Recently a Hindu religious leader with five of his followers were gunned down. The assailants were suspected to be naxallites. In the aftermath of the killing a bandh was called by a Hindu organization. The term bandh is perhaps alien to people living outside India. ‘Bandh’ in English roughly means ‘close’. The idea behind a bandh is to paralyze life in the area where it is supposed to be in effect. It is usually called by a political party or a large organization which has the means and the strengths to enforce a bandh.

I am not sure who initially came up with the idea. It may initially have been well intentioned and perhaps meant to be peaceful. The organizers of a bandh still maintain its peaceful nature. However, when mobs take to the streets, things can quickly get out of hand and it invariably does. Often participants of the bandh are not fully aware of the purpose of a bandh as you see school-age children participating as if it was a Hindu festival like Diwali or Holi.

Consider the effects of a bandh. No vehicles are to be on the roads. This applies to all emergency vehicles such as ambulances. No movement of trains through the effected areas. All shops including medicine stores are to remain closed. No hospitals, no doctors. No schools. No mail delivery. The cities are completely at the mercy of the mobs. People think they have a free hand and commit unlawful acts with impunity. Many unfortunate and tragic events occur.

At the recent bandh, an orphanage was set on fire and a woman was burnt alive. What sort of a human being do you have to be to set fire to an orphanage? May be the persons who perpetrate such acts are never fully aware of the enormity of such acts. They also know fully well that they will never be held responsible for the crimes they commit. When health care services are hampered, patients cannot be taken to the hospitals, doctors cannot reach patients and so on. These things can result in deaths leaving relatives helpless and distraught.

However, in India, the bandh like many other such things is considered to be part and parcel of life. People have a fatalistic attitude towards such things. It is in the nature of an Indian. No one appears to be alarmed by such incidents. It is not like Bollywood has ceased to exist or the Govt. is banning cricket telecast. The politicians are unlikely to see the negative effects of bandhs. Indeed, many seek to gain from it.

I am not sure if such a thing like the bandh occurs in the developed world. One does hear of riots occasionally. But nothing like the bandhs. These bandhs seem to occur on a regular basis to protest anything and every thing. And often such bandhs result in loss of life and property. May be the society should really take a serious look at this and call for one last bandh to protest the bandhs. But the question is, does the society really care?

Internet has been around now for quite a while.  Internet usage around the world has grown exponentially.  Long gone are the days of slow dial-up connections.  Content is available today faster than ever.  Most websites now primarily offer multi-media contents.  Photo sites such as Flickr and video sites such as YouTube have become immensely popular.  People rely everyday on the Internet for banking, bill payments and even for entertainment/music.

Internet has sure grown.  How about Internet in Orissa?  We have seen a proliferation of Internet in Orissa as well.  Cybercafes have spawned everywhere.  Numerous websites have been developed. Many middle class families have broadband connections.  E-mail usage is commonplace.  However, is Orissa really taking advantage of the Internet? 

Internet helps the society get organized, do things faster and more efficiently.  But to take full advantage of the Internet there has to be planning.  One aspect of this is the Goverment’s responsibilities. The Goverment must have coherent policies and Internet-enable most departments and institutions.  The Goverment also must employ competent people at all levels to carry out the plans.  The people in charge of planning and implementation of Internet related agendas must have a clear understanding of the goals.  Faulty software architectures can be bottlenecks and prove to be expensive in the long run.  One must carefully choose vendors who implement the software and hardware components.

The other aspect of Internet growth is the involvement of the people of Orissa, especially those from the software arena.  Oriyas have setup hundreds of websites, most of these lack content and technology.  Most people perceive Websites as trivial to implement and consisting of mostly simple webpages.  This may be true for simple personal websites.  For more complex websites such as the ones offering news/media, services such as job/property search, e-learning etc, a complete understanding of all the aspects of the Internet is mandatory.  Sites such as these, can be implement only by experienced software professionals.  Websites on the Internet promise money.  That has prompted many to follow the herd and setup websites that offer no real content.  This has simply added to the clutter.  One would hope that sooner or later, well designed websites on Orissa get developed to serve the needs of the people of Orissa.