Butchers of Sopore and Birmingham

Nine years of calm before icy storm

Kashmir turns crimson with blood of Pandits

AN UN-ISLAMIC KIDNAPPING AND CHAOS IN THE VALLEY

The illusion of azaadi and Kashmir’s historic deception

How Pak's terror policy evolved in Kashmir

Birth of social media jihadists, death of Article-370

Operation Sindoor: When Indian missiles rained on Pak terror parade

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<div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-1_083012103127.gif" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img><p>The screen is crying, the circuits are full of tears. It's 11.30 at night and it's raining emotions again at #hotspot (pronounced hash hotspot), a visual-aided cyber watering hole for the South-side gang - a group of nihilistic Net-whining surfers in Delhi (South<i>actually</i>stands for south Delhi).</p><p>K<a>bir, whose visual marker on the screen is a Leonardo DiCaprio head, is mooning about how HotcoveX, a brainy bimbo (a techie head with a lush, naked body) who cruises the seedier parts of the Def Squad sites, isn't responding to his flaming hot e-mails of undivided love. </p><p>The DiCaprio head sits forlorn on the top of a white and full moon, occasionally sending down showers of crystal tears that hit the bottom of the screen with accompanying alphabets that go <-S-P-L-A-A-T->. His on-line buddies, meanwhile, tap their worn-smooth keyboards sympathetically.<br><br>AmaR69 (whose visual marker on the screen is a werewolf) types in: "Love is a {{{{{bum trip}}}}} dude. imho (a cyber abbreviation for 'in my humble opinion'): there are just too many babes out there and too little virtual time."<br><br>SammyDoZ (with a monster head and an axe sticking out of it): "Yeah, kick off your shoes, get hold of some Phenobarbitals, download some Erich Segal ... and soon you'll be back on the circuits, witty and charming, being Yo'ed by all the foxy women of the Web."</p><div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-2_083012103127.gif" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img>New love: S. Aggarwal, 61, surfs the Net for seven hours a day. Has persuaded family members to purchase computers.</div></p><p>And so it goes on. For hours. It takes a global village - or more specifically, an on-line community - to buoy K<a>bir. Logged off and in real time, K<a>bir is Kabir Sahani, 23, a shy and reticent individual who lives alone and has just started a career in copywriting.</p><p>He swears he has no real friends and surviving relatives - a mother and elder brother live far away in Jamshedpur. For many, three to four hours of surfing on the Net is as good a social life as it gets. But for Sahani it's the only life he has. </p><p>A hundred on-line hours every week is normal - sometimes though it gets intense and he has at times spent 48 hours staring at screens of scrolling text and graphics. His on-line buddies, he insists, are his only family. They may sound whacky, talk nerdish, act a bit irreverent at times - but they're fiercely loyal to each other. "If you take them away, I'd just curl up and die," he points out.<br><br>Sahani is part of a growing subgroup of people (among the 20 lakh Internet users in India today) who don't just surf on the Net but live for it. Call them the digerati: a motley group of mouse-happy Indians from different walks of life who spend all their leisure hours (and some of their work hours too) leaving footprints all over cyberspace. </p><div class="itemcenter"><amp-iframe height="62" title="" width="320" sandbox="allow-forms allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-top-navigation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" allowfullscreen src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Findiatoday%2Fbanner%2Fpreferred-source-new.html%3Fv%3D1.014%5Cu0026native%3D1" class="mrBt15 preferred-source-banner"> </amp-iframe></div></p><p>They speak a different language, their social life is non-existent, their families find them strange and distant, their real-time friends have given up on them. Yet there is no stronger attraction for them than shutting the real world with a slam of their door, clicking onto the dial-up mode and cruising that intangible ether between one computer and another. </p><div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-3_083012103127.gif" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img>Web wonder: Aslam Shems, 35, says the Net was made for him. Redesigned his house to suit his cyber lifestyle.</div></p><p>One could be a painter in Baroda who's into digital art and feels the canvas doesn't excite anymore. Or a remix musician in Pune who finds nothing more stimulating than "jamming on-line" with an anonymous brother musician playing an instrument he hasn't heard in Helsinki.</p><p>Or a shy accountant in Thiruvananthapuram who suddenly realises that persons like him with covert foot fetishes have a coherent culture on the Net, complete with support groups, chat rooms and a national network.<br><br>What is the attraction that makes them stay incessantly on-line? It's an amalgamation of many things - making friends, grappling with technology, amplifying your ideas and moving towards a futuristic global society. </p><p>"For me," says Simarprit Singh, a businessman in Delhi who spends seven to eight hours a day on the Net, "the excitement lies in finding that whatever interest/kink that I conjure up, there seem to be others out there who are just as interested." </p><p>Indeed, many see the Internet as this huge imaginary machine that is sorting out the human race into little sub-groups of mutual interests. Choose a subject - something as weird as circumcision problems of newborns - and sure enough you'll find a whole cyber community dedicated to it. </p><p>Travel to the extremities of the Web and you'll find dozens of sites devoted to subjects ranging from cigar fetishes or the common cold to a community that wants to unite India and Pakistan (their punch line: just imagine the combined cricket team!). Dental pain? Snot? Stomping on integrated circuit on the Web. </p><p>Each of these tribes comprise a virtual world in themselves. Where gods and demigods keep order, invent rules and help tenderfoots get their feet wet. Locals stroll down virtual boulevards speaking a peculiar home-grown lingo; couples fall in love enacting mating rituals as old as the species and as new as the next Java upgrade. </p><div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-4_083012103127.gif" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img>Cyber-creative: Painter Amitabh Pandey, 41, gave up the canvas for the screen. Says it has enhanced his skill.</div></p><p>And elders reminisce about the good old days, grousing how the place has gone downhill ever since the moronic throngs arrived. Ask Shyamsunder Aggarwal, 61, a Mumbai businessman who believes that people like him are a new class of citizens.</p><p>"The net brings a sense of empowerment because people there get truly involved with issues." Many like Aggarwal feel the net has been portrayed as ground zero for weirdos. It's as true as saying the real world is full of weirdos.</p><p> "There will always be weirdos," says Aggarwal, "but there is also social responsibility and community participation." the reason for that, many say, is because cyberspace is very conducive to frankness. </p><p>Shorn of their real bodies, the desire to know the other person's minds becomes overwhelmingly urgent. "You find yourself speaking with dead honesty." Besides, the medium invites you to contribute in any website or discussion group. </p><p>It isn't like the government is rushing to listen to you, but the fact is that as the net grows and if your ideas are valid, people will amplify them and they will be heard. "I find I'm a better global citizen today," says Aggarwal.<br><br>And a global citizen needs a cyber lifestyle. "The Net," says Aslam Shems who runs an advertising agency in Delhi, "I believe was made for me." He's part of a group of hardcore surfers who log on at a dedicated site each night and chat for hours and hours. </p><p>"We're all techies with similar interests ... it's like a cult - we look after each other." Most of his friends are in their 30s and prefer cruising the circuits to settling down and getting married. It wasn't always like that. </p><p>Back in 1996 - New Year's eve to be precise, Shems had a wild idea of throwing a party where his virtual friends scattered across the globe (through video conferencing) could meet his real-time friends. It was a blast - one of his virtual women pals even stripped for his real-time friends. </p><div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-5_083012103127.gif" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img>Net Files: School dropout Jason Fernandes, 15, feels he'll be Bill Gates II. His obsessions: aliens and the paranormal.</div></p><p>Today, his real-time friends have dwindled. Those who survive are anyway mirror images of him - cyberjunkies to the hilt. Recently, Shems spent a mini-fortune in his Greater Kailash pad setting up four upper-end machines, six phone lines, six air conditioners and a 10 KV genset so that he and his friends could surf together.</p><p>Why the generator? "Recurring power failures were driving me mad ... take a normal man and deny him access to his family. That's how I was feeling." But spare a thought for the families of these cyberadoes - how do they feel? </p><p>Most of them visualise the Net as a demon that traps you in your room, letting you out years later, pale, sweating, hairless, with atrophied legs and speaking a strange language. Ask Jatin Thakkar, 30, a chemical engineer in Mumbai. His wife Monica openly complains: "I hate his computer ... he spends all his nights with it." </p><p>Others complain how, even if they are dragged to parties, they stay silent and detached until they chance upon another Net geek. Says Sonu Munshi, 21, a Netizen who works with an advertising firm: "It's like you've imbibed a new culture, and your family or friends are in culture shock." </p><p>Look, for instance, at the language: it's purely ungrammatical, badly structured with code words like VoodooII card, a 12MB Video Ram and T1,T2,T3 lines and acronyms like LOL (laughing out loud) and RTFM (read the expletive manual). HEY!!!1, reads an all too typical message on the Web, I THINK KAJOL IZ REEL KOOL DOOD!1!!!.</p><div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-6_083012103127.gif" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img>Life partner: Ricky Kapoor, 31, a gaming freak, doesn't want to marry. He would hate reducing his on-line hours.</div></p><p>But what's nonsense to most is sheer poetry to the digerati. Admits Sahani: "On-line language can be awful. But fact is, it isn't like ordinary language." The knack is to look at online writing as "written speech". Most of it is composed fast and furious against the clock because being online costs money and one usually wants to pack in as much as possible.</p><p>On-line writing isn't there to have and hold; it's there to fire and forget. Sahani, shy by nature, points out that at first he felt afraid of typing something lest he be criticised, laughed at or, worse, ignored. "But once you get into the momentum, you get going deeper, get loose."<br><br>Of course, there is a flip-side. Cyberspace is also an arena where escapism thrives. People who live humdrum existences staring at tiny screens in tiny cubicles, suddenly realise they can lead virtual, superhuman lives. </p><div class="itg-mosimage"><amp-img src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-7_083012103127.gif" alt="" height="425" width="650" class="" layout="responsive"></amp-img>Chat Mate: Dhaval Mudgal, 14, ever on chat sites,met his best pal on the Net. Then realised she was a schoolmate.</div></p><p>They can fly a $400 million fighter aircraft, fight monsters in a 40-level 3D world, stretch their sexuality to the outer limits and live forever for glory. Take Jason Fernandes, for instance. A 15-year-old who has dropped out of school and lives in a twitchy hybrid world of pop obsession like aliens and the paranormal.</p><p>An IQ test indicated that Fernandes is a gifted child and though his mother has put him in the National Open School, he learns through his PC. "I secretly believe that I will become the next Bill Gates," he says. </p><p>But in the end it all boils down to the individual. Ricky Kapoor, 31, is still heavily into gaming through the Net's servers with other players round the world. He also belongs to a cult that idolises a computer-game superheroine called Lara Croft - a 5 ft 4 inches pistol-packing woman who wears an athletic bra. But he isn't cuckoo.</p><p> "It's just that I differentiate between the virtual and the real," he says, adding, "The way I do it. Just keep taking frequent reality checks even if you don't want to put in some real-life experiences."<br><br><i> - with L.R. Jagadheeshan and Stephen David</i><br></p><div id="tab-link-wrapper-plugin"><div class="authors__container"><div class="authors__by"><div class="authlable">Published By: </div><div class="authdetaisl">AtMigration </div></div><div class="published__on"><div class="authlable">Published On: </div><div class="authdetaisl">Dec 7, 1998</div></div></div><div class="sendros">--- ENDS ---</div></div></div>

technology-and-innovation

Technology & Innovation

<div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-1_083012103127.gif" loading="lazy" /></div><p>The screen is crying, the circuits are full of tears. It's 11.30 at night and it's raining emotions again at #hotspot (pronounced hash hotspot), a visual-aided cyber watering hole for the South-side gang - a group of nihilistic Net-whining surfers in Delhi (South<i>actually</i>stands for south Delhi).</p><p>K<a>bir, whose visual marker on the screen is a Leonardo DiCaprio head, is mooning about how HotcoveX, a brainy bimbo (a techie head with a lush, naked body) who cruises the seedier parts of the Def Squad sites, isn't responding to his flaming hot e-mails of undivided love. </p><p>The DiCaprio head sits forlorn on the top of a white and full moon, occasionally sending down showers of crystal tears that hit the bottom of the screen with accompanying alphabets that go <-S-P-L-A-A-T->. His on-line buddies, meanwhile, tap their worn-smooth keyboards sympathetically.<br><br>AmaR69 (whose visual marker on the screen is a werewolf) types in: "Love is a {{{{{bum trip}}}}} dude. imho (a cyber abbreviation for 'in my humble opinion'): there are just too many babes out there and too little virtual time."<br><br>SammyDoZ (with a monster head and an axe sticking out of it): "Yeah, kick off your shoes, get hold of some Phenobarbitals, download some Erich Segal ... and soon you'll be back on the circuits, witty and charming, being Yo'ed by all the foxy women of the Web."</p><div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-2_083012103127.gif" loading="lazy" /></div>New love: S. Aggarwal, 61, surfs the Net for seven hours a day. Has persuaded family members to purchase computers.</div></p><p>And so it goes on. For hours. It takes a global village - or more specifically, an on-line community - to buoy K<a>bir. Logged off and in real time, K<a>bir is Kabir Sahani, 23, a shy and reticent individual who lives alone and has just started a career in copywriting.</p><p>He swears he has no real friends and surviving relatives - a mother and elder brother live far away in Jamshedpur. For many, three to four hours of surfing on the Net is as good a social life as it gets. But for Sahani it's the only life he has. </p><p>A hundred on-line hours every week is normal - sometimes though it gets intense and he has at times spent 48 hours staring at screens of scrolling text and graphics. His on-line buddies, he insists, are his only family. They may sound whacky, talk nerdish, act a bit irreverent at times - but they're fiercely loyal to each other. "If you take them away, I'd just curl up and die," he points out.<br><br>Sahani is part of a growing subgroup of people (among the 20 lakh Internet users in India today) who don't just surf on the Net but live for it. Call them the digerati: a motley group of mouse-happy Indians from different walks of life who spend all their leisure hours (and some of their work hours too) leaving footprints all over cyberspace. </p><div class="itemcenter"><iframe scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="62" awidth="320" aheight="62" amplayout="fixed" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Findiatoday%2Fbanner%2Fpreferred-source-new.html%3Fv%3D1.014" class="preferred-source-banner" loading="lazy"></iframe></div><style>.preferred-source-banner{  margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}</style></p><p>They speak a different language, their social life is non-existent, their families find them strange and distant, their real-time friends have given up on them. Yet there is no stronger attraction for them than shutting the real world with a slam of their door, clicking onto the dial-up mode and cruising that intangible ether between one computer and another. </p><div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-3_083012103127.gif" loading="lazy" /></div>Web wonder: Aslam Shems, 35, says the Net was made for him. Redesigned his house to suit his cyber lifestyle.</div></p><p>One could be a painter in Baroda who's into digital art and feels the canvas doesn't excite anymore. Or a remix musician in Pune who finds nothing more stimulating than "jamming on-line" with an anonymous brother musician playing an instrument he hasn't heard in Helsinki.</p><p>Or a shy accountant in Thiruvananthapuram who suddenly realises that persons like him with covert foot fetishes have a coherent culture on the Net, complete with support groups, chat rooms and a national network.<br><br>What is the attraction that makes them stay incessantly on-line? It's an amalgamation of many things - making friends, grappling with technology, amplifying your ideas and moving towards a futuristic global society. </p><p>"For me," says Simarprit Singh, a businessman in Delhi who spends seven to eight hours a day on the Net, "the excitement lies in finding that whatever interest/kink that I conjure up, there seem to be others out there who are just as interested." </p><p>Indeed, many see the Internet as this huge imaginary machine that is sorting out the human race into little sub-groups of mutual interests. Choose a subject - something as weird as circumcision problems of newborns - and sure enough you'll find a whole cyber community dedicated to it. </p><p>Travel to the extremities of the Web and you'll find dozens of sites devoted to subjects ranging from cigar fetishes or the common cold to a community that wants to unite India and Pakistan (their punch line: just imagine the combined cricket team!). Dental pain? Snot? Stomping on integrated circuit on the Web. </p><p>Each of these tribes comprise a virtual world in themselves. Where gods and demigods keep order, invent rules and help tenderfoots get their feet wet. Locals stroll down virtual boulevards speaking a peculiar home-grown lingo; couples fall in love enacting mating rituals as old as the species and as new as the next Java upgrade. </p><div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-4_083012103127.gif" loading="lazy" /></div>Cyber-creative: Painter Amitabh Pandey, 41, gave up the canvas for the screen. Says it has enhanced his skill.</div></p><p>And elders reminisce about the good old days, grousing how the place has gone downhill ever since the moronic throngs arrived. Ask Shyamsunder Aggarwal, 61, a Mumbai businessman who believes that people like him are a new class of citizens.</p><p>"The net brings a sense of empowerment because people there get truly involved with issues." Many like Aggarwal feel the net has been portrayed as ground zero for weirdos. It's as true as saying the real world is full of weirdos.</p><p> "There will always be weirdos," says Aggarwal, "but there is also social responsibility and community participation." the reason for that, many say, is because cyberspace is very conducive to frankness. </p><p>Shorn of their real bodies, the desire to know the other person's minds becomes overwhelmingly urgent. "You find yourself speaking with dead honesty." Besides, the medium invites you to contribute in any website or discussion group. </p><p>It isn't like the government is rushing to listen to you, but the fact is that as the net grows and if your ideas are valid, people will amplify them and they will be heard. "I find I'm a better global citizen today," says Aggarwal.<br><br>And a global citizen needs a cyber lifestyle. "The Net," says Aslam Shems who runs an advertising agency in Delhi, "I believe was made for me." He's part of a group of hardcore surfers who log on at a dedicated site each night and chat for hours and hours. </p><p>"We're all techies with similar interests ... it's like a cult - we look after each other." Most of his friends are in their 30s and prefer cruising the circuits to settling down and getting married. It wasn't always like that. </p><p>Back in 1996 - New Year's eve to be precise, Shems had a wild idea of throwing a party where his virtual friends scattered across the globe (through video conferencing) could meet his real-time friends. It was a blast - one of his virtual women pals even stripped for his real-time friends. </p><div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-5_083012103127.gif" loading="lazy" /></div>Net Files: School dropout Jason Fernandes, 15, feels he'll be Bill Gates II. His obsessions: aliens and the paranormal.</div></p><p>Today, his real-time friends have dwindled. Those who survive are anyway mirror images of him - cyberjunkies to the hilt. Recently, Shems spent a mini-fortune in his Greater Kailash pad setting up four upper-end machines, six phone lines, six air conditioners and a 10 KV genset so that he and his friends could surf together.</p><p>Why the generator? "Recurring power failures were driving me mad ... take a normal man and deny him access to his family. That's how I was feeling." But spare a thought for the families of these cyberadoes - how do they feel? </p><p>Most of them visualise the Net as a demon that traps you in your room, letting you out years later, pale, sweating, hairless, with atrophied legs and speaking a strange language. Ask Jatin Thakkar, 30, a chemical engineer in Mumbai. His wife Monica openly complains: "I hate his computer ... he spends all his nights with it." </p><p>Others complain how, even if they are dragged to parties, they stay silent and detached until they chance upon another Net geek. Says Sonu Munshi, 21, a Netizen who works with an advertising firm: "It's like you've imbibed a new culture, and your family or friends are in culture shock." </p><p>Look, for instance, at the language: it's purely ungrammatical, badly structured with code words like VoodooII card, a 12MB Video Ram and T1,T2,T3 lines and acronyms like LOL (laughing out loud) and RTFM (read the expletive manual). HEY!!!1, reads an all too typical message on the Web, I THINK KAJOL IZ REEL KOOL DOOD!1!!!.</p><div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-6_083012103127.gif" loading="lazy" /></div>Life partner: Ricky Kapoor, 31, a gaming freak, doesn't want to marry. He would hate reducing his on-line hours.</div></p><p>But what's nonsense to most is sheer poetry to the digerati. Admits Sahani: "On-line language can be awful. But fact is, it isn't like ordinary language." The knack is to look at online writing as "written speech". Most of it is composed fast and furious against the clock because being online costs money and one usually wants to pack in as much as possible.</p><p>On-line writing isn't there to have and hold; it's there to fire and forget. Sahani, shy by nature, points out that at first he felt afraid of typing something lest he be criticised, laughed at or, worse, ignored. "But once you get into the momentum, you get going deeper, get loose."<br><br>Of course, there is a flip-side. Cyberspace is also an arena where escapism thrives. People who live humdrum existences staring at tiny screens in tiny cubicles, suddenly realise they can lead virtual, superhuman lives. </p><div class="itg-mosimage"><div class="itgimage"><img  title=""  class="" alt="" src="https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.dev?url=https%3A%2F%2Fakm-img-a-in.tosshub.com%2Fsites%2Fmedia2%2Findiatoday%2Fimages%2Fstories%2F1998December%2Fweb-7_083012103127.gif" loading="lazy" /></div>Chat Mate: Dhaval Mudgal, 14, ever on chat sites,met his best pal on the Net. Then realised she was a schoolmate.</div></p><p>They can fly a $400 million fighter aircraft, fight monsters in a 40-level 3D world, stretch their sexuality to the outer limits and live forever for glory. Take Jason Fernandes, for instance. A 15-year-old who has dropped out of school and lives in a twitchy hybrid world of pop obsession like aliens and the paranormal.</p><p>An IQ test indicated that Fernandes is a gifted child and though his mother has put him in the National Open School, he learns through his PC. "I secretly believe that I will become the next Bill Gates," he says. </p><p>But in the end it all boils down to the individual. Ricky Kapoor, 31, is still heavily into gaming through the Net's servers with other players round the world. He also belongs to a cult that idolises a computer-game superheroine called Lara Croft - a 5 ft 4 inches pistol-packing woman who wears an athletic bra. But he isn't cuckoo.</p><p> "It's just that I differentiate between the virtual and the real," he says, adding, "The way I do it. Just keep taking frequent reality checks even if you don't want to put in some real-life experiences."<br><br><i> - with L.R. Jagadheeshan and Stephen David</i><br></p><div id="tab-link-wrapper-plugin"><div class="authors__container"><div class="authors__by"><div class="authlable">Published By: </div><div class="authdetaisl">AtMigration </div></div><div class="published__on"><div class="authlable">Published On: </div><div class="authdetaisl">Dec 7, 1998</div></div></div><div class="sendros">--- ENDS ---</div></div></div>

They speak a different lingo, have no social life, families find them strange and friends feel they're distant. They belong to the cult of mouse-happy Indians which lives for the Internet.

India Today

Web junkies - India Today

The cult of mouse-happy Indians which lives for the Internet

Web junkies

Actor Rhea Chakraborty opened up about her comeback with the new series Family Business. She reflected on her experience of returning to acting after a seven-year hiatus.


Rhea Chakraborty on comeback with Family Business: Didn’t expect to act ever again

Rhea Chakraborty

Bipasha Basu has posted videos on her social media, offering fans a look at her daughter Devi’s celebrations and bedtime routine, including a recent clip of Devi saying a short prayer before sleeping.

Bipasha Basu

Bipasha Basu’s daughter Devi melts hearts with bedtime prayer. Watch

Ishaan Tharoor’s layoff from The Washington Post has exposed a harsh truth about modern media careers. If a globally respected journalist with half a million subscribers can be cut at 41, what does that say about job security, age, and the future of newsroom work?

Ishaan Tharoor WaPo layoff highlights 40s layoffs in journalism

41 and vulnerable: What Ishaan Tharoor’s WaPo layoff says about media careers

The UNICEF Internship Programme 2026 is now open, offering students and recent graduates a paid opportunity to gain hands-on global experience while working with one of the world’s leading humanitarian organisations dedicated to child welfare and development.


UNICEF internship 2026 guide: Eligibility, stipend and application dates

Eating the right fruit on an empty stomach impacts digestion and energy levels. Dates are generally healthier than bananas due to their gentle effect and sustained energy release.

Banana vs dates: Which is healthier to eat on an empty stomach?

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Here's the drone visuals of the massive traffic jam on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, which has hit vehicular movement for over 24 hours after a gas tanker overturned in the hilly Khandala Ghat section.

drone

Watch: Drone visuals of massive 22-km traffic jam on Mumbai-Pune Expressway

Addressing the Lok Sabha, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the government has successfully safeguarded sensitive sectors in US trade deal.  

Piyush Goyal: No Compromise On Farmers Interests In US Deal

India protected agriculture, dairy interests in US trade deal: Piyush Goyal

In this Special Report, India Today’s Mir Fareed provides exclusive details on a major counter-terror operation in Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur. Security forces, including the Army, Jammu Kashmir Police, and CRPF, successfully eliminated two Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists who were hiding in a natural cave within a dense forested terrain. Mir Fareed noted, ‘Finally, their luck ran out as security forces used IEDs to blow up the entrance. And with that, they were eliminated.’ One of the deceased has been identified as a top commander, Abu Mavia. The operation involved sophisticated drone surveillance and sharpshooters to pin down the terrorists who had previously evaded capture. The report highlights the evolving tactics of security agencies in tackling infiltrators using the treacherous forest reaches of Jammu. The area is currently being sanitised as per standard operating procedures following the recovery of weapons.

Mir Fareed: Two Jaish Terrorists Killed In Udhampur Cave

2 Jaish terrorists killed as security forces blow up cave in Jammu and Kashmir

This news report covers the intense political confrontation in Parliament where Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi reportedly called BJP leader Ravneet Singh Bittu a 'traitor'. The incident occurred near the Makar Dwar as suspended MPs were protesting. The transcript highlights that Bittu, once a close associate of Gandhi, was heckled by Congress members following the remark. Additionally, the bulletin features a statement regarding the suspension of eight Congress MPs for the remainder of the session due to 'unruly behaviour'. Dilip Saikia, who was in the chair during the ruckus, stated that the members violated parliamentary decorum and rules. The report notes that the Congress party views those who defect to the other side through a specific 'prism', leading to the sharp exchange. The drama unfolded as Priyanka Gandhi also met with the suspended legislators to discuss the adjournment of the House.

Rahul Gandhi Calls Bittu a Traitor in Parliament

Rahul Gandhi Calls Ravneet Singh Bittu a 'Traitor' outside Parliament

On this Special Report, the focus is on a tragic incident in Ghaziabad where three minor sisters, aged 12, 14, and 16, allegedly died by suicide by jumping from the ninth floor of a high-rise building. ACP Atul Kumar stated, 'Three girls jumped from the balcony of the ninth floor of flat number 907 in Bharat City and were declared dead upon arrival at the hospital.' A suicide note recovered from the scene read, 'Mummy Papa, we are sorry.' Police have seized mobile phones and gadgets for forensic examination to determine if specific gaming tasks triggered the extreme step. The incident occurred around 2:30 AM, and authorities are recording statements from family and neighbors to uncover the exact cause behind this triple suicide horror.

Atul Kumar: 3 Sisters Jump To Death In Ghaziabad

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The cult of mouse-happy Indians which lives for the Internet

They speak a different lingo, have no social life, families find them strange and friends feel they're distant. They belong to the cult of mouse-happy Indians which lives for the Internet.

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