthem its due respect.

Anyways, thanks to all the readers & authors for making Jai Hind the way it is.

We’ve had thousands of readers in this one year, and we hope to reach out to more and more Indians and create some awareness among them about our country.

Once again,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JAI HIND: PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN!!

• ABN Amro India
• American Express India
• Andhra Bank
• Bank of Rajasthan
• Bank of Baroda BobCard
• Bank of India
• Canara Bank and CanCard
• Centurion Bank of Punjab
• Citibank India
• HDFC Bank
• HSBC India
• ICICI Bank
• ING Vysya Bank
• SBI Credit Card
• Standard Chartered Bank
• UTI Bank and Credit Card
• Yes Bank

Please feel free to comment if I am missing out on any of the banks or credit card companies or if any of the links do not work!

Part 2 will give you details about how to go about doing it.

• To register your Airtel number with the NDNC list, simply send the SMS START DND from your phone to 121(Toll Free)
• You will get a confirmation number and your request will be processed in 45 days

BSNL users may SMS or call the Call center to register

• To register your BSNL number with the NDNC list, simply send the SMS DNC ACT from your phone to 53733
• Customer Care – Call 1500
• You will get a confirmation number and your request will be processed in 45 days

Vodafone Hutch subscribers can call the Call Center to register with the NDNC Registry.

Idea Cellular subscribers can call the Call Center to register with the NDNC Registry.

MTNL subscribers don’t have the SMS option. Though they may call up the helplines below to register.

• To register with the NDNC list, GSM subscribers call 1503
• MTNL CDMA subscribers call 1502
• MTNL PSTN / Landline subscribers call 1500

Reliance Communications (CDMA) subscribers can register in following ways.

• To register with the NDNC list, Wireless subscribers call *333 send the sms DNC ACT to 53733
  
• Wireline Subscriber Call *377

Reliance Telecom (GSM) subscribers can call the Call Center to register.

• Send an SMS to 9999 with content DNDA – Will opt you out of unwanted Calls & SMS
• Send an SMS to 9999 with content DNDC – Will opt you out of unwanted Calls
• Send an SMS to 9999 with content DNDS – Will opt you out of unwanted SMS

Tata Indicom subscribers can register in following ways.

• To register with the National Do Not Call registry, Pre-Paid subscribers call 12524
• Tata Indicom Post-Paid subscribers call 121
• Indicom Walky [8 Digit Number] Pre-paid call 1281 and Post-paid call 12532

Aircel subscribers can call their Call Center to register with the NDNC list.

BPL subscribers can register in the following manner.

• To register with the NDNC list, pre-paid subscribers call 555
• BPL Post-paid subscribers call 800

So register and free yourself from the disturbing calls of Telemarketers. Please comment on this post if I am missing out on providing you with any information.

The Complete Guide to the National Do Not Call List of India – Part 1