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Just read the news about execution of Iraq’s ex-Everything -Saddam Hussein. He is reported to be hanged in the wee hours today.
My curiosity for this ‘end of era’ affair is due to something else however. Being from India, I am alwasys amazed why we Indians are sympathetic towards Iraq or Saddam, or towards Venezuela, or Cuba, or Russia? The tone of Indian newspapers was alright not exactly symapthetic towards Saddam. But they were not very jubiliant about the hanging either. There tone was – ‘Saddam was a bad dictetor, but…’ Now what I am hearing is an emphasis on Bush was ‘Sleeping’ (a toned down version of ‘Snoring’) while Saddam was being hanged.
I wonder if this sympathy is because these nations are taking on mighty (& ‘Sucking’) USA? Indian image on International stage has been always of a powerful nation who backed those whom nobody backed (particularly against West). One more reason can be in Indian history. India has always been known as the Jewel Of East. India was envy of all world till British came and sucked out all the Indian ethos. This history is not a distant past. The world powers from ancient times that I can recount are – Roman, Egyptian, Greek, British and American. This is besides India. India was a world power, right from anciant times throughout the history, upto may be Europian reneissance. And today even if everybody says that India is again on course of reclaiming top spot, at present moment she is not the One. Does this makes India a jealous country? Jealous of those who are on top now? The top which for long belonged to India?
Going to be daddy!
Here is the list of top Movies of 2006 by average user votes. ‘Lage raho Munnabhai’ – a light comedy flick tops the list. The 8.8 infront of ‘…Munnabhai’ contains 1 vote of myself 
Bollywood rules!
Today morning (Indian Morning!), I came across a really nice post on my favourite ZDNet Blog. David Berlind writes about a new search technology which is into making in Sun Labs. Read it.
Proof that the search for “great search” isn’t over just yet by ZDNet’s David Berlind — Anybody who has ever used a search site like Google or Yahoo knows that there’s room for improvement in search. But just how much? Is the room that’s left only for incremental enhancements or might we still see some quantum leaps? Until last week when I got a demonstration of the work being done in [...]
It basically tells about creating clusters of search results in 3 dimenssion! The user can hover the mouse on a dot and can see to which cluster does it belong. Many of you who think beyond Google do know great search engines like Vivsmo and Clusty who do cluster the results.
But the search results cluster in 3d!
I am waiting.
[p.s. Read the comment by Justin James titled 'Technical Solution'. His argument is fantastic.]
Today i came across a very good post on Digg. It talks about legislation by citizens themselves.
JosephW says -
“Citizens using the Internet to monitor their representatives and the legislation that they draft is nothing novel. But a new Sunlight Foundation project aimed at allowing citizen legislatures to collaboratively script their own legislation, challenging what representative democracy mean”
A good idea indeed. The representative democracy which prevails in most of the democratic countries today is not a full proof democracy where each person has his or her say in the governance. This form of democracy creates a Pyramidal structure where the base is formed by those who don’t have powers beyond voting rights. And when you have to choose from 10 thieves, the voting and electing becomes a farce. Thus in the representative democracy, true democracy is non-existant. Here, the meta-decisions (which concern every person’s life within the State) are taken by the vertex of Pyramid which is cut off from base. The vertex controls all the information (under the name of secrecy) as also the decision making powers and punitive authority.
In such a scenario, collaborative legislation is really a ray of hope, and that’s what the Internet can offer. Various examples on web have that true collaboration and networking is really possible through Internet. Wikipedia is a case in the point. In such scenario, the Citizens can have Information, enforce responsibility & accountability, and decide their own fate.
However, this is only a theoretical possibility. What can hamper this initiative is the Digital Divide. Today there are two classes of digital have’s and have not’s. We will have to ensure the have not’s also have a real say OR the digital divide itself is bridged.
