Promod Puri's Blog: Hinduism:beyond rituals,customs and traditions, page 105
January 30, 2017
FAKE NEWS DAMAGES GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE
By Promod Puri
Education does not stop after school, college, or university studies. Rather it continues. Pursuing knowledge in the fields already studied along with new interests of learning are part of lifelong schooling.
As the formal education ends in early part of life, the journey to explore and gain knowledge goes on. At the same time, knowledge itself keeps expanding. Once the learning drive starts there is no stop on the knowledge track.
However, knowledge has to be followed intelligently and with open mind.
Its credibility and perception are based on truth and rationales. As our continuing education advances, it generates new studies, thoughts, theories, meanings, and interpretations. With that growth, knowledge gets enriched.
We are the seekers of knowledge as well as its creator, developer, and distributor.
It is at this helm that we can discern its traditional outlets, like books and libraries, newspapers and magazines, radio, and television, etc., are being outpaced and outdated by the surge in the internet and social media.
And this is where we alert ourselves to establish the authenticity and credibility of knowledge attained from online sources. It can prove itself to be wrong and deceptive when produced and shared thru various internet channels.
The buzz word lately is the generation of fake news or information and its circulation.
Google, Emails, Twitter, Facebook, and myriad of websites, etc. are the vehicles moved by our fingertips for mass distribution of news, views, and learnings along with fake stories and misinformation. In the latter case production of such material is so professionally done that unreal casts into real. Believability is established, and its mass circulation starts rolling.
The production of fake news, besides posing a serious threat to bona fide information and knowledge, is a lucrative business as well. A Washington Post story last November during the height of the US presidential election reveals that crooked online entrepreneurs can make about $5000 per month by generating fake news.
When a fabricated story gets viral on search engines like Google and social media like Facebook, it generates money like pouring down from a slot machine. Fake news headlines such as “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead…”, and “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for President”, generated hundreds of thousand of clicks and shares, reveal the potential of this illicit business.
Since the blight of fake news is going to be part of knowledge gathering, the acceptance or rejection of pseudo or genuine information depends on our sensitivity and perception, empathy or apathy. Our personal preferences also play determining role to keep us informed or misinformed while we seek knowledge.
Usually, we select only that information which fits well within our interests, mindset biases, and beliefs.
The production of fake or false news or information, or creation of a thought, an ideology or a campaign, and its spread covers most topics and issues from politics to religion and culture, sciences to medicines, and economics to statistics, etc.
Fabricated information supporting a concept, cult, crusade of morally-revolting motives not only contaminate true knowledge but it is misleading and sinister as well. As of consequence, information literacy is corrupted.
When a fake story or picture on the internet and its various outlets is released, its authenticity is seldom doubted especially by those readers who share its viewpoint.
Professional “gatekeepers” like editors of newspapers or magazines, who reject, allow, or edit an incoming news story or some viewpoints in the traditional institutions, are not the norms in the receiving and delivery systems of the information technology.
Our temperaments, beliefs and even our personal motives are now the “gatekeepers” in the selection and sharing of information. When these attitudes are constantly and willingly being exposed to fake information or stories, fanaticism is created, consolidated, and validated. Convictions and extreme beliefs keep the doors of truth and rationality close.
DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM
Despite this inevitable abuse of the system, the internet provides us a democratic platform which was till now monopolized by the traditional print and electronic media. Social media are open, free, and readily available along with profusion of websites for the dissemination of information, true or false, and viewpoint, rational or irrational.
The phenomenon has led to the explosion of knowledge in its creation, presentation, and sharing. This is not anymore the domain of only professional writers, intellectuals, publishers, or editors.
The Internet and online social media offer the space to express oneself in few words or in lengthy essays without editing or cuts and censorship. A submission, rejected by conventional book publishers, newspapers, or magazines editors, finds easy alternative outlets through various internet channels and online self-publishing with much wider exposure.
Unlike the traditional sources of knowledge, the net in its brief history has spread itself into a vast field covered with mounds of information and knowledge. Personally speaking, I wrote “Hinduism Beyond Rituals, Customs, and Traditions” by just going thru the medium of the internet carrying wealth of relevant articles, research papers, manuscripts, scriptures, and stories.
Numerous reputed and credible websites like Wikipedia are loaded with extensive knowledge to do research, study or write on any subject of interest.
The internet has liberated knowledge for its easy reach and attainment. But in this endeavor, Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw advises: “beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance”.
(Promod Puri is Vancouver, Canada-based writer, and author of Hinduism Beyond Rituals, Customs, And Traditions. Websites: promodpuri.com, progressivehindudialogue.com, promodpuri.blogspot.com).
January 29, 2017
Assault on Sanjay Leela Bhansali: Law of jungle and upholding freedom of expression
It’s an irony of a sort that, as Indians, we celebrated our Republic Day on January 26 and the next day, a blatant mockery of tolerance and freedom of expression, guaranteed by the Indian constitution unfurled in front of our eyes. It is appalling and disgusting how a terror outfit assaulted the pride of the Hindi film industry and one of our most brilliant filmmakers, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, treading with impunity to destroy his workplace, the sets of Padmavati. It is infuriating how freedom and tolerance are taking a toll.
Fringe elements rampaging the sets of SLB’s Padmavati/Image credit: http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/report-from-karan-johar-to-anurag-kashyap-bollywood-strongly-condemns-attack-on-sanjay-leela-bhansali-2296812
Yes, the culture of intolerance, I choose, to say it loud and clear, is being legitimately questioned when we see fringe elements roaming free and violating the rules of law of our great country. It’s the law of the blind, deaf and dumb when the system fails to protect its…
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January 26, 2017
TRUMP WALL
[image error]Every wall has two sides. In the case of Trump Wall, one faces America, and the other faces Mexico. The American side can be protected by its border security forces. But Mexico, which is dead against the wall, can always keep on making big holes from its side. And that would create plenty of jobs for Americans to fill up the holes. Great plan!
When India Became Republic
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN INDIA GOT INDEPENDENCE AND BECAME A REPUBLIC:
“When India got Independence and Ambedkar being the principle author of the nation’s constitution and holding the law portfolio in the cabinet, Untouchability was declared unlawful. After centuries of hitherto unchallenged and illegal authority relating to human rights violations, Manusmriti in terms of laws of India became illegal overnight”, excerpt from Hinduism: beyond rituals,customs and traditions.
January 24, 2017
GOD & KARMA
In the prayer to God lies the karma. Karma means action. From God one seeks to do the right action. Reaction will follow based on the Karma. That is the law of Karma. Harvest the fruit of good acti…
Source: GOD & KARMA
January 22, 2017
POWER OF PROTEST
With massive parade of over half a million people in Washington the day after the presidential Inauguration, the spirit of democracy is still alive in the USA before Trump manipulates it. But in India it is showing signs of being out of breath. If democracy is not nurtured by dissent and protests then it gets rotten from inside like a hollow tree. Promodpuri.com
January 19, 2017
MERCY FOR SNOWDEN
MERCY FOR SNOWDEN:Only few hours are left, and President Obama still can exercise his benevolence to grant mercy to Edward Snowden who acted in the spirit of a whistle-blower to leak top-secrets of government surveillance programs. The very exposures led to reforms in government policies for which the credit goes to Snowden himself. He lives as a fugitive in Putin’s Russia.There was even talk of nominating him for Noble Peace prize.
January 18, 2017
Life is a Dangal too
Film Review: by Promod Puri
Life is a Dangal too.
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It is a tense play of strategies, techniques and actions, excitement, and madness, defense, and offense, frustrations, and rewards. It is a fight against societal wrongs. It is a game of emotions, tears, and joys.
This is the package Amir Khan has delivered on the silver screen in a two and half hour thrill titled Dangal. Life’s dynamics are well portrayed in this masterpiece based on a true story.
In the lead role, Amir Khan plays an odd patriarch who defies, protests, struggles and achieves what he wanted in life. He has a dream. He endeavors to see his daughters as world-class wrestlers. Yes, the real wrestlers, born and growing up in an orthodox and traditionally-rooted rural society, and where only boys and men enter the arena. Himself being a wrestling guru, Amir Khan wants to create space for girls in a field traditionally reserved only for men. Dangal stirs up a storm in the village wrapped in traditions, faiths, and fakes; and where a girl’s childhood is brief and abrupt.
Dangal is a message for the contemporary Indian society to recognize and seek the role of women beyond home and kitchen.
January 15, 2017
Humility Is Obama’s Legacy
His contribution in American and[image error] world affairs may not be what was expected, but a legacy can be realized in his civility, humility, rationality and intellectualism in tackling issues. This is more than tick marking yes or no on a list of his promises and expectations. promodpuri.com promodpuri.blogspot.com
January 12, 2017
My Companions In Solitude!
Yes, I have company in my lonely abode
Just walking in, who are these folks
Arriving and departing
The door is open and revolving
Let the guests come, as they wish
Some offer bloom, others gloom
Joining the pool of
Memories, family, and friends
Karmas’ notes and reports
Complaints, compliances, and compliments
Angst, anxiety, and environments
Weapons, wars, and fights
Politics, poverty, religions and rights
Debates, discussions, and resolutions
Cherishing hopes, jokes, and anecdotes
Along with lively, spirited, and zestful rays
Consciousness also joins the meet
As an in-house voice of Supreme
And the party goes on, with
My Companions in Solitude.
-Promod Puri
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