DID I set up this blog in a hurry? That is the question dominant on my mind at the moment. It has been a couple of weeks since Alert Citizens Team came into being and for almost the same duration has this blog remained in existence. Except two of our eminent citizens - Prof Shivaram and Dr Dasan, none has contributed as yet. ACT is a good and major initiative that some well-intentioned individuals have launched in our city with active support from the police commissioner. Let us not allow it to lapse with our passivity. In order to pep up members of ACT as also others, I am furnishing herewith a link to an interesting article by Beena Sarwar, a Pakistani journalist based out of the US. Beena - I am a member of her group - writes extensively on Indo-Pakistani issues.
http://in.mc949.mail.yahoo.com/mc/showMessage?fid=Inbox&sort=date&order=down&startMid=0&.rand=509534623&da=0&midIndex=0&mid=1_8844468_ALQRaMsAAK17SXseOgphxDaSJQw&f=1&nextMid=1_8843740_AKwRaMsAAQeASXsN1AQ%2FLHZ56Os&m=1_8844468_ALQRaMsAAK17SXseOgphxDaSJQw,1_8843740_AKwRaMsAAQeASXsN1AQ%2FLHZ56Os,1_8842970_AKwRaMsAABjFSXr5pQNjBCxQiYc,1_8842223_AMARaMsAAG7PSXrxQQ03Hkr4pz0,1_8841480_AJwRaMsAADfzSXrvDA8vKh%2BaNBo,1_8840769_AMQRaMsAAXQHSXrpswql6y4dymc,
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Act 1, Take 1
YOU are what climate you live in. The characteristic affability of the archetypal Mysorean offers an eloquent commentary on the cosmic and celestial nepotism they have pampered him with in terms of benevolent, even somnolent, latitudinal (12 degrees 18 minutes North) and longitudinal (76 degrees and 42 minutes East) co-ordinates. (Look at that, not a single odd number!). The Mysorean wears these degrees with the pride that an accomplished student wears theirs on their graduation day. His body language says it all and you can spot the Mysorean from afar. Even when he is actively engaged in any activity, he seems disengaged so much so even a Mahendar Singh Dhoni or Bjorn Borg would look to be warm-blooded in comparison. Is it not paradoxical that the shock waves caused by a wayward supersonic jet, with its lightning sortie through the city's airspace over the weekend, did not go unregistered on the soporific denizen? Well, that was not the only paradox. At best, it was the beginning. Next day, 04 January 2009, brought out another paradox (and the paradox was accentuated by the fact of it being a Sunday): when the city launched a purposeful initiative to trace the factors fuelling pervasive terror and combat the same with a view to making Mysore a safer place.
"Safe Mysore," the new drive, is a citizen initiative under the banner "Alert Citizens Team (ACT), which is also the title of this blog. With patronage from the police department, the campaign has taken its first major step towards achieving the goal of safeguarding the interest of the city. That there was enthusiastic participation from the stakeholders, who spent the best part of the Sunday deliberating strategies to achieve the goal, suggests that the paradox no longer exists in their minds. It must go to the credit of these Mysoreans that they are perhaps the first in India to have turned proactive in their response to the Mumbai carnage. It is bound to send out a strong message that if Mysore can do it, why not the rest of India.
The purposefulness of the day-long exercise was borne out by the number of organisations that lent support to the event as also by the profiles of the many dignitaries hand-picked by the organisers to speak. Justic MN Venkatachaliah, Chairman of Human Rights Commission; Dr Ajay Kumar Singh DGP (Corps of Detectives); Lt Gen Arjun Ray, CEO of Indus International School; KPC Gandhi (Truth Labs, Hyderabad) and Firoz Bakht Ahmed, writer and social activist. So reads the list.
This forum seeks to dwell at length upon the issues contributing to terror, citizens' role in mitigating the menace, sensitizing the public to the ugly phenomenon, enhancing the level and quality of discourse on the subject, etc. It is by no means restricted to Mysoreans; anybody from anywhere can share their views, offer their ideas and suggestions, talk about similar initiatives, besides, of course, being free to borrow from the experiment that ACT has just launched in Mysore. The blog will keep a regular tab on progress achieved as a fallout of the workshop held on the Symbolic Sunday when Mysore, of all places, sought to announce its readiness to combat terror. It has just about begun to fight the paradox associated with its existence. It is for all those global citizens exposed to the mindlessness called terror to act now in a concerted manner. This is just the first take of the first ACT!
"Safe Mysore," the new drive, is a citizen initiative under the banner "Alert Citizens Team (ACT), which is also the title of this blog. With patronage from the police department, the campaign has taken its first major step towards achieving the goal of safeguarding the interest of the city. That there was enthusiastic participation from the stakeholders, who spent the best part of the Sunday deliberating strategies to achieve the goal, suggests that the paradox no longer exists in their minds. It must go to the credit of these Mysoreans that they are perhaps the first in India to have turned proactive in their response to the Mumbai carnage. It is bound to send out a strong message that if Mysore can do it, why not the rest of India.
The purposefulness of the day-long exercise was borne out by the number of organisations that lent support to the event as also by the profiles of the many dignitaries hand-picked by the organisers to speak. Justic MN Venkatachaliah, Chairman of Human Rights Commission; Dr Ajay Kumar Singh DGP (Corps of Detectives); Lt Gen Arjun Ray, CEO of Indus International School; KPC Gandhi (Truth Labs, Hyderabad) and Firoz Bakht Ahmed, writer and social activist. So reads the list.
This forum seeks to dwell at length upon the issues contributing to terror, citizens' role in mitigating the menace, sensitizing the public to the ugly phenomenon, enhancing the level and quality of discourse on the subject, etc. It is by no means restricted to Mysoreans; anybody from anywhere can share their views, offer their ideas and suggestions, talk about similar initiatives, besides, of course, being free to borrow from the experiment that ACT has just launched in Mysore. The blog will keep a regular tab on progress achieved as a fallout of the workshop held on the Symbolic Sunday when Mysore, of all places, sought to announce its readiness to combat terror. It has just about begun to fight the paradox associated with its existence. It is for all those global citizens exposed to the mindlessness called terror to act now in a concerted manner. This is just the first take of the first ACT!
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