Usually we become temporarily agitated by some issue, but as time passes by and media starts to talk about other things, we tend to forget. I’m talking about the [[http://floatingsun.net/blog/tags/reservations|reservations issue]] — lets not try to forget about it. Lets not let it die. It will shape the future of our country and our kids.

Here are some recent news stories:
* [[http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=72885|IITs to increase intake by 54%]]
* [[http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1913881.cms|Anti-reservation stir restarts]]
* [[http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=72743|PMK wants quota rollout in 'one go']]
* [[http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=72749|BJP promises quotas in minority institutes if elected into power]]

Unfortunately, I missed the [[http://youth4equality.org/images/blackday.jpg|black day]] :-(

If you want to help out and/or show your support, visit the [[http://youth4equality.org/aspx/default.aspx|Youth for Equality]] website.

I am //so// out of words right now. If I did try to speak, I think I’ll only end up cursing the PM and the HRD minister. Why the outrage? As you [[http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/may/23quota3.htm|might have heard]], the **UPA government has decided to go ahead with the 27% reservation plan for OBCs**.

I **strongly urge** all those who feel this is wrong to join [[http://youth4equality.org|Youth For Equality]] — their website has lots of information, so make sure you’re convinced before you join. They sum up my feelings well:

//The youth of today feels that they have been abandoned by their own country. Despite the intensity of the protests and the ongoing negotiations, the UPA government has decided to push through with its proposed 27% quota for OBCs.
ARE WE LIVING IN A DEMOCRACY OR DO WE HAVE TO BOW DOWN TO THIS AUTOCRATIC REGIME???WE WILL NOT GIVE UP OUR STRUGGLE-WE WILL NOT STOP OUR PROTEST-THE STRIKE WILL CONTINUE. WE HAVE BEEN BETRAYED!

Students have been on an indefinite hunger strike for 11 days and have been starving themselves to death, but this shameless government ruled by senile fools shows the audacity to have a party to celebrate 2 years in governance!!!

We will fight this unjust,baseless and populist policy till we get justice

“Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai,
dekhna hai zor kitna bazuein katil mein hai!” //

Its time to join hands. //BE HEARD//.

I was looking through [[http://petitiononline.com|PetitionOnline]] and I [[http://www.google.com/custom?domains=www.PetitionOnline.com&q=reservation&sa=Search&sitesearch=www.PetitionOnline.com&client=pub-5090005701884356&forid=1&channel=4432003626&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&cof=GALT%3A%230000FF%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23333333%3BVLC%3A660099%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A666666%3BGIMP%3A666666%3BLH%3A50%3BLW%3A350%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.PetitionOnline.com%2Fimages%2Fpol_google_logo.gif%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.PetitionOnline.com%2F%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en|found]] more than 20 petitions regarding reservations. What a waste — this way our votes will just get divided. Besides, who knows where these votes are going to? There has to be a better way of making ourselves heard more directly right?

So I quickly hacked a simple shell script that sends an email to the President, the HRD Minister, the editors of some news papers etc. The script should work on any regular Unix-like workstation.

Download: [[http://floatingsun.net/code/be-heard.sh|be-heard.sh]]

Run it as: ”bash ./be-heard.sh”

It works for the version of ”mail” installed on my machine. Some older versions don’t support the ”-a” option. In that case, just edit the file and delete the ”-a” option. I’m working on an alternative version in Python which will hopefully be a little more portable.

When you run the script, it will ask you your name and email address — these will be used to compose the email. Feel free to change the text of the email in the script. If you have recommendations for adding any more email addresses, please let me know.

I hope all of you will download and run this script. If you feeling more adventurous, you might want to run the script periodically. Of course, that way you risk being classified as spam by the recipients, but thats the trade-off of getting noticed — its your call. SPREAD THE WORD!!

Since the bash script was giving a lot of problems on older software, I hacked up an equivalent Python script. This should, hopefully, be a little more compatible with systems. The only requirement is standard Python installation, and a local sendmail process (which you will usually have on a Unix-like workstation).

Download: [[http://floatingsun.net/code/be-heard.py]]

Usage: python be-heard.py ‘Your name’ ‘your email’

**Note that your name and email address should be entered within single quotes**