Nominations Completed

Hi guys!

Here is the existing list of nominations for Avant Garde Bloggies awards. Still counting…This list will be updated soon. This is the place where you can check out your competition. Please keep in mind that final nominations that will be open to polling will not be more than 6. In case we receive more than 6 nominations, it will be judges’ decision to choose best 6 for the second phase of polling. List of judges will be announced soon.

1. Most courageous post

First Breath After Coma
Author: T
Incest: Forced vs. Consensual
Author: Amit
The Vagina Dialogues (Nominated 2 times)
Author: Ideasmith
Clock Strikes One
Author: Mahak
Seed of Discord
Author: Reema
Let’s Talk about Porn
Author: Crazy Sam
You Can Click, Can’t You
Author: Rads
Need I Forgive?
Author: Roop
Eolke Stobblehouse and the Simple Nudes Movement
Author: Paul
Living with Consequences
Author: Disturbed Stranger
MvF
Author: Harsha
Wait, Are You Straight?
Author: Pavan
Confessions of a Non-Vegetarian
Author: Kriti

Nominations for Avant Garde Bloggies Awards

am inviting nominations for Avant Garde Bloggies awards. The following are the award categories:

1. Most courageous post
2. Best short story post
3. Best off-beat post
4. Best book review post
5. Best movie review post
6. Most interesting tag post
7. Best How-to post
8. Most interesting personal rant post (sorry about carving out entertainment out of a rant)
9. Best regional post (posts about cities, regions and cultures)
10. Best current affairs post
11. Most humorous post
12. Best satirical post
13. Best musical post
14. Best visual post
15. Best human interest story post
16. Best travel post
17. Best consumer rights post
18. Most informative post award (link blogging)
19. Best product review post
20. Best ‘culinery’ post
21. Best public interest post
22. Most insane post
23. Best blogging project award
24. Best social issues post award
25. Best poetic post award

Blog awards

1. Most beautiful header award
2. Most interesting sidebar award
3. Best about me page award
4. Best blog design award
5. Most disciplined blogger (one award I can never win)
6. Most networking blogger
7. Most responsive blogger

Other polling categories

1. Most interesting tag around
2. Most popular book (on blogs) award
3. Most popular movie (on blogs) award

Please read the following rules carefully before sending in the nominations.

Rules for Nominations

1. Only the posts published from 1st January to October 14 this year can be nominated.
2. You can nominate your own blog posts as well as blogs of your friends.
3. Anonymous nominations will be accepted as long as the post is worthy for the given category.
4. You can not nominate star bloggers like Zen Habits, Web Worker Daily, Tech Crunch and so on.
5. The nominated posts need to be original. Anything copied, from forwarded emails, books, etc is not acceptable. Nominations will be cancelled auomatclaly if the nominated post is plagiarised.
6. At least 3 nominations are required for a category. If there are less than 4 nominations, that category can be dismissed.
7. Maximum 6 nominations will be accepted for a category.
8. In case of more than 6 nominations, it will be my/panel of judges’ decision to retain the 6 best nominations for the category.
9. None of my own posts can be nominated or awarded. (after all these are my awards!)
10. I have the final authority to add and reject any nomination.

Please write in your nominations here at special Avant Garde Bloggies Awards page. Those who wish to email me their nominations are welcome. Please mention the award category along with the name of the writer and link to the blog post. In case any of these vital information is missing, nomination will be rejected.

Update:

1. Same post can not be entered in more than one category.
2. Multiple posts from same author in a single category is not preferred. The blogger/author is expected to put his best foot forward. In cases, where all entires from blogger are exceptional, the scrutinising committe members will decide how many posts they can allow from a blogger in a single category.
3. The informative category post is limited to link blogging.

Avant Garde Bloggies Awards

As I announced in my previous post, I will be organising the blogging awards. And you guess it right, I am calling it Avant Garde Bloggie awards. Here is how this award will be organised:

Phase 1: Nominations

The filing of nominations start today. The invitations for nominations close on 14 October at 10 pm IST.

Blogging Awards

It is high time I thanked graciously all the bloggers who have awarded me. Nita awarded me Brilliant blog award for my “brilliantly thoughtful posts” as she says. I am honored, specifically because, to me,  she is epitome of professional and most regular blogger I have ever known. She does it without any commercial interests. Yet, day after day she churns out informative and well-researched posts about India.

Vaibhav bestowed me with another Brilliant Weblog award and so did Roop.

Roop awarded me brilliant blog award in her painstakingly long post. You can find me at number 30 in her long list. 🙂 Thank you, Roop!

Spammed by WordPress

I am being maked as spam for more than a week. I have written to akismet, so far no reply from them. Any ideas what to do?

I will be back soon with new posts.

Update: Problem has resolved itself. No reply from akismet though. Both me and my friend had complained to WordPress.

Let’s Go Local

Links Delhi Can Use

Internet has already become a dependable resource to keep up with local ongoings in a busy schedule. We book movie tickets online, read online local newspapers or tabloids. Our banking transactions and bill payments are also done online. There are several other things you can do online locally.

I am looking for a rented place these days. There is Locanto, Indianroomates.in and click.in where I find most relevant advertisements. Though, once in a while you can come across a fool’s advertisement like:

I am male 35 year old, living in 2bhk apartment. Looking for a female partner to share my bed. Room rent: 5000k.

!!

Sounds like a dating advertisemnt straight from fropper.

I check all listings for foreign movies, plays, exhibitions, dance shows and recitals in Delhi City Limits magazine. (published by Outlook magazine group). If you are an art lover residing in Delhi and are not going to these events, I would say you are missing something. You can check all these events online here at Delhi Events Web site. This site is diligently and passionately maintained by its founder Rohit Malik at not-so-great-profit. How do I know? I read his interview in the newspaper; he says he wants to keep the site going for the love of it.

On A Movie Spree…

Uh, finally writing a movie post. I watched the following movies:

Summer of 2007: An unheard movie directed by first-time director Suhail Tartari. But it was a meaningful movie, not your usual masala type genre. It deals with farmer suicides in India. A group of medical students come face to face with the stark reality of poverty amongst farmers. Movie tries to advocate micro-credit system as one of solutions to help the farmers.

I didn’t find the movie boring. I felt that the intention of the director was honest. With a better known cast and tight script, movie could have made a splash. Some known actors from the movie were Gul Panag, Ashutosh Rana and Sikander Kher. Liju, not so long ago, wrote in his snippet review, that Sikander Kher looked like an ape. I agree with him. Kher could do with some grooming tips before trying to play ubercool, hot-headed boy from a Mumbai medical college.

Rating: 2.5/5, solely for story and intention. I would recommend as it has important issue at core.

Dark Knight: I missed first 45 minutes of the movie because I was stuck in a bad Delhi jam on a rainy day, just 5 minutes away from the theatre. You have already heard by now how fabulous was this movie.

The Joker

It portrays the quintessential battle of evil against good, of the sinister evil that resides amongst all of us. Movie has a legendary portrayal of Batman’s nemesis, Joker, by late Heath Ledger. There was no resemblance so much that my friend refused to believe that this was the handsome guy who played Casanova in the movie by same name.

Where a Bollywood movie usually ends, this Batman actually begins with renewed vigour and worthy twists. I was watching this sinister movie on a late evening with sinister weather outside (rains and also jams). I was distracted with worry how I will reach my home, 30 kms away. So I am sure I will watch this movie again.

This Batman sequel was also in news with superstitious reports of how DK cast was jinxed.

Rating: 4/5

Pilferage, Suicides and Diwali Anks

So I have been reading a lot to improve my ‘GK’. 😛 I have been reading several old Outlook magazines that I had subscribed but hadn’t had time to read. Thought I will do a roundup of articles that made an impact on me. Some of the news is a year old.

Grains rotting away, subsidies not reaching poor

I will start with my pet peeve. In a vast country like ours where millions starve, tonnes of food grains rot in rat-infested government godowns. On top of that, disbursed amounts of food grains do not reach poor.

According to planning Commission’s 11th (2007-12) report, only 6.1 million of 14.1 million tonnes, allocated to BPL (below poverty line) people, reached the target people in 2003-04. In 2005, only 42% of the subsidised grains issued reached people!

Reason: massive pilferage and diversion of grains. Bihar and Punjab top the list. When people go to fair price shop, they so not find their rations. This occurs in connivance with local politicians. On top of it, 40% of BPL cardholders are bogus. You now that report about rampant corruption in India by Transparency International stands correct (though there was never any doubt in my mind.) Once this situation had gone so bad, people started beating up fair price shop dealers in frustration in West Bengal.

One state that deserves a mention for dealing with this problem is Chattisgarh. Food grains are delivered at the door-steps of fair priced shops in GPS-enabled trucks. All the 10, 000 shops in the state are being uploaded online along with the complete list of BPL cardholders. Plan is to eventually track off take of food grains by all 32 lakh card holders. This process sounds good, but let’s see how soon and effectively is it implemented.