I am on a fast until...

I am going the Anna Hazare way. Shh. I shouldn't say that. I am fighting for my rights. For our rights. Since the past two decades or so we have suffered enough. By we I mean bloggers. We have written millions of articles. Researched for a lot of them. Emailed it to so many friends that we ended up in their spam lists. We worked hard so that people would have quality blogs to read. We put effort into each blog.

What do we get in return?

2-3 'nice post' comments. An occasional interesting comment. Sometimes not even that. The blog gets lost in the online universe. Never to be seen again. Add to this the fact that research has shown that only 5% of the people who read online blogs actually write one. So for every 20 people in the online world, there is just one person who writes and the rest just read stuff! Sometimes we even go to the extent of pasting random emails as blogs. It takes effort. 

We have remained quite for a long time now. I have finally decided to get inspired by Anna and fast for our rights. 

Fight for our 'Right to be Appreciated'. 

I am going on a fast right after dinner and I will not end it as long as all my demands are met. I am pretty serious. I am even wearing a gandhi topi and white clothes. 

We have the following demands:

1. Google should rank my blog as the best among all blogs from India. my page rank should be highest. 

2. Everyone should compulsorily read my blog and comment on it or like it or tweet about it or +1 it. 

3. Everyone who comes online has to be compulsorily directed to my blog. 

4. My blog should be even more important than the president's and the prime minister's blog. 

5. The views expressed in my blog should be be like Caesar's wife. Above suspicion. 

6. My blog's link should the first link to come up whenever anyone searches anything online.
7. This particular blog post should get 500+ facebook likes and 200 +1's and should be RT-ed by 1000 people. 

I am not ready to compromise on any of these demands. It's been a long time since I have been writing to Google about the importance of my blog but I have not received any reply. This is just preposterous. 

I will be sitting online on Gtalk with my 4 trusted followers. I am sure we will get the support of thousands of bloggers who we will portray as lakhs. Let the google guys come and talk to us directly. We will suggest a 'Right to Bullshit' Amendment in their publishing rules and hence make our reign supreme. 

Our timing is perfect, EPL has not warmed up yet and Indian team has lost to England. Everything is planned. See on Gtalk. 

P.S. - Please do not call me by my real name. Nick names are cooler. Henceforth, refer to me as Napster Baba. My core team should be called the Nappies. #likeaboss

Yes I have taken this photos from somewhere else. No, I will not tell you from where. Sue me, bitch!

The rise and rise of legal blogging in India

If you had asked someone a couple of years back on websites or blogs that were specific to legal topics, they would have just stared at you as if you were asking them about UFOs.

Today, there are so many such places that it is difficult to keep a track of what's going on in all these places.

What does this mean to an average law student?

It means a lot more scope to develop your writing skills. It's a platform like never before. You can create a brand name for yourself. Blogging is a very efficient way to learn drafting. It improves the way we use simple and short paragraphs to get our point across. It helps you put your thoughts into words. And ofcourse you get to know a lot of stuff that you would usually not hear about in class. The new developments in concepts, case laws, explanation of concepts, the sarcastic posts and how can we forget, the 'my law school is better than yours' fights. It's all there.

I personally started blogging with Legally India. I blog under the user name 'Napster'. I realised the power of regular legal blogging when one of the juniors in my college came to me and asked me if I was 'The Napster'. It was funny and heart warming and felt good. You can experience it too. Just pick a website from the list below and start writing.

The first one I found out was Legally India. It's a legal news website but has a rather well updated blogs section as well. Also, there is the Mooting premier league, the recruitment statistics etc are a great addition. A great place to get all round information.

Bar and Bench is also pretty similar. They are basically competitors but both of them do a great job. There is enough space in the Indian market for the both of them to prosper.

Lawctopus is also a great website. Its run by students but all the work is done very professionally. It has a homely feeling to it. You can relate to a lot of their posts. Plus they have interesting display pictures on their facebook dp.

Mighty Laws is also a student run website. It got a lot of publicity through its recently concluded blogging competition. It has a very simple and clean look. A bit more frequency in posts would make it a lot better. 

(The website is currently not working. I will update this once it starts working. Till then, here's their facebook page.)

Mylaw is the one that has made the most sensational entry into the blogging arena. They have big shots in their arsenal and post 4-5 articles almost everyday. They might steal the show just on the basis of sheer volume of posts. Although, the quality of the posts are pretty good too. 

Corporate Law Blogs, Spicy IP and Law and Other things are blogs which have been running for a long time now but they have become very popular in the past year or so. They are very regular in posting. They have a great base of writers who contribute good articles. 

Lawcrates and Legalpulp are relatively new and I don't know much about them but my first impression of them is good. They look all set to give the others a run for their money.

The Legal Blog is something I found out about just yesterday. It looks great. It has a lot of interesting posts. Very well researched. It seems like it has a lot of lawyers who blog.

Law is Greek is one more place which has been around for a while now. They have been doing well. The website is more organised now and the material available is also plenty.

Apart from these blogging websites, we also have Legally Drawn, a website with cartoon strips about lawyers and their lives. We also have Project Cloud. A one stop destination for details on upcoming conferences, journals, seminar and competitions.

We also have LegalEagle. They give legal news and latest judgements. They also have a mobile subscription thing which means that they will SMS you the news/judgement and that too free of cost. Manupatra should also learn from them in that aspect. Here's the facebook page. Go like it.

So you can see that the world of legal literature is growing. It's very good news for bloggers and people who want to write blogs as a hobby. The best part is, there might be a lot of these websites out there. The above list is just the ones I know. If you know more then do send me a link via comments. I will check it out and post a review.

So what are you waiting for?

Start writing!

P.S. - I wonder if blogging websites would be willing to give a token payment to people to write blogs. It would mean more visitors for them and a a small motivation for bloggers to post more frequently.

Cheers!

Don't be a Pappu

Let's call the Indian, Pappu. He lives in:

401, Super Apartments,
Link Road, Sector 21,
Delhi.

What will Pappu say in different situation?
Pappu to an American: "Asia is way better than all other continents. We have..."

Pappu to an Thai: "BRIC countries FTW!"

Pappu to a Brazilian: "India man, that's the place to be."

Pappu to a Bihari: "Metro cities are the heart and soul of the country."

Pappu to a Mumbaiker: "Delhi is waaay better."

Pappu to a resident of Sector 15: "Sector 21 is the poshest area dude."

Pappu to a resident of MG Road in Sector 21: "Link Road has everything. Its the best."

Pappu to a resident of Duper Apartment, Link road, Sector 21: "Our apartment is more organised and classy then yours."

Pappu to his neighbor: "We have an amazing view of the garden from our balcony."

I am guessing you got the drift.

This happens all the time. Pappu doesn't change. He just says different things when he is with different people. We Indian will be competitive about anything and everything. Albeit it does not motivate us to improve things, we just argue a lot.

Next time someone tells you something like this, remember the Pappu example.

P.S. - Pappu being from Delhi is just an example. Pappu can be anyone from anywhere.

The UK Bribery Act

UK has passed a Bribery Act which will be implemented from 1^st July 2011. They had issued a detailed guidance in March. Some say that the legislation is draconian.

This Act will put additional pressure on some of the companies who are already grappling with corruption scandals. It will cover all Indian companies who do business in the UK. They will be exposed to potential criminal liability where bribes are paid by employees, agents and subsidiaries even if the relevant conduct happens in some other part of the world.

There are 4 new offences which will be introduced by this Act – offering, promising or giving of a bribe; requesting, agreeing to receive, or accepting a bribe; either in the UK or abroad, in public as well as private sectors; bribery of a foreign public official in order to obtain or retain business; and, inability of companies to prevent a bribe being paid by those who perform services for or on behalf of the organisation. [ Source: Economic Times]. 

All MNCs with offices in UK, Indian companies listed on UK exchanges, and independent director sitting on boards of such companies will all be under the purview of this Act.

Companies like Tata, Essar and Vedanta have significant presence in the UK and so they will have to review and implement anti-bribery policies and procedures.

You can find the ‘necessary steps that need to be taken’ in this article. It's a very well written and detailed article. 

US also have a US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. India has Prevention of Corruption Act. Woohoo! Well, not quite. India’s Act is not implemented properly. No wait, it’s almost not implemented. There are very few, if any, arrests and convictions. They monetary penalties are very negligible as compared to the size of the crime. Hence, it’s almost as if we have no law regarding it.

India, tera kya hoga?

Maybe this:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

This amazing marketing book is written by Al Ries and Jack Trout. It’s a pretty old book but it still holds its own in today’s world. It is not too long and hence not boring. The length assures that people who are interested after reading the title don’t let it go just because ‘It’ll take a lot of time to read it completely’.

It’s an easy to understand and easily implementable book. The laws are simple and to the point. The examples given are relevant. The predictions made in the book are now verifiable. Almost all of them have come true.

Their analysis of companies and their marketing strategies is immaculate. The writers have shown how complex marketing strategies make or break just because of one simple thing. Their analysis of companies like Coke, Pepsi, IBM, Xerox and Apple are very interesting.

If you believe in ‘learning from other people’s mistakes’ then this book is exactly that. It is almost compulsory to follow these rules if you about to start out with a new product. The laws can be easily followed. All you need to do is read them carefully and understand how to implement them in your case.

Enough from me, read the book for more.

You can buy it on Flipkart and on Amazon.

It is reasonably priced. Actually, that’s nothing compared to what it will help you save. Hell, good things don’t always come cheap.

To know more about the book, shoot questions through comments.