Posted by
Mahafreed on December 22, 2009 |
No commentsOn Saturday morning, 120 Mumbaikars, most of them internet junkies, gave the city a green Christmas gift. They had been invited online by techies Satish Vijaykumar and Ranjeet Walunj to adopt an Ashoka or Neem sapling. The saplings were given free of cost with a condition: They should have an online profile with updates, photos and videos for the next two years.
Participants were encouraged to use the #sapling tag on networking sites like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, del.icio.us and Technorati. An award awaits the participant whose sapling grows the tallest at the fastest rate. The group plans to plant 10,000 saplings to the city by 2010.
The citizens’ initiative has been called The Sapling Project (www.thesaplingproject.com) and was started because the organizers felt that most tree plantation drives were carried out at the National Park or Aarey Milk colony, while colonies and buildings that actually need more trees were being ignored. ”Living is a different thing, we’re just about managing to stay alive,’’ says Vijaykumar, a Borivali-resident, avid tweeter and blogger at bombaylives.com.
Weeks before the drive, online invitations to visit Shivaji Park and adopt a sapling were sent out using Twitter, Facebook and blogs. His friend Walunj wants to tie up with the BMC. “A lot of places in the city can be designated sapling zones where trees are needed. So people who do not find place can come here and plant them’’.
Online networking with tweeters in Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi has enthused locals to carry out similar plantation drives as part of the project. The next drive in Mumbai will take place in January and the organizers will visit areas like Dadar, Bandra, Andheri and Borivali with saplings in a van for distribution.
In the past, several sapling-planting initiatives have been launched in the city. In a move to restore the degraded periphery areas of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, GAIA Conservation Foundation is working with the Bombay Natural History Society to get citizens to plant saplings.
Over 10,000 saplings of indigenous trees like Red Silk Cotton, teak, Shivaji’s Sword, Khair, Shivan, Ziziphus and Flame of Forest have been planted by hundreds of people at the Goregaon site. NGO I Love Mumbai has been carrying out planting distribution drives in the city too.
But environmentalist Rishi Aggarwal says drives like these need support from experts who understand the ecology of each tree. ”You can’t plant a tree that will grow to have a 30-foot canopy on a narrow road. Plantation has to be an informed exercise,’’ says Aggarwal who wants the tree authority to have a separate website giving details of where saplings can be planted in the city using GPS coordinate. ”Location is the key criteria and the BMC seems to have failed in facilitating the good intentions of citizens in this area’’.
Posted by
Mahafreed on October 26, 2009 |
One commentCheap publicity: Less than 24 hours after this wall outside Phoenix Mills in Lower Parel was painted by citizens, film posters were ruthlessly slapped on it. The wall painting event took place on Sunday and was initiated and organised by the BMC and The Wall Project, a group of Mumbai graffiti artists. On Twitter, Aladin’s lead actor Riteish Deshmukh and director Sujoy Ghosh apologized for the film poster’s placing after members of the microblogging site started a protest campaign. Deshmukh tweeted, “Sincere apologies for the Aladin poster that been put on the wall. Insensitive n incorrect. Will look into it asap. Sorry guys.’’ Ghosh wrote, “Wall posters should be banned or only in authorized spots. Never again a wall poster. Promise.’’ Protestors plan to tear the posters of films like London Dreams, Canvas, Gair and Aladin on Saturday.
Photo credit: Raju Shukla
Tags: bollywood, mumbai, painting, poster, wallproject
Posted by
Mahafreed on September 18, 2009 |
No comments(This was written for The Times of India)
He’s been hailed as the minister who tweets ‘diplomacy for dummies’. Shashi Tharoor’s tweet-by-tweet account of his recent visit to Liberia created great interest about India’s relations with the African country. In 140 characters or less, the minister of state for external affairs started posting updates soon after he touched down in Liberian capital Monrovia. ‘Greetings from Monrovia,’ he wrote, followed by a mention that this was ‘the 1st Indian ministerial visit here in 38 yrs’.
Staying true to Twitter that asks users to post in response to, ‘What are you doing?’ Tharoor updated his ‘followers’ with details about the 200 Malayalees in Liberia, his meeting with the Indian female police unit there and ‘breakfast with President Sirleaf at her rice farm.’ In an email interview with TOI, Tharoor wrote about his admiration for, ‘the first democratically elected woman Head of State in Africa,’ who discussed issues ranging from UN Security Council reforms to combating international terrorism with him. A review of bilateral bonding was followed by a tweet: ‘India offers help in capacitybldg, training, trade, investment & IT. Donated 25 buses and 2 holein-the-wall computer educn centres.’
U n d e r s t a n d ably, Liberia’s bloggers had a thing or two to say about the minister’s visit and Indo-Liberian relations. “When I heard about the Indian minister’s visit, I thought it was about time,’’ writes blogger Emmanuel Liu. The 26-year-old resident of Monrovia thinks that though there is a large Indian community in Liberia that plays an important part in its post-war development, they are yet to “take advantage of the huge mineral resource that Liberia has in abundance’’. Liu points out that the Chinese have beaten India at this.
Quite opposite to Liu’s stance was an editorial in Liberian newspaper Daily Observer that talked about how all the diplomatic talk was doing no good to the country: “Currently, we see India just as we see the Lebanese or other traders. They sell us substandard goods and take away our money.’’ Tharoor clarifies that Liberia has welcomed the Indian private sector’s participation in farming—particularly for cultivation of rice, the lack of which once led to rice riots. Civil servant and senior student at the University of Liberia, 33-year-old Denna Gibson explains how the poor are forced to replace life-long habits of eating rice, which is their staple diet, with cassava, wheat, gari and corn meal.
Keen to augment the public transportation facilities for the Monrovia Transit Authority, India’s move to donate 25 buses “will be of immense help because there’s a serious transport problem especially in Monrovia,’’ writes Nat Bayjay, a 29-year-old blogger from Bushrod Island. Tharoor says the ministry will soon float open tenders in leading newspapers and invite bids from manufacturers. “The whole process should be completed within a couple of months. But the buses will need spares, tool kits and training for the mechanics to maintain them.’’
The suave Tharoor was delighted to meet a 125-member strong Female Formed Police Unit (FFPU), the first ever women’s contingent in the history of UN peacekeeping. He tweeted, ‘After a war in which so many women suffered, a female police unit shows women as sources of strength & security, not only victims. Inspiring.’ Tharoor recalls his interaction with FFPU members: “They miss their families but surprisingly manage to find time after their duty hours to connect with them on the internet. Some of them, I understand, are also able to help their children in completing their home work.’’
