Recreating or enacting the past has always seemed futile to me. Recording of history happens — after a happening. But it's not necessarily the report of what really happened. Given the fallibility of memory and the strange ways of the human mind, facts get distorted, embellished, mauled out of all proportion. The only 'honest' report would, I guess, be an uncensored audio-visual coverage of the event. When Gandhi with his flair for the dramatic staged the 'original' Dandi Yatra, he conjured a metaphor for non-violent defiance of the mighty British empire. And, that metaphor captured the attention of the world media and the imagination of people everywhere. The 'fake' Dandi Yatra is not even a distant relative of the 'real' DY. At best, it's a redux somebody in the Congress thought up with a view to hijack the Gandhian heritage for the party's benefit. Strange they didn't think of a website, or better still, a blog, to serve as a repository of all the lore the 'event' may generate. The only blog I found covering it is kamleshksingh.blogspot. Read the 'Dandi Yatri' family saga here: webindia123.com. More on the 'original' DY: sscnet.ucla.edu ('Dandi: Salt March') and english.emory.edu ('The Salt March To Dandi').

NO NET SUICIDE, MATE. We're Ozzies.

Australia's Justice Minister Chris Ellison recently announced that people convicted of promoting/teaching on the Web how to commit suicide would face fines of up to Aus$110,000 (US $86,600) for individuals and five times as much for corporations. "These … are intended to protect vulnerable individuals from people who use the Internet with destructive intent to counsel or incite others to kill themselves," he explained. Also, using the Internet to "organise suicide pacts has emerged as a grim new problem for Japan, where at least 54 people killed themselves in 2004 in Internet-linked group suicides," says a recent Reuters report. ag.gov.au.

MORE OUTRAGE. 'MSN' Messenger comes with a worm.

Last week hindustantimes.com, I told you two horrifying tales: 'VIRUS. Straight from the FBI?' and 'OUTRAGE! Hotmail outage.' This week, there's more cause for worry with the news of the appearance of Win32.Kelvir.a, a variant of the previously identified Kelvir, discovered by researchers at both Aladdin Knowledge Systems and F-Secure. Microsoft's instant messaging software is apparently the 'vehicle' of choice for tunnelling across the Web, according to a CNet report. Go here www3.ca.com and scroll down to read the description.

COPYRIGHT THIEVES CAUGHT. 3 plead guilty,

In early March, the US Department of Justice said that three software pirates pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement and faced face up to 10 years in prison. This was the outcome of what attorneys called the largest multinational Net piracy investigation to date ('Operation Higher Education') conducted in 12 countries. "Stealing the intellectual property of others is no different from any other form of thievery," argued US Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor. "It is a priority of this Office and the Department of Justice to protect the intellectual property rights of our nation's inventors and creators, regardless of where the pirates are located." techrepublic.com.

SOUTH KOREA TO SPAIN. Citizen's journalism going West?

"Could the citizen journalism model of OhMyNews (english.ohmynews)  be applied in Spain?" wonders Eva Dominguez in her 11 March E-Media Tidbits post. "This has been one of the most recurrent questions posed these last two days to Oh Yeon Ho, CEO and founder of OhMyNews, during his stay in Spain," she continues. Also, equally important: "With his online newspaper, Oh has made participatory journalism a successful reality that has contributed to changing the media landscape in South Korea, and it is inspiring many other media around the world. The political, social, and technological conditions in South Korea have been a suitable context for the OhMyNews phenomenon, which are not easy to find in other countries." Her final takeaway: "For the CEO of OhMyNews, the desire of a strong democracy is one of the keys for the success of citizen journalism and this is the common point that South Korea has with Spain." poynter.org.

'MY' NEWS. By Google but still in beta.

You and I can now customize our front-page news as we read it. The page customisation feature allows us to select from nine languages and 22 local editions and arrange the news by topic as well. We may also choose to view only headlines without bells and whistles like video. The service also possesses the ability to let me and you add our own news sections to our personalized Google News page. The best part is, after customizing the site, you and I can copy the unique URL generated by the customisation script and share it with friends, family and associates — or use it to add the custom page to other PCs we use. google.com.

E-MAIL THE BIG BOSS. And reach him for sure.

Is it well-nigh impossible to reach C-level executives by e-mail? According to Karen Gedney ('Writing E-Mail for C-Level Execs'), current wisdom suggests as much. However, she cites her own experience of using DISC (Dominance + Influence + Steadiness + Conscientiousness) psychology. Better find out her secret clickz.com and share it with your friends, associates and colleagues. One of the key DISC tactics in talking to CEO types is "be brief, be brilliant, and be gone," according to her. If you're writing  to Donald Trump, be sure you address his concerns (profits; market share; competition; winning; strategy; efficiencies and tax savings). The other tips worth remembering (and I'm quoting her): "CEOs are like everyone else; they like a story. If they didn't, those business magazines wouldn't sell!" "Gatekeepers probably read the e-mail first, so make sure their concerns are covered, too …[for instance] … stating the 'best rates expire January 10.' Administrative assistants worth their salt will want to help their bosses get the lowest rates for an event they're planning to attend." "CEOs only want to meet other captains of industry. If your event has high C-level participation, highlight it … [using] … audience demographic pie charts in sidebars at the beginning of … e-mail messages." Sound advice for B2B e-mail ghost-writers, don't you agree? The DISC psychology article ('How to Click With Prospects Using DISC') is at clickz.com.