By M H Ahssan
This Blog is four now! And this year it has grown further in its humble steps of offering a perspective on India News that is unique in the internet space. After 663 posts and 11,129 comments, it has significantly grown in its readership through direct visitors as well as email subscribers. It has also succeeded in adding many new authors. Many more people have recognized its presence and many more have appreciated its coverage.
It is a challenge for a blog like HNN, which tries to give space to different voices through posts and comments, to satisfy all of its readers. While most people have praised the blog many others have questioned many posts that appear on it. It is the very nature that each of us want to see more of the particular view to which we subscribe. But if we cannot have the openness to read and hear the alternate viewpoint and have a sensible dialog on that then it is turning away from the presence of that alternate viewpoint which anyway exists. And this applies to all of us on both side of the viewpoint.
We often disagree with the alternate viewpoint and sometimes in a very strong way. But not agreeing to see it in print or hear it - unless it is bigotry or an invocation to violence - would be a non-readiness to really go beyond the obvious understandings that may have been developed by our own life expereinces. This may include posts which are critical of HNN and we hope we find space for those critical voices too in the coming year which this Blog has been doing till now by allowing the most critical of the commenters to put their point.
But every criticism also comes with a responsibility. Many of the authors have felt that many critical commenters often miss out on the main point of the article and pick up on a single line or even just a phrase in a whole post and comment on that and get stuck with it. Some authors have even felt discouraged at times by getting stuck in a fight over some side issue on which they did not base thier post upon. We hope the commenters understand this subtle relationship.
HNN is not intended to be a website like some of the most visited sites in the Indian internet space. Some of these sites are notorious for allowing comments which display the worst kind of bigotry, particularly against the Muslims, to keep the visitor numbers high. We aim to have the comments posted so that there is a conversation possible rather than achieving any commercial end.
Some readers have raised a valid point that the positive stories do not come out that often. The blog is most open to give most space to such stories but struggles with having enough writers to do this. The site continues to be a voluntary work and hence it has limited resources under which we are trying to do our best. Any help from any of you to expand the reach and aims of the blog is most welcome.
The past year has been tough for many in India and across the globe. A year in which some deadly terrorist attacks rocked India multiple times with Mumbai being the last straw on the collective psyche of the nation, the Indian stocks tumbling to one of the worst performances globally with the economy slowing down towards 6% growth and Amarnath fiasco almost turning into another national controversy splitted on religious lines.
But it was not all that gloomy. Perhaps the most important one was the collective HNN leadership coming out in a strong way against terrorism. Right from the Deoband conference, to the Fatwa against terrorism, the Ramlila ground anti-terrorism rally in Delhi, the Ulema meet in Hyderabad denouncing terrorism, to many rallies across the nation denouncing the Mumbai terror attacks has put to rest any doubt, for the fair mind, of where the HNN stand on terrorism.
The strong turnout in Kashmir elections, touching 60% turnout, was a great achievement. And so was the signing-off on the Indo-US nuclear deal.
As we enter the fourth year of operations, we hope that we are able to widen the perspective of the blog and for that there are some initiatives being thought over which may be rolled out in the coming days. We thank you all for the continued support and wish all of you all the best for the coming year.
On behalf of the HNN Team, I thank each of you for keeping this blog relevant and running now into its fourth year.
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