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Here's my experience with the Police emergency phone number, 100, that makes me pray that nobody ever has any emergency.

Last Saturday, I was returning by train from Thanjavur. While the train was waiting for a clearance to enter the railway station, I heard some commotion outside. Two guys, at least one of them very drunk, were fighting. The inebriated one was lying on the tracks (and hardly moving) and the other man was beating him up. This was at 4 AM and it was still pretty dark. Sensing danger to their lives if a train happened to approach on that track the passengers from my coach urged them to move away from the rails. Since they didn't pay heed, I decided to call the police helpline 100.

My first reaction when the lady answered the phone was surprise at the complete lack of urgency in her tone and voice. I explained the situation to her, and she asked me to call the railway police. There was no answer from that number so I dialed 100 again and got to speak to the same lady. This time she asked me to call the general railway helpline 197!

I have heard him in a couple of public meetings, and have met him in a small group once. Note taken from those interactions with Lokayukta Santosh Hegde was that he has two battles to fight. One of them we know well enough, newspapers love covering how the government doesn't cooperate in prosecution or investigations.

The other battle for him - or any such toothless or draconian institution government could create - is to get real support from us, as in the citizens, people, praja. SMS campaigns, petitions etc (one petition from Loksatta party is still live on this website) is one thing, making full use of Lokayukta's office is another.

Myself and a few other folks have been thinking about innovative ways of marketing Praja. We want to create exciting content and bring new users on Praja. So how about we organize a Blogathon?

This event can be both on the ground as well as online. The basic idea is that we fix a theme/topics, a date and a venue. On the chosen date all of us get together and blog about the chosen theme. Obviously, we will open the event to anyone who is interested and will publicize it in a significant manner.

The best blog entries get an awesome prize-- think ipods, iphones etc. We will find sponsors who can cover the costs for the venue and prizes. Normally, such events are accompanied by free snacks and beer ;)

We can also have tie-ups with newspapers which will agree to print the best blog entries. If successful we can also try doing such events in other cities.

This idea is in its nascent stages and we wanted to present it to everyone for feedback and brainstorming.

So what do you guys think?

-Shekhar

Hi all,

I have to travel daily from Kovempu Circle (near BEL Circle) to Rammurthy Nagar Signal (near K.R Puram tinfactory), now i want to take a monthly pass for this. I want to know that is in this route Black board pass valid or not? I have confusion in Black board pass and other pass. Should i take Black board pass or other pass?

Suggest me!!!