The modern day cyber world has turned many a popular personalities into bloggers. In Tamil Nadu, the local administration minister, Mr. M.K.Stalin, has become a celebrity blogger in his own website. Following his younger brother, Mr. M.K.Azagiri is busy in creating his own website as well. Bollywood has recently witnessed stars such as Amir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Sharukh Khan as bloggers amidst controversies. The latest political personality-turn-blogger is India’s Union Railway Minister Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav. Lalu, the management guru, is now Lalu the blogger. The Union Railway Minister has launched his own corner in cyberspace, where one can read his views on current ‘hot topics’, listen to audio recordings and exchange comments with him. Last week Lalu Prasad popped up on MyPopkorn, a new India interactive video ‘infotainment’ portal (www.mypopkorn.com) launched by Digital Media Convergence Ltd(DMCL), an initiative of the Essel group. In his opening blog Mr.Lalu shares his personal take on the Gujjar issue. His views are In posted in English, but you can click to hear his comments in Hindi. Since then, dozens of readers have uploaded their own views and contributions in both languages.Most of them are addressed to Mr.Prasad in his capacity as Railway Ministerand his blog has subtly morphed into a page where lay Indians directly address their grievances and reactions to him. From the date of inception, MyPopkorn has been getting two visitors a day, for its eclectic video content which ranges from clips on a Vijay Mallya party to advice on breast cancer for women. Viewers have posted videos to counter Lalu’s view on the Gujjar crisis-so the site seems to be even-handed when it comes to such content. But its core attraction for many viewers might be the TV ‘Webisodes’ which encapsulate the typically 30 minutes episodes of popular TV serials from Sony, Star, Zee and other sources into 3 miniues clips. DMCL CEO Eashwar Jha told that it has already acquired some 18,000 hours of video content for reprocessing. It remains to be seen how interactive the Lalu blog becomes, but he is not about to rest on the laurels he reaped for his earthy take on ‘desi’ management that is already transforming the fuddy duddy image of the railways.
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