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Monday, June 29, 2009
ABYTE OF LIFE
FREE CIRCULATION
Vol. 3No. 120
11
Encouraging readingamong children will resultin their ability to learnbetter. It’s this vision that istaking this Ashoka Fellowand founder ofHippocampus ReadingFoundation to the ruraland semi-urban areas.Umesh Malhotra on hispioneering efforts.
While it’s nice to get in touch with old school buddies, twoOrkutians have started a blog torecognise people who havestarted online communities tohelp others.
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Are you an Orkut Hero?
TERMINATOR: SALVATION
Leaves little to salvage
ERGO
Monday,June29,2009
NAMMA CHENNAI
02
Swine flue scare
A senior officer with the ChennaiCorporation was all set to go for a trainingprogramme to Korea but cancelled his trip.The reason – swine flu scare. Apparently,the officer and his team were warned bysome health officers days before they werescheduled to board the plane to therepublic.
Good hero, bad politician
An actor who recently turned politician issaid to have kidnapped a journalist with thehelp of his gang due to a long-standingrivalry. As the matter created a flutteramong media men, a top state politicianwas quick to jump in and release theabducted man. He also made a compromisebetween the two sides and closed the issuewith a piece of advice for the actor-politician.
Musical chairs
Two senior cops who were previously in thecity and now posted in other districts dueto punishment transfers are now on a questto get back to the city. Reliable sourcesreveal that both the khakis are gunning forone position and therefore the fight for theseat has intensified. The triumphant one islikely to be known in a month’s time.
A
seven-member team of roo-kies from Kumararani MeenaMuthiah College of Adyar, led by their lecturer Janani Rangarajan, were the winners of the AgniNakshatra newbies ultimate Fris-bee tournament organised on thesands of the Elliots Beach overthe weekend.Eight teams participated in thetournament organised by the Ul-timate Frisbee Club over the wee-kend, specifically to introducenewcomers to the action-packedsport that combines fitness andfun. All the teams had been prac-tising for a month now. The win-ners of the tournament ‘Blitz-1’team from KRMMC won a closely fought finals against the ‘Whiz-bees’ team from Valmiki Nagar.Elated Janani said, “We en- joyed all our matches. All of uspractised as a team only for thelast three weeks. The passion forthe game made us win the tour-nament. We are looking forwardto play the next national tourna-ment.” Although Blitz-1 were the winners in the finals, the nail bit-ing and longest match of thetournament was the semi finalsbetween Whizbees and ‘Stall 7’that well lasted for 45 minutes.Each time Whizbees took a point,the Stall-7 (freshers) caught up with them with their excellentdives and catches.Gopi, captain of the Whizbees,said: “We have been playing thissport to build and maintain ourfitness and the tournament wasvery thrilling.The club has done an excellent work in organising such a kind of tournament where we couldlearn a new sport.” All the teams - Blitz-1, Blitz-2,Noobies, Whizbees, Bharani,Ram, Chapati tum jao and Stall7(freshers) were given certifi-cates.
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Blitz-1 team from Kumararani Meena Muthiah Collegecomes up trumps at the Ultimate Frisbee’s Agni Nakshatracompetitions for first-timers
Thumbs
Up
DEEPA VENKATRAMAN
Take me home
Graceful Sparky has a fondness forhuman company, games with a ribbonand posing for the camera. To adopther, call Ananya Ashok at 9952040339.
PHOTO: BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT/ TAKEN BYSIDDHARTA GOVINDARAJ
Monday, June 29, 2009
03
A
re you on Orkut? Are youunique? Have you created acommunity for the benefit of someone else? If your answeris a loud YES, you might be the nextOrkut Hero.It’s not an award that Orkut hon-ours you with; it’s two individuals’effort to encourage your efforts. Andto help those in search of people with certain talents.orkutheroes.com is a blog startedby Zaheer Abbas, which contains write-ups about inspirationalpeople.Media entrepreneur Zaheer Ab-bas (27), better known as Zazo, anative of Rajasthan, joined Orkut just to increase his network of friends and keep in touch with oldbuddies. But as he began to visitother communities, it opened hiseyes to people’s contributions to- wards making of groups and com-munities.Zazo felt the media has many times projected Orkut as a culpritbehind many nefarious activities.“After going through certain com-munities I found that not everyoneis wasting their time on Orkut.There are some who are friendly,trustworthy and successful and whohave given a lot of their time build-ing something inspirational and in-formative in the form of Orkutcommunities on different subjects,”adds Zazo.“But how will others come toknow about them?” The questionplagued Zazo and made him opentwo communities on Orkut – ‘Or-kut’s Hall of Fame’ and ‘Rated Wow!’But membership to these com-munities is on invitation-only basis.“Generally people gaze throughcommunities and join them out of their own interest, but these twocommunities are dedicated to someoutstanding personalities for theiractivities, profession and achieve-ments, which can be a lesson in mo-tivation, inspiration and knowledgeto anyone. And we invite them,”says Zazo. In case you are in searchof such people, a visit to these com-munities with help you.Zazo is not alone in this wholeprocess. His sister Tarannum (23),quit her job at IBM Daksh to joinher brother’s initiatives. “I was very inspired by my brother’s initiativeand decided to extend my full sup-port to take it forward,” says Taraproudly. And there started their idea of ex-panding it outside Orkut. Zazothought the hard work of Orkutmembers should be appreciatedmore.He started his blog in the year2008 – orkutheroes.com – and that’show the concept of Orkut Heroescame into being.This blog contains profiles of peo-ple who have achieved in differentfields. “We select people from theiractive, useful and helpful contribu-tion to any subject of interest likeacademics, social work, etc.” Due tocomplaints about fake IDs, he clar-ifies with the friends in his/her friendlist. “We see the types of communitieshe/she has joined and his/her partici-pation by sending scraps, messages andcommunity activities. After a thoroughscanning we try to approach that personeither by scrap or by email if possible.” After conducting more than 50 inter-views and the going through responseshe got from his readers he is now intoupgrading his website.“Though I have won many notableawards for music I was more recognisedamong my online friends as a hero afterI won the Orkut Heroes award,” says Sa-meep Kulkarni, a sitarist, one of the he-roes of Zazo’s blog. Orkutheroes.comhas become a platform for many onlinecommunities to take it further frommere online work to real meetings andgroundwork.If you as an individual or as a commu-nity have done something motivating, you can contact Zazo at zazo@orkuthe-roes.com
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While it’s nice to get in touch withold school buddies, two Orkutianshave started a blog to recognise people who have started onlinecommunities to help others
MONISHA MOHANDAS
monishamohandas@yahoo.com
Are you an
ORKUTHERO?
TarannumZazo, founder Orkut Heroes
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