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Well, this is indeed surprising! Got a call yesterday that yours truly (ehem…) is one of the nominees. In two categories pulak! Hmmm…so paisye…shy le. Me…popular???

The organisers did inquire cautiously if I don’t mind being part of the contest (well, that what it looks like to me) organised by MIC. You know, being a blogger means you are either one or all of the following - jobless, stupid, a primate, housewives, or anti-everything. Well, I’m always supportive of any activities that is for the good of the community. I hope this even is not misused or misinterpreted in the future to say youths or bloggers support MIC. I’m sure the organisers know better than to cross swords with bloggers So, with the noble intentions (“We want to encourage more Malaysian Indians to blog and share information on the Internet”) outlined by Putera MIC chief in mind, I graciously accept my nomination, even though I’m pretty sure popular is not the word to describe this blog

Anyway, I disagree with Kamalanathan that bloggers only focus on sensitive issues only because “news sells”. I actually think that the reason for talking about sensitive issues is because there’s not many avenues to discuss it openly and properly. The media does not do the job, public are threatened not to talk in the name of “national security”, and also because many of the “sensitive issues” have elements of crime, discrimination, infringement of human rights, perversion of natural justice or plain lies. Continue Reading »

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One of the positive outcome from Hindraf rally is the plan by MIC to set up a hotline, which was to take 6 months to set up. No reason was given then for the extremely long during. Now, SV says its part of their modernisation of the MIC HQ as well. The call centre is expected to be ready by April.

MIC also said there will be a special committee…

By K. Harinderanharinderan@nst.com.my

source

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Having confirmed that the International Ponggal Festival was on 15th, I decided to attend it today. First time to Menara KL as well, so took the chance to go up the tower. More on that later.

I reached the tower at 9.45am , was at the observatory till 10.30am. It was blazing hot. By the way, parking is RM2.65 per hour, in case you wonder. The preparation for the festival was going on. The organisers were moving about - registering participants, arranging the pots and so on.

The function was organised by Putera MIC, under Mr Kamalanathan.

The crowd began to trickle in around 10.45am, mostly students (including foreigners) from local universities like UM and UNISEL. There were few families, and few tourists as well. I estimated that there were between 80 to 100 pots available, but about a quarter of them were not taken. The organizers asked those that had 4 people in a team to break up into two-per-team. Maybe being a weekday caused less participation.

The crowd was enthusiastic - most started the fire and poured the milk, until the organizer had to ask them to wait for the VIP. VIP was none other than MIC Chief Dato Seri Samy Vellu. He came in at around 11.15am .

There was a welcoming dance - a classical one - performed by malay dancers (as highlighted by the MC), followed by speech from Mr Kamalanathan.

This was followed by another dance. I can’t remember if Samy Vellu gave a speech, since I was busy snapping photos. I only heard Samy Vellu being invited to launch the festival by pouring milk in the pot - the first step in making “ponggal”.

Samy Vellu then went around and talked to the participants. The participants were quite jovial and some posed for photographs. The walkabout took around 15 minutes.

The participants were busy tending to their pots, hoping to be the first to have the milk boil and overspill. There were cries of “Ponggalo Ponggal” denoting that participants managed to get it right. The event went on till about 12pm, at which I left the venue.

Overall, it was good program, though it could have started a bit early to avoid the afternoon sun. I was expecting a larger crowd, so a bit surprised at the crowd. It also reminded me of the ponggal festival we used to organize while in university those days. Sigh….those were the days!

Photos are at Picasa.

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