Pop goes NYT

If you visit any article page on the New York Times recently, you would have noticed a relatively new navigation 'pop out'. Let's say you were reading this news article. As you get towards the end, this is what you are probably seeing at the bottom of the page: Now, when you get to the end of the article text, a box springs out from the right (quite disconcertingly, I found, since the appearance is quite swift and abrupt). The box points to another related article in the same site category: From a web design point of view, this is interesting - a tiny addition that tries to keep the reader on the site. It attempts to catch your attention by appearing out of nowhere. But it can give you a surprise (a slight spike on the fright-o-meter), which is perhaps why I wonder if they would have been better off with something that fades-in instead of the horizontal jack-in-the-box. Incidentally, Forbes India's Business.in site also has the very same navigation pop out, albeit one that grows diagonally. However, the site gets it very wrong on paginated articles (see this article for example). Even if you are coming to the end of page 1 of an article (and not the end of the article itself), you still get a link suggestion box. Surely they don't want me to leave this article by the wayside? NYT doesn't make this elementary error.

Indian Jans and the Saving of the Taj

Indian Jans and the Saving of the Taj

Apparently, I'm one of the few million reasons why the Taj Mahal is not going to be one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. The Times of India puts it as follows: "the Taj is slowly slipping out of the reckoning because Indians couldn’t be bothered enough to vote". That's right, blame it on web-connected lazy-arses like me.

The campaign to "unite for the Taj" has made the news in the last couple of weeks, A.R.Rahman has composed a ditty to boost publicity of the event, email campaigns are going out, and inevitably some landed in my inbox. So do I care whether the Shah Jahan paean to romance has a podium finish? - nope, I don't.

How does it matter? The Taj Mahal is easily one of the most visited monuments in the world, and lack of inclusion on some list is hardly going to affect its status as a must-visit. BTW, the compilation of the list has taken 7 years - why should something as simple as such a list take so long and be subject to mass voting? Perhaps they could merely take the average tourist figures for each monument and rank.

Judging by the fact that only 1 out of the previous 7 wonders is still standing, it's probably for the best that the Taj stays out - there's no good coming out one being on a jinxed list as that. The worst ramification of the new 7 Wonders announcement could be a DVD re-release of "Jeans", with Prashant and Mrs. Baby B, showing us around the latest winners. BTW, this is a serious indictment of Indian IT skills: what happened to those scripts that last put us in this Top Ten?

More seriously, the facts that the Taj is rapidly yellowing, industries continue to pollute the Yamuna at the back, and that Mayawati might not be implicated in the Taj corridor case should be doing the rounds. Here, I confess to my guilt: I am one of the many million reasons why the Taj could be slowly slipping out of existence because Indians couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.

P.S.: Why hasn't someone asked us to vote for the Taj so that at least one remnant from the glories of the Hindu past makes it to the top-7?
P.P.S.: A different list at the World Monuments Fund

Speaking Indian

Greg Chappell reacts to comments by MPs (who made them in Parliament, no less): "MPs are paid to raise such questions". Predictably, a storm has arisen. Though completely comprehensible and easy to chart, this is unbelievable in its ridiculousness.

What's wrong in what he said? If you go by the idiom of "being paid", it means in the sense of "drawing a salary". And we do know our MPs are paid to raise questions about the state of affairs (that they choose to talk about cricket in a Parliament where each minute is worth thousands of rupees and is easily a waste of time is another matter). However, if you believe that he was literally accusing them of "being paid money" to discredit the team, then well, first I'm sure you are wrong, and second, our Hon. MPs probably have only themselves to blame - a guilty conscience emanating out of the cash-for-questions scandals is perhaps at the root of it all.

What you could also clearly see is another example of how the now "globalised" Indian media works. Ask a question, draw a response, use it to remove the pin and lob the grenade into an open field by "flashing" the news (this on a night when media channels were wetting themselves over seeing Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan in the same room - leave them alone!) all over.

In the midst of this, it was a little comforting to see some of the BCCI top brass take a sobering view, but for how long will that remain? You have nutters like Gurudas Dasgupta accusing Chappell of not understanding the "democratic culture" of the country. What in 'eck's name is he talking about?

The mainstream news media in this country stinks. The Slimes of India now has made its last page into a sports-version of the Mid-Day Mate by printing photos of the Ashley Cole's first cousin's third daughter in a two-piece (I have more respect for tabloids like Mid-Day and the Sun - at least they don't pretend to be "respectful"), thus making the traditional turn-to-last-page-first no longer possible.

An Aussie boor allegedly told Monty Panesar to speak Indian a week ago. Perhaps Greg Chappell needs to learn to speak Indian - part of which is to keep your mouth shut, or to treat a bunch of old fuddy-duddies with mock respect just because they're a bunch of people who like to be in control, don't like to be challenged by outsiders, and like a fuss. And yes, that's what we've always suspected they've been paid for.

(and to those non-MPs amongst us who like to quabble about Indian cricketers and their hefty packages, I have this for you to read. Oh yeah, I would like Rahul Dravid to say for once that "the players played crap cricket", but looks like that will only get him defenestrated by an panchayati board president or something)

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Champions at the Trophy

* This is actually turning out to be a fairly interesting tournament - the first time in a long, long while for a multi-nation tournament. With two of the last three matches being knockout, it is winding up nicely. Also, there have been no gazillion run-jamborees, some old-fashioned keep-wickets-in-hand, bowler-friendly surfaces, hat-tricks, upsets - we've had them all. Fascinating to watch.

* I've just seen Mark Boucher pick up probably the best catch by a wicket-keeper off a pacer that I've ever seen. And Pakistan being crumpled at Mohali. If the Indians are watching, they'll be terrified - the Aussies on a lively pitch await.

* We're in danger of having no subcontinental teams in the finals. But the teams that have made it have been the best so far at bowling and at scrapping their way through tough situations.

* Ian Chappell just made an excellent point - he says a large part of the current generation of world batsmen have got so used to expecting flat tracks that they have never learnt how to battle tough pitches.

* And finally, are the new Pepsi "ooh aah India" ads surrogate ads for Iodex? Nothing else explains the inanity of the jingle (if you can call it that)