Tag: Social

The Social Media Dilemma

Woke up today morning and saw this piece on High Frequency Trading. I have already read Michael Lewis’Flash Boys and The Big Short which has kindled a strong dislike towards this HFT, not before dreaming about millions by doing it. When I hit this

We tend to understand the concept of actively using technology to achieve certain ends (exercising agency), but we find it harder to conceptualise the potential loss of agency that technology can bring. It’s a phenomenon perhaps best demonstrated with email: I can use email to exercise my agency in this world, to send messages that make things happen. At the same time, it’s not like I truly have the option to not use email. In fact, if I did not have an email account, I would be severely disabled. There is a contradiction at play: The email empowers me, whilst simultaneously threatening me with disempowerment if I refuse to use it.

my mind automatically went to one point of long time consternation – Facebook. With the recent reports of both Google and Facebook pushing for face recognition technologies and even people at MIT Technology Review are wondering what it means and how people take it, I am more spooked on the issue than I usually am.

The Dilemma

I am trying to setup something which requires inputs from a number of people intellectually, monetarily and personally. And one place where all these people could be reached out easily, coordinated, and followed upon is Facebook. There is no denying it. I have seen a lot of groups coordiante a lot of stuff over there before I deleted my account. It has become so ubiquitous in everyday lives of millions of people that people like me will be looked down as the ‘anti-vaxers’ of the digital connectivity. I am also finding it increasingly hard to explain why I don’t have account, more so when it comes to why I deleted it.

For most people the perceived threat of someone owning our identity in some distant place as one among the millions far outweighs the benefit of being ‘connected’ to friends and family.

The email empowers me, whilst simultaneously threatening me with disempowerment if I refuse to use it.

This sounds so much like

The Facebook empowers me, whilst simultaneously threatening me with disempowerment if I refuse to use it.

The compromise of having to let facebook’s scripts stalk me, monitor me, and feed me what it thinks is good for me in order for me to setup and run things I want to has resulted in a dilemma like no other.

Probable Ways Out

  • The old way: Restrain from going to FB and do things the old way. Which is call the first person you know, get to know about the next person and from him the next one. So on so forth. While it is entirely doable, it does involve retelling the same story multiple number of times.
  • Be the hypocrite: Let somebody else do the co-ordination on platforms like Facebook like celebrities do. I don’t think I am that wealthy or famous to hire a SoMe firm. It also involves being a hypocrite for using Facebook and calling it a bad thing.
  • One among the millions: Throw out all reservations and jump into FB. Let whatever hits the millions hit me.

All the three is equally straining for a variety of reasons. And is killing me.

 

Facebook Account Deletion

I just now deleted my Facebook account.

Why?

  1. Freedom – Day by day using it makes me feel as if someone is dictating me how and what I should be talking to people about. The rampant, out of the blue censors by law enforcement and judiciary are the reasons. Even though I have never been a part of any such action, the atmosphere is getting too toxic over there in that domain.
  2. Irrelevancy – Most of the content that I encounter on my timeline are completely irrelevant to me and the only content that I engage with are blogs like Lifehacker and posts of a set of very few friends, both of which I think I can do without having to endure a non-free environment.
  3. Privacy – It has been a great concern for me ever since I became aware of its importance and ethics. Somehow kept telling myself, nothing would affect me. I think underestimating risks is something I am unwilling to do these days after reading “Fooled by Randomness“.
  4. Paranoia – Closely connected to “Privacy” – I was always thinking what if someday I discover that all the stuff that I have shared is sold/shared to someone and that someone uses it for purposes I never suppose it to be? Am I planning murder? No. But what if someone frames me for it? I am NOT paranoid by nature, I walk 1 among the billion+ in the country. But again, not all billion+ walk around recording data about what they read, where they go and what they think.
  5. Narcissism – One of the biggest effect of Facebook on character is, I think, breeding narcissism. It breeds a kind of self importance and provides an easy sense of achievement and forces a person to project a personality, real or otherwise. This becomes especially stressful when considering the fact when one is connected to all sorts of people from high school friends to working colleagues. A few recent encounters with people has left a bad taste in  mouth about the whole “sharing” thing.
  6. Spam – Spam, spam, spam – there is just no end to it. I am generally very efficient in ignoring Ads and spam because all that I look for is content from people and never click any link other than blog-posts. But most of the time genuine and original content is very hard to come by and all sorts of false claims on history, technology, identity creep in along with celebrity, movie and all sorts of eye-ball catching stuff.

After considering all this, the most logical decision to make seems to be to leave the system and reduce a lot of responses that brain generates due to unnecessary stimuli.

Will I ever get on a social network again?

I currently do not have an answer to that. There are a lot of things to be considered as listed above and see how they play out to make a decision. With the current turmoil of internet censorship across the world, misuse of it as tools of destruction, authoritative control, capitalist bait holder, and as an enterprise looking to make money indirectly by using my data, I don’t think I am getting onto it (FB) any time soon. I specifically mean FB here because, there exists an alternate platform called Diaspora* which deals with all of my above concerns (okay, maybe not narcissism), but  jumping into such a platform is pointless if I don’t really have the people I want to interact.

Indecision and Enterprising

Trains journeys are quirky, just like India. I happened to meet a bank official of a nationalized bank in the last journey. He talked about a lot of things from UPSC exams to anger management, credits to my other co-passenger. If one wants to understand the status of economy, among the many people to meet should be a bank official. The following accounts from him tell a general tale of how India is today.

Account 1: The bank is planning to construct housing for its employees so that it can do away with the monthly Housing Allowance (HA) it pays. The management team has done the math and has estimated an amount under which it is economical for the bank to build housing, above which the bank is better off paying the HA. Tenders were issued and it attracted only 3 bidders. To be a reasonable they need to attract at least 6-7 bidders. But it simply doesn’t happens. Moreover, the three who have bid have a nexus. The bid amounts are so high that, if any bid is accepted, it becomes uneconomical for the bank. So the team talked with the bidders to get the quotation down, for which the bidders impose terms so all three can benefit. If the terms are accepted, it becomes illegal. This has been repeating year after year. The only things the team has to offer is – indecision. Simply the team cannot decide.

The official tells that it is not a unique case in banking. The problem persists at all levels of decision making in the economy right from the ministerial level. The example he gives is the famous 2G Spectrum case. While the CAG quotes a presumptive loss of so much crores due to illegitimate issuing of licenses, what has the redone legitimate 2G licensing done last year achieved? Certainly it hasn’t brought the exchequer the intended amount. If audited, it may even turn out the present income from the licenses, may even be less than the “tainted” money. In the bank’s case they have opted for indecision rather than either loss or a tainted profit.

Account 2: In theory, the education loan is the most ideal form of borrowing. One doesn’t pledge anything or provide any 3rd party surety.  The bank simply keeps entire trust on the borrower and his commitment to repay. In reality, rarely there exists a ideal system. He says the percentage of loan repayment is somewhere between 15-20%, in student numbers not in the amount repaid. The catch here is the lower the loan amount, the more likely the student is likely to pay. So technically the unpaid 80-85% are the heavy borrowers. Why doesn’t the student pay? The reasons vary from inability to pure greed. Some interesting reasons:

  • a girl student has been married to a person, who demands the entire salary to be given over to him. So the girl is willing to give in writing stating something like, “Arrest me if you want to for defaulting. I am better of in a jail than with my husband”
  • another girl’s husband simply considers it a matter concerning her father and warns of legal consequences if troubled by the bank again
  • a medical student in Australia simply wasn’t interested to pay even after settling down there, the case was pursued throw embassy and notice served before the parent coughed up
  • an engineering student earns 18,000 per month in Chennai, what is left of personal expenditure and family commitment is too little even for the interests
  • one doesn’t simply wants to repay the loan as the government is busy waiving them

So what does the bank do? How do they recover the money? The solution again is indecision. The new manager comes pushes the repayment period for a six months further and leaves the office without showing bad loans and the next manager repeats it. Because in most cases, the student simply has nothing in his pocket to give.

Enterprising

While I am not a economist to even the smallest of measures, this is what I observe. Of all the posh talk regarding FDI, market liquidity, global cues, blah blah persists in economic strengthening of the country, hardly any thought is given to the strengthening of local enterprises. It is hard to tell when our Finance Minister last talked about anything other than foreign investment and global market cues. While the situation, in terms of laws and regulations, for IT services and tech startups seem conducive, with introduction of things like within-24-hour registration, there is hardly any push in other sectors. Hardly anything fresh comes out from India. Even in crown jewel of Indian enterprises the IT, the industry is largely based on services and the lookout for an Indian Google or Facebook (I am not talking about a equivalent service) hasn’t ceased yet.

This sluggishness in enterprise is the one of the big reasons, that fuels the indecision in India. Had the entrepreneurial scene been better, the dilemma of the housing construction for the bank wouldn’t have existed, not all students would have been made to pre-sell their labor in the name of loans, or even better, they wouldn’t have a hand to mouth existence like a daily-wage laborer. While I wouldn’t argue lack of enterprising is the only reason for indecision at various levels in the economy, it does have a undeniable connection when dealing with the development.  While there are a multitude of reasons for this slack, it is important to recognize the impact it has on the economy and accept the fact, no matter how much the FDI is, whatever the global cues are, we have approached a point where economic growth is being held back by our indecision and the lack of home grown enterprises solving local problems.

Amateurs We Are

A highly opinionated piece on the Student Hunger Strike Movement for Tamil Eelam. Why the movement doesn’t gain or will never gain importance due to the amateurish execution.

This post is a highly opinionated piece on the Student Hunger Strike Movement for Tamil Eelam. The views are my own and doesn’t reflect anyone else’s.

I have been getting emotional and all that due to the meager response we received for the student strike across Tamil Nadu pressing the Central Government to bring out a referendum condemning Sri Lankan Government for its genocidal activities against Tamils and a demand for a separate state(country) of Tamil Eelam. Some said our strike was already a success since the DMK party has walked out of its alliance from the UPA Government. Some said it to be the greatest student movement since 1965. Was it really a great movement? And if so, why are we still counting on Facebook likes and social media for news delivery? Why hasn’t any 24×7 new channel called any of us for prime time? Why do strangers still question us about impact of the movement? Sure, it has been on for 15-20 days, depending on how you count, and has mobilized students all across the state (Tamil Nadu) including entire colleges in many cases. It has students from all sorts of background, arts, science, law, engineering, medicine, charted accounts. If the educational diversity isn’t enough, the geographic is more amazing, we have got support from Pittsburgh, London, Paris, Melbourne, Malaysia, Canada, Gulf and the list flows. Despite all this diversity, variety, size and enthusiasm, we were still a inner page news. Impact? Big psychologically – among the people who followed us, encouraged us and supported us, but politically – measurable if you count that DMK walkout. If you want to measure the political impact based on our set goals, well, I would say NIL. Everything that happened in the last week would have happened just as it happened, despite the movement. Why? Why didn’t it move anything tangibly?

Update: A student representative talked in the 9’o clock prime time in Puthiya Thalaimurai as I wrote this. At last a tinge of impact.

The Answers

The answer is simple, we are still students, inexperienced amateurs. That is it? Nothing more? Judging by the Press Meet that happened on 22nd March 2013 in the Chennai Press Club, I personally think, Yes, that is it. Nothing more.

Peeking a little bit, trying to know the anatomy of this movement and its growth, I am trying to see what really ran this movement (yes, it is past tense already, at least for me). The movements roots are seen in the Hunger Strike by Loyola students, they fasted at least for a week before getting arrested and thrown into the hospitals. Early reports chided their demands. Other college students were heard joining the movement in support of the protest. When IIT joined on 17th and a public call was put forth for all Tamil Nadu student strike on the 18th, there was no stopping. To me 18th was the day of rising, but who gave the strength? No one. As I re-positioned myself on that day looking for the core of the movement, it struck me, there was “No one”. Everyone had been doing and everybody else was also doing, no central authority, no agenda, no multistage plan, no organization, nothing. Just an ad-hoc network that kept itself flowing. There is no structure in the anatomy.

We wouldn’t let any political party to guide us, we wouldn’t allow anyone dictate our agenda. We just wanted to go on and on and on. People who were there on the Marina that day (20th March) know that feeling. Some said it was fight until death, but the well-known untold truth was, the movement was bound to die on the day of Geneva UNHRC voting. 21st March is the day the movement will finally loose shape is what I suspected. After some field action on 21st,when I saw the update “There will be a press meet by 11 AM at the Chennai Press Club tomorrow“. I thought “this meet is the one that is going to make or break the movement” The movement was in its perfect infancy. I had tweeted earlier,

. Not just the students, the movement itself was perfect clay for mould.

The Press Meet

I would say the the Press Meet broke the movement, put it bluntly, it just said “We were just kidding guys, you just fell for a prank”. Don’t take it wrongly that I am insulting the movement or the people who gave the press release. It is just that we guys are amateurs. When I entered the Press Club someone (4 of them) was already getting ready to sit on the dais. They called themselves representatives from some student federation. They said that Center hasn’t yet reacted to the protests of students and in order to make it turn to their side they would give a deadline until March 31st. If they haven’t reacted by then, they would get students to protest in front of President’s residence. In the meantime they had planned to arrange seminars across all districts of Tamil Nadu to bring more awareness about the Eelam issue. That was it. Press meet over in a matter of 5mins. I really thought, wow, so short and simple, clear and crisp, this is going to be great. A week to plan, co-ordinate, maybe create alternate approaches and execute. Although I was a bit disappointed for travelling 40mins for a 5min press meet, the message was more than compensating. In fact, bright and acceptable to all standards.

But the day wouldn’t end that easy. When I came out, there was another group waiting, the people who have organised the Marina Beach event, the people behind the FB page and to a certain degree it was the core group who initiated the movement. Then who are those people who talked to press a moment ago? What? They are different? There are two groups? Forget groups, now we have two faces? Two identities? “A movement with two faces is history even before it is born” is my opinion. The second group was a loose congregation of individuals from various colleges, mostly one per college, rarely two. This explained the movement’s  structure-less anatomy and ad-hoc-ness.

The Amateurs in Action

I had the option to stand on the dais or to sit down as a audience. I chose to sit down, for I am not worthy to stand on the dais. I haven’t attended a press meet in life, but have seen a lot of project reviews. I presume both are almost same, there are people sitting opposite to you ready to strip your project naked, tease every part of it until they prove your work is shit or you prove them your work is gold. No body really bothers the actual outcome (at least in colleges), what matters is the work you have put in, things you have learnt, and what the future work is. So the students were on the stage presenting their project, this one was a real world one.

First an introduction and official statement was requested. Both proved we were kids. The introductions went haphazard with almost 10 people introducing themselves. It would have been better if spokespersons would have been decided and they introduced and started with the official statement. The statement was a lengthy one, thanking for the students who made this possible, condemning the nil response of the center, the important demands of the movement, and the future plan. The future plan is the one that poured ice water over the burning fire, it is to undertake a “Non Cooperation Movement” against Govt of India to pressure them to take notice of the issue. Non Cooperation Movement? Against British? No? Not the British India? Oops Sorry. I am still wondering, how did this people even conceive this idea?

Press had some unfinished business that day, they wanted first to know about the integrity of the movement before even talking about what the movement “plans” to do. With two parties issuing Press Release on the same day on the same dais, anyone would doubt the integrity. Luckily the clear and crisp guy who talked earlier was in the dais with the second group too, but gave a fuzzy reply. He said, “When you fight under a single banner, it might induce boredom. Since two bodies are there we can carry each other in times of slackness.”  What? Boredom? Slackness? After 1 week on field? Oh! Boy. Why me? Why did I feel good about this guy a few minutes before? The press pressed for more, students blurted out there exists some differences, but they are working hand in hand with each other and will support each other. I really wish they have resolved conflicts and issued a joined press release, hiding the differences under the dais carpet. If two groups are bad, different future plans are worse. Look at them, one wants to reach Delhi, one wants the Delhi to reach them. I personally felt, the press meet a disaster. The more they are going to talk the more damage would be inflicted.

Moving to the Non Cooperation movement, press wanted to know how students planned to implement it. The implementation would be by not paying toll fees, no taking tickets in trains, no paying taxes, not doing anything that earns a revenue for the government. So who would implement it? Will the students block the toll collectors, the ticket counters, lay siege to tax offices..etc.? “It is to be done by gaining the support of the public, and hence we are calling the public take up the non cooperation movement”. What? A call for the public? I thought it was a student movement. Public support is good thing to ask for, but telling public to take forward the movement? This is where I really really felt the “We were kidding……..” moment. Even if the directive was to telling students lay siege to toll gates and ticket counters I would have felt happy at the simple-thought proposal of “non cooperation movement”. But telling the public to take over indirectly was like “Hey play time is over go to bed now.” Actually this statement put the movement to bed. Someone was mentioning something about stopping the power from Neyveli Lignite Corporation at the last minute briefing when waiting outside, luckily they didn’t mention it inside, I would have stood up and walked home crying.

The official statement carried a phrase, “throwing the Congress Party out of Tamil Nadu by democratic process“.  I actually warned the guy before entering not to talk about political parties in general. It looked like Congress was already printed in the press note they brought. Fine, if hell breaks loose who cares about excesses? Then came the question:

Why congress?

Because they don’t support our agenda.

The BJP doesn’t support too. What do you say about that?

We do not support BJP either.

You want to make the center to act. If both parties are against your demands, whoever comes to power in center they won’t support you. How/When do you think you can achieve your goals?

We will create a third front.

This hit the floor square, everyone laughed, including me (pardon me,I didn’t mean to insult). Future movement organizers, I beg you, if you are creating a apolitical movement, make sure your entire process is apolitical. I personally would have preferred to talk about central govt in general not about a particular party. Or at least would have avoided the direct political questions by saying the movement is not yet fully grown to impact such big political changes. I am not thinking this over and writing, I was precisely thinking those “deflective” answers sitting in the audience, I just wonder why no one on stage thought the same.

With political immaturity clearly exhibited, it was time to take the Foreign Policy test. There was some phrase let loose somewhere about “boycotting US goods” in the students’ statements. When I heard that question, I actually thought myself sitting in pre-1947 era press conference.

“Why do you want to boycott US goods?”

“Since US has been supportive of the SL govt and has brought out a eye washing resolution in the UNHRC, we strongly condemn their actions and hence call for a total boycott of US goods in Tamil Nadu”

“Ok. What about China goods then? China too supports the SriLankan Govt.”

“We would call for a boycott of Chinese goods too.”

“Do you think this will actually work out?”

“That is what we want to convey in this press meet, we want the public to support us by boycotting these goods”

Personally I wanted to get up and reply, “The questions are beyond the preview of our planned agenda” and put an end to this leg pulling by the Press, but someone had put the US goods boycotting thing in it already. The water has gone above the head, would it matter if its a feet or a yard?

Then the purpose of these boycotts and non cooperation was raised. Drawing the attention of center govt, the US and others, making them to hear our pleas and getting them react was the response, at which a press member commented a bit bluntly “No one will come to talk you from the center. No one.” I think that guy really supported the students and wanted the movement to have a tangible outcome, but was completely put off by the amateurish way things turned out.

Someone asked, “Since you are against the center government completely, don’t you think this might affect the future prospect of Tamil Nadu students in getting passports, or central govt jobs etc.”. I don’t know whether this was a legit question. What I sensed was, it was a tricky question to bring out the secessionist ideals hidden under the movement, if any. I didn’t have answer, don’t yet have. The reply served the questions purpose though, “While two Kerala fisherman were killed by Italians, a lot importance was given to the issue, but more than 570 Tamil Nadu fishermen have been killed so far, but there is no concrete step taken by govt to stop this. We think we (tamilians) are already being treated as second class citizens, so being sidelined by center is nothing new”. There you go trickster, we have fallen for it. Satisfied? This response brought out the secessionist thoughts hidden underneath neatly.

Luckily my most feared question did not come up. If they have inquired about the presence of LTTE leader Prabakaran’s photos in the protests, we would have been goners. For many would have said Prabakaran as their leader and called themselves a LTTE cadre. I think since the majority was Tamil media, we were saved that moment.

There are a few more pain points to note as well,

  • at some particular point someone on the stage became emotional and started shouting
  • at the end of the press meet someone from dias called the press people and explained for some obscure question asked in the middle somewhere and was given no consideration
  • answered almost every question put forth, even for things that were beyond the purview of the movement
  • naive – couldn’t judge questions that would eventually bring out the bad hidden under

Last Words

I understand this was the first press movement most would have attended and there might be slips, but some I have put forth are blunders. At least I think them as political blunders. At the end, I am under the confusion, whether I am complete fool who thinks himself to be intellectual enough to write this piece or I am actually more mature than the amateurs.

I wonder when everything was shared over the facebook, Why wasn’t a call for opinions on how to take this movement was not called for? Why wasn’t the points to be spoken in the press meet discussed over with others? Did they assume themselves to be the leaders of the movement? It is more questions for me. If this press release is going to decide the future of the movement, then the epitaph has been written between the lines of the press release.

A Day of Activism in Anna University

A recollection of the events that happened on 18th March 2013 Anna University Strike in support of students striking all over TamilNadu to press for sanctions against SriLanka in response to killing of Tamilians.

Anna University, a silent place where political issues rarely rise to the surface saw its own share of Student Activism for a political humanitarian issue on March 18th 2013. This is a recollection of what happened on the day as I know it.

Pre-Strike Activity

Loyola Student Hunger Strike started about a week ago in support of a referendum against the SriLankan Government for Genocide of Tamilians during the Last Eelam War with the LTTE and ended only to snowball the movement across all over Tamil Nadu. With the IITians joining the protest on 17th March, it was time Anna University students came out of their comfort cocoons and took to the streets.

I was sitting at a WiFi hut near the canteen talking about the extra-ordinary presence of a large group of police posted in the Saidapet Court. I have been reading that the student movement has come to a conclusion that sitting and protesting wouldn’t move things and has decided to take things to the real world by picketing the central government offices. Just then a student near me was talking over the phone about the presence of police in the campus. I let it slip through, since the Computer Science Department was hosting technical festival Abacus ’13, and police, usually, is the topic when people come in to university premises, since they were deployed about a week ago in response to the Loyola Strike.

Getting there

It was about 10.40AM when I was sitting in the Student Research Lab of Institute of Remote Sensing trying to learn time series analysis using the R Statistical Package for my Thesis. The friends who have tried to go out for refreshment came back and reported that students aren’t allowed outside the building. There has been a strike called on by the students by 10.30AM and all the buildings have been ordered to lock down to prevent other students from joining them. I began tweeting..

At about 11.00AM my friends went on a scouting party and found a open door unguarded and slipped out, when I received the tip and by the time I went there staff have figured it out and the door was closed shut right before me. Then I saw the watchman going to the loo and walked out of the front door just like that, collected my friends and joined other in front of the red building by 11.20AM.

The Sitting

The tar road in front of the Red building at 11.30 in a sunny day. There couldn’t be a bad choice for sitting all day in the shady green campus. But this is activism and it has to be done (it looked like that). So we sat there all day.

Amid all this, someone informed us that the university VC is on his way to the scene and a poster is on its way, we are supposed to hear him talk and sign on the poster and move away. This created a small outcry and I think plan was dropped. What actually happened was, the VC arrived, talked without a public address system and the staff members stood under the building watching over us. Which effectively meant nothing to a large section of us who didn’t hear a single word.

Co-ordination and Organization

Sitting there all day, almost every word I heard was about the number of holidays they would get, how the internals would be affected, whether they would be given attendance for the day and what the poor souls from the Computer Science Department will do as their technical events start today. Every now and then among the shouts about posing right for the media cameras I would hear about the Sri-Lankan issue. I shifted my place 3 to 4 times trying to locate myself into the core group, but to no success, for I couldn’t find the core group.

There wasn’t a visible set of students organizing, everything happened ad-hoc. Someone thought people needed water in the searing heat and brought a sack of water packets, someone figured out they needed money for refreshments and collected money on the spot among us and brought biscuit packets and more water. Someone, who I think the core group which started this went out and returned back with a poster stating “Anna University Students Support Eelam Student Strike”. When someone thought the final year Under-grads should lead, or whatever, they formed a human chain surrounding us sitting there, then dissipated away as they began to realize it was a bit useless at that place. It took a lot of roasting on the metaled road before someone brought a roof over our heads around 3.00 in the evening. People were holding the support ropes in hands and standing in place of the pegs. Finally someone (me) thought they could place a big stone and tie the rope. Someone wanted to tie the poster to two poles and hold it, then they realised they are better off letting it hang from the tent roof top.

So it was all that “someone” who did things, the people who just did it without wanting credits, I do not know who bought me the water and I do not for whom my money bought biscuits. Almost no one knows who brought that tent, and no one know how it stood. It was all left for “someone” to do.

The Girls Standoff

My last update in twitter was this ..

I tried to update from mobile phone but a feature phone with a flaky GPRS connection wouldn’t suffice. So I rushed to my department where I have left my belongings, brought my laptop found a spot where I could get WiFi and posted those tweets. While I posted the last tweet I was really hoping there would be some sort of standoff by 5 and maybe we will leave by 8-9PM. To my surprise as I was posting my last tweet I could see people standing up and dissipating. When I rushed to the spot people were talking about dispersing as the time was over. I found that a group of 6 have obtained permission for the protest from the Dean and they have promised to wind up by 5PM and it has been given in written signed by the six. So that was what being explained to others, but the girls weren’t satisfied. They wanted the protest to continue, they said winding up at 4.30PM is kind of dumb and loked like as if we are office workers. They wanted to stay. While even the boys who wanted to stay were up on their feats and looking around hoping to get in touch with someone with the same idea, the girls didn’t even get get up, they just sat saying it was their right to express. They aren’t saying anything against the college or the government, they just wanted to show their support for the SriLankan Tamils. They wanted the government to understand. But the organizers clearly had their own plans, they informed people might be arrested or even worse lathi charged if they stay there beyond 5PM. Luckily there were a set of protest-aware girls who explained the difference between the arrest and detention and the police are here to give protection not beat them. Those who initiated the protest and their supporters clearly wanted their way out before anything could go amess, hence it was informed that, it was planned to be here until 5 and they will leave by 5 and anyone staying here beyond that is their own wish. With that girls chose to stay and some boys like me who thought protest should go beyond the office hours stayed.

The End

Those who wished to go were informed to shout a slogan and disperse. And so it happened. What was left behind were a group of Post-Grads with a handful Under-Grads. The police were consulted and they informed us we can do whatsoever silent protest as long as we are inside our house, that is our Anna University but the head of the house clearly wanted us out by 5PM. Then there was a lot of discussion and it was finally decided to create a group email, inform people, plan and organize a protest if necessary on the day the college reopens. For once we are out today, we cannot come in until it reopens, so there is no way Anna University is going to protest. What ever protest we want to do shall remain as a protest by the Citizen of India by coordinating with others organizing things outside. The protest of the day shall end there.