Hi all,

Now this may seem a little premature but live mobile phone video streaming from your mobile is here, and available now. Granted, in India there still isn’t a high speed 3G or 3.5G network to easily faciliate live mobile video streaming, but it’s coming and that’s probably when live video streaming from your mobile will start to take its first baby steps in the Indian market space. Both the infrastructure and the software to make it possible are two very important things for the further development and adoption of new technology on the mobile platform and I’ve recently started playing with it here in the UK. Here’s my take and what’s happening and why you early adopters in India should be keeping a keen eye on developments.

Firstly, I really do hope a viable 3G network is established in India by the end of December 2008 but I’m not holding my breath for any major surprises as there’s a lot of red tape to cut through and a lot of spectrum to sell before the transmission masts start going up. My ultimate hope is to be able to live stream from the Jagriti Yatra train so that the world can view out journey as it happens in glorious, all be it slightly grainy video.

So, you’re all wondering by now what the heck I’m talking about. This is how it works. You have a mobile phone which has a camera on it. It’s something most of us have today. Most mobiles can also record video and a lot of you have probably recorded videos on your mobiles already and probably uploaded them on to Orkut, Facebook, Myspace or Youtube. This is the conventional, normal way of doing things. Enter live streaming. This enables you to record a video on your mobile and in real-time transmit it up to the web, either directly to a mass content delivery service like Youtube or to a specialist web site. As this is going on, others anywhere in the world with a fast enough broadband connection can watch your video stream, live. There’s usually a notable amount of delay. Depending on your mobile phones network speed you can get delays of a few seconds, all the way up to a couple of minutes. I’ve experiemented with live streaming from my home wifi network which results in very little network lag.

I’m currently aware of two items of software that’ll allow you to live stream from your mobile. Firstly, there’s QIK . They’re still in alpha test phase so you’ll have to queue up to get an account. For those who don’t know, alpha test phase means that the author of the software has released a very early version of the software and it getting limited number of people to trial it and report back bugs and other problems with the software so that the author can improve things in the software and add new features. To use QIK, you have to go to their web site and sign up. An SMS gets sent to your mobile to verify your mobile phone number and then you wait, usually about 24 to 48 hours to get a link to download the software over the air dirctly to your mobile.  I’m using a Nokie N82 and N95 which both un the S60 operating system on which QIK appears to run smoothly. It may also work on Sony Ericcson phones as well as others, but I’ve not tested this out yet.

Here’s an example of a movie I recorded directly on my Nokia N95 this morning on my way to work:

My first impressions of QIK were good, especially when streaming from the wifi hot spot at home and in my office. Outside in the street when I was on a 3G connection the lag was about two to three minutes. If you’re moving on a bus or in a car the lag dramatically increases. I’ve network seen lag (the time it takes the video to go from your mobile to internet) of up to ten minutes on a few occasions. When I’m within 3.5G coverage the lag is around 20-30 seconds which is quite acceptable, given the nascent stage of this technology. As you live-stream, the video goes up to the QIK web site. Anyone on the QIK home page will see a thumbnail of your video with a “Live” strip across it. If you click on it you’ll start to view whoever it is that’s streaming live at that moment in time. Once you stop recording video it gets archived in your online QIK account where you can tag it and describe it so that others can find your video. The other nice feature is a “private” option which means you can stream up the QIK web site but no one else will be able to watch. This might be useful if you’re just recording something to for others to watch later on. One of the biggest annoyances of QIK is that there’s no way to search for anything on their web site which actually makes it hard to find your own video on the web site unless log in in to your account first. That’s quite annoying when you’re trying to send somebody, who’s not signed up to QIK, a link to your live stream. I’ve still not worked out an easy way to do this. Come on QIK! Sort it out!

The other option to live stream video from your mobile is Flixwagon which is also in early alpha test phase. I’ve yet to get my account confirmed on Flixwagon but one cool feature I’ve noticed on their web site is the ability to live stream directly up to Youtube and also search for video stored in their database. These two features are both missing from QIK. I’m still waiting for my Flixwagon account to be set up so I’ve not got any comments yet about the quality of the service in general. I’ll let you all know how I get on with Flixwagon at a later date.

One thing to keep in mind about both these services and any other like it is that they’re VERY data intensive. Unless you’re on an unlimited data plan, you’re going to rack up a HUGE phone bill. This is luckily something that’s already very sorted in India. You’ve already got a good selection of flat fee, “eat as much as you like” data tariffs. Don’t let this totally put you at ease as most network carries will impose a fair usage policy on your account and give you a number of warnings when you exceed your limits before they’ll get nasty and probably cut you off. Basically, go easy and don’t over do the streaming. In future, the networks will probably increase the data limits but it’ll be a long while befoe you see totally unlimted data capacity.

Live streaming opens up a whole raft of “interesting” questions and concerns. I’m sure you can all think of the REALLY bad things one could do with live mobile streaming but I’m a technologist and I’m not here to preach caution or put the fear of god in to you about the all the BAD things this technology could entail. There are a lot of positive things about live mobile streaming. One one swoop it shrinks the work right down in size and makes us all citizen video journalists. Capture amazing moments in history such as a sports event, show the world around your city, record family occassions such as weddings so that others who couldn’t make it can be part of the special day and use it in many business applications. The list of positive things one could do with live video streaming from your mobile is endless.  As I mentioned at the top of this blog entry, I’m really hoping that the Indian 3G network is up and running by the end of this year. If that happens, expect a lot of live video streaming from the Jagriti Yatra train and from the various places we’ll be visiting at each stop. This is totally cool technology.

Everyone is socializing these days. If it’s not social networking on the Internet then it’s social networking in real life. More recently the social networking bug has started to catch on in the mobile world. A crop of new and not-so-knew services have entered the market and most have been slowly circulating by word of mouth. I guess since this technology is so new - many of the entrants on the mobile social networking scene are still in "beta" test mode and treading causiously with a limited audience to test the waters, so to speak.

I wanted to write about the onset of mobile social networking as I believe it will have a huge impact on the Indian mobile user base. It’s a well known fact that in India there are now more mobile subscribers then land line subscribers and the uptake of mobile phones is sky rocketing on a monthly basis. The pervasive nature of the mobile is far greater than the Internet which still has not reached the large majority of the India population. Even within the middle classes in India, the Internet is a luxury and for those who do have "broadband" services in India, the speed and reliability is not a patch on international services in Europe, USA and parts of south east Asia you’ll find faster, more reliable braodband services and less confusing tariff structures and options. However, where India does have a very robust user base, with good service support is in the mobile phone market. Nokia is by far the dominant hand set manufacturer in the Indian. GSM rules the roost, so most people are still on what’s known as 2G (80% of userbase). There is a growing number of subscribers signing up to the CDMA packages which are on offer as they provide a faster experience on the mobile,. This technology is commonly referred to as 2.5G but this is primarily being used by business users right now in India - especially by those with laptop data cards from the likes of Reliance, Vodafone and Tata Indicomm. The advent of third generation (3G) networks in India has yet to arrive although there has been recent consensus in the Indian parliament on how to carve up the 3G spectrum (as recently as March 2008) although there is hot debate on right now about whether or foreign mobile networks should be allowed to buy up 3G spectrum licenses in the Indian market place. The next few months will prove very interesting for all those who are watching the developments with 3G in India.

How can we, as a social entrepreneurship venture, utilise the mobile social network given that it penetrates the Indian population to such a great (and growing) degree? More specifically, I am really interested to know how we, as an organisaiton, can exploit the mobile services in India to build a mobile community that will glu together our ever growing network of supporters and build a truly awsome mobile social network. Allow me to highlight a number of interesting technologies which almost anyone in India with a modern mobile phone can take advantage of right now.

If you are in India, in possession of a mobile phone and reading this blog entry, then there is one pre-requisite you must know about. Everything I’m about to write about requires that you have a data plan for your mobile. Most Indian mobile networks offer this at a flat fee rate. If you don’t have a data plan then contact your mobile providers customer services and ask them what your options are. You should tell them that you want to access the internet from your mobile. It also helps if you have a modern mobile phone. If you have a Nokia, Sony Ericson, LG, Moto or Blackberry that’s less than 2 years old (as of March 2008) then you’ll probably be able to utlise everything I’m about to tell you about.

First up is Twitter. If any of you have been using Facebook you’ll know what I mean when I say that Twitter is simply the status field of Facebook. You can Twitters away from your computer or even your mobile phone. If you have a Blackberry you can get a great bit of software (free) called Twitterberry which allows you to tweet on the move. Twitter, put another way, allows you to post short 140 character messages to an open or closed group (or groups) of friends and acquaintances. Should you wish to keep your messages within a closed group of friends you can do so, or alternaively you might feel that your dialy life is so immense that the whole twitter community needs to know about it. The option is yours and your privacy is in your own hands. Lets say you get to go to an amazing conference, fully paid up by your employer, but your colleagues and your friend outside your company are so lucky and don’t get to go. Well get them all on your Twitter list and you can send them all regular, brief updates from your conference and make them feel a part of the event. It might sound frivolous but once you get on to Twitter it can become highly addictive!

Next up is Trutap. This is a very young company. They’ve been in business for under a year (as of March 2008) and recently secured some more funding to expand their business. They have a user base in over 100 terriories world wide and have a strong and growing user base in India already. The idea behind Trutap is to unite a number of existing technologies in to one application. Many of you reading this may already have your own blog, a lot of you will have camera phones on which you takes photos and vidoes and post them up to your blogs. Others may like to chat on Instant Messenger platforms such as Yahoo Chat, MSN Live Chat, AOL Instant Messenger and Google Talk. Trutap unifies all their seperated plaforms in one Java application which you can download for free to your mobile. On your mobile just go to http://m.trutap.com to get an over the air download of the application.  Once you’re signed up you can form groups of friends and message them en-mass without incurring the cost of SMS’ing them all individually. You can chat to them all on their own respective favourite IM that they’re logged in to because in Trutap you’re logged in to all of them all at once. Your IMs will go from your mobile to their laptop screens and back to your mobile. You can even use Trutap to write your blog, take photos and post them all up to your blog.  Trutap is in the process of upgrading their current software and when the new version is out you’ll be able to do a whole lot more. You can already download a Facebook application that suppors Trutap and show your IMs and messages from Trutap in your Facebook page. Keep an eye on them as they’re a hot start up with a lot of growth ahead of them.

Finally, there’s a combination which packs a punch. A lot of you may have heard of the photo sharing community called Flickr. It’s popular with the prosumer and professional photography crowd and is arguably one of the best photo sharing web sites in existance today, although there are many alternatives which offer a similar experience. Those of you who own Nokia N-Series mobiles may not know that your phone has the ability to directly upload photos you take on it to Flickr. So if you have a Flickr account check out the Flcikr upload option on your handset. The built in uploader is rather basic so you what you might want to consider is using a free download Java application called Shozu. It is a nifty piece of software which makes the process of taking and loading photos to Flickr (and other places on the web) a hole lot easier and more fun. Using Shozu you can post your pictures up, view the comments people have left on your photos, reply to those comments, tag, title and describe your photos and even manipulate your images.  The other great feature of Shozu is that you can subscribe to feeds which allows your phone to download photos and video in the background and automatically with no user intervention. I ususually have my phone do this over night so that in the morning I have a collection of short news bulletin videos and tech news updates ready to watch or listen to on the train in to work. It’s a really great sevrice and I do encourage you to check it out.

What all this mobile social network enables us as an organisation and you as participants to do is form social networks online and on your mobiles. It allows for the exchange of ideas, photos, videos, opinions and a host of other things. It is what’s known as user generated content. Just image if you’re one of the selected Yatri’s or a registered participant and you’re on the Jagriti Yatra train with all this mobile technology at your fingers tips. You can Twitter about what you’re currently doing and let every one know that you’ve just shaken hands with the CEO of a huge company. You could snap photos on your mobile during the Yatra at every stop, of all the people you are meeting and immediately post it up to Flickr so that everyone can see what you’re going through during the Yatra. How about doing a short video interview on your mobile phone with your travelling buddies and talking about the excitment and discoveries you’ve made and then  posting them up immediately to your blog so that TV, radio and newspaper journalists can get an almost real time picture of what’s going on? How about Trutapping with all your buddies whilst you’re on the train? You don’t need a laptop anymore to send instant messages to your friends on Google talk, Yahoo or MSN. The mobile opens all these doors to you and much more.

We’d like to hear from you about your experiences with the above mentioned mobile social networking services. Download them and play around. Check out the features and report back your findings here on this blog. Perhaps you’ve already been using a lot of this stuff and you know of other exciting services you want to share with us? Go ahead and post your suggestion here.  I look forward to reading your comment.

Kaustav Bhattacharya

Before I met the inspiring Jagriti Yatra team, I was your average “bindaas” girl who was caught up in a busy schedule that revolved around work and friends. My friend introduced me to the concept of Jagriti Yatra after attending the Yatra launch on the eve of India’s Independence Day. After hearing about the concept and meeting the team, I was tremendously inspired by their vision of empowering the youth of India by awakening their spirit of entrepreneurship and urging them to define their own destiny and the future of India through their entrepreneurial efforts.

I am inspired by this effort to make a difference to the society we live in. It has changed my entire perspective and lead me to staunchly believe that I as an individual can make a difference. The positivism of the team as well as their belief that each individual has the capacity to bring about change instigated me to think positively and find ways that I can contribute to this great effort. Imagine the potential of being on a 16 day train journey with 400 likeminded individuals who are fired by the same zeal and enthusiasm- I see limitless potential ahead of us.   Together, we can define the future of our nation.

Frankly speaking, I would never have gathered courage on my own to even dream of such an ambitious journey for youth to bring about positive change through a train yatra across India to meet real heroes and learn from bottom-up innovators and entrepreneurs who are changing, challenging and redefining India today. Today, I am inspired to dream big and have the wings to dream and aspire towards contributing to India’s future.

Before getting involved in Jagriti yatra, my thinking was limited much like that of the common man battling the everyday urdles of life. Like the majority of youth, I admired the Tata’s and Ambani’s from afar for their long hard journey to success. Films of a patriotic nature such as Rang De Basanti and Lagaan had a fleeting impression on me rather than inspire me to think about how I could contribute towards the building of my nation. We are so caught up in our daily schedules that we ignore the greater mission of our life – to achieve something that touches the lives of others and make a lasting impact long after we are gone rather than remain caught up in a net of day to day personal issues. Life is too short, if seen in limited focus of living from day to day.

As the population grows, an economy has to provide more jobs, more goods and services for the growing population. Copying others won’t help. People these days are so afraid of taking risks, of taking an innovative approach to beating competition because we are unwilling to give it a shot for fear of failure. One forgets the dictum that “if there is a will that is a way”. We need to acknowledge risk and yet dare to dream big. We can find answers to the challenges of today if we have self-confidence and are willing to think of innovative and creative solutions. I believe that if have confidence in our ability to innovate, no power can stop us from achieving our dreams.

 Jagriti Yatra boosts the confidence of budding young yatris to innovate, to think out of the box and dare to take calculated risks. Innovation is fundamental to being a successful entrepreneur. I think Jagriti Yatra will cultivate entrepreneurs amongst the participants by empowering them with a vision, self belief and the freedom to dream.  India needs entrepreneurs to create wealth and sustain the current level of growth. Entrepreneurs have the power to drive the future development of this country at a pace that has not been seen before.

 Learning a subject in a classroom setting has little impact. Jagriti Yatra gives us the opportunity to meet and learn in a practical manner from entrepreneurs in their “karma bhoomi”- those who have made a difference. Each Yatri will explore their own ideas, and develop their latent potential for innovation by meeting real entrepreneurs face-to-face and learning from the experience of the real heroes when they started out in their incarnation as an entrepreneur. The main aim of the journey is to get Yatri’s to think in a systematic way pertaining to all the aspects of innovation and in turn entrepreneurship.

Through this yatra I feel each participant will get to discover the entrepreneur in themselves by learning to explore their passion, dream big, innovate upon their ideas for change, explore opportunities within risks, the role of leadership and team work and the ability to think outside the box. This is a key life skill and I recommend it highly to each one of you. Come, be a part of a new generation of change makers.

Jagriti Yatra had a strong presence at the Navi Mumbai Olympics 2008. The mega sporting carnival which was organized by the sports management firm, Sportz Village was a resounding success where participants from eght nodal cities competed in true sportsperson spirit in twelve events in four age groups that ranged from the under fourteen’s to the above forty’s. The Navi Mumbai Olympic games was aimed at promoting sports amongst the youth in particular, across the eight nodal cities that comprise Navi Mumbai. The events were extremely well attended by ardent supporters who turned up in very large numbers to encourage participants and cheer on their home teams. Jagriti Yatra had a strong presence at all the events, which were spread over three weekends and brought outstanding talent from the eight nodal cities to compete for the top ranks in the host city of Vashi, Navi Mumbai.

Jagriti Yatra and the dynamic organizers of Navi Mumbai Olympics share a common ethos - encouraging youth to find their passion and aspire for excellence in their chosen field. Both the teams are striving hard to enable young men and women to realize their potential and use their talent to make uplift the lives of those around them- be it through the medium of sport or other means of social and economic upliftment. Jagriti Yatra was proud to be present during the course of the sports extravaganza and at the grand closing ceremony to congratulate the winners and seek some of the brightest young stars across Navi Mumbai between the age group of 18-25 to offer them the golden opportunity of being a part of this unique national adventure. Jagriti Yatra is offering ten talented men and women who won medals at the Navi Mumbai Olympics (and fall between the target age group of 18-25) a stellar opportunity to meet with India’s national heroes who are building the nation through the medium of a unique national adventure by registering to enter the selection process at www.jagritiyatra.com/registration.

Jagriti Yatra invites you to join this outstanding group of bright, talented participants who show the promise of being the future leaders of the country in this panoramic rail journey as they travel around India meeting and gathering valuable pearls of knowledge from the doyens who have carved a niche for themselves in the field of business and social entrepreneurship.

Selection of participants and facilitators is underway. Don’t miss this golden opportunity to meet the “change makers and unsung heroes” and discover ways to use your talents to make a difference to the world around you. Register now at www.jagritiyatra.com/registration

Hi everyone!

It’s a great day! No really - it is! Some of you might have noticed an update on our home page and for those who haven’t, go check it out. Why? Well, we have officially released the Jagriti Yatra geet.  Our friends over at McCann Erickson India along with ad-guru Prasoon Joshi and team have created this geet for us and we think it rocks! If you like the song, please email in and let us know. Forward the URL of the web site to your friends and colleagues and let them know about the Jagriti Yatra geet.

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you all know that we have two new ways of registering for Jagriti Yatra. You can now take advantage of our new three part registration process which makes it a little easier on the eye when filling out the form. We also understand that filling out a long form online can be problematic so now you can download a Microsoft Word Template from the web site and fill out the form on a computer then come back later and cut/paste the content in to the online form or email the Word document back to us. Alternatively you can print out the form and fill it out by hand and post it to us. How about that for convenience? We’re not stopping just yet to make the registration process easier. We’ll soon be posting multi-lingual versions of the form so that you can get it in the most popular Indian languages. Watch this space for more updates!

Until next time….

Kaustav.

It’s been a long time since we updated you all on the latest developments with Jagriti Yatra so here I am with an update.

A lot of new developments have been taking place over the last few months. The biggest news I have for you all is that we have finally opened our India office in the Prabhadevi area of Mumbai and we have appointed our project director and operations director! This is great news for us as we can now direct operations from the ground in India and meet people face to face. The project is now being directed by Gitanjali Banerjee and operationally directed by Swapnil Dixit. The office opened at the end of October and is going strong.

The second important announcement I am excited to share with you all is that we recently got our first major round of sponsorship. It’s a start but there’s still a long way to go for us. However, this kick-start has given us the ability to book the train for the journey and get our operations staff paid. We’re hot on the chase for corporate sponsorship and also courting interesting with individual donors. I can’t over emphasize enough just how important it is for us to get your support for this project as it will enable hundreds of young adults in India to realise their talents and help catapult them in to the world of bottom up, grass routes entrepreneurial thinking.

Moving on, I have the pleasure in announcing that Shashank Mani, he who was responsible for the 1997 Azad Bharat Rail Yatra in India,  and the inspiration behind the Jagriti Yatra is launching his book, India - Journey Through a Healing Civilization. The book chronicals the events leading up to the 1997 Yatra and goes in to the trials and tribulations of organising such an epic journey. There is plenty of insightful information about the importance of grass roots entrepreneurship and Shashank’s own professional views on how India must progress economically and culturally in the future if it is to grow a sustainable and diverse economy and compete on the world stage. The book is published by Harper Colins and will be launched at Waterstones, Picadilly on 1st December 2007 between 2-5pm. Come along and meet the author and purchase a signed copy of this great book.

I’m quite a keen blogger and also listen to many podcasts out there on the web. A recent one which caught my attention a few weeks ago was on the SmallBozPod, a blog and podcast dedicated to small business startups and entrepreneurs. I was reminded today about the story they ran back in October this year on Asian entrepreneurship by my colleague Ben so I thought I’d share it with you all.  The podcast talks about collaboration between Indian and British business and how the Indian entrepreneurial spirit is being seen globally today. Highly recommended so go take a listen when you have a moment.

That wraps things up for now. I promise to post more regular updates from now on and your comments are all very welcome so please don’t shy away from filling out the comments form.

‘Is the glass half empty or half full? Depends whether you are pouring or drinking’ said Bill Cosby’s mother in a conversation that reminds me of India in this 60^th anniversary year.

On the fiftieth anniversary of India’s independence, in 1997 we organised a national adventure – the Azad Bharat Rail Yatra. Two hundred young Indians participated in that Yatra and have since remained in close contact over the years. This is an extended family forged by the memories of twenty-two days of exhilarating, non-stop travel on a special train that covered 7,000 kilometers of India. We keep in touch through a web-based forum, and at heart; we simply remain attached to India. As I write this, these participants are planning another Yatra – the Jagriti Yatra with the theme of awakening entrepreneurship. 

Our aim for the Yatra was to discover the other India, an India beyond the English language. To me, this India was in the smaller towns where I had grown up as the son of an army officer; it was in my town of birth, Gorakhpur, and in Barpar, our ancestral village in the Deoria district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. During our travels we found more than one India. But the central theme that dominated the journey was India integrating with its own genius. By doing so will we build a country that is different and therefore able to compete and prosper in the new world. Only if we understand who we are and are comfortable with it, will we live lives of integrity. Participants discovered this first hand. They celebrated the integrity they saw amongst those they met during our travels.

There are some events and experiences that change the course of your life forever. The Azad Bharat Rail Yatra in 1997 was one such moving event for me. Luckily I maintained a day-to-day diary of the activities and emotions that I experienced during this 23 day journey. Reading this diary 10 years later fills me with nostalgia. India is just one country but travelling its length and breadth in a short period of time, at a young age, absorbing the sights and smells of the countries varied destinations, brought along with it mixed emotions of respect, concern, awe and most of all deep pride.

An article appeared in the Times of India in Nov 1997 that said "If you are a worker or a leader, if you have a cultural and adventurous bent of mind, if you have a civic sense and a feeling of community, if you are a good communicator then we are looking for you". As soon as I had read the article, I knew they were looking for me. I knew that this is exactly the kind of experience that I was looking for. Without any hesitation I rushed in my application to be a participant on the 1997 Yatra and before I knew it I was preparing for a journey of a lifetime!

As I go through the pages of my diary and see the photographs I can mentally relive the Yatra that began on Christmas Eve in Mumbai in 1997. I clearly remember the excitement and high energy levels as 150 youngsters from around the world assembled from around the country for the welcome orientation in Mumbai. I remember meeting Shashank, brain parent of the program, for the first time. I remember watching the Bharat-Bala Productions Vande Mataram Video on a giant screen. I had goose bumps as A.R. Rahman’s Vande Mataram echoed through the IIT-Powai auditorium and I remember eagerly waiting our departure to discover India, little realizing that I was going to discover myself as in the process.

The train became our home away from home. Food as provided on board via a special pantry car, special bath-rooms had been created with the added luxury of hot baths. Any compartment resembled an average teenager’s room- Jackets, dupattas, books, cassettes strewn all over, posters heralding messages of population control, environment protection and such adorning the walls and an atmosphere inside the train that was always warm and vibrant, with chatter and laughter among strangers who had now become family.  A chair car attached to the train became our assembly hall. A typical day on the train started at 6AM with the wake-up call of ‘Maa Tujhe Salaam’ on the train’s intercom, shower, breakfast and morning discussion before we arrived at our destination for the day.

From understanding the Gandhian way of life at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to staring at the Taj Mahal in Agra, from then the solitude of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, to rural Tilonia and then the disciplined life of Ralegaon Siddhi, from the serenity of Bodh Gaya to the story of Tatanagar, from the sound of Hari Prasad Chaurasia’s flute to the graceful movements of Manipuri dancers, the days went by quickly. New people& new experiences& local food& and a whole new world every day! Visiting the Eastern Naval command in Vizag and then the National Defense Academy in Pune, I can’t begin to summarize the impact and overwhelming fascination that each experience brought with it.  

As Kiran Bedi rightly said during the journey " Decide if you want to become an asset or a liability to your nation. If a majority of us become assets, then we are on our way to becoming a great nation". I believe that the yatra was made for me. 10 years later the bonds are still strong. The friends I made on the Yatra continue to be my closest ones over time and distance. It is like we have been bound forever by a spiritual experience, like we understand each other without having to say much. The Yatra has been more than just a train journey to me, it has shaped my thoughts, defined my purpose and directed the course for my future.

As the core team works hard towards repeating history and making the Yatra of 2007 (Jagriti Yatra) a reality, I wanted to pause and remember all the reasons why we are so committed to making the train journey happen again. In Kennedy’s words "Ask not what your nation can do for you, but ask what you can do for your nation".  Vande Mataram.

I remember those days - 10 years back, when I was studying for my chartered accountancy, little aware of what was happening in the society around me. I stumbled upon the project office of this project- Azad Bharat Rail Yatra in September 1997, where I had gone down to install a piece of accounting solution. That day was a turning phase in my life and I am sure this yatra had a significant change in lives of all the yatris. An experience that changed our thought processes - more from self-centered thinking to a passion for the real India and its people.

I met up with Shashank, Gauri and Sharma Uncle - it all seemed strange to me on the first day, when I was asked if I would like to work on this interesting project. A group of people trying to do something I had never heard of - taking the Indian youth on a train journey for 22 days ! From that day, I did not attend my office for the next 4 months or so [was just hoping that I wouldn't be kicked out of my chartered accountancy studies] and took over the project office for the Yatra. While I was not as lucky as the other Yatris who had a chance to be on the train, this Yatra gave me some excellent project management experience and a chance to meet the youth with heterogeneous background from all across India.

Organising this Yatra was no easy deal and a whole team of volunteers were dedicated almost 18-20 hours a day to make it happen. What made us all take those efforts ? It was probably a hidden desire within each of us - to be able to do something for the nation. I am sure every citizen of this country has that desire, but does not get a right channel to work towards it.

The first yatra was in 1997, after which all the participants were dispersed across the globe, busy with their professional lives, but the flame never died. Here is a bunch of the ex-Yatris who want to do it again in 2007. The world is a global village in the real sense - people co-ordinating across time-zones over the internet to make it happen.

Only a few months more to go and a lot to be done - will we succeed ?