DesiReflections

Branding At The Time Of Crisis  The rain  lashed Bombay on Tuesday, brands across product groups saw an opportunity to reach out to consumers, online as well as offline. Some brands offered help in the form of their own intrinsic services, for example Ola spread the word about a shuttle service ,while Domino's Pizza spoke about delivering food despite the grave crisis. Many brands spread messages about safety and offered to provide shelter, Maggi  and wi-fi to Bombaywala stranded nearby. Brands used Social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram  to circulate images and posters. The instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp and SMS were used to spread text messages. A few images I borrowed from  Afaqs.

Thomas Jefferson, famous US statesman said in the year 1816, ' Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.'  How relevant  it is in the year 2017 also.  But if you carefully analyse, you will feel that lot of things changed in past few years. The ownership pattern of media has drastically changed . Now the leading business groups own or have major share holding in media and its prime task is to provide marketing platform to the goods and services and to look the citizen as consumer. With the result, most of the issues concern to the survival of society are not discussed and the space is hijacked by not so relevant issues. We shall discuss this in detail little later, in the meantime we would like to peep into the future of news. Noted thinker Henry Jenkin wrote,' More than one half of all teens have created media content, and roughly one third of teens who use the internet have shared content they produced, many cases, these teens are actively...

सिएटल 24 अगस्त  आज मुझे हाइलैंड  पार्क एंड राइड तक जाना था. उबर से टैक्सी मंगाई।  एप में ड्राइवर का नाम अब्दुल लिखा आ रहा था. टैक्सी आयी तो देखा ड्राइवर एक दम  गोरा चिट्टा। पहली निगाह में वह योरोपीय मूल का लगा पर नाम तो उसके एशियाई होने की और संकेत कर रहा था. मेरा रास्ता कोई पंद्रह मिनट का था , समय काटने के लिए मैंने उससे पूछा कि वह मूलत: कहाँ से है. उत्तर मिला पाकिस्तान से।  पाकिस्तान में भी लाहौर से जो आज की  भारत पाकिस्तान  सीमा से चंद   किमी की दूरी पर है. अब्दुल  ने अब से 31 वर्ष पहले लाहौर से ओमान की ओर  रुख किया , वहां से लन्दन। आगे हूस्टन विश्वविद्यालय आ कर डिग्री ली। अब्दुल को पाकिस्तान गए 30  वर्ष गुजर चुके हैं, वहां के हालत सुन कर उसे बहुत बुरा लगता है जो ख़बरें उस तक पहुँचती हैं उन्हें सुन कर उसे लगता है कि  पाकिस्तान अब पहले जैसा नहीं रहा है.  अब्दुल बताते हैं कि उनको बिलकुल फ़िल्मी अंदाज में स्थानीय लड़की से इश्क  हो गया, उसी से  शादी बना...

टूटा दिल टूटे हैं सपने  अपने नहीं रहे हैं अपने  सच से बच कर रहे हमेशा  जीवन बीते  माला जपने   दर्द हो गए आज पराये  इसीलिये लगने हैं छपने  सीता ही शापित क्यों है  हर युग में अग्नि में तपने   देख दिनन के फेर रे बन्दे  अपने आज लगे हैं बचने    कॉपीराइट प्रदीप गुप्ता 

इस तरह हालात बिगड़ जायेंगे सोचा न था  सच में लूट गए यारों आँख का धोखा न था  तुमसे बिछड़े तो बहुत दूर तलक आ पहुंचे  कसूर अपना था मगर तुमने भी तो रोका न था  घर से निकले थे दुनिया को बढ़ाने के लिए  इस तरह खुद ही बदल जायेंगे सोचा न था  जीत ही जाते बाजी हम वक्त के खेल की  तुम अगर साथ रहते  हार का मौका  न था   संघर्ष नेता का रहा रोटी नहीं मलाई के वास्ते  इस कहानी में गरीब कहीं मुद्दा होता  न था कॉपीराइट प्रदीप गुप्ता 

You might have not heard about Baba Haridas, he is a Baba, a kind of spiritual master but far away from publicity and gimmicks. He has not spoken a single word from last 60 years but still communicate with his followers and seekers by writing on a slate. I met him on a number of occasion, once I asked him, 'What is inside a human brain?' . He wrote,' Whatever we see in the outer world  is simply reflection of our mind.' Scientists have recently just confirmed it. In the past few decades, the science has made substantial progress in terms of computing, we have developed  super computers capable of storing petabytes of information,   analysing it  and   predicting with the precision.But the scientists could not be able to make a computer which can match the capabilities of human brain. But scientists are definitely trying to find out what human brain consists of and how it works. Neuro-scientists have used a classic branch of maths in a totally new way to peer...

Paucity of land space in urban area has given rise to the size of buildings, now they are aptly called skyscrapers. There is a historical trace. In the 12th century, the city of Bolonga,  , historic capital of the Emilia-Romagna region, in northern Italy, witnessed a craze for tower building. Directly influencing the design of the world Trade Centre, it seems mystifying that the leaning Towers of the Asinelli and Garisenda families have outlived the former, even if the stories behind them have slipped into obscurity. The exact number of structures raised and the reason for doing so in the city at that time are matter of conjecture (factional rivalries, a mass Tarantella-esque hysteria for building and  a real-estate Dutch Tulip style bubble have been suggested) but the city would have resembled an impossibly modern metropolis of stone skyscrapers. Most of these would have fallen through structural faults, lightning strikes, fires and demolition. In the town of San ...

The British ruled India for 200 years. The burden of world war was ery huge on British Economy. Soon they realized  that they can no longer rule the Indian Sub Continent, so they encouraged fringe elements in the two large religious faction, Hindus and Muslims, to demand separate country based on the religious identity. they knew that once divided into two parts based on religion, these newly emerged nations will always look towards Britain for help and thus their dominance will be continued. With this firm thought, they gave independence to the region in 1947,  two countries emerged - Pakistan, the dream of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and like minded Muslims -  homeland for Muslims and India though Hindu majority region but preferred to remain a secular nation.  The rulers of Pakistan, right from beginning, followed the model of an Islamic nation tried to find its  role model in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the religious zealots overpowered all spheres of life, cine...

This is reality that chronic pain has very high rate in today’s world.  The Institute of Medicine estimated that up to a 10 Crore people in America alone have some forms of chronic pain.  Physicians get limited training about pain other than a basic understanding  that physical injuries or structural abnormalities cause pain.  Therefore, it is  doctors to find the culprit causing pain in order to eradicate it.  However, pain is actually very complex, especially when it comes to the role of the  brain and pain that has become chronic. Let’s look at acute pain first.  When an injury occurs, the damaged area activates nerve cells to send signals of distress to the brain.  These signals are received in the automatic sub-conscious  ,  parts of the brain for very rapid processing.  This system functions to act in case of an emergency so that we will be able to quickly remove a hand from a hot stove top.  This ...