Every year the villagers of Alanganallur in Madurai strongly believe in offering human blood in a bid to pleas their Gods. In fact an annual event called Jallikatu is organised on the day of Mattu Pongal (harvest festival in honour of cows/bulls) which is an international attraction wherein shedding human blood is a compulsion to please the Gods. Men prove their masculinity and compete for inane laurels after a bull fight which leads to superfluous bloodshed. Apparently villagers believe that if Jallikatu is not performed they would be vulnerable to diseases and other evil forces.

But the Times of India (TOI) Group does not support the entire concept of bull fighting and all the bloodshed. The 2000 year old sport is scheduled on the 15th of January and TOI has launched an online microstie Jallikatu.com that has an online poll to either vote for or against the bull fighting festival. The best part is that TOI plans on sending the results of the online poll to the Supreme Court as evidence of a gruesome act. But the poll results (till the last time I saw them) do not vary a lot. There is not a major difference between the people supporting and negating the festival.

Senthil Kumar, the executive creative director of JWT Chennai, again makes headline with the conceptualisation and development of Jallikatu.com. Senthil Kumar was recently in the news for the Sulekha.com campaign which DigiMouth.com had featured.

In the recent months many brands have been making the best use of the Internet to send out social messages and engage Indians in various ways. Jaagore.com (conceived by Karl Gomes) educates people on the power of voting while Idea Cellular lets people express themselves through the ByThePeople.in microsite.