Iraq Govt. still functioning

How else, would they find time in the middle of a war to expel CNN journalists. It was like, we can stand the war, but CNN is worse. CNN also “shut down”:http://www.kevinsites.net/2003_03_16_archive.html#200025634 the blog of Kevin Sites. CNN should ” learn something from BBC”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/2873651.stm here and take advantage of the new media. As “Dan Gillmor”:http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000875.shtml#000875 says, we have various other options now, and don’t have to depend on Amanpour for our news.

Saddam Injured ?

“Saddam injured in US strike: report”:http://www.mid-day.com/news/world/2003/march/47911.htm
bq. Witnesses saw Saddam being carried away from the wreckage of the compound hit early yesterday with an oxygen mask over his face, according to intelligence sources quoted by the US network.
(link via “The Command Post”:http://warblogcorner.blogspot.com/2003_03_21_warblogcorner_archive.html#200023266)

Next Blog Mela

“Ashwini”:http://www.ashoo.org/blog/archives/cat_blog.html#000079 is hosting “the next blog mela”:https://varnam.org/archives/000018.html. Please send your entries to her by Tuesday March 25th. If you want to know what the heck a blog mela is, take a look at “this week’s one”:https://varnam.org/archives/000021.html

The War

All American TV Channels are trying to cover the war the whole night,
without any real information. They go to correspondents all over the
world, and they all tell the same information. Fox has switched to
American Idol. NBC is showing some cool animation of aircrafts taking
of from an air base and launching bunker busters. After many months of
“Target Iraq” programs on various channels, the TV channels would have
been disappointed if the war had not happened.
“Salam Pax”:http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/2003_03_01_dear_raed_archive.html#90955865 (from Baghdad) tells that there was a rumor floating that
Saddam’s brother had asked him to surrender, but in turn he has
imprisoned him
bq. It is being said that Barazan (Saddam?s brother) has suggested to
him that he should do the decent thing and surrender, he got himself
under house arrest in one of the presidential palaces which is
probably going to be one of the first to be hit.
BBC is reporting that Saddam is going to address his people in a while.

Bharatiya Blog Mela #4

If you want to summarize this week, the key words are garbage
and UN. Some people think both are the same, especially here in United States.
But I am talking from the context of the best of
Indian blogs for this week

Ratheesh Krishna
Vadhyar gives us his thoughts on garbage, garbage collection and
garbage disposal. He is not talking about Java Garbage collection, but
with respect to plastic bags. (See Mar 12th blog)

Suman
Palit tells why India should NOT be a part of UN Security
council. Ravi
Kiran tells us why India should be part of it.


the mallu devil explains why bandhs and hartals are good for the
country.

Suman
Kumar, takes a look back at how he started watching
television.

Hrishikesh Ballal
has a photo blog, which I think is the only one in Indian Blogsphere.

Zilch Zilch writes on some important issues covered in Indian Newspapers.

If you would like to host next week’s Blog
Mela, please mention it in the comments. The previous three blog mela’s were hosted by realwomen

Science and Archeology

N. Rajaram in his article in The Hindu says that philology (a
discipline devoted to the reconstruction of history and culture based
on the comparative study of ancient languages such as Sanskrit, Greek,
Latin and others.) was used as the main tool in writing Indian
History, which gave you the Aryan Invasion Theory. He says that we
should use various other techniques such as Geo-Archeology and not
take the opinion of philologists as the final word.
Continue reading “Science and Archeology” →

National Interest

TVR Shenoy tells us why this war is fought

Iraqi oil and the US war

The bottomline is that every nation is looking to its own interests. The Jordanians worry about rising oil bills. The United States and Britain are concerned about their own security. France and Russia are protecting their commercial interests. When will Indian foreign policy makers learn to be equally cold-blooded?

India is slowly changing. The two obvious things
that I can come up with is the strong stand taken against Malaysia and
the pact with Iran. We are looking after our interests and asserting our authority in a small way. Now only if we could assert it against activities like this

Blog Mela: Answers

Many people asked me one simple question: What the heck is a blog mela ?. Here are some answers

  • It the selection of what you think is a collection of the best indian blogs for the week
  • One volunteer agrees to host it.
  • Others nominate best blogs (individual posts, not the whole blog).
  • You can nominate your own blogs
  • In reality, the person hosting does all of the above as no one sends any nominations (hopefully, as more people get involved, this will change)
  • On wednesday, the blog mela is put on the host’s site and is mirrored
  • If you would like to host next wednesday’s blog mela, just let us know through the comments section
  • the previous three mela’s were hosted at realwomenonline
  • We request you to add a link every wednesday to the place where the blog mela is hosted.
  • Blog Mela was started by Ashwini and Shanti

If you have any suggestions, then let us discuss. Do you think we should have a better name for this ? Should we have an icon/banner ?

Update: Ashwini clears up the doubts: I think there seems to be some confusion here as to what this Blog Mela is about. This is not an official �award� function type feature. No one is judging anyone or their posts in this case. That was not our ( Shanti�s or my intention) when we started this. It is supposed to be a fun thing where the bloggers themselves nominate their best post of the week. The Blog Mela will simply be a collection of such posts. That would give people to showcase their own posts and allow readers to simply visit one website and read a fairly good collection of posts. All posts were to be accepted unless, there was profanity involved. You act as your own filter. No one is �judging� anyone�s post here.