Darwin Day 2013

February 12, 2013 in the World

Darwin Day is observed on February 12, 2013 and intends to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin in 1809. The day is used to highlight Darwin's contribution to science and to promote science in general. Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, who established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.

In the late 1990s, two Darwin enthusiasts, Chesworth and Stephens, co-founded an unofficial effort to promote Darwin Day. In 2001, Chesworth moved to New Mexico and incorporated the "Darwin Day Program". In 2004, the New Mexico Corporation was dissolved and all its assets assigned to the "Darwin Day Celebration", a non-profit organization incorporated in California in 2004 by Dr. Robert Stephens and others and the Mission Statement was expanded.

Some celebrants combine Darwin Day with a celebration of Abraham Lincoln, who was also born on February 12, 1809. Still others like to celebrate the many noted individuals that influenced or were influenced by Darwin's work, such as Thomas H. Huxley, Charles Lyell, Alfred Russel Wallace, Carl Sagan, and Ernst Mayr. (With material from: Wikipedia)

LOGICAL AND MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE BETWEEN SWAMI DAYANAND AND ONE SADHU ! 
Swami ~ “To begin with, please explain what do you mean by Vedantism?”
Sadhu - ”Vedantism is that which teaches that the world is false and that God is the only true existence.”

Swami ~ “What do you understand by the ‘world’ (jagata)? What things are included in your ‘world’ and what do you mean by the term ‘false’ (mithya)?”

Sadhu - ”Whatever there is from atoms up to the sun, is called the ‘world’ and all that is in it, is false and unreal.”

Swami ~ ”Are or are not your body, speech, moving about, updesh, guru, and books included in this world also?

Sadhu - Yes they are.”

Swami ~ “And is your religion also included in this, or is it outside of it?”

Sadhu - “Verily, that too is included in this.”

Swami ~ “When you yourself admit that you and your guru, your faith and your books, your speech and your updesh are false, what can I say to you? The case, according to the statement of the claimant himself, deserves to be dismissed. There is no need of witnesses here.

INDIA'S SPEECH IMPEDIMENTS !
A film, for example, might pass the Censor Board, but then be summarily banned by a state government. That’s what happened with “Vishwaroopam,” a Tamil spy thriller released worldwide — but not in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where officials prevented its screening, fearing that it might anger Muslims.

Next door, in Bangalore, the police demanded that an art gallery remove partially nude pictures of Hindu deities lest they hurt Hindu sentiments and cause mob violence.

Under the modern Indian Constitution, freedom of speech is highly qualified, subject to what the government deems “reasonable” restrictions. The state can silence its citizens for any number of reasons, including “public order,” “decency or morality” and “friendly relations with foreign states.”

India’s courts, meanwhile, do little to rein in government authorities. The country’s Supreme Court, in the end, did stay Mr. Nandy’s arrest, but it also reinforced the state’s position that he had “no license” to make such statements: “An idea can always hurt people,” the chief justice opined. “An idea can certainly be punished under the law.”

But India cannot hope to be a true cultural capital of the world — let alone a truly free society — until it firmly protects the right to speech. Without an unqualified constitutional amendment that guarantees this freedom, as the American Constitution’s First Amendment does, the country cannot fairly claim to be the “world’s largest democracy.”

Indians must understand that free speech — the right to think and exchange ideas freely — is at the core of the democracy they cherish. If the former is weak, the latter cannot help but be as well.

LATEST FATWA AGAINST MUSIC LOVING YOUNG GIRLS !
WHY RELIGIONS ARE INVARIABLY MISOGYNIST ???
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred of women, or the belief that women are inferior to men. It manifests itself in a variety of ways, including social discrimination, physical abuse, legal discrimination, and generalized objectification of women. A few countries, notably some Islamic states, have encoded misogyny into their laws. Some of these states give husbands and fathers full legal rights over their wives and daughters; prevent women from accessing public services without permission of their husbands or fathers; and legally limit the ability of women to participate in society by preventing them from holding jobs, driving, or accessing the press. These legal moves are often combined with a social blindness (including on the part of the police) towards violence against women, up to and including the crimes of rape and murder.
Blatant and subtle institutionalized and social misogyny is still encountered everywhere in the world. This can manifest itself in laws regulating reproduction (specifically birth control and abortion) which prevent a woman from fully controlling her life, social barriers to accessing political and economic power, rape culture and acceptance of domestic abuse.
Written history is largely misogynist; it has only been in the last 200 years in any country that women have truly begun to find any measure of equality.

WORLD CANCER DAY TODAY !
PREVALENCE OF LIFE STYLE ORIENTED CANCERS IN INDIA ; 
In addition to the genetic link as the cause of all cancers, cancer development has been linked to several risk factors including an unhealthy lifestyle – tobacco use, cigarette smoking and excess consumption of alcohol, wrong diet habits and physical inactivity. Studies report that because of tobacco chewing, cigarette smoking and eating paan and gutka, people in India have 25 times the average risk of developing oral cancer. In fact, India has the world's highest incidence of oral cancer, with 75,000 to 80,000 new cases a year. Lung cancer is another most common cancer amongst men in India. Cigarette smoking, bidi smoking and tobacco use are the main culprits. Besides, air pollution has become a great threat to lungs. Kolkata is considered the most polluted city followed by Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. More than 18 persons per one lakh people in Kolkata fall victim to lung cancer every year as compared to the next highest 13 per one lakh in Delhi, according to environmental scientist and advisor of Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI), Dr Twisha Lahiri. Eating salty, spicy and pickled food and excessive alcohol consumption may be associated with stomach cancer, which is more rampant in the South. Exposure to carcinogens or cancer-causing agents such as asbestos and ultraviolet or ionizing radiation have also been linked to cancer. Certain viral infections such as Human papilloma virus infection too can result in cancer cervix in women. Women in India today have become career minded and their outlook towards life is changing. And that is when the risks of breast cancer come into play; having no children, having the first child after the age of 35, fewer children, shorter duration of breast feeding or taking birth control pills for long.

INDIA FAST BECOMING INTOLERANT SECTARIAN STATE !
*It has become virtual crime to speak,write or depict truth in any manner.
*Freedom of speech and expression is being redefined in the light of illogical,irrational and obscurantist concepts.
* Theoretically speaking,the Indian constitution is completely secular :its principles of 'justice,liberty,equality and fraternity' invoke no divine power,no holy book[s] and no sacred tradition,yet ironically in practice and perception,democratizing [appeasement ?]to all major religions,without simultaneously democratizing access to scientific temper and secular education,has led to the creation of sectarian,intolerant and obscurantist society.
*Gone are the days,when establishment stood for the right of expression and speech,now establishment, polity and state Governments simply crawl and bend with least resistance,when fringe groups "direct" them to bend.
*Today a situation has arisen ,when we are offended by films-we have neither watched nor are we able to understand the basic concepts,books we have not read,girl bands we have not heard and paintings we have not seen.
*Again and again,the Indian state,despite all its vaunted powers,has chosen to side with anti democratic forces and abjectly surrendered or shamelessly pandered to belligerent fringe groups who are opposed to freedom,liberty and dignity of the individual.

THE CULTURE OF "CULTURAL TERRORISM" :HOW MUCH LONGER ?
While listening to Kamal Haasan addressing the media some time back, and when the veteran actor almost seemed on the verge of his tolerance, there`s a certain chord that has been struck. Somewhere from within the core of the heart, a feeling of empathy reaches out to Haasan. The actor - buckling under pressure - has ripped bare that face of politics that people usually want to sweep under the carpet. He and his `Vishwaroopam`, being the rallying point of protests from Tamil Nadu first and several other parts of the country later, has brought before us that very question, yet again, where is cultural freedom in this country of ours?

Kamal Haasan`s `Vishwaroopam` being the case in point, celebrities and films are indeed becoming soft targets here. A country which celebrates its status of a `secular republic` with such enthusiasm, doesn`t hesitate to slam a ban on something as harmless as a film with even more enthusiasm. As far as freedom of an individual is concerned - and
more so of an artiste - one might as well rest in peace.

Controversies, protests, sparking off a blame game - a handful in the higher echelons of power don`t ever shirk from any of these. When somebody as unimportant as Hafiz Saeed or Rehman Malik wanted to provide `security` to Shah Rukh Khan, the receiving end of all the blame - mostly - was Khan. And for no fault of his. The actor had to address the media in words that clearly portrayed what Khan was - an Indian first, and then anything else.

Kamal Hasaan, now, is another facet of the dirty politics that certain people play - and get away with it without even soiling their hands. His film, `Vishwaroopam`, has been banned in parts of the country, despite being cleared by the Censor Board - which, by the way, is a `national` body.

In a way, it is pretty easy to target a celebrity. Any gossip, any shadow of a scandal, any controversy - sells best when it is a denizen of filmdom at the centre of it all. People lap it up with a crazy eagerness. And if there`s a religious side to it, nothing could be better than that. Many films have earlier been banned, many books have faced taboos, many artistes have been forced to take up residence elsewhere. The shame is ours. As a country, we`ve fallen prey to certain exponents of bigotry for whom nothing feels better than slinging mud at someone else - someone, who they are aware, is way more famous than them and command a lot more attention than what they could have ever dreamt of doing.

One thing is for sure. If an artiste like Kamal Haasan is compelled to leave the country, we will need to hang our heads in shame. It is a loss for India. The way MF Hussain was when he took up the citizenship of Kuwait, the way Salman Rushdie was when he was banned from attending the 2012 Jaipur Literature Festival, (and now will not be visiting West Bengal) the way so many others have been when they left the country for good. We indeed are falling prey to a `cultural terrorism`, as Kamal Haasan so rightly puts it.

Cultural terrorism is there in the fact that someone whose film is in the production stage at the moment, is so scared. Scared of something which, in another world, might have sounded horribly funny. In another world. Or country, perhaps.