The users of the immensely popular micro blogging website, twitter had an unpleasant last week. As if the regular tweeters were not frustrated enough with the frequent encounters with the “fail-whale” and delay in getting tweets, they were surprised by a “small setting update” that was done to their account settings which affected the way they will see “@replies” in their twitter time lines.

According to twitter

……we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your time line is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

So according to the new settings, if you are following “X” and “X” tweets, “@Y……………”, and you do not follow “Y”, then you will not be able to see this tweet in your time line! (even though you are following the person who tweeted it). In simpler words, you won’t see tweets beginning with “@username” in your time line if you dont follow that user.

Take this for example:
(more…)

(I havent included any pictures because I dont want to see my college when after 2 years I open this post, as anything related to college gives me blues.) So you have to read this rather boring post without any pictures.

A few things specially for this second part of the post:

1. This post can get very harsh at times (even heartbreaking if you are in my class as you may find a mention of yourself, if not today, may be later, as this post will be updated from time to time.), but you have an option to not read.

This is going to be an honest, at-your-face kind of post. I will say what I want to and I dont care what you think because I dont care anything about anyone (barring 2-3 people). There you go, you see, this is going to be a war! Did I mention I dont care about JIITians? (you can close this page now! ) No? Okay your wish. Just be thick skinned. (2-3 people in my class are exempted from the “general” bashing. I dont really take you guys as friends. Why? You will find out below, but atleast you guys are better than the rest. If you can make out that I am talking about you by the way I talk to you in class, then its good, otherwise, I can not mention)

2. I could have named people directly in this post as I named them in the last post but I have decided against it. It’s not because I dont want to piss you off or I am afraid of you or your reaction. lol. But I dont want to spoil names of people anyway, no matter what or how you made me feel knowingly or un-knowingly, though it is well within my rights to name people. But I dont want to indulge in humiliation and become what I dont want to. I will just refer to people as Mr X or Ms X. I will try to keep it civil and I expect the same (if you have anything to say).

3. If you are a JIITian, please please dont take this post as if I am pleading for pity. I am not pleading to you to talk to me. I dont want to!  If you know how pissed of I am by the “happening crowd” in JIIT, you will not mistake my rant for self pity anyway. Please please dont take it as if I want to talk more with you people. I seriously dont. I would prefer if you get pissed off too reading this post and dont ever talk to me again.

4. Please read #3 again.

5. All the points from the last post are still valid. (more…)

Before I start with this post, a few things if you are thinking of reading this post.

1. This is going to be a long,very long (trust me) post which will be updated from time to time as I can not write this huge (and sad not sad because it now contains a few inputs of my life at JUIT as well) post all at once, so be patient. May be I will split it into two parts,one with experience of JUIT (Jaypee University Of Information and Technology) and another of JIIT (Jaypee Institute Of Information Technology).

2. Read only if you can take criticism/bashing open mindedly. Dont get carried away if you think “how can I (me) say such things for your/my college.

3. Your views are your views and mine views are mine. I dont necesarily need to think the way you think and vice-versa. I am only writing what I feel about. You may not like and agree to what I write but that does not mean you are right and what I am saying is wrong and vice-versa.

4. There may be many instances of me self appraising myself as I try to compare my life before and after me.  So you will have to bear those self appraisals even if you think they are all lies.

5. This post is about the students in JIIT and not to be confused with college itself. Study wise college is excellent. We have amazing lecturers,great infrastructure and studies are really really good. When I say my college sucks, it is because I believe students make a college,not the lecturers, studies and placements alone. It is the crowd which is most important for a college in my opinion.

6. This post is based on my experience in JIIT with 90 student biotech batch that entered in 2006. This generalisation does not apply to every student in the college. Though,many other pepole from other batches whom I have talked to, also feel the same.

7. If you are a JUITian, please correct me by leaving a comment regarding names landmarks as these memories are 3 year old and I only spent a little time in JUIT.

I wanted to write this post for so long. I remember after my horrible first semester in JIIT, I told myself that I will write about JIIT on my blog, so this post is pending for almost three years. But I never did,blame my lazy bones. I still keep accumulating points in my mind which I will include in my post when I write it, but I never actually brought it to even draft stage. I wanted to write how bakwaas my college is. But after reading this and this post by one of my senior at JUIT, I thought of writing my experience in JUIT as well and relive the beautiful and un-forgettable time I spent there.

Okay,now lets start. (more…)

India is a democracy, infact we are the biggest democracy in this world and we takes proud in the fact. I learnt in my civics lesson in my school that democracy empowers us with many fundamental rights one of which is “Right to freedom of speech”. Many a times the powerful people in our country try to silence the voice of media,print or visual and they all come all guns blazing crying foul. They bear the responsibility of keeping the citizens informed, keeping the wrong doers on their toes and to strenthen the people thereby. They do it with their right to freedom of speech. But the very instituion that relies on freedom of speech to criticize even the most influential people in the country cant stand the same right to be used against them.

This is exactly what happened in the case of ckunte and NDTV+ Barkha Dutt.

Mumbai terror strike on 26 Nov last year saw many bloggers around the globe joining along with those who were saddened and affected by the tragedy in criticizing the terrorists. The world took a renewed oath to wipe terror from its root. Attack also witnessed a huge social media participation and people were saying there were more lively pictures portrayed by twitter than the television media itself. So frequent were the tweets on twitter that the Indian goverment asked twitter to stop #mumbai tweets as they feared that the updates were assisting the terrorists. Update: As Patrix mentioned said,it turns out that it was just a rumour.
Apart from this, many blogger expressed their anger over irresponsible and insensitive journalism by many reporters. They felt that the information the journalists were giving out (regarding the positions of the security personnel) was helping the terrorists. Also they were appalled by the reporters sticking their mics in front of those who were affected, or to someone who just lost a dear one in the attack.

Chyetanya Kunte was a little known blogger who also happened to dislike the media coverage and expressed his anger over at his blog like many others did. He criticized NDTV and Ms. Barkha Dutt for revealing the deatails of the locations of the victims hiding in the hotels. He also alleged the reporters could also have ben responsible fo death of security personnel. Even though he is an Indian living in Holland, he had every right to raise his voice and express his views, whatever they were.
But Ms. Dutt and NDTV just could not take it,the criticism which is vital for improvement of every person on this planet. (more…)

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The shameful incident of 40 odd self acclaimed “protectors of Indian culture” attacking girls partying in a club in Mangalore has been drawing severe criticism from all parts of the country and from all intelligent and humane sections of the society.

The incident happened on January 24 2009 when 40 activists of  “Sri Ram Sena” (SRS), a hindu group attacked girls who were just having some quality time with their friends. They were brutally beaten and harrased at the hands of SRS goons. They were slapped,pushed,made to hear derogatory remarks about their conduct. So much hooliganism in the name of religion and culture.

We today claim to be a super power, we talk about giving reservations to women, giving them their rights, but the truth is that from inside we just dont respect our women. We still see (or a large section) them as someone who has to sit at home keeping our houses,feeding our children and bearing our non sense all the time. We treat them not as humans but as animals,or even as objects. These people are talking about culture? How civilised do they think when they lay their hands on a female. Do they think you are “men”? They are cowards. A man will never physically harass a women. I saw the pictures of the assualt and they were extremely terrifying and I could not post them here on my blog post.I find it hard to believe how can someone actually treat women like that.

I was watching the interview of one of the victim on news channel. She said that they were molested,harassed,their skirts were pulled down,were even called prostitutes (WTF!!!) and other derogatory remarks. Another victim described the whole incident as a traumatic expirience.

Which religion/culture teaches us to dis-respect women? Its just in the mentality of Indian men that we cant accept women working shoulder to shoulder with us. We may be in 21st century but our thinking is not in sync with the current times.

This is not just an isolated incident. These hindu groups and so called “keepers of the Indian culture” have been practising these kind of attacks for a long tme now. Couples have been repeatedly targeted,harassed, beaten since years, specially on Valentines Day. You can bet this will happen this time too. I am really sick of these groups;VHP,SRS,Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena etc.

These kind of incidents makes women believe they are not safe among us,that they can not walk freely even in daylight,they are not free to move anywhere they want or do anything they want. I read many news papers and activists have rightly called this “Talibanisation of India“. (more…)