Meet Ms. Bachi Karkaria, (far left in picture above), the latest addition to our jury panel (you have already met the other two members, in my previous post, here). She is among the country’s most respected journalists, a popular columnist, a chronicler of urbania and a media trainer.
She has created and edited some of The Times of India’s most successful papers. `Erratica’, her satirical column in the ToI, has had an increasingly devoted following since 1994, as does ‘Giving Gyan’, her more recent, straight-talking relationships column in the Mumbai Mirror.
Ms Karkaria was the first journalist seriously to track AIDS in India, and is now an internationally consulted authority on the subject. A game-changer, she is significantly responsible for the city-centric look of the print media. Multi-faceted local reporting and performance enhancement are the key components of her training sessions for journalists in India and abroad. She is a regular panelist on TV news networks. Ms Karkaria is the first Indian on the Board of the Paris-based World Editors Forum.
Her books include Dare to Dream, a best-selling biography of the legendary hotelier MS Oberoi, Mumbai Masti, a richly illustrated book capturing the city’s quirky soul, The Cake That Walked, on Flurys, Calcutta’s iconic tea-room, plus collections of her columns, Erratica, and earlier writing, Your Flip is Showing. She has written the commissioned corporate biographies of the Times of India Group and of Larsen & Toubro, India’s global engineering giant. She has contributed insightful essays to books documenting India’s social transformation
So now that we have rolled out the new TGDC website for the final rounds, it is time to make a mental note of all the updates that will be coming your way soon.
a) Everyone is curious what is going to hapen at the Palm Villas, Mumbai. An agenda is on the cards.We will be publishing it soon.
b) We are planning to live web-cast the event from Palm Villas (still waiting for official confirmation). So for all of you fans, we will bring the entire event live. You can participate in the live events, from wherever you are, watch your favorite teams and caste your votes.
c) We have already announced prizes for contest amongst fans. The exact details, rules and T&Cs will be published soon.
d) If you have signed up already for TGDC, you do not need to sign-up again (Just use your old log-in, but you must declare your team preference). New comers, welcome to TGDC - sign-up takes less than a minute.
e) For all those who are signing up as FANS, you need to upload your profile picture. Until you upload your profile pic and it passes moderation queue, your pic (thumbnail) will not appear in your team gallery. As Fans of a Team (declared during sign-up), if you are not happy with the progress made, you may decide to switch “loyalty” by just going to your settings page. Your team needs to work hard to retain you as a Fan
(f) Prizes for participants (100) are going to be announced soon, along with a estimated date of shipment. We have not forgotten about that!
(g) The Jury (for final event) will be logging in from time to time to stay tuned to the participating teams. It will be great to demonstrate your fan power, level of interaction and commitment to create compelling content.
All new fans signing up for GDC are now required to take an OATHhere. For all of you who have signed up before (and missed it), I urge you to read it up anyway (linked in login/sign-up section). As all of you know, at TGDC we work on a honor system, giving people full freedom to express their opinions, as long as they are in the right spirit and focus on issues. Repetitive posts, covering same issues, are not opened.
Just FYI, the 12 contestant blogs are now being run by the participants themselves, and they are responsible for opening/moderating the comments they receive. Each one is free to exercise their judgment about what to publish or not. If any fan decides to spam them, their accounts will be automatically deleted.
We are depending on you to uphold the high standards you have set for yourself. If you notice anything that is objectionable content, please direct our attention towards the same.
Looking for people who have done Route#1 over “3 consecutive clear blue sunny days” in a 4X4. Here is a stream to make you feel nostalgic.
Know what - I am really bored discussing rules, regulations, votes, results, contests, prizes and more - Will someone take me along for their trip? Oh I feel so envious reading the amazing posts streaming in from the super 12 teams.
