The UN Millenium Development goals have been formulated around a decade back with the deadline to achieve them pegged at 2015. Many steps have been taken by various communities and goverments to achieve the dreams that define those goals. One such initiative by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the TEDxChange conferences. As a part of this conference TED has finally appeared within my reach and grasp. There is a TEDx conference happening at coimbatore, an important town in south India. The theme is to talk about the ideas to bring change for achieving the Millenium Development goals. There has been an opportunity provided for the students to speak for 4 mins. And thats a chance to make difference in the world, and as you would know opportunities come only once its up to us to grab it. I am digging in. My talk and subject will follow soon. . . If you are anywhere around coimbatore chip in your part too. More about the event at www.tedxcoimbatore.org

The recent floods in Pakistan has left an estimated 14 million people affected and about 2000 dead. There seems to be a lot of confusion in providing the humanitarian aid that is the need of the hour. The diplomatic stance between the countries and their reluctance to provide immediate aid and the threats from the alleged terrorist groups have been devastating people of the country.

With crops damaged, infrastructure gone, and living made a question in the minds of people, its time for the common people to pull together and act together and do as much as you can.

There have been agencies looking for volunteers to work on field, there are NGOs looking for money and resources to help people, and there are communities trying to build other communities.

I have been actively involved in the openstreetmap community, and have been trying to help the Pakistan people with whatever resources that I have. I have been trying to map the regions affected by the flood to help the International organizations like the UN and Red Crescent working down there with reliable maps.

This mapping activity during the time of natural disasters is called Crisis Mapping. If you too like me is by no means wealthy enough to donate money, and free enough to volunteer for field work (which I would gladly do,otherwise), at least be like me. Help Pakistan from your home, map the affected regions in openstreetmap. Google for it, you will get a complete wiki with dedicated pages for Pakistan Flooding waiting to help you, so that you can help others.

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Automatically translated into German thanks to WorldLingo

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Open data - the concept of putting up Government data for the public perusal has been one of the recent developments in the world of democracy. But this new development has only begun in advanced economies like US and UK. Even the EU countries are not in a very formidable position to do the thing called opening up of Govt. data.

Of course in democracy the govt. is said to of the people, by the people and for the people, but not every govt. fulfills this definition. My country (INDIA) for example, introduced a law called the Right To Information (RTI) Act under which govt. information can be accessed by anyone about any govt. office or enterprise. It seemed to be a bold move, but still the funny clause remained: you cannot ask for anyone's wealth data, thus you cannot see the real data, false accounts will always be available for you to refer for the wealth amassed by the corrupt. Now it has got funnier, the data designated by govt. as Important Government data or Critical Govt data cannot be accessed by the RTI act.

I suppose what would be left out after all this filtering is simple balance sheets that would have no information about the origin of the data making it useless 90 percent the time. And all major officials seem to support this move to hide data, because they are of course saving their backs.

I am glad to say that I am in the developing world, because at least I have the excuse of not being a fully developed country's citizen and mistakes like these correctable in the future. And my gladness wouldn't last long, tomorrow I would be there out into the crowds telling people what we are losing and how we are deceived. If anyone of you reading this live in the so called developed economies I am sorry for you guys, because for you its not tomorrow, its today. Go out into the world and tell the so called literate and educated mass what open data is and what it means to us the voters who bring people to power so that we are governed by them blindfolded whenever they do what they like and are open to see things that they want us see. The new world order is not going to be built on data kept behind iron curtains but on data that is thrown open to all.

opendata, democracy, world, leadership

I have been away from the TIG community for quite some time. Its not because I have lost the spirit of Volunteering in me instead somethings that required my volunteering kept me away.

I came across a TED video that said something about open data and OpenStreetMap which is wiki for map data where you can add unimaginable level of details to even a park bench.

I was previoously looking for some online volunteering work at various sites and thought that the idea of mapping was good, it just demanded what is available and what can be done by me limited connectivity.

The mapping of the European region and the American region seem to be in full swing and India was lagging far behind. So I thought I could contribute to the map of India and has been working then on.

Anyone who wants to taste openstreetmap:
http://www.openstreetmap.org

The wiki of the site is:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org

volunteering, mapping, onlinevolunteering, openstreetmap

It has been a long time since I have logged on to the TIG Web. I was caught up with the rat race of finishing my assignments and record work for my college coursework and absorbed in other work. But I was reminded unconsciously now and then that something is waiting for me to break the silence.

And a saga started on 16th April and which ended today is worth breaking the silence. It was a show of the power of the youth against power of force.

16th April Friday, around 9:30pm : The hostel inmates of our institution were enjoying the cultural of Hostel Day Celebrations. One of the staff members who happens to be the chief faculty of 1st year students picks up a 1st year UG student from the crowd and thrashes him for whistling, the student falls down on the metal road outside and the staff without any mercy kicks him with his boot and stamps him, and takes on his heels before students could catch him by hand.

What ensued that day was a protest by the students, demanding an public apology, which dragged the dinner time to 11pm when finally a compromise was worked out that next day morning our demand would be met. And our protests continued next day as he failed to show up again and again we were compromised that demands would be met on Monday, the next working day.

At last our demand for an public apology was met today morning.

I observed two contrary things in this saga which I think is worth mentioning here.

First, I would tell the positive thing that I observed. We majority of the seniors 2nd and 3rd year UG students and the PG students had no direct connection with the particular staff or the affected student, still we were all there at all occasions foregoing all comforts, out on the road without food some times, under the blazing sun and our departmental heads' fury, fighting for a thing that we all know is worth fighting for.

We were there defying all goodies that the management tried to offer us to put out the fire and challenging our own future which ultimately lies in the hands of the staff who see us sitting there and telling us to stop. There I saw the strength of unity, the power of good against injustice, the rising strength of youth against social evils and the so called, unchallenged powers that rested with people of certain creed. Nothing would deter us neither the threats of people with power, nor the requests of people with affection, nor the unforgiving rays of rising sun, nor our empty stomachs that plead us to feed them, nor the fear of revenge that people may seek against us.

Second, the thing which affected me the most and makes me lament. At about 10pm on the day of incident the food was supposed to be served and we were there sitting on the road and protesting. Someone who is in-charge of the dinner calls out that food is ready, I turned my face see in the direction of voice, and the scene that I saw stunned me for a minute. I saw my class mates a gang of 5 to 6 running towards the door and entering the mess. They were the great Neros who played fiddle when Rome burnt to ground. It’s a shame that those 5 or 6 are the ones who were greeting us serving dinner when we came after the protests.

The grief of their actions struck me more than the incident of kicks and stampings. Next day one of the group member says with a proud voice, that he had 5 ice creams while we all were there outside shouting slogans and fighting for upholding our dignity as students and humans, perhaps his dignity lived there in the cup he devoured. Perhaps for him, like the pig, eating stool is more important than losing his respect for the same.

Another one who always voices for social issues, like these within us, says his duty of serving food is more important than sitting down and protesting - f**k your priorities - I should say.
When we are there fighting for a person who I cannot name even now, you were busy eating shit to make you bloat. All that I knew was I was protesting for a violation of human rights and values, the name and the color of the person is of no importance to me. But for you????????????

The above actions fills me with a feeling of living with pigs in a sty.

Dear friends, who read this article please for the heaven's sake learn from my experience and the incidence above. " It is important to do what is right than what is easy". Licking ice creams and crunching snacks was easy, defying food and protesting on the roads for the values of a fellow human was right and I did the what was right.

youthempowerment, leadership, humanrights, humanvalues