Category Archives: Blogging

Brilliante and Premier Dardos Awards

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One of the two joys of blogging has been to meet people that one would not have met in real life, or at least the probability of meeting would have been very low. The other is that one sometimes gets pleasantly surprised.

Two long time readers of this blog have been very nice to award it with two blog awards recently- Jack Stephens awarded the Brilliante Weblog Award and Renegade Eye, the Premier Dardos Award. As per the rules, I am  listing some of the blogs that I find very invigorating and are fellow travelers in the sense of their intellectual and humanistic concerns. Also, all of the them, with the exception of one, are India/ Pakistan centric blogs.

Brilliante Award:

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3 Years

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After a false start in 2003, this blog made its appearance three years ago on May 30, 2005. Initially intended as a collection of my already published book reviews, it has taken on a life on its own and now contains, in addition to book reviews, social and political commentary and of late, just links to stuff I read on the internet. Since last week, Bhashwati Ghosh, who has guest blogged here earlier, joins me in contributing to the blog.

The biggest satisfaction in having this blog has been getting to know so many wonderful people that otherwise I might have never met- particularly Abi, Madhukar, Rahul Banerjee, Krish, Raza, Jack, Adnan, Arvind Gupta, Mohib, Rama, Alok, Prof. Swarup and so many others listed in the blogroll. It has also helped to keep a conversation going with friends and comrades from the pre- internet age. Blog aggregators and collective endeavors- especially desicritics, desipundit, blogbharti (where I was a contributor till recently) and indianmuslims – have inspired both confidence as well as opened up new windows, and show cased this blog to new readers, who have not exactly rushed in millions but have slowly joined by subscribing to the blog feed or by email or just adding the blog url to the bookmarks in their browsers.

It may sound like a cliche, but the fact remains that one ultimately writes for readers, and it is they that keeps one going. The first, and for a long time, the only reader of this blog was myself! I cannot but help noticing how this blog has evolved and what it indicates about how ‘virtual communities’ evolve and operate. My initial blog posts carried a lot of ‘I’ so that it was more like a personal diary, this slowly gave way to writing in the third person as if one was writing for a newspaper or a magazine. Indeed, even as I was discovering other blogs with common interests, they too were discovering me- via comments, search engines and links at other blogs.

In other words, what was initially very personal realized itself only by becoming socialized, by joining and coalescing with others.

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Meet Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: A Blogger from the Axis of Evil

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a blog where he explains the position of his government and also muses on developments in the middle east. It is interesting to note that regimes that are otherwise demonized by mainstream US media can use blogging as a medium to reach out directly to people across the world. From whatever I have read on the blog, it looks like a very open forum, the blog is available in Persian, English and French versions.

Perhaps blogging is some kind of a modern equivalent of the mythical ‘flying carpet’, a popular element in folk tales from the middle east!

One’s perspective regarding government and governance determines the way one should cooperate with the people.   If one recognizes government as a privilege and prey of the governors, then the period of governance can be counted as an opportunity to fulfill the expectations of certain individuals and groups or the ostentation and hedonism of the governors.

But if in our view, “government” would be a responsibility before God for establishing justice and a duty to ensure the rights of common people, serving the servants of God and helping the oppressed- then the most important issue will be the people’s concerns.  If this is the case, governors would not view themselves as better than other people and they wouldn’t put themselves in any other position except serving the people.  (link)

Here is an excerpt from an older post-  Message to the American people:

Then, the American people, who are God-fearing and followers of Divine religions, will overcome every difficulty.

What I stated represents some of my anxieties and concerns.

I am confident that you, the American people, will play an instrumental role in the establishment of justice and spirituality throughout the world. The promises of the Almighty and His prophets will certainly be realized; Justice and Truth will prevail and all nations will live a true life in a climate replete with love, compassion and fraternity.

The US governing establishment, the authorities and the powerful should not choose irreversible paths. As all prophets have taught us, injustice and transgression will eventually bring about decline and demise. Today, the path of return to faith and spirituality is open and unimpeded.

We should all heed the Divine Word of the Holy Qur’an:

“ But those who repent, have faith and do good may receive Salvation. Your Lord, alone, creates and chooses as He will, and others have no part in His choice; Glorified is God and Exalted above any partners they ascribe to Him. ” (28:67-68)

I pray to the Almighty to bless the Iranian and American nations and indeed all nations of the world with dignity and success.

Link via MSNBC

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