The power of Forwards
We have all heard/read/suffered at the hands of Ms. Divya from Siemens and her wails about Stem Cell cancer and what not. A typical case of the Forward button being put to bad use - SPAM.
In the last one month I have seen the power of forwards in a positive sense.
Shridhar Gune from Infosys, Pune registered an online petition "against Commissioner of Pune Municipal Corporation for having Action Plan for fixing Potholes on Pune roads."This was put up on the Bulletin Board and the power of forwards saw the signatures on the petition go up to more than 13000 in no time. Now this movement has gone on to formation of core groups working in tandem with other like-minded groups - all co-coordinating their efforts for the betterment of the city. What started out as an innocuous mail put up on the bulletin board has now taken a serious note and I for one, see some good coming out of it. Way to go,Shridhar.

Again, this week, Nimish Adani sent a mail about police brutalities at Bangalore Station. The Forward button got into the act again and lot of people called him up and offered help.It did the rounds of our alumni mailing list of MDI. Nitin Chaubey, a batch mate, working with The Times of India, pitched in and forwarded it to his Resident Editor, Bangalore edition, who took it up. Now, you can know more about this here.

Forwarding mails is not just about spamming.

The power of the forwards is not be underestimated. Similarly, slowly but surely, the blogworld is becoming a strong force to reckon with. I saw a sample of it's power when Amit Varma, Ramanand and others were trying to use the reach of blogs to help people out during the deluge in Mumbai.

Another amusing one is the IIPM drama which is happening - you can follow it on Gaurav's blog.

Last year, I had posted about how blogs have become a potent means of propaganda during the US Presidential elections. Finally, the e-battleground is becoming a reality for Indians as well.
This also means one should use his/her e-identity judiciously. Blogs and mail ids should not be taken as lightly as they were, in India at least.

It is time for Indians to be more mature about the use of official mail ids etc.

Interesting times ahead.