SANT GYANESHWAR ;
ASSOCIATED FANTASIES AND IDIOSYNCRASIES !
# It is believed by gullible and credulous followers that due to extraordinary intellect and memory power,Sant Gyaneshwar,had attained unprecedented expertise for all the four Vedas-that too in his childhood.Since he was not part of privileged society,he had to face often sarcastic comments. Once few people compared young Gyaneshwar with a male      Buffalo and thrashed poor animal with sticks.Whether you believe it or not-there were thrashing marks on Dnyaneshwar's trunk.On being further challenged,he asked Buffalo to recite Vedic Mantras and  Buffalo recited verses from Vedas with precise pronunciation and literary authority.
# Sant Gyaneshwar was often invited for Sharad ceremony [religious ritual in honor of manes/ancestors] and on his invocation, dead ancestors ,while presenting themselves in full form,would also enjoy sacred Sharad meals in the company of Gyaneshwar.
# According to one well publicized miracle,he swayed a troublemaker by making him see ,Muktabai -his sister cook food over his back.It implied that his "spiritual" power was so strong that the it gave served as the fire for cooking.
# One yogi,Changdeo by name was said to be fourteen hundred years old.By virtue of his supposed yogic power,he had subdued all fierce beings like the tiger and the serpent.After knowing about Gyaneshwar,he decided to visit him.He rode on a tiger and was using serpent as a whip.At that time Gyaneshwar and his brethren were sitting on a compound wall outside their house.When they were told that Changdeo was coming to them on tiger backs,they 'made' the wall itself to move and thus went forward to receive Changdeo.
Well,beyond any supremacy of reason or comprehension,there are enough followers even today in 21st  century,who exhibit blind reverence for all such miracles,with closed eyes and shut mind.And today,identical "ancient divine wisdom" is latest mantra for intellectual development and 'revival' of social /moral values !

DIVISIVE RELIGION AND ITS ASSOCIATED RELIGIOSITY !
In our day to day practice and perception,it is of paramount relevance and significance that Atheism negates and rejects exclusive religious identity,though every devotee of their respective religion defines a 'path to the truth' at the exclusion of every other religion and associated religiosity.Despite tall and loud claims along with typical spacious sophistry,all religions are based on prejudice,hatred and inherent contradictions against each other and implicit and some times explicit,hostile difference and potential violence are invariably ingrained in respective religious beliefs.Much talked about phrases like 'sarv dharam sadbhav',' 'religious conglomeration leads to divine peace and social prosperity' and 'religions assert peace and tolerance towards all'-is nothing but linguistic utopian gimmickry.Since time immemorial, religion itself has established its 'credentials' as worst possible divisive force on global level.

IDIOTIC OBSCURANTISM OF BIGOTED CHARLATANS ;
# GAU SEVA !

“King Dilip was sad and worried that he did not have children, and about how he would take his lineage forward. He went to Guru Vashisht’s ashram and told him of his problem. The rishi told him, ‘Take a pledge that you and your wife will take care of cows, herd them and follow them wherever they go’. The king and queen agreed. One day a lion attacked a cow. The king came forward and told the lion, ‘Eat me first but spare the cow’. Seeing the king’s commitment, worship and responsibility towards the cow, the lion released the cow and did not harm the king either. As time passed, the king had the best children and his lineage progressed".[ Page 39, Prernadeep-3]
# PRIDE IN SWASTIKA !

“A Patel family lived in Connecticut, America, and was deeply connected with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, a cultured family. Their two children, Harish and Satish, began going to a school there. Harish drew a swastika on the cover of his notebook and began colouring it in class when the teacher, who happened to be Jewish, got curious. When she saw the swastika, she got furious, because Jews see swastika as a symbol of Hitler-Nazism… She grabbed Harish’s book and screamed at him. Harish told her, ‘Madam, this is a symbol of our peaceful and progressive religion. How can I tear this?’ She asked Harish to get out of the class. Other Hindu students tried to make her understand. Harish went out of the class and told her he would tell his father about it. His father called up the principal and complained about the teacher’s misbehaviour and she had to apologise. We should be proud of our religion and its symbols.”[ Page 16, Prernadeep-3].
These are some of the precious nuggets from the supposedly model books for children in Gujarat.It is a matter of time before Gujarat model is implemented through out India,strictly in accordance to designs of RSS agenda.Such assertions of bigoted charlatans ,who masquerade as 'genuine' scholars and their 'extraordinary hypothesis' that ancient Indians knew about stem cells,motorcars,aeroplanes and computers,should either find no place in modern discourse or must be vigorously challenged/ dismissed.It is historical duty of atheists and other progressive liberal-secular segment of Indian society to unitedly challenge such idiotic obscurantism.Only secular science forms today's foundation of true knowledge.

HEGEMONY OF INDIAN'S REDEFINED AND REDISCOVERED ;
"INDIANS ARE ROTI'S COOKED JUST RIGHT" !
The Gujarat government has published nine books in March this year and through a recent circular and mandated them as supplementary reading for higher secondary students,with distribution free to 42,000 government schools.Four books in a series titled "Prernadeep"compile anecdotes about how a childless couple got children just by Gau seva,how country's second President Sarvpalli Radhakrishnan had told the British that Indians were "Roti's cooked right by god" and how Bal Narendra hid behind a bunch of plantains waiting for Hanuman ?

“Once Dr Radhakrishnan went for a dinner. There was a Briton at the event who said, ‘We are very dear to God’. Radhakrishnan laughed and told the gathering, “Friends, one day God felt like making rotis. When he was cooking the rotis, the first one was cooked less and the English were born. The second one stayed longer on the fire and the Negroes were born. Alert after His first two mistakes, when God went on to cook the third roti, it came out just right and as a result Indians were born.” [ Page 8, Prernadeep-3 ].
It reminded me about one Dr.Ramachandran Tupkary,who was leading ideologue of saffron brigade in late nineties,  Editor of RSS intellectual journal  and the leader of its annual 'officers' training camp held in Nagpur every summer. 
"Tupkary started by defining "BIOFUTUROLOGY" for me.He said the human brain is divided into two halves :the right side is equipped to deal with diversity and the left side with uniformity. The typical Indian has a right sided brain and typical European a left side brain....Hindu's are right side,Muslims are left side.The software of human development comes from India while the hardware comes from the west".
[Edward Luce,In spite of the Gods,page 145].

SAFFRONITES ON THE JOB TO EDUCATE CHILDREN;*
NUGGETS FROM PRESCRIBED BOOK 'TEJOMY BHARAT';
A 125-page book called Tejomy Bharat, has also been mandated along with Mr Batra’s, as supplementary reading for all government primary and secondary schools of Gujarat . Here are some passages from it: “What we know today as the motorcar existed during the Vedic period. It was called anashva rath. Usually a rath (chariot) is pulled by horse, but an anashva rath means the one that runs without horses or yantra rath, what is today motorcar. The Rig Veda refers to this…”
“We know that television was invented by a priest from Scotland called John Logie Baird in 1926. But we want to take you to an even older Doordarshan…. Indian rishis using their yog vidya would attain divya drishti. There is no doubt that the invention of television goes back to this…. In Mahabharata, Sanjay sitting inside a palace in Hastinapur and using his ‘divya shakti’ would give a live telecast of the battle of Mahabharata … to the blind Dhritarashtra”
“America wants to take the credit for invention of stem cell research but the truth is that India’s Dr Balkrishna Ganpat Matapurkar has already got a patent for regenerating body parts…. You would be surprised to know that this research is not new and that Dr Matapurkar was inspired by the Mahabharata. Kunti had a bright son like Sun itself. When Gandhari, who was not conceiving for two years, learnt of this, she underwent hysterectomy. From her womb a huge mass of flesh came out. (Rishi) Dwaipayan Vyas was called. He observed this hard mass of flesh and then he preserved it in a cold tank with specific medicines. He then divided the mass of flesh into 100 parts and kept them separately in 100 tanks full of ghee for two years. After two years, 100 Kauravas were born of it. On reading this he (Matapurkar) realised that stem cell was not his invention. This was found in India thousands of years ago.”
And just imagine,every such book has an appreciation message from Narendra Modi and there are no reasons to believe Modi Ji does not subscribe to all such hypothesis.

“It is congratulatory that Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks is publishing writer Dinanath Batraji’s literature. It is hoped that this inspirational literature will inspire students and teachers…. Seeds of values which are sown in the childhood emerge with time like a large banyan tree of idealism. Then it becomes possible to build a citizenship based on character and intelligence”
*This book’s content adviser is Harshad Shah, vice-chancellor of Children’s University in Gandhinagar and former Gujarat chairman of Vidya Bharati.

VIEWPOINT;

AH, HONEYMOON PERIOD OF MODI GOVERNMENT IS PREMATURELY OVER;

Though,period of three months is hardly sufficient to analyse success or failure of any political outfit,yet there are clear cut indications that a significant section of society,who voted for BJP with much expectations,is fast losing their faith in Modi sarkar and they are more or less disillusioned as well as confused lot.

The most significant and glaring failure has been their inability to control high prices of almost all essential items of day to day use,though lot was said and tall claims were made by Modi himself,about mehanghai during highly bombastic election campaign.

How political preferences can drastically change,is evident from the fact that BJP lost all the three assembly seats,in recently concluded by elections in Uttrakhand and Congress has not been only able to retain their seat but has captured two seats from BJP.Needless to say that same Congress party was decimated in all the three parliamentary segments,only few months ago.

NEED TO MAINTAIN INTELLECTUAL PROPRIETY OF CIVIL SERVICE COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION !
With extraordinary obsession for ancient shudh bhartiya languages Sanskrit and Hindi, present government has deliberately precipitated a situation,through its student wing ,ABVP,under which a section of Hindi belt students are agitating for scraping even elementary English question paper from the curriculum of forthcoming competitive examination for civil services.The whole 'saga' is more or less for polarization of youth vote bank rather than linguistic convenience.The schedule examination which was due three months earlier,is now due to commence on 24th August.Apparently ,today government finds itself trapped in vicious cycle of its own making and much publicised 'competent governance' is visible nowhere,even after the submission of the findings of Verma committee.It will be very pertinent to point out here that Verma committee has not suggested any changes in existing academic process despite probable pressure from the authority,which matters.
The 'agitating students' are further demanding to withdraw C set from the preliminary examination                                     ,which according to their respective analysis is needy and helpful to engineering and management students only and question paper for main exam to be printed in all other languages besides Hindi and English.Where lies the limit of 'all other languages' ?
Under present circumstances of uncertainty and mismanagement,it is any body's guess whether said examination will commence on due date.The dignity and academic excellence of the exam has been made questionable.It may be bitter pill for one particular section of politicians and their patronized students,yet the fact of the matter is that working knowledge of one most common knowledge is essential for all future civil servants.Even countries like Japan and China have accepted the linguistic significance of English on national and global level.
Since Union Public Service Commission [UPSC] is well established autonomous institution,it is imperative that it should be allowed to work independently in the best and larger interests of civil service probationers and no such measures should be undertaken which not only erode autonomy of UPSC but are counter productive in the long run.It is responsibility of both Government and UPSC to maintain intellectual propriety and dignity of civil service competitive examination.Let us not politicize every issue strictly in accordance to respective political agendas.

THE TASTE OF PUDDING IS IN EATING;
NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF !
UN Millennium Development Goals report paints very disappointing picture of India. It says that one third of the extreme global population lives in India. Not only that, the report also says that maximum number of under-five deaths in the world also happen in India. This comes as rude shock to those who have been boasting of India emerging as world power. Minority Affairs Minister has not minced words while commenting on the report and has clearly stated that there is nothing for us to be proud of. If after sixty-two years of independence, one – third of extremely poor people are to be found in our country, we need to put a question mark on our planning, execution and even the very philosophy of development and planning. What is there for us to be proud of when 60 per cent of Indians defecate in open and 17 per cent of global maternal deaths happen in our country. There is hardly any area in which we can claim to have reached international standard. The Minority Affairs Minister said that though our great and visionary leaders had shown the path but unfortunately we have missed it and we have squandered our energy is unproductive activities. This report is a warning to India that it should not take solace in just claiming that it is a democratic country. The taste of pudding is in eating, goes the old axiom. How our developmental schemes make an impact on the poor man, the toiler in the field or the labourer in a factory that is what will determine whether or not we are on the right path of development. We should not be wary of self criticism but should learn where we have faltered and what the way forward is.