Recently I listened to an excellent talk by Dr. Jeffrey Cole (Director, Center for the Digital Future, of the USC Annenberg School) about Social Networks, the digital media and our teens. His research and insights into this digital revolution that we are growing through threw some interesting light on our teen generation. The teens today use technology in ways we never thought of. The entire digital industry is geared up to develop new gadgets and gizmos for the new generation. The social networking phenomenon like Facebook, Orkut and others have demonstrated how much influence this new generation has in defining the shape of digital media. Dr. Cole lists few characteristics of a teen in this and our future digital generation.
Kal Penn in White House
Actor Kal Penn is taking a job in the Obama administration as a liaison to Asian-American groups, a White House spokesman said. The Hollywood star, who appeared in Fox TV’s drama “House” and several movies like “The Namesake”, “Harold and Kumar” etc., is joining the White House Office of Public Liaison as a link to Asian-American and Pacific- Islander communities, spokesman Shin Inouye said.
Kal Pen was recently seen in Fox Network’s highly popular series “House” as Dr. Cutner who commits suicide on the April 6 2009 episode. I guess Kal has a more important call to answer to.
Shiv Kumar Sharma and Zakir Hussain
Saturday April 25 Doors open 7.30 pm Show 8 pm
The Grand Opera, Wilmington DE.
Sponsored by The Bengali Association of the Delaware Valley
*Shiv Kumar Sharma and Zakir Hussain, santur and tabla*
Tickets $35.00, $50.00 and $75.00
Tickets can be purchased from http://www.ticketsatthegrand.org. A
$2.00/ticket service fee applies when you purchase tickets on-line.
Phone 302-652-5577 or 1-800-37-GRAND
How to Bring Traffic to Your Blog or How to Make Money with Your Blog!
Anybody who is even the least interested in making money with their blog has done a google search this title phrase and have landed up with thousands of articles, posts, advertorials, videos and other material that provide a hash-up of few different techniques that can bring in the greens. But when you look at them with some curiosity, you’ll see that almost all off them give you a bullet list of techniques that can bring in traffic and can potentially bring in some dough. You’ll learn about SEO techniques to improve search engine rankings, you’ll know how important it is to have in-links to your site, you’ll discover what article marketing is, and how to effectively use the social networking and bookmarking sites (Facebook, Orkut, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Stumbleupon etc. etc.). You’ll know the benefits of enlisting your blog to multiple blog networks and directories, tricks to improve Alexa rankings and the secrets of setting up RSS feeds for potential subscribers. All these techniques are good and work to some degree to bring in traffic to your blog – but believe me, millions of bloggers are doing just the same. Traffic is king to any blogger, and whatever published technique exists today are being tried over and over again. The problem is that the search engines (google, yahoo etc) and traffic ranking sites (like Alexa) keep on changing their strategy frequently and hence many techniques become stale. Continue reading
Community News Bites: Sudhindra Dutta Award and San Francisco Asian American Film Festival
Gautam Dutta Receives Sudhindra Dutta Award
On February 15, 2009, “Janmadin” Literary Magazine of Baharampur Murshidabad, presented Gautam Dutta (of New Jersey) with the prestigious Sudhindra Dutta award for his collection of poems “Grihojuddher Dalil”. He received this award along with Krishnadulal Chattopadhyay, the folk poet of Bankura West Bengal. I congratulate Gautam for this achievement.
Continue reading
Movie Release : Piyalir Password
Piyalir Password is the first Bengali film shot entirely on locations in the US, particularly in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC. The movie has been subtitled in English. For more information www.piyalirpassword.net
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/009200903230951.htm
The film will be screened at 2:00 PM on 11th April at the TV Asia Studios, 76 National Road, Edison, NJ 08817
The lead actor of the film Rituparna Sengupta will be present in the beginning of the show and talk about the film.
The film is being presented by Center for Social Change www.centerforsocialchange.org, an organization serving individuals with developmental disabilities for the past 15 years, worlwide.
Tickets are $10 dollars and available online at www.sulekha.com and www.centerforsocialchange.org. Additionally ticket reservations can be made with Sonali Ganguly (tel: 732 203 7310) and Devasish Ray (tel: 240 988 1112)
Raj Basu (703)507-6420 (cell) rajbasu@msn.com rkbasu@gmail.com
Harmonium Lecture-Demonstration
RAAGRANG is arranging a Lecture-Demonstration by a noted musician Shree Kedar Naphade on 29th March from 4 to 6 P.M. The event will start with a short vocal recital by young Ria Sabnis. Refreshments will be served after that. Please let us know how many of you will be attending. It is free for the members and $7.00 for the non-members. Hope you can make it.
Venue:
28 McBride Way
Bridgewater,
NJ 08807.
RSVP will be appreciated.
(732) 241-7063.
Trouble in IIT Campus
It is ironic to say the least that just when I was enthusiastically reporting the news of the development of an artificial heart by IIT Kharagpur, a young heart stopped beating in the campus. Rohit Kumar, a third year Electrical Engineering student (LLR Hall) died due to the apparent neglect by the in-campus “B.C.Roy Technology Hospital”. Details about this event can be found in the campus students newspaper “Scholars Avenue” and I will refrain from reporting them once again out here. However this incident resulted in a student uproar that was unprecedented in the history of IIT Kharagpur. The angry students demonstrated their frustration at the residence of the director of the Institute which resulted in the resignation of the director as well as some other administrative staff. Continue reading
IIT Kharagpur Develops Artificial Heart
My alma mater, IIT Kharagpur is once again in the news with a great device – an artifical heart. It’ll be to coronary care what Nano is to cars, say scientists at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, who have devised an an artificial heart that could save lives for just Rs 1 lakh – reports the Times of India. The research team says trials of the prototype lab constructed heart have been successful on small animals and the gadget is being perfected on goats. The institute has applied for permission to conduct human trials. The Total Artificial Heart (TAH) — said to be the first such in the country — has been developed by a team of scientists at IIT-Kgp’s school of medical science and technology. Continue reading
President Obama on the Tonight Show
President Obama on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno! Enjoy