Two Years of Not Forgetting

Today is January 26th, India's Republic day (also Australia day), commemorating the day 61 years ago when India formally adopted its constitution.

Today also marks the second anniversary of the official founding of Never Forget (NF) by a group of friends on January 26, 2009, in response to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008 (the original announcement can be found here).

Unfortunately, after several months of feverish action (including a 100+ volunteers signing up, some productive on-the-ground meetings and media coverage by the local press), the movement slowly fizzled away. As of today, the movement and the website is pretty much defunct.

That said, we have not given up on the idea; and I, for one, definitely believe that the idea was good. What was lacking was in our implementation of it.

The former belief was further strengthened this Monday, when I had the good fortune of meeting someone who was until recently a very senior member of India's election apparatus. He affirmed the core idea behind Never Forget, and gave some very valuable advice.

On the implementation front, I have gotten a fresh boost (thanks to T, who likes the overall idea, and has volunteered to co-lead the development effort), and will be able to give a concrete, if small, amount of my free time to it on a regular basis.

Hopefully we will have a basic system up soon for you all to provide feedback on. But for now, I need your help. Please post in the comments section what you feel went wrong with NF (and what went right). That will go a long way in guiding us as we rebuild both the system as well as the movement.

best wishes for a happy republic day.
-A

It's been Another Year

It was two years ago [26/11/08] that the Mumbai Terror Attacks happened. A lot has been done since then, and a lot more still needs to be done. To prepare for this post, I was reading my own posts from this day in the past years:

• 2008: #Mumbai: Some Thoughts
• 2008: Mumbai Terror: Letters: #1
• 2008: Mumbai Terror: Letters: #2
• 2009: Showing Solidarity with 26/11
  

Now, I too, like a lot of fellow Indians, want to chide the government for the lack of action since then. After all, Kasab, the lone terrorist we caught alive, is still alive (though sentenced to death, but appeals are still possible), and those we believe actually planned this attack are still free in their havens in Pakistan.

But then, I find myself stopping short of doing the above, especially when I ask myself "What have I done as a reaction of this event, to prevent future occurrences of this?" [well, in addition to keeping my twitter and blogger profile pic the same for over a year now as a memory of 26/11].

Sadly, I have nothing to say for this. Never Forget, as a commenter recently pointed out on my blog, has sadly been rendered defunct, with no progress for over a year.

That said, I refuse to give up. I still believe in the core idea of NF, that being held accountable for their promises is what will get our dear leaders to actually perform their duties, which will in turn keep us safe. My dear friend B has given some new ideas during her recent visit to Paris, and I intend to put them into action.

Perhaps what scares me is something I wrote in 2008 (and still believe to be true):

Of course, our collective reactions over the next few weeks will determine whether we have learnt our lessons and will start demanding performance from our politicians, or keep up with our usual chalta-hai attitude and deserve another attack.

Yes, I said ‘deserve’. I am mad, at us :-| .

I sure hope that we, the Indian people, wake up before we get what's coming for us.

Sanjha Choolha: How YOU can better channel your volunteer energies

Sanjha Choolha : sān-jhā choo-lhā

n. A communal kitchen popular in the villages of Punjab

Dear readers,
If you know me, you know of my interest in non-profit/volunteer work. And one thing that I have always wanted/wished to bring in is some method to this madness. After all, here are all these people who are willing to contribute time and energies, with no fear of "losing their jobs" if they don't perform well! I mean, how can one guarantee that something will get done if one knows that the team members have other, more pressing, real-world priorities?

Of course, one can resign to fate and say "there is no such thing as selfless service. People only _say_ they want to do stuff, they don't really mean it!".

Or, if you are like me, you can hope.

Hope that the problem is not the lack of enthusiasm, but the lack of _time_. And indeed if one could provide a proper question to the answer "I am a surgeon by profession, and I have only 20 minutes to spend for this non-profit venture of yours. Can you utilize this offer of my time?", things would be much better.

And from this question, the idea for Sanjha Choolha was born (thanks to A for the brainstorming about the idea and the brand name). It is a project that is being worked on as the first part of our work for Never Forget, which of course is nothing without volunteer work. However, we feel that this system can serve as a good plug-in into ANY volunteer/non-profit website.

Please feel free to read on, and let me know what you think by posting comments. This idea is at its initial stage, and your feedback and questions will help us improve.

[Note: Yes, I _have_ looked at issue-tracking systems such as Bugzilla and Trac, but found them ill-suited for this more general form of collaborative work. Specifically, they do not allow easy searches based on "expected time" and "skills", which is very important IMO in non-profits. Also, we are looking for something that runs on the google appEngine, so that it is free and scalable.]

For more, I am re-posting this post from the NeverForget Blog.

Dear web-oriented members of the NeverForget Team.

As a results of discussions I have had with some of you over the past weeks, I now firmly believe that the website, which is the face of this initiative, is not very useful without data being there for the readers to see.

That said, the data won't be available until we are able to properly utilize the energies, times, and skills of our visitors and team-members.

Therefore, from from an "enabling" perspective, my first priority is to get a system running which will enable rapid collaboration to work on bite-sized tasks. The three responses we got to the help-us-translate-in-marathi request posted yesterday are a testament to the fact that such a system will be very useful.

To that end, I give to you, this new term:

Acton: act-on
n. Fundamental unit of action :)

The idea is to post actons on a system, and allow people to _easily_ search and volunteer for them. One constraint will be that each acton has an _upper limit_ on how much time it is expected to take. (e.g., 5 minutes for googling the status of Tamil as a classical language is great, while 1 month for collecting all the data on the UPAs promises is too large a grain, and needs to be broken down into a set of related actons).

The interesting part is, this problem is not unique to NeverForget, but is indeed faced by all voluntary organizations, where people want to contribute, but are not sure what the best use of their (limited) time is. Therefore, I have created a project on google code at http://code.google.com/p/sanjhachoolha , where we also have contributors not directly involved with Never Forget. I have also uploaded proposed screenshots of the application, which we have chosen to christen "sanjha choolha". Krishnakanth (LA) and Kunal (Bangalore) have already joined in to start this effort.

From the project website:

+++

Introduction

Sanjha Choolha : sān-jhā choo-lhā

n. A communal kitchen popular in the villages of Punjab

If you have worked in non-profits, you would have also felt that there are times when we cannot properly utilize the manpower available in enthusiastic volunteers. Sanjha Choolha aims to be a system to solve this fundamental problem.

+++

So dear web-application developers on this list, please visit the project site to know more about what the next steps are, and what skills are needed. If all goes well, we should be able to complete this piece of the puzzle in the next few weeks.

of course, comments and feedback are most welcome.

best wishes,
Animesh
Team Never Forget

This Saturday: Never Forget Meets in Mumbai and Pune

Dear friends,
This Saturday, March 28, Never Forget volunteers will meet in Mumbai and Pune.

Pune
3.00pm to 6.30pm
The Corinthian, NIBM
Details and Agenda
Facebook Event

Mumbai
5:30 p.m.
Juhu Beach, next to Birla Garden.
Details and Agenda
Facebook Event

If you are in these cities, make it a point to attend. And even if you are not, spread the word among your friends who are.

Seriously. D0 this.

P.S. Consider joining the NeverForget facebook group.

Bring on the Intolerance!

There are some days when I am not as positive as I usually am, and this seems to be one of them.

Why? Well, because our wonderful political parties are at it again, supporting candidates who have made it clear what they think of other communities.

Exhibit A: Congress to field Jagadish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, of the 1984 anti-sikh-riots fame.

Exhibit B: BJP fully supports the candidature of Varun Gandhi, of the "its so funny that muslims with beards look like the terrorist bin laden" fame (quote paraphrased).

And of course, both of these parties are using the other's issue to justify their own, and will likely not change their stance. Shame on you, Dr. Singh, and Shame on _you_, Mr. Adwani (actually, not sure if it will have any effect, after what you did in 1992).

And _that_ is what I am pissed about today.

Actually, No. What I am really pissed off about is that the parties KNOW that these intolerant candidates stand a pretty good chance of winning, thanks to the "issues" our junta votes on.

So, what's the way out? Maybe an electorate that votes on the basis of performance rather than emotion. And that brings us to the upcoming meetings of Never Forget, in Mumbai (alt link) and Pune, both on March 28.

o++

Last year, it was n++, so I thought I should move on to the next letter in the alphabet :).

To answer the biggest question : 28 done, many more to go.
And to answer the second biggest question : not yet. Let's see what this year holds ;-).


Thanks to all those who have called, SMSd, emailed, facebook'd or orkutted me. Also a special thanks to S for his hand-made card and letter, and to S and P who wished me in person at INRIA :).

This post will be short, in part because I need to get back to work, after a weekend spent in bed due to a nasty fever and a painful Wii-shoulder.

Firstly, this post is dedicated to the three other people I know with the same birthday as mine - Ilica, the daughter of Gyanam Bua, Avanti, the little brat of my ex-advisor, and Prof. S.K.Sharma, the inspirational go-getter at ITBHU. Happy birthday you [us] all!

A lot happened to me in the last 365 days, the three most important ones being my [eventual] graduation from the PhD, my relocation to France, and the most recent -- my foray into some _real action_ for the motherland. So far so good, thanks to all your good wishes. Let's see what the next year brings.

And finally, my gift to you today [esp. for the three co-birthdees].

1. A New Scientist report on how humans might be predisposed [pre-created ?] to believe in a "purpose" for everything, and therefore, a creator. Interesting experimental setups, I must say.

2. The oblig cheezy happy birthday song video :).



ciao!
-A

Our Baby is One Month Old!

You know what I mean.

4000+ visits, 3 newspaper articles, 150+ facebookers, 90+ volunteers. Not bad :)

Mugshot in the Papers!

The residents on Pune who opened their "Pune Mirror", the supplement to the city edition of The Times of India, were shocked to see the be-spectacled image of your's truly in it yesterday :). The fact that it was on page 4 helped to mitigate the effect :-). Also, Varun's soothing smile helped :).

On a more serious note, never forget was covered by the Pune Mirror yesterday [a huge thanks to Anupama for the connections]. The teaser is to the left, and the main article is to the right. Click on the images to enlarge.





More at our blog.

And yes, we have crossed the 3000 visits mark!

A week of personal good news

This past week, I must say, will count as one of the most packed-with-good-news in recent memory, for the sheer _number_ of good things that happened. Here they are:

1. My toolkit, Srijan, which can be used to graphically and quickly design sensor network applications, finally started working again, after some long-pending bugfixes. [videos here]

2. I was invited to be a part of the technical program committee of the established SECON 2009 conference.

3. The paper based on the last part of my PhD research was accepted [with minor revision] in the IEEE Transactions on Computers, one of the biggest journals in the area!

and last but not the least

4. Never Forget has gotten off to a good start in its first week since its announcement. From visitors, and enthusiastic, action-oriented sign-ups, to getting responses from iPhones of elected representatives, it has been good.

But the work, in all the 4 items above, is far from over. Here's to more work-and-good-news-filled weeks!

-A
P.S. Sadly, the week was not great for everyone, Leesa had a brush with danger, and of course, the Mangalore lets-beat-girls-who-drink-alcohol craziness happened. More about those coming later.

Jan 26, and my BIG Announcment

No, I am not getting married/engaged/lucky/whatever ;-).
No, I have not gotten an offer from ITBHU. Certainly not one with on-campus housing.

But today _is_ huge.. rather.. HUGE for me. And the fact that so many of you have asked about it makes it even more special.

Moving on, here is the deal [your patience is all I need]:

Background: During the mumbai incident of Nov 26, 2008, all [most?] of us felt "I need to do something about this".

So I started thinking as to what _I_ could do, given my constraint of not being in India, but having the skills that I have.

The more I thought, the more I became convinced that thing to do is to provide people a way to track the promises that their elected representatives have made -- think of it as a structured wikipedia.

The guiding principle are two: evaluatable promises [by the politicians], and verifiable references [by anyone posting content]. There is lots more detail at this page, and this PDF, which I had written during my travels in India, where I got to further polish my ideas using the wonderful feedback from you all.

The movement is young, but I have found some like-minded people in Pune [and Mumbai], and we had aimed for a Jan 26 launch.

And after an all-nighter fixing the cool google maps scripts, this guy who has not slept for the past 36 hours can happily say that as of 8:45pm IST, Jan 26, 2009, the site is already online at

http://www.neverforget.in

And now, its your turn. What each of _you_ can do [please, pretty please :) ]:

Let me know your comments on the PDF/website,
1. Sign up for announcements using the textbox on the site,
Forward to your close friends this announcement of Jan 26. This is a people's movement, and is nothing without people getting involved, and
[optional: if you got the time] be a part of the initiative. We need writers, web developers, more contacts in cities, etc. Stuff we non-residing Indians can help with.

cheers, and looking forward to your responses.
Animesh

P.S. For cool google map goodness, check this part of the website.

P.P.S. The journey has just begun, and will need a lot of effort. Hopefully I will be able to give at least that much for the motherland.

And you?