The MP High Court orders government *not* to make Surya Namaskar and Pranayam mandatory for students…

…even as yoga for kids is now being taught in studios from Minnetonka, USA to Moscow in Russia.

Sigh.

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Related Posts:

Super Brain Yoga - I want to trademark this!

High-Tech Pranayama

No more “Christian Yoga”

After Christian Yoga, Islamic Yoga*…

Post from: || Satyameva Jayate ||

Next, a fascinating article on how memories are distorted and invented

…then read Gurcharan Das’s good news about poverty.

and finally, excerpts from the sacred story of Kak Bhushundi.

Excerpts from all the links below, as always…

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*** Excerpts from Mumbai no longer meri jaan ***

…New Delhi: On the Facebook group “Mumbai Terror Attacks: I condemn it” (membership 35,166), a new condolence message was posted on 15 June—mourning not a victim of the attacks last year, but the defeat of the Indian cricket team in a Twenty20 match.

…Until last November, Sathya N., 21, worked at Nirmal building, Nariman Point, near the Trident hotel in Mumbai. After the three-day carnage, when many of her friends were talking about participating in candlelight vigils or meeting groups of people hungry for change, Sathya was busy signing up with online groups forbidden by her parents to participate in the marches.
Sathya joined as many as four Facebook groups.

…(today) These Facebook groups have…turned into platforms for random discussions unlinked to 26/11, its impact on Mumbai, or ideas that can bring about the change they once sought.
…What these groups lacked, according to Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, was a dedicated team to keep the momentum going. “They don’t have intelligently incremental action points that keep their audiences increasingly engaged,”

…It was perhaps the need to sustain momentum that drove some of the offline citizens’ groups into the political sphere. Anil Bahl allied his Let’s Rebuild India with the Professionals Party of India. A group called Jago Mumbai turned into the Jago Party, which fielded a candidate in the Lok Sabha election from north-west Mumbai. (He lost.) “We decided that we couldn’t do anything alone,” says Bhuresh Barot, a working member of the Jago Party. “You need to be in power to do anything.”

…The 26/11 online groups lost their followers, Abraham argues, only because “there was no unified vision of where these groups wanted to go. Properly designed advocacy efforts on the Internet such as that of Michael Geist from Canada, who managed to block anti-consumer changes to the copyright law by using a Facebook group, will and can work”.
That may be true. But it may also just be as Barot says: “People got busy. This is Mumbai. This is a fact of life.”

***

*** Excerpts from How Memories are Distorted and Invented ***

One evening in 1975 an unsuspecting Australian psychologist, Donald M. Thomson, walked into a television studio to discuss the psychology of eyewitness testimony. Little did he know that at the very moment he was discussing how people can best remember the faces of criminals, there was someone encoding his own face as a rapist.

The day after the television broadcast Thomson was picked up by local police. He was told that last night a woman was raped and left unconscious in her apartment. She had named Thomson as her attacker.

Thomson was shocked, but had a watertight alibi. He had been on television at the time of the attack and in the presence of the assistant commissioner of police.

It seemed that the victim had been watching Thomson on television just prior to being attacked. She had then confused his face with that of her attacker. That a psychologist talking about identifying the faces of criminals should be the subject of just such a gross memory failure - and at the very moment he was publicly explaining it - is an irony hard to ignore.

Donald Thompson was completely exonerated but many others have not been so lucky.

…Donald Thomson’s ordeal, though, is a perfect example of Harvard psychologist Daniel L. Schacter’s fourth sin of memory (Schacter, 1999). Unlike the first three sins, which all involve being unable to access memories, this is the first sin that involves the creation of memories that are false in some way. When a memory is ‘misattributed’ some original true aspect of a memory becomes distorted through time, space or circumstances.

These sorts of studies on the misattributions of memories can be existentially disturbing. This is because each of us is effectively the accumulation of our experiences, our memories. Who we are is - at least partly - what has happened to us.

…Discovering the scientific evidence for how easily memories become confused, distorted or just plain break through from fantasy to reality is like discovering that part of ourselves is fabricated, false in some way. As psychologist William James points out in the opening quote, memories can be carved from both reality and our dreams.

***

*** Excerpts from At last, good news about poverty by Gurcharan Das ***

…Unlike China which has embraced growth enthusiastically, India has a vast industry of ‘poverty-wallas’, who incessantly raise doubts if our growth is pro-poor.

These ‘growth skeptics’ tend to make our reformers defensive, which slows reforms and the nation loses the potential for even higher growth. Earlier they argued that post-reform growth was ‘jobless’ until recent data has proved them wrong. Nowadays, they usually say, ‘growth but…’ While the type of growth does matter, the truth is that growth in itself is virtuous, and we should celebrate that India is experiencing this miracle.

Now, two experts on poverty have come up with new research which shows that India’s high economic growth since 1991 is, indeed, pro- poor and has decisively reduced poverty. Gaurav Datt and Martin Ravallion, both respected economists, employed a new series of consumption-based poverty measures from 1950 to 2006 and 47 rounds of National Sample Surveys, to show that slightly more than one person in two lived below the poverty line in India during the 1950s and ‘60s. By 1990 this had fallen to one person in three. By 2005, it fell again, and only one in five persons now lives below the poverty line.

The authors conclude that ‘the post-reform process of urban economic growth has brought significant gains to the rural poor as well as the urban poor’. (See ‘Has India’s Economic Growth Become More Pro-Poor in the Wake of Economic Reforms?’ http://econ.worldbank.org,Policy Research Working Paper 5103).

The poor in urban and rural areas are now linked through trade, migration, and transfers, which explains why rising standards in India’s towns are helping to reduce poverty in the villages. Even though agricultural growth has been relatively weak since 1991, overall high growth has affected positively the lives of the rural masses.

This is an outcome that the reformers had dreamt of.

…The dampener, alas, is that inequality after 1991 is also increasing. This happy news, however, must be seen in the context of lost opportunities. If only India had reformed agriculture and had functioning schools and health centers, the poor would have gained even more from high growth…

India’s failure in education and health is not a function of money alone, as the Prime Minister suggested this week when he vowed to raise spending on education to 6%. When one in four teachers is absent and one in four is not teaching, we need accountability in delivering services to the poor. Thus, administrative reforms are just as important to the lives of the poor than even economic reforms.

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*** The story of Kak Bhushundi (courtesy Urday.com) ***

Replying to the query of Garuda, Kak Bhushundi said: ” At one time, I was born in Ayodhya. I was a shudra then. Once a famine occurred there, so leaving my birthplace, I migrated to Ujjaini. There,I took Shiva mantra from a Brahman. I had great discrimination then in my mind. Despite being a devotee of Shiva, I used to hate Vishnu and Rama.Though my teacher was a true devotee, but I used to criticize Narayana. My teacher kept on convincing him that Shankar and Vishnu are one. Even Shankar himself takes the name of Rama. To discriminate between Hari and Har and criticize any one of them is a sin. But for my ego,I never paid attention to the words of my teacher.

One day sitting in the temple of Shiva, I was reciting Shiva Mantra when my teacher arrived there.I did not greet him nor stood up in his respect. My teacher a saint in nature did not feel bad. But Lord Shankar in a celestial voice then proclaimed: “You will have to take birth 1000 times in the form of insects and worms.” Hearing that voice, the kind Brahmana felt sorry for me. He prayed to Lord Shiva: ” O Lord, he is an person with no knowledge, pardon him.” Pleased by the kindness of the Brahmana, Lord Shankar announced some relaxation for me. He said: ” He will not be sorry for his birth and death. Whatever form he takes, he will leave that without pain. By my grace, he will remember all these events. During Rama Avataar, he will find salvation.”

Thus by the curse, I wandered in many forms and now have taken birth in Brahmana clan. My parents had passed away in my childhood. Now I have only one desire to have a glimpse of Lord Rama. With this desire I have been wandering from place to place… Thus wandering, I reached the hermitage of the sage Lomash. Finding me a completely detached Brahmana, came to teach me about Brahmagyan(the supreme knowledge). He also preached me about the formless, intangible God and I countered his words by supporting the tangible appearance of God. This infuriated the sage Lomash and he cursed me saying: ” you are so much stubborn on your decision, so go and become a crow.” At once I acquired the body of a crow…To read the rest, follow the link above.

***

Have a safe, relaxing weekend. Keep smiling and stay healthy!

Post from: || Satyameva Jayate ||

Pl. see below two versions of Google map of India: one as seen in India and the other as seen in China

Note in particular that Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin are both shown as “disputed” in the Indian version while the boundary is fully settled and neatly demarcated in the Chinese version.

Error, misunderstanding or double standards?

Related Post: Arunachal: Sleepwalking into a disaster

Post from: || Satyameva Jayate ||

The Param Vir Chakra is awarded for most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self sacrifice, in the presence of the enemy, whether on land, at sea, or in the air. The decoration may be awarded posthumously.

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*** Saluting our Heores - Major Shaitan Singh, PVC ***

A tribute to Major Shaitan Singh, a Param Veer who sacrificed his life on this date,  47 years ago.

Early November 1962: After years of “Panch Sheel” and slogans of “Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai”, reality is slowly creeping back into India-China relations. The dispute over unmarked borders is in danger of flaring up. There have been sporadic reports of border clashes. The mood on the Indian side of the border is alert.  The mood in New Delhi is sanguine - the political leadership is blissfully unaware of the approaching storm.

On Nov 14, the Chinese troops make their first move in the Walong sector. The invasion stuns the government, its suddenness taking everyone by surprise. Walong was being defended by the braves of Kumaon Regiment who “fought the Chinese with astounding grit and determination.” Kumaon’s heroic defence leads to the battalion being awarded five Vir Chakras for bravery and sacrifice during  the battle.

But the war is far from over.

Rezong La - an icy pass at a strategic location at 17,000 feet is soon going to see some fierce action.

The troops guarding Rezong La are led by Major Shaitan Singh. Because of the nature of the surrounding terrain, they are isolated from the rest of the battalion.

Sometime during the night of 17th Nov,  the Chinese make their move.

It was the end of a very cold winter night, with light snow falling. The icy winds howling through Rezang La were biting and benumbing…In the dim light of the morning, the Chinese were seen advancing through nullahs to attack No.7 and No.8 platoon positions.

Here is what happened next:

…dawn broke on 18 November 1962; unusually cold, with snow falling lightly over Rezang La…This day saw a battle that was unique in many ways. Never before in the world’s military history had a major battle been fought at such an altitude. The forces arrayed were also unequally matched.

At about 0615 hours, all those deployed around Chushul, were attracted by the sound and sight of massive shelling on Rezang La, Gurung Hill and Spanggur gap - bringing entire Infantry Brigade to their respective battle positions.

The Battle of Rezang La commenced hours before the shelling that the rest of Brigade saw from a distance. In fact, the first Chinese attack was ‘silent’, with the intention to surprise the defenders of Rezang La, in which, the Chinese failed.

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At about 0400 hours, it was noticed that a large body of enemy troops, scrambling up through gullies towards a platoon post.Within no time every man of the Kumaon Company under Maj Shaitan Singh was at ‘ready for action’ state. Every gully that descended to the dry bed of Rezang Lungpa was swarming with Chinese. It was still pretty dark. Maj Shaitan Singh and his brave men were now certain to face a big attack. With bated breath they waited, their fingers on their triggers.

…At about 0500 hours, when the dawn was just cracking, the first wave of Chinese assault was seen through their gun sights. Just when the Chinese came within range, Maj Shaitan Singh ordered to open fire…Evidence of large number of the enemy casualties came, when Rezang La was visited three months later.Chinese frontal attack having failed, they modified their attack plan by shelling Rezang La heavily. It was this intensive shelling which made a spectacular display of the Chinese superiority in weapons. There were no bunkers left on Rezang La…but there was no sign of panic or withdrawal. According to those who visited Rezang La, three months later:

The dead men were found in their trenches, frozen stiff, still holding their weapons. Broken Light Machine Gun bipods, and some men holding only the butts of their rifles while the remaining weapon had blown off, bore witness to the enemy fire.

The odds against the Company were heavy, superior numbers and fire power was beginning to tell…

What followed is best told in Maj Shaitan Singh’s citation.

CITATION

Major Shaitan Singh, 13 KUMAON (IC 7990)

Major Shaitan Singh was commanding a company of an infantry battalion deployed at Rezang La in the Chushul sector at a height of about 17,000 feet. The locality was isolated from the main defended sector and consisted of five platoon-defended position.

On 18 November 1962, the Chinese forces subjected the company position to heavy artillery, mortar and small arms fire and attacked it in overwhelming strength in several successive waves. Against heavy odds, our troops beat back successive waves of enemy attack.

During the action, Major Shaitan singh dominated the scene of operations and moved at great personal risk from one platoon post to another sustaining the morale of his hard-pressed platoon posts. While doing so he was seriously wounded but continued to encourage and lead his men, who, following his brave example fought gallantly and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. For every man lost to us, the enemy lost four or five.

When Major Shaitan Singh fell disabled by wounds in his arms and abdomen, his men tried to evacuate him but they came under heavy machine-gun fire. Major Shaitan Singh then ordered his men to leave him to his fate in order to save their lives.

Major Shaitan Singh’s supreme courage, leadership and exemplary devotion to duty inspired his company to fight almost to the last man.

***

As the Wikipedia entry on Maj Shaitan Singh notes: The battle of Rezang La, a ridge overlooking the strategic Chushul plains in Ladakh, is one of the most glorious chapters in the history of the Indian army and has been compared by some military historians with the famed battle of Thermopylae. In the unequal war of 1962 against the Chinese , the Ahir Charlie Company from 13 Kumaon, led by Major Shaitan Singh, decided that until they were alive the Chinese weren’t going to have a look-in on Chushul, at 17,000 ft.

Of the 120 defenders, only three survived, seriously wounded. The rest, including Major Shaitan Singh, were discovered after the winter, frozen, mostly holding their weapons but with no ammunition.

This was a genuine ‘last man-last round’ defense…and it succeeded in stalling the Chinese advance in this sector. As Rajeev Srinivasan wrote:

(The last stand of 13 Kumaon)…succeeded in blunting the Chinese assault, killing as many as a thousand Chinese in the process at Rezang La and at nearby Gurung Hill. Thereafter, the Chinese did not push further towards the Chushul plain. It was a critical checkpoint on a potential Chinese advance on Leh.

The Kumaon Battalion was later the proud recipient of the Battle Honour ‘Rezang La’ and the Theatre Honour ‘Ladakh 1962’. And yet, the last stand of 13 Kumaon at Chushul is not widely known. The story of their valour is not part of our textbooks. There is no memorial for them. An ungrateful nation hardly remembers their sacrifice.

These brave men died - unwept, unmourned and unsung.

As you go about your day today, please spare a moment to remember these heroes…and please forward this to fellow Indians. We will not forget.

Related Posts:

Saluting our Heroes: Maj Somnath Sharma, PVC

Saluting our Heroes: The “Param Vir Chakra” series

Post from: || Satyameva Jayate ||

*** “Secular Harit Desh” by Sanjay ***

MJ Akbar, the celebrity journalist, editor (Sunday and Telegraph), author, commentator and columnist has for some time now taken pains to present the Muslim liberal point of view.

He was editor of the very popular but now defunct Sunday magazine in the 1980s where one of his claims to fame was in pioneering incredibly cloying sycophantic pieces on Rajiv Gandhi  (Mani Shankar Aiyer was a notable contributor). He was subsequently recognized for his work by being given a Congress ticket to contest from Bihar resulting in his becoming a MP. He was also editor of Telegraph newspaper that dethroned The Statesman in Kolkata as the number one English language paper. He was also editor of Asian Age from where he was summarily asked to go.

He then surfaced with a web-site Covert (www.covert.co.in) and also www.mjakbar.com. He has written several books from India – The Siege Within to Blood Brothers via Shade of Swords. He appears to have fallen out with the Congress since and there were reports of his cosying up to the NDA in hopes of securing a ticket to Parliament from Bihar.

In his current avatar over the past several years, he’s positioned himself as a Muslim liberal.

His books are well-written and his columns are readable. But he suffers from the worrying aspect that plagues all Muslim liberals – the chronic inability to critically examine aspects of Islamic texts, interpretations by the Ulema and consequent behaviours of those inspired by them.

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His position is therefore that, at best, of an apologist. His book Shade of Swords on the history of Jihad is an example of this position. He’s written about rising Muslim population in Assam and how seats are being won there by Badruddin Ajmal and how important it is for Muslims to organize themselves to become part of the mainstream. A worthy objective no doubt!

The inability of Muslim intellectuals and liberals to take dispassionate, let alone strong critical positions where Islam and the Ulema are concerned is one big reason for the continuing hold of the Ulema over the Muslims, a vast majority of whom are poor and easily manipulated

His latest column published in the Sunday Times of India Nov 15th provides a look into this thinking. He shows his hand (see highlighted section below in the excerpt) in almost urging someone to stake claim to a state with a substantial Muslim population (perhaps becoming the 2nd Muslim majority state?). Of course, securing the support of visionary principled Jat leaders like Ajit Singh for creating his Harit Desh for achieving this will not be terribly hard!

Excerpt from Why some political parties lost the plot by  M J Akbar:

Defeat is the distance between a bedtime story and a wake-up call. The former starts with ‘Once upon a time…’ and lulls the voter to sleep. The second is an energiser that addresses a fresh dawn.

Three political parties have become victims of their own success: their narrative has run its course, and they have not been able to find a further chapter to their saga.

The BJP story is the simplest: the fairies have abandoned its fairy tale. It began as the party of refugees from Pakistan. The robust economic and social resettlement of the dispossessed, evident by the 70s, paradoxically, liberated them from the party which helped them. After the high-drama blip of the Emergency and Janata Party phase, the BJP reinvented itself as a champion of a psychological rather than an economic need.

The temple movement brought great rewards, culminating, albeit through a parabola enhanced by the charisma of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in six years of power at the Centre. But within this time, the Indian mood turned. Economic aspirations took primacy over psychological needs, particularly since the temple movement was made irrelevant by the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya. A functioning temple has come up on the site, a fact that seems to escape the attention of those writing the BJP manifesto, which keeps promising to build a temple.

…When socialism became passe, Mulayam Singh Yadav resurrected himself brilliantly as the anti-thesis of the BJP, blending it with a distinctive element of Lohia socialism, empowerment of the backward castes. However, when the thesis is faltering, the anti-thesis cannot be robust. That is the Samajwadi Party’s problem vis-a-vis the Muslim vote. As for the Backwards: Mandal has been milked dry. Mandal has delivered for those whose prayers were answered in 1990. A new generation of Backwards needs solutions for the 21st century.

The last time the Left had anything original to say was more than three decades ago; and it had remarkable staying power in Bengal. But Bengali Muslims, critical to any democratic algebra, are now tired of the Left’s soft secularism, a formula in which their lives were secure from communal violence but their livelihood was left to the wolves. The subalterns of Bengal, across the religious divide, have adopted an interesting strategy: they have become, to a great extent, a non-partisan opposition.

…The key to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s future will lie in his ability to unlock the next dimension of Muslim demands, and spearhead it. There is a transparent anger, leavened by confusion, among Muslims which is provoking a drift to the most familiar port, the Congress. But the Congress has nothing new to offer.

What the Muslims of UP are looking for, but have been unable to articulate, is a defined political space within which they can find food-and-faith security. Given the passions that such a demand could arouse, this quest might surface obliquely rather than directly. On the table is Ajit Singh’s dream of a Harit Desh in western UP. Such a state will have a substantive Muslim population, as well as a string of important Muslim educational institutions, from Aligarh to Deoband. It will become a natural socio-economic magnet for Muslims of the north. The idea is still in an embryonic stage. Whoever articulates it, will have rung a wake-up call.

*** Excerpt Ends ***

Post from: || Satyameva Jayate ||