It has been eight months that we started India Special. We started our dream project with a lot of hope and promise. We continue to have the same level of enthusiasm and passion that we had on the first day when we took our first step towards our dream…As we progressed, we are seeing our dreams becoming a reality.

A few of us started with a simple passion – India. Today, the same passion is shared by over fifty like minded friends (who have become more of a family now ) who contribute to India Special in some or the other way – be it articles, publishing, referrals etc. We have also seen our readership grow over the last few months, all through word of mouth.

In our journey to bring you the best, we worked some really tough nights out, bunked our day jobs and burnt the midnight oil, as they say, fought with our better halves and sometimes even paid a fee to the doctor to keep us in good health so that the passion thrives….Because India is Our Passion and India Is Special and so are you!

This featured article is dedicated to all those who believed in us that we will be different and that we will survive. We tried to say to ourselves “Yes we can” many a times over…and look what has happened – Yes, we did it.

Many thanks to all the well wishers and contributors for your continued support and encouragement.

It is our endeavour to bring more and better features to you. The India Special concept is born out of passion and it will continue to be so. As we progress, we want to take this opportunity to share with you, some of the features that we have added which might be of interest to you. Here they are, in no order

Home Page

The home page is more vibrant with a gradient colour combining white and blue representing fresh and Indian. The heading bar has been changed to reflect a more structured categorisation with dropdown menus for categories, blogs and more..

Reader-Beta

We have also tried to incorporate a couple of features – the first being the Reader Beta. This is a feature where the Latest 50 articles, Most Read 50 articles and Most Commented 50 articles are displayed on the side bar with an easy to view reading space on the left. You will not see this in many websites.

Readership Stats

Readership Stats is viewable to anyone now. The top content, writers, popular posts, popular writers etc are ready to be viewed at the click of a mouse.

Your Thoughts

You have random thoughts to share or want to showcase your love for links ? Your thoughts is the most apt solution for you.

Blogs

The Team India Special Blogs including our development blog or blog tips can be viewed from this section.

These are just a few that we have come up within the last few days. There are several that is in the pipeline and we are sure you will like it.  Please continue to give your candid feedback about our site and its features and we will be happy to incorporate as much as we can. It is a promise!

Thank you, once again !

~Team India Special

Popularity: 11%

Hugh Jackman is back to host the Academy Awards. He welcomes Daniel “Mr. Bond” Craig and Sarah Jessica Parker, from the “Sex & The City”. They announce the award for Art Direction.

And the award goes to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Donald Burt and Victor comes to collect it.

The award for best Costume Designer goes to Michael O Connor for The Duchess.

The award for best Make Up goes to Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Greg Cannom wins it. More than make up, he seems to be too fast at pronouncing names he wanted to thank in his 45 second speech.

Benjamin Button receives its second Oscar award.

Time is 9:27 PM EST

The vampire star from The Twilight comes to announce “Romance of The Oscars”.

Ben Stiller and Natalie comes to announce the best award for the Oscars. Ben Stiller looks funny with that beard and dirty chewing gum. He says Slumdog Millionaire was shot on the cellphone. He looks lost J, pretending funny- may be…Oh yeah, talking about the wizard cinematography.

Who will win this award – Slumdog ? Lets wait and watch.

And the Oscar goes to Anthony Dod Mantle for Slumdog Millionaire. He wants to thank 1000 people but can’t.

Congratulations – The Slumdog Millionaire team for the second Oscar award. I am excited!

Time is 9:36. Time for a break!…

Image Credit: MasterOrz

Popularity: 16%

The Oscar fever has caught on and for the first time, I am blogging live watching the Oscars, from the comforts of my home. Nothing can beat this experience. Seeing it live, munching my favourite triscuit, watching my two kids screaming louder than the Oscar host and blogging as Slumdog Millionaire is about to win Oscars – At this point, I don’t know how many, though!

The expectations are high among Indians that music maestro AR Rahman, who has bagged three nominations for “Slumdog Millionaire”, will bring home the coveted trophy. What a moment that will be!

Other two Indian films vying for the glory are “Smile Pinki” and “The Final Inch”.

The time is 8.30 PM EST.

Ok, the Oscar Awards has begun and so is this live blogging.

The time is 8:33 PM

Singer, Dancer, Actor Hugh Jackman enters the show with startling display of his talent. He starts of with the song on Slumdog Millionaire, moves onto Benjamin Button – what a startling display, picks up Anne Hathaway for an impromptu dance. Jackman performs about the other movies – The Reader, The Wrestler and Nixon. What a Live Performance that was!

The time is 8:40 PM

Hugh Jackman introduces all the nominees including Mickey Rourke, the couple – Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie, the guy who played Nixon, Demi Moore.

The time is 8:45 PM

5 yesteryear Oscar actress winners including Whoopi Goldberg introduces Penelope Cruz, Marisa Tomei, Demi Moore et al.

Penelope Cruz wins Oscar for the best actress. She goes to the stage and thinks she would faint…but doesn’t. She gave an emotional speech saying it is art which unites the universe. You are too good and beautiful. Penelope – Congratulations !

The time is 8:54 PM

Some type pad clicks. Few sentences and sounds of a typewriter. I don’t know what is happening.

Enter Steve Martin and Tina Fei. They starts joking around, as usual and soon picks up the mike for announcing the best screenplay. Now I understand why there were those type sounds.

The best screenplay award goes to Dustin Lance Black for Milk. Dustin, on the stage, emotionally talks of “Hope” for Gays and Lesbians across America.

Next comes the award for the best adopted screenplay…and the award goes to Simon Beaufoy, the writer for Slumdog Millionaire.

Oscar # 1 for Slumdog Millionaire. Wondering why Vikas Swarup for Original Screenplay. But yes, he thanked Vikas Swarup and the other two musketeers and his love for India.

I am so excited now. My friend, Madhavan, who wrote Will Slumdog Millionaire Win the Oscar Awards, pings me on Gmail. We exchange congratulations for the first in the kitty and many to go.

The time is 9:03.

Enters Kungfu Panda and his star friends…I am talking of Jack Black and Jennifer Aniston. He is hilarious.

The best animated feature film goes to Wall-E. Oscar is taken by Andrew Stanton. He thanks everyone..nothing extraordinary of a speech. The show goes on

The best animated short film goes to La Maison En Petites. Kunio Kato collects the award and “Sanks” everyone!…Sankooo..meaning Thank You.

Time for a break!

Popularity: 27%

If you are new to blogging or if you are an avid blogger, a good blog editor will always come handy.

I have been blogging for a while now and have used variety of tools to blog. While the editors provided by most of the blog portals like Blogspot, WordPress are adequate, they sometimes fall short or make job of blogging a bit tedious. There are variety of tools out there along with plug-in to browsers which help you do this.

Today, I want to introduce you to “Windows Live Writer” and thankfully it is not Beta. I have been using it since it was in Beta and I am more than impressed with its ability.

Features

1. Out of the box integration with popular blogging portal: WordPress, Blogger, Live Spaces, Live Journal, Typepad
2. WYSWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, creates posts exactly the way you see in the editor
3. Excellent Object Insert feature, provides total control on Images, Videos, tables etc that are inserted into the posts.
4. Image Management, enables provides good effects and way to insert images into the posts
5. Additional Information such as Tags, Excerpts and other additional features supported by the Blog provider.
6. Publishing is a breeze.
7. Wide array of plug-in to choose from, which enhance the tool.
8. HTML Editing, to fine tune the post
9. Spell Checker

Apart from the above features there are few other nifty tools, which make the overall experience of using the tool enjoyable. I only wish it could enable filling all additional data from WordPress plug-ins installed on any site.

But other than that it is fantastic. I have written this post using Windows Live Writer.

I strongly recommend you all to give it a try. Get it from http://home.live.com

Popularity: 12%

Oh, I tell you. It’s all down to the bloody politicians.

What is the Government doing for us? Where are they? Look at our corrupt public officials. The system is so dirty. Yuck! Politics is single-handedly responsible for the decline of the concept of India as a nation.

While we should rightfully hold no inborn sympathy for the lack of leaders in the country today, it is high time we look at ourselves in the mirror before engaging in cliched rhetoric again and again. The above mentioned statements are one-liners you can pick up from many ongoing conversations across India, from ignorant youth to lecturing elders, from uninformed commoners to high society elites. Anyone and everyone talks, talks and talks.

The amount of complaints, regarding the system, that we dish out everyday is becoming like a hoard of filthy, piled up vomit that nobody wants to assess and clean but everybody wants to squabble about and engage in unending chit-chats. People are forgetting the essence of democracy and are engaging in blatant generalization of the system of governance. It’s high time we re-assess ourselves.

It is very convenient for people in this country to sit in their comfortable sofas, dine in multi-cuisine restaurants, engage in social gatherings, watch the latest Bollywood potboilers, go to sleep in cozy beds and then wake up the next morning to throw the “Ohs” and “Aahs” at reports of political delinquencies and national inadequacies in newspapers, while sipping a cup of tea.

It is very convenient for people in this country to rally behind a very opportunistic mass media(that shamed us with their woeful conduct during the horror days of Mumbai) and claim that everything in our system is rotten and it’s best to stay out of the mess. In the process, the majority of us do not see active involvement in society and the nation as our job or cleaning up the system as our duty. If high-end ignorance is all we can offer to the country from a position of no self-sacrifice, then expect a return punch of the kind that the politicians throw at us today.

People do not bother with results of state assembly polls, but are gaping earnestly at the previews of MTV Roadies’ new season. Discussions and debates are held across the country about deserving winners of TV reality shows, but no cause is taken up about what ails the system. People, who ordinarily do not give a fig to the state of affairs in the country, will egotistically jump at a chance to malign the men holding crucial posts of governance simply because it is way too convenient.

We squeal and screech at figures of India’s abysmal position in the Corruption Index, but willfully offer bribes at public offices to get our work done. Bureaucracy is a pain, but WE are a part of the inherent cause of that pain. We forward nationalistic mails during days of tragedy and gloat “India should do something” and “Jai Hind” because that is ALL WE CAN DO. That is all that comes in our frequency of convenience.

At the end of the day, WE are the problem. We are the inconvenience in the system. It is very true that today’s politicians are irresponsible leaders and are very responsible for the mess we are in today, but they are a part of us. They are there because we allowed them to reach there. And from a position of power, abuse is but the next thing on the list of a vehement pursuit for selfish and partisan interests.

If blame-game rhetoric is all we can engage in and personal convenience is all we can offer to the so-called “dirty system”, then stop disparaging at the state of Indian politics and engage actively in our democracy to make it more accountable and rewarding. For a start, VOTE.

People ask me what ails this democracy. I wish I could hit back with a “It’s me and you, my friend”. I wish I could tell everyone that only WE can make this work. I wish I could create a sympathy for the broken system that is crying for our help. It’s a matter of choice. It’s a matter of causing that little inconvenience to ourselves to make the system work. We can revolutionize the system. Because the system is only a by-product of how actively involved we are today.

Because what actually ails this system, and this country, is ourselves. If we won’t, who will?

Image Credit: India Special

Article Credit: Jay Maniyar

Popularity: 8%

We all know and it is a cliché that we Indians are very warm, friendly and affectionate. We care about the people we know and in certain occasions we tend to care about people we do not know. We are a bit of an extroverts regarding the issues and matters related to the people we know. We have an inclination towards finding out the cheerful, sorrowful and problematic situations of the people there after enjoying, empathizing and solving them respectively.

All of this is completely unintentional and is out of love towards the people. But, unfortunately not everyone can understand this love and care which we shower on them in all aspects of their life but, in turn they tend to feel morally offensive, insulted and as an act of breaking through their privacy and personal life.

As far as my experience is concerned and the circumstances I have faced with, in accordance with the issues (Good or bad) related to me, the people whom I know and also the ones whom I barely know turned out to be a bit unaccepted. Most often people tend to share their happy moments with others without asking them.  Also we could force them or try and get to know these happy moments.   

Having said this, there can be certain limitations that could be set for our own welfare and also to maintain a good relationship with others. Now it is time to shift the state of cliché that we Indians besides being very friendly and showering love by enjoying others happiness and by solving others sorrows, problems in all the ways possible, also understand that a person will have a private and personal issues which he would not prefer to be discussed unless he/she feels comfortable.

Here are few examples of rules and limitations I would follow conforming to the subject of this article.

• If a person has written an exam, I would never ask his/her result and marks.
• If a person is not married and it is the high time, I would never ask him/her about the plans of getting married.
• If a person is unemployed, I would never ask him/her about the information about their trials, the number of hits and fails.
• If a person is married and has not planned for kids yet, I would never ask them about his/her plans and time of them having kids.
• Finally, if a person has an idea about what blogging is, I would never ask him/her if he/she has written a blog or is he/she planning to write one or I would not force him/her to blog some or read one.

I would be happy to discuss in these kinds of situations unless they themselves pick on a conversation regarding their issues. Thank you. I know I am trying to be an intelligent Indian trying hard to follow these set of rules and more, to ensure ones comfort while having a conversation with me and I am sure you will as well    

Image Courtesy: Internationalrivers.org

Note: When I speak “WE”, it does not cater to everyone but only the ones who possess the traits I am talking about.

Popularity: 9%