I have fallen in love with Google's News Alerts - check them out here

The best thing about them is the text around the keyword. That helps to understand the context and judge without clicking whether the article is relevant to my keyword or not. Less time spent on evaluation of email.

Have been teaching Verbal Ability and Personality Development to CAT aspirants for nearly two months now. Recently, I bought an Oxford English Dictionary for my English classes. The dictionary was a necessity since it contained Etymology. My work revolves around understanding words and their meanings, and knowing the origins helps a great deal!

Had a niece born on 25th September!!

There's mass indignation amongst Indian internet users. The Indian govt has asked through orders like these, all private ISPs to block access to a discussion group on yahoogroups. This group focusses on some anti-India activities, especially secessionist views. You may try to access this group here. You will be able to see it if you are outside India. If in India, you would get a gateway error or something similar. If you live in India and want to access this group, try Anonymizer which allows you to surf blocked websites. Or try typing the URL (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kynhun) in Google and click on the cached links to see it.

However, that is not the point. If the govt deems some website to be dangerous to the integrity and sovereignty of the Indian Union, and deems to block it, freedom of speech and information be damned, *AT LEAST DO IT PROPERLY*. Most ISPs, including the one that I use, have blocked the complete http://groups.yahoo.com site. Yahoo groups is a major website used by Indian users. I am personally a member of nearly 30 groups on the same, discussing issues as varied as Indian Business and Strategy, Pancham's music, Jainism and Search Engine Optimization. While thankfully we are not suffering from non-delivery of mails, the site's web access is blocked leading to administrative problems. Talk about cutting the hand to stop the accusing finger!

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Here's an interesting letter that is being forwarded to the Indian users. Please help the cause and send the same to the Minister!

Folks!

Due to bungling between GOI and ISPs, for many of us, it is not possible to access the yahoo groups site at all !!!

GOI had asked the ISPs to block access to a particular yahoogroup site, however, many ISPs have blocked access to entire yahoogroups site.
(It may not effect many yahoogroups members, but it does hinder moderators to do their job - and therefore, the effectiveness of the groups)

I am enlosing a copy of a copy of the government GO, which is also available at:

http://corporate.ddsl.net/images/sc1.gif
It is from the Ministry of Communications and IT - LR Cell, signed by Jayant Kumar, Director, LR II (tel # 011 23372601)

It tells ISPs to block http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhun/ - and definitely not to block the whole of yahoogroups.

The only recourse is to send petition to the Hon'ble Minister of Communiation and IT, Mr Arun Shourie, to intervene.

I am pasting a message below, and request you to cut-copy-paste it, and send to his mailids (which are give below)

Please forward this message to as many yahoogroups as you can (and not listed in "To:" above)

thanks for your initiative and cooperation

ciao
madhukar
=================================
Dr Madhukar Shukla
Prof (OB & Strategic Management), XLRI, CH Area (East),
Jamshedpur India 831 001
email: madhukar@xlri.ac.in
webpage: http://www.madhukarshukla.com/
ph: 91 657 2225506 x 300(O)/ 603(R)
fax: 91 657 2227814

============================================================================
E-mail: ashourie@yojana.nic.in, minister@mit.gov.in
Mail Off: Electronic Niketan, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Fax Off: 24364484
Mail Res : A-31, Westend Enclave, New Delhi-110021
Fax Res: 24100012

______________________________________________________


Sh. Arun Shourie,
Hon'ble Minister for Communication and Information Technology
Government of India

Dear Sh. Shourie,

Sub: Protection of Right to freedom of speech & expression

Please refer to order No. 820-1/2003-LR(Vol.I) dated 10/09/2003 of Department of Telecommunication under your Ministry regarding
directions to block Internet website "groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhu" .

We believe that the Ministry of Communication must be having necessary reasons to block the above website. Any such censoring in National Interest / National Security is welcome. However it is pointed out that certain ISP's have implemented the said order by blocking the entire domain groups.yahoo.com.

Consequently a number of citizens in the country are not able to access various yahoo groups across the country. It is brought to your notice that the citizens use the free services of yahoo to exchange ideas and remain connected with one another. However consequent to the above order the exchange of free flow of information has come to a halt.

Having known you as a former Editor and champion of Freedom of Speech , it was surprising to know that such an order can come through a Ministry headed by you.

The Intellectuals across the country feel that censoring of Internet may lead the citizens of the country far behind in the fast changing world. Time memorial have proved that no censorship has ever worked in the country. Despite all odds in the country it is this freedom to speech that makes Indian citizens feel proud of their nation. It is this freedom that makes India different from China.

We therefore request you to personally intervene and either ensure the proper implementation of the order whereby only "groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhu" is blocked by ISP's or alternately withdraw the above order and ensure Right to freedom of speech & expression of all Citizens.

It is further requested that the rules under which the above order was passed may be re-looked and if possible a representative from amongst the Journalist world may be brought in the committee which examines such blockage of website. It should not happen that Bureaucrats/ Politicians use above tool to infringe the fundamental right to freedom of speech of citizens.

With a special appeal to the Journalist in you.

Best Regards,

A Concerned Citizen

Here are some miscellaneous ones.

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Here's a good one from Dilbert ;-)

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And here's a series of two on the IITs - India's premier technology institutes.

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Here are some new cartoons!

Here's a lovely series on spam from Rudy Park.

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Cleaning my drawer, I chanced upon a yellowing piece of paper. A long long time ago, I started to make this list. 50 things I would like to do in my lifetime. Here is what I have written till now, and the status in the brackets!

1. Teach (Doing it, and enjoying it throughly!!)

2. Gardening (Yeah, doing this too and enjoying it :-) )

3. Read Psychology (Umm, not got around to doing this till now)

4. Read Philosophy (Started to do this, but fell asleep! May be I need to start with something simpler than "Dialectical Dissertations on the Existentialistic Musings of Plato and their influence on post-modern Greek Drama")

5. Read Anthropology (Ok, somewhat there, I read a lot of stuff on this on the net and watch on discovery channel, so I have taken the easy way out)

6. Ornithology (Umm, I am sure this meant the winged variety, but my current pursuits are more about the human variety, if you know what I mean ;-) )

7. Trek in the jungles (Unfulfilled)

8. Watch nature closely (Not fulfilled in the way I want it to be, but somehow I manage to do this even in this concrete jungle)

9. Make my own library (Ok, reaching there. Already have a lot of books!)

10. Write short stories (Nope, the world is still spared that torture)

Will add 11-50 (and more!) as and when time passes!!

Just read that to help Delhi's bid for the Commonwealth Games 2010, the Delhi Metro Rail is being projected as a superb feature. Most stadia are either bang on the metro routes, or a kilometer or two away so the metro would help people commute to game sites.

And the surprising gainer in all this could be my home city, the Delhi suburb called Noida. Initially the Noida phase of the metro was going to be completed in 2012, but if the common wealth games come to Delhi then the date would be preponed by three years to 2009! Yeah!!

Now I have another reason to hope for Delhi's successful bid for the games ;-)