Friday, August 20, 2010

Is this for real?

I keep getting a lot of marketing calls on my mobile phone, most of them either to do with caller tunes or Insurance. However, in recent times, I seem to get calls for charity donations. Usually the caller says that she is from an NGO and there is a child who is suffering from so-n-so disease and that the treatment requires INR 10,000 only. Can you please help this child?
I have never followed up on such calls i.e. never cross questioned them to figure out if they are genuine, but I find it odd that NGOs (if this is indeed not a racket) have started calling up people randomly from some phone list that they have acquired. And I have never heard of the name of the NGO (it is not the familiar CRY or Helpage).
Is this a new form of "you have won $1000,000 from our lucky draw/I am from Africa and am inheriting $2bn"?

Monday, August 2, 2010

A woman is an individual too

Women never seem to have an independent identity it seems; no matter how good they may be in their individual capabilities.
Take for instance today's front page in Business Standard today which carried a picture of Chelsea Clinton. The title of the photograph is " Just married - Mr. and Mrs. Mezvinsky".
Before marriage, Chelsea was known by her father's name and now after marriage by her husband's name.
On a similar note, I wonder when newspapers print such things, do they bother to investigate (in this case for example), whether Chelsea wants to be known as Mrs. Mezvinsky or would rather use her maiden name?