Desicritics Editors' Picks-- July 03-July 09

Another fine set of articles. If you're in the list, please vote in one article to be featured in the next Editors' Picks:

What is India?: "I Says I's Seen It Awl" July 03, 2006 scribescribble writes:

I also guess contradictions are inevitable. The oxymoronic nature of India, and the oft-celebrated and mystical notion that one finds billionaires and starving millions, slums and high-rises, IT engineers and suicide-committing farmers in the same land, is a reality. I hate to think of it as something "special" or "unique", as is often portrayed in the media, and mentioned in individual narratives, made public or not.

CD Review: Omkara July 05, 2006 George Thomas writes:

Aah. Sheer bliss this. Worth every nano-ounce of the wait. Gulzar's way with words, Vishal's sense of sound and the flavour of the region where the movie's events transpire come together in a delicious aural offering.

A Bleak Perspective of Corporations July 06, 2006 Sanat Mohanty writes:

One can argue that despite all evidence of unethical practices against numerous companies, any generalization that 'Corporations are Evil' is unfair. That would be as true as arguing that Monarchies are Evil. Surely there were monarchs and kings who were benevolent and just. However, the reason human civilization eventually rejected monarchies was owing to the immense injustice and exploitation possible with such acute concentration of power. That argument is even truer for corporations. The power they wield through the resources they control is often orders of magnitude more than kings of the past. And they use that power to make unjust decisions, to exploit, and to oppress when necessary for them to profit. It is for these reasons that the influence of corporations must be checked.
This can be achieved through the following processes,
1. Ending corporate personhood;
2. Ensuring that corporations cannot profit through dumping externalities and in the even to externalities being dumped, all assets of the corporation becoming owned by the community till the impact of the externalities has been resolved; and
3. Making corporations accountable to local communities within which they operate.

Blogspot Vs WordPress July 08, 2006 Apollo writes:

In Blogspot the earlier posts are getting archived and lost and once your Blog accumulates a large body of posts it becomes very clumsy and cumbersome to access the earlier posts. One will have to repeat what he has already said maybe 3 months and 2291657817 posts ago.

Plus the ability to categorize can help a Blogger to either diversify or get deeper into his area of interest. This helps keep up the Blogger's interest. In case of Blogspot there has been a large case of burnouts; people who have been blogging for quite a while tend to gather a certain audience which shares those tastes and if they blog for say five posts on different matters other than the core interest their main posts will have gotten buried. This puts pressure on them not to stray too far from the topic and once they have said all that they have to say on the topic and start going around in circles they lose interest and call it a day. Some examples of my favourite bloggers calling it a day. The Religious Policeman, Secular-Right, Shaunak