Article: Blogs on developmental communication and female foeticide making news

Blogging is a happening thing on the cyber world. Weblog or blog may be described as journal of thoughts, happenings, links and ideas or may be they have expanded beyond their initial definition. Blogs and bloggers are everywhere on the net, no topic is short for them. Right from elections, local events, political debates, sports, controversies, trends, music, pets and animals all have blogs on them. Personal blogs, talking of one’s experience and voice are also popular; though sharing too much information can be risky. Some new blogs are trying to become a knowledge hub on the important developmental issues. For example a blog with address www.programmecommunication.blogspot.com, focuses on ‘communication for social development’. It is an effort to disseminate learning’s from across the globe on various techniques, medium, tools, channels and styles being used in communicating for social development. Communication for social change is a topic of debate within developing countries world, social scientists, donor agencies, behavior change communication specialists, and advocacy experts. The much happening discussions is that why human development indicators are not changing at the pace which it should, inspite of solutions being there. Are we able to reach with right knowledge to communities, and able to motivate them to convert the same to action. Development professional are experiencing an increasing pressure to bring about a sustainable change within the communities and area in which they work. This blog is an effort to assimilate the learning, and to disseminate further. The blog will be synthesis of field level experiences, and debates in context of communication and social change. It is said that human development depends on the involvement of people in the critical reflection of their own behavioral patterns and roles of various actors in their society. Similarly another blog namely www.foeticide.blogspot.com is dedicated towards an issue of female foeticide. This is particularly important for districts in Indian states where child sex ratio is dwindling; these states include Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Strikingly fourteen districts in India have child sex ratio below 800 girls to 1000 boys, putting an urgent need to collate knowledge and raise concern on the issue.Though these blogs many be a tiny drop in the ocean but over time, when one gets trust of the visitors blogs like these will start creating an impact. They could be platform to foster collective intelligence, and may be bedrock for knowledge on the issue of communication and foeticide. Though there is always that criticism that blogs don’t reach grass roots, for that matter that criticism and that stands true for internet medium but nevertheless reach is expanding and Blog’s power to publish and share will help influence change. Search engines too love blogs and they come high on search which contributes to raise concern and visibility of the issue. Though it will take some time to establish the voice and build an audience and initially, these blogs may be one more way to communicate with limited audience but that also will help in expanding the knowledge base on these two important areas of human development.