Disruptive Technologies, Education and Some Social Issues » shashi tharoor

Shashi Tharoor and Teachers Achievement Award

Kenney Jacob — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 13:52:43 +0000

One thing I always noticed in Indian visual and print media – if they get some sensational news they publish it without taking steps to write or understand both sides of the news. Here is a perfect example. Yesterday few Malayalam channels and some newspaper had reported that Dr Shashi Tharoor has become the brand ambassador for Teachers Scotch Whisky (I never knew that there was a brand called Teachers and thanks to media I learned something new! I saw the same advertisement in Outlook magazine and never knew that it was Whisky). Here is the news report that came in Kairali News Channel, mouthpiece of CPI(M). Read MoreSimilar Posts:

US and China Against Shashi Tharoor

Kenney Jacob — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:31:06 +0000

Shashi Tharoor the present Minister Of State for Foreign Affairs in the Government Of India is a victim of international conspiracy and false propagation of news by the media and his political opponents. US and China are coming together for the same cause of Bringing down their Common Enemy Shashi Tharoor. The logic is ‘Enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Shashi Tharoor during the UN Under Secretary post, has won huge support, influence and contacts through out the world. So such a person of high influence, vision and caliber is always an asset to any Government especially in in Ministry Of Foreign Affairs. US and China is afraid of a simple thing that is the things Tharoor can do in THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA. India and China are trying to find market and also influence the countries in African Continent while US is trying to defend their markets and influence in AFRICA. So US and China are aware of the fact that Tharoor can b the difference between them and India in the new world of Neo Colonialism. So getting Tharoor out of the scene and out of Indian ministry is a secret but Diplomatic Theory of China and US and its a part of this the new Conspiracy against Tharoor and to help them some Indian politicians and Media.

Read the Full article HereSimilar Posts:

Indian Express is Conspiring Against Dr Shashi Tharoor

Kenney Jacob — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:36:27 +0000

This is a copy paste of an article that appeared here, Written by gargi After having read this I am also forced to ask, is someone conspiring against Dr Tharoor. ?

I really don’t believe in too many conspiracy theories. This entire idea that various systems might be conspiring to get an individual out seems kind of far fetched.

But, in the recent past I have been questioning why the Indian Express has taken it upon it self to target Shashi Tharoor – the minister for external affairs ? Has Mr.Tharoor offended someone in the IE or is the IE working on someone else’s behalf to discredit Mr. Tharoor – because front page attention on, what can be most charitably described as trivialities, seems like an orchestrated witch hunt .

It started with the IE “exposing” the fact that Tharoor and his boss, SM Krishna, were staying in 5 star luxury.

Austere Ministers: Krishna at Maurya, Tharoor at Taj - screamed the headline, and when you read the article closely it tuns out that it was two rich ministers paying for their own comforts.

For over three months now, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is at ITC’s Maurya on Sardar Patel Marg and his junior Shashi Tharoor at Hotel Taj Mahal on Man Singh Road. Both pay their own bills but neither of them — nor the hotels — say how much they have paid so far.

According to their poll affidavits, Krishna has assets worth Rs 18 crore and Tharoor Rs 15 crore.

Why is someone spending their own money is news is beyond me – if it was Tax payer’s money I would understand – but their own money seemed kind of inexplicable.

It followed up the story the next day, with Tharoor needs Taj for gym, privacy — and a govt-funded Iftaar today

The “gym and some privacy” keep Shashi Tharoor at a suite in the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi. On Wednesday, the Minister of State for External Affairs is hosting an Iftaar party from 6.15 pm at the Diwan-i-Aam of the hotel.

Invites have been sent out by the Ministry — the cards carry the national emblem, mention the MEA’s Protocol division and list its telephone numbers under RSVP.

tucked in at the end, is the line

“It has been a tradition to host an Iftaar party for envoys of the Gulf countries by the MoS in-charge during Ramzan, said sources. “

So the iftaar party is not for friends and family, but for envoys of countries that India has trade and commercial relations ! Official work, not personal.

Then, the following day was an item, that could be seen as further embarrassing External Affairs Ministers - Krishna, Shashi take note: How nine of your colleagues live

While External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor turned 5-star hotel suites into temporary homes, their nine colleagues, still waiting for official accommodation, settled for single rooms in state Bhawans and PSU guest houses in New Delhi

And then, was yesterday’s bit of pontificating

At these moments, affluence becomes unaesthetic. A display of an affluent lifestyle seems crass and indifferent, possessing a nouveau riche loudness that is difficult to take. It is a behaviour that demands immediate downsizing in a literal and symbolic sense. But Krishna and his deputy behaved like rich Rip Van Winkles, unaware that drought and recession had struck the land. It was a sense of arrogance and individualism that made them indifferent to the dialects of protest and pain in the bazaar of politics.

People should realize, that in times of recession, consumption helps. Instead of vilifying the ministers for spending their own money – maybe you should commend them for doing their patriotic duty to get the nation out of recession
And then, it pretty much continues in the same vein. What took the cake was this morning’s front page silliness in the Indian Express

Of course, Mr. Tharoor has not helped his cause by being smart on Twitter with Kanchan Gupta – Shooting your mouth off to journalists, on a public forum, – especially those with BJP affiliation -reeks of poor decision making. That ‘holy cow’ statement is possibly going to come back to haunt him.

But, that doesn’t take away from the fact that the IE seems to have their knives out for him. Today’s story, the one that prompted this post – is “Holy Cow! Tharoor’s OSD gives it back to his Boss’s party” – one more ‘Get Tharoor” story .

Jacob Joseph, Officer on Special Duty to the Minister of State for External Affairs, posted a picture of Tharoor asleep in an aircraft seat, with the caption “Shashi Tharoor in cattle class a month ago”.

Tharoor, currently on tour abroad, did not post any new tweets on Thursday. He last tweeted early September 16.

Jacob made public, or ‘re-tweeted’ (referred to as ‘RT’ on Twitter), comments made by other Twitter users that referred to Union ministers as “humorless twits”, and Congress spokesperson Natarajan as an example of the “outdated Indian political spokesman”.

incidentally, the minister did tweet yesterday:

So, let me ask the obvious – is the Indian Express reverting to the shoot first, figure later mode of journalism that almost brought it to its knees. Or is this a one off hatchet job on a particular minister – if so why ?Similar Posts:

Dr. Shashi Tharoor flagged off the ‘I am an Entrepreneur’ Campaign

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:59:00 +0000

Union Minister for State External Affairs, Govt. of India, Dr.Shashi Tharoor, flagged off the ‘I am an Entrepreneur’ Campaign from Technopark on August 21, 2009. Ms. Sheela Thomas IAS, Principal Secretary, Kerala State presided over the official inaugural session. Prof. Jyothi John, Hon Chief Editor, TechnoFIRST Magazine and Mr.Haroon.S, Business Head- AIRCEL, Mr. Sanjay Vijayakumar, CEO , MobME Wireless were present for the function. Technopark CEO- Mr. Mervin Alexander welcomed the Chief Guest and Mr.K.C.C Nair, CFO and Programme Co-ordinator, New Initiatives, Technopark, gave away the vote of thanks.

The campaign, initiated by Technopark-TBI/TUC, in association with Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), executed by TechnoFIRST Magazine and sponsored by AIRCEL will be visiting all the engineering colleges and few arts and science colleges across Kerala. The campaign has its sole intention as to identify and promote entrepreneurial talents in the state, especially from student level.

The objective of this campaign is to ignite the young minds in the Engineering colleges and Business Schools, changing the Entrepreneurship climate of the state and get more innovators and find out more students start-ups right from college campuses. This campaign is carried in a motivational video which shares the experiences of some of the very successful entrepreneurs and visionaries in our state and which aspires to inspire the students to take up on new projects on their own. It will be an informative and inspiring video on Entrepreneurship and Incubation Awareness. The video contains inspirational talks from various personalities, including Mr.Kris Gopalakrishnan (CEO, Infosys), as a successful entrepreneur from Kerala, and Dr.Shashi Tharoor (Hon. Minister), as a well known visionary.
Dr.Shashi Tharoor said, after lighting the lamp, that Keralites spread outside the state has extraordinary success as businessman. He urged more and more Keralites to stand up and say that ‘I am an Entrepreneur’. He pointed out that failure as an entrepreneur is not something unacceptable, but it’s only a learning phase for budding entrepreneurship. He lauded the efforts of Technopark-TBI for creating a fertile eco-system for budding entrepreneurship in the state.
Ms. Sheela Thomas presided over the function and also read the wishes from Chief Minister Sri. V S Achudanandan that Govt is very happy with the ‘I am an Entrepreneur Campaign’ because of the fact that the Campaign is addressing the Arts and Science Colleges and Rural Innovators along with the Engineering Colleges and Polytechniques and she offered to extend all possible support for the success of the campaign.

“To encourage budding entrepreneurship we provide a fantastic system called Technopark-TBI. The Campaign will give the required motivation for the students to take up the entrepreneurial route” says Mr.Mervin Alexander, CEO-Technopark.

www.iamanentrepreneur.in, a website solely dedicated to this campaign will bring the latest updates about the campaign and tips and advices from the market leaders and business gurus and an interaction forums to be aware about what others think.

Similar Posts:

Books Written by Sashi Tharoor

jkeverywhere — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:34:29 +0000

Sashi Tharoor besides his acclaimed career with the UN was also a writer of great fame. His columns in The Hindu(2001-2008) and other national dailies were well received. He also contributed to the Gentleman magazine and his reviews and other articles in many news papers and magazines were well received. The list includes the Washington Post, The NewYork Times ,Los Angeles Times, international Herald Tribune among others. His fictions and non-fictions mostly are based in India. The writings reflect his love and evokes a sense of nostalgia of India.The “Great Indian Novel” is considered one of his best works. All the works of Tharoor has been a bestseller in India. One of his works Show Buisness was made into a Bollywood Film called “Bollywood”. The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone has been his latest literary work and the hardback is currently on its fifth reprint.Given below is his Bibliography

FICTION	NON-FICTION	ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
Riot (2001)	The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cell Phone: Reflections on India in the 21st Century (2007)	Kerala: God’s own country (2002)[with artist M.F. Husain]
Show Business (1992)	Bookless in Baghdad (2005)	L’Inde (French) and India (English) (2008) [with photographer Ferrante Ferranti]
The Five Dollar Smile and Other Stories (1990)	Nehru: The Invention of India (2003)
The Great Indian Novel (1989)	India: From Midnight to the Millennium (1997)
	Reasons of State (1982)

Similar Posts:

Track Shashi Tharoor On Twitter

Kenney Jacob — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:33:29 +0000

Keep track of Shashi Tharoor on Twitter, follow him at Shashi Tharoor

When the bloggers of Trivandrum had met him at his residence, we had asked him a question.

“What gurantee do we have that you will deliver what ever you have promised ? How will you be different from the previous politicians who have promised and not delivered.”

He answered the question saying that his track record speaks for itself and that he will use every available media to be in touch with the people and informing them about his activities. He was very realistic saying that he might not be able to do everything that is needed, but he promised to inform the people what the road block is how is he trying to solve it.

While I am writing this Shashi Tharoor is leading by 30,000 votes.Similar Posts:

Stumping for Shashi Tharoor

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:47:01 +0000

The following is an extract from an article in Indipepal. You can read the full version here.

Kenney Jacob and Brijesh Nair are both young techies with links to Thiruvananthapuram and who spearheaded the effort to get bloggers around the web to support the candidate of their choice, Shashi Tharoor. Jacob and Nair are first-time political campaigners, but have been blogging for a long time, and so focussed their effort for Tharoor on targetting the blogosphere. “Almost 10 per cent of Trivandrum’s population has access to the Internet,” says Jacob. “Most of these people are politically neutral and are willing to vote for a candidate with a difference. We just needed to reach them, that’s all.”

And reach them they did: teaming up to form “Bloggers for Shashi Tharoor,” the duo posted about Tharoor on their personal blogs, recruited 60 other bloggers to write about him, and began to aggregate content related to their candidate from around the web. Nair also used Twitter and social media to spread the word about Tharoor-he retweeted all the articles and blog posts about Tharoor that he could find and posted them on the India section of Reddit, a popular aggregation website as well.

Jacob leveraged his technical skills by creating “Vote for Shashi Tharoor” badges that bloggers could use to indicate their support and also sending out viral SMS’s and emails to reach those among the electorate that don’t read blogs or use social media.The two are confident that their online effort will help Tharoor emerge victorious and believe that “neutral voters of Trivandrum” have overwhelmingly voted for the candidate they have worked for so assiduously over the past few months.Similar Posts:

Shashi Tharoor Campaign Video

Kenney Jacob — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:46:41 +0000

Similar Posts:

I will be a different MP – Shashi Tharoor

Kenney Jacob — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:33:40 +0000

This video was shot during the bloggers meet with Shashi Tharoor.

Similar Posts:

Bloggers For Shashi Tharoor – Campaign

Kenney Jacob — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:30:08 +0000

Shashi Tharoor, born on 9 March 1956 is an Indian diplomat and writer who has been known mostly for his having worked as an Indian diplomat at the United Nations. In 2006, he was the official candidate of India for the office of United Nations Secretary-General, and came second out of seven official candidates in the race. Tharoor served as the UN Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information between June 2002 and February 2007, during the term of Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He is an author, journalist, and fellow of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Tharoor was recently declared as the Indian National Congress candidate of the Trivandrum constituency in Kerala for the General Elections in 2009.

Why should you support him?

He has a Ph.D, two masters degree and is a graduate from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. A rare breed of educated politicians.
Tharoor’s was an exceptional UN career, rising as he did from the P-2 level to the highest possible rank of Under-Secretary-General in a mere 23 years.
He has a reputation in the UN for being a reformer by action. Something Indian politics really need at this hour.
Shashi Tharoor’s resume and work experience is way better than other candidates in almost all of Kerala.

Silly Allegations against Shashi Tharoor

He does not have an address in Kerala. (Dont worry folks, we will buy him a house here)
He insulted the National Anthem By placing his hand on his heart (American Style). I think of it as passionate way of respecting the national anthem.

What can you do to support him?
You can blog about Shashi Tharoor and tell people the best reasons to vote for him. You can compare him with other candidates in the constituency. Put up support badges in your blog. Share information about Tharoor on social media websites.

Similar Posts: