Stuff Indians Like

My search for entertaining desi sites never ends. Today I have found that one desi blog/website that has the potential to keep me up the whole night. Its one of those blogs that makes you go "Oh! Please, please, please, can I contribute to this blog??! Please!?".  I have already started to think of my own list of Stuff Indians Like.

Enjoy the blog for a while, come up with your own list, let me know in comments or email, repeat.

Keep them questions coming - Prashnottarang

This is the kind of stuff that makes me feel guilty...guilty of spending countless hours on the internet and not coming up such ingenious ideas for bridging the gap between the illiterate and the Internet. Prashnottarang or the Question Box is a very simple telephone intercom which requires no computer literacy (in fact, not even literacy). A user simply presses the green button, talks or asks a question, an Internet user (a volunteer) on the other end browses the web for an answer, and responds to the user of the box. This has started as a non-profit project in India (in two villages). These boxes are placed near a shop where people have easy access to it. Well, wont spoil the fun...read all about it here, Question Box. While you are at it, check out their Flickr page too.
Some ways I imagine the villagers would use it would be: to find out weather forecasts for the region, cricket scores, which politician has what agenda, and most of all, symptoms of diseases and other healthcare related information, etc etc. I am sure the list is infinite.
Mobile?: On the for-profit side, I thought I had heard of services where you can just call a service and get someone to find something out from the web. I have called my friends or my brother on numerous occasions to find out about an address on the web, or listings of movies in the area....i sure could have used a Question Box. Could there be a potential for a company like ChaCha (the search engine where a live quide chats with you) to have a version of their service accessible via a regular phone call. Those damn tiny qwerty buttons on my Blackberry don't make it fun to browse the web on the mini screen!

India won't be a superpower until it alleviates poverty - Feb. 9, 2007

After Khettry-da mentioned this article, I had been wanting to read it. I just came across this. Although, it doesn't say anything earth shattering or unrevealed before, it's good to remind us Indians that the development and the surging economy still has problems that have not been addressed yet. I am not arguing that we need to linger on these chronic problems but keeping in mind these issues may help us think outside the IT box!

India won't be a superpower until it alleviates poverty - Feb. 9, 2007:

"To look at it another way, the 1 million Indians working in IT account for less than one-half of one percent of the entire working population. This helps build reserves (and national confidence, and tax revenues) but is not the poverty buster that labor-intensive development is. As Prime Minister Singh told Luce, 'Our biggest single problem is the lack of jobs for ordinary people.'"

Learn Hindi from Bollywood Movies

Interesting.
http://cuttingchai.castpost.com/

Ugly, Ugly, Bollywood Fugly

Not too many times do you see a seriously funny website on Bollywood....you know how most are boring with stolen reviews, wallpapers, pictures, annoying pop-up ads, and lame animated gifs -- but this one really is. It's called Ugly, Ugly, Bollywood Fugly.
Check it out, the webmaster has really spent a lot of time taking those screen shots. I love some of the more obscure oldies and the their take on it!

i heart delhi

I am considering getting one of these coffee mugs for myself from Indobundee. I wonder if anyone would want "i heart jhumritaliyya" design!

Finally, electric cars in India

I really think it's time for India to handle the economic boom with some respect for the environment. And these pictures prove it -- we have started. Desi electric cars

India ranks 70th in corruption,...1 being least corrupt.

Will save my comments for some other time. For now take a look at the table of corruption index, starting with Finland being the least corrupt.
Transparency.org's Corruption Index

Deepak Parashar? His bigg-est break after all

I didn't get too much time to read this website, but from what I gather this is the biggest break Deepak Parashar could have gotten...ever. A bunch of Bollywood celebs (if you really want to call all of them that!) get together and live in a house, divvying up the household chores, and have a go at it in whatever manner they can. Hmm...is this worth getting some desi channels added to my cable plan? Check out the website for yourself, Bigg Boss. What would I not give for the possibility of watching Poonam Dhillon get upset and cry (she deserves that btw, for having a lame website poonamdhillon.com)!