Blogs help raise social awareness in Madhya Pradesh

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Blogs are the latest platform being used to raise concern and stir public opinion and action on issues like maternal deaths, proving to be a good advocacy tool for issues that would have remained otherwise invisible.

INTERESTING BLOGS, which raise concern on social issues, are catching up in Bhopal in the heart of India, from the state capital of Madhya Pradesh. Blogs like www.safemotherhood.blogspot.com, reflect what is being written in the media on the issue of safe motherhood and raise concern on the high maternal mortality ratio in the state. The blog is contributing its bit to give visibility to the issue of maternal deaths and factors impacting the same. It brings out stories published at the district level edition or in the local newspapers which many a times do not figure at the state level media so that it can reach people who matter – the policy makers and people on the net. This blog takes extra effort either by translating the Hindi news items into English or adapting it from Hindi edition and reproducing it on the web log to draw attention to the cause.

Many a times these news stories can be a pitch for the big story – which probably adds to the purpose of this blog. Some examples in this regard could be of the stories of how lack of blood in the Bhind district hospital killed two during delivery on the same day or how state schemes face implementation glitches at ground level; stories that made it to the state news. This means that the blog is getting noticed. The blog also features in a Google blog search on the issue, and its updates are very fast on the search engine - an evidence to the fact that blog updates is shown faster on the search engines as compared to website updates.

The other blog from the state is www.newswhichmatter.blogspot.com . This started in the year 2005 and is still going strong as it has many people logging in. The others, which may be worth a mention, is www.mpchildinfo.blogspot.com, news on initiatives for children of the state, www.madhyapradesh.blogspot.com on tourism in MP and www.foeticide.blogspot.com reflects an issue of female foeticide in India, a pertinent issue today.

With facilities like Google alerts, possibilities are expanding for blogs like these and for the people who contribute to these blogs. A Google search on the topic will throw up more information via blogs than the existing websites.

Everyday hundreds and thousands of blogs get created on various sites like blogger.com, worpress.com, rediff.com that unravel issues that have been disregarded and haven’t got the attention they deserve. A great way of helping bring the plight of people into focus.