Hi all,

I know its been a loooooooong time since I blogged. It was predominantly due to 2 reasons - one, too much work at college, and two, cut off from internet access at my residence.

I don’t know how long this stage of my life will continue, but till then, a short update from my side…

> Netvibes launched Ginger…. (www.ginger.netvibes.com) Awesome new interface, and a social network like features

> 2 new proxy sites which work quite good against college proxies - PageMod, and Unfiltersites.

> Barcampbangalore in the planning stage

> Blogathon India in the planning stage. Dates announced. Proud to be the person who proposed the idea

Well thats it folks. Very soon, you can see me back in force in the blogosphere. I shall also be restarting my first blog, Witness Times, as a personal blog.

Cheers!

Hi all,

This is the age of information. We get all information we require at the click of a few buttons or keys. And this information age lead to the rise of online news portals like Google News, Yahoo! News etc.  These portals enabled live access to news, from anywhere in the world, for free!

Yes, we’ve seen, experienced, and enjoyed the various news services… So when Arun started talking about Taazza during the BarCampBangalore5, held at IIM B, I thought I was in for a boring 1 hour… Boy, way I wrong!!!

Taazza, I found, as did the 30 others in the room, was not just a news portal, but it was a news portal of our dreams! Taazza combined a jazzy, Web 2.0, live look with hard hitting news organised and presented in a refreshingly new manner!

Fresh News, Refreshing Perspective. Their tag line proudly says. And I’ve got to admit, its pretty right! The service is updated as soon as one of the hundreds of news websites are updated. With a unique algorithm, they have taken into consideration several factors which define which story should come first.

The news has been tagged as Places, People and Quotes. This is one of the highlights of Taazza. Its pretty cool to do research! Imagine you have a story with, say, Mr Osama Bin Laden. But you’re a beginner, and you don’t know who Osama is. So, when you’re reading the story on Osama, you see in the People tab, "Osama Bin Laden". Click on that link, and it takes you to a page with background material on the person, previous stories, and pictures. How cool is that?!!

But you’ve think you’ve seen it all? Wait till you experience the Newsmap view! Click on the small icon with two rectangular boxes( ), and experience the master of all views! Experience the joy of reading a newspaper, just as it is, but in a live form, with the most relevant headlines selected automatically and placed according to relevance. You get news accurate to 2 minutes. You get references to blogs, to Wikis, to social networking sites. All mighty fast, thanks to their back end based on Ruby On Rails.

So what do you think? Why don’t you go ahead and check it out? Leave them a few comments as well! They’re planning to introduce new features, include personalisation, and start a web forum. I say, HatsOff to the Taazza team!

Technorati Tags: taazza, news, news portal, refreshing perspective, india news

Hello all,

I wish all my Indian readers, and friends, a very happy Diwali!

Enjoy a Diwali filled with happiness, joy, togetherness and firecrackers

Cheers,
Mohan

Technorati Tags: diwali

Friends, Netizens, Countrymen,
Lend me your ears…. (uh, eyes…)

I’m a very happy man today to announce that Blogging India has officially broken the 10,000 visitors mark! Yesterday, the 10,000th visitors visited our site, and broke the mark Please note, it aint the 10,000th page view, but the 10,000th unique visit. The page view count has zoomed past 65,000.

Its just been 3 months, and I’m too happy about this all

On this occasion, I would like to say a very BIG THANKSto you, my dear dearest readers!

Hi all,
    The Union Cabinet (of India) has given approval for setting up of an Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) soon. It also approved an initial investment of Rs 2700 million and an annual recurring cost of Rs 400 million.

    The Daily India reported this news.

“The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)
has been experiencing severe shortage of highly talented graduate and
post-graduate scientists and engineers during the last few years to
take up the challenges of research and development in the areas of
space science and technology,” a Cabinet release said.

The IIST
being set up on the lines of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs),
will provide high quality undergraduate and postgraduate education and
research programmes in space science and technology.

It will
also offer integrated Masters in space science with customised
curriculum to meet the high technology requirements of the ISRO.

The
courses are proposed to commence from the academic year 2007-08, at an
alternate campus in Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.

The campus and other infrastructure facilities will be put in place within 24 months, the release said.

The
institute will offer 150-200 seats annually. The entire expenses of the
course will be supported by ISRO in the form of scholarships and
assistantships, and the brighter lot would be directly absorbed by the
ISRO.

    I deem that this is a positive step towards developing the space technology in India. India had been in the space research fast track during 2006 and 2007. The ISRO had made indigenous space launching vehicles, and satellites. Earlier, Dr G Madhavan Nair, the Chairman of ISRO, had announced in a public event the concept of the IIST. It seems that ISRO had been planning the IIST for a long time now.

Technorati Tags: indian, space, research, iist, isro