Less News from Times of India

About 8 months ago, I had written about not being to customize Google News to exclude news from bogus news sources. I had done some workarounds to achieve that. But I wished there were some easy way to do it.

Today, when I clicked on News Settings, I was delighted to see options to personalize Google to have more or less news from certain sources. It did not take me long to update and save my settings.

Quote for the day

Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run - in the long-run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.

- Viktor Frankl
Psychotherapist, Holocaust survivor, and author of Man's Search for Meaning

"Secularists" stoking fire

Swapan Dasgupta is one of few sensible intellectuals in our country. His articles are balanced, and well thought of, unlike those of the "secular" (read anti-Hindu) intellectuals of the country. It is on such sensible thinkers like Swapan that our hopes of Indian intelligentsia guiding the country on the right path of justice, peace, progress and self-respect rest.

The Sunday Pioneer published a good article by Swapan Dasgupta on how the "secular" intellectuals are whipping up Muslim passions against the High Court verdict. Instead of putting end to the dispute, the so-called secularists are stoking fire against a popular and reasonable verdict, which the common man - both Hindu and Muslim alike - has accepted peacefully.

Here is a brief excerpt from the excellent article:

For two days and courtesy some TV channels, the "secular" modernists attempted to whip up Muslim opinion against the judgement and use the community's apparent displeasure to force the Government into using its proverbial 'good offices' with the Supreme Court. The overall idea is to build up an intellectual climate so forceful that the Supreme Court would think it prudent to overturn the HC judgement.

Historic Ayodhya Verdict - time to construct and move on

Yesterday's historic verdict by Allahabad High Court on the Ramjanmabhoomi case should pave way for a process of reconciliation and construction of a temple on the birthplace of Lord Ram. Some Hindus might be disappointed by the decree to give away a third of the Ramjanmabhoomi land to Muslims. However, it would suit Hindus to be magnanimous at this point, and accept the verdict with an intent at rapprochement.

The verdict gives a feeling of justice being done to the case to the extent that it accepts the garbhgriha as the true birthplace of Lord Ram. It also asserts that the ASI research findings from the site conclusively prove that the disputed structure was built on top of a demolished Hindu temple.

Here are the key excerpts from the Ayodya verdict from the BBC website.

Here's how Ramjanmabhoomi will be divided: