Languages
Arabic Czech German Greek English Spanish Finnish French Hungarian Italian Lithuanian Latvian Dutch Polish Portuguese Russian Slovak Swedish Turkish Ukrainian
Subscribe
To get our newsletter please enter your email address in the box below and press 'Subscribe' button.

Current Issue



Articles   Latest
Articles   Hot
KASHMIR (Updated)
Today, 5 August 2019 has become a historic day in our history as something which could not be done in 70 years has taken shape now. Union Home minister Amit Shah has announced that Article 370 which grants special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir will be scrapped. He also announced that Jammu and Kashmir will no longer be a state and it will be bifurcated into two Union Territories— Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.  read more...read more...
WITHERING AWAY OF CONGRESS PARTY
Is ours an ideal democracy!! Hardly so, it is far from being an ideal democracy; where there should be  two equal opponents, like Conservative and Labour party in Britain; like Republican and Democratic party in USA. As for India, for the two major parties here i.e. Congress and BJP there has never been a state of relative equilibrium. There was a time when Congress was all powerful for a long time, BJP had not come into existence then. BJP came into existence and gradually spread its wings and the status now of present election result on 23 May 2019 is that BJP alone bagged 303 seats and 353 seats along with its NDA Alliance. Congress on the other hand could muster only 52 seats; along with UPA, Congress got 91. Other parties won 98 seats. What to talk of equality, Congress party could not win even 55 seats which is the requisite 10 % to become the official opposition. read more...read more...
Printer Friendly Tell a Friend

CLARIFICATION

Clarifications: Some of our esteemed readers have raised queries while  reviewing our Newsletter. We do appreciate their concerns and would like to clarify to the extent possible.
 
Macaulay's Speech in British Parliament on February 2, 1835. We tried to gather proof to authenticate our statement but since this is an event that happened 175 years ago, the historical evidence cannot be decisive. But available historical records on the internet do indicate that Macaulay could  have made such a speech, if not in the British Parliament then may be  somewhere else in 1835  The excerpt given in the Newsletter was copy - pasted from net after typing Abdul Kalam on Macaulay on the google search.

Macaulay's  intention is clear from the minutes, the excerpts from  which are reproduced.

Minutes by Hon'ble T.B. Macaulay , dated 2nd February 1835. 10] I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed, both here and at home, with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is indeed full [33] To sum up what I have said. I think it clear that we are not fettered by the Act of Parliament of 1813, that we are not fettered by any pledge expressed or implied, that we are free to employ our funds as we choose, that we ought to employ them in teaching what is best worth knowing, that English is better worth knowing than Sanscrit or Arabic, that the natives are desirous to be taught English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanscrit or Arabic, that neither as the languages of law nor as the languages of religion have the Sanscrit and Arabic any peculiar claim to our encouragement, that it is possible to make natives of this
country thoroughly good English scholars, and that to this end our efforts ought to be directed.

[34] In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, --a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population .

While there may be historical debates about Maculay's presumed or actual or the defective or the specific utterances, but the fact remains that most of the historical evidence points towards Maculay's overview on education for India and are similar to the excerpt given in the newsletter. Thes views are undisputed and well known.

Before  Macaulay sixty percent of the land revenue, in India  was spent on education. Nalanda, the center of Buddhist learning dates back to 427 A.D. It was visited by Chinese scholars who  have given an account of this  university which is recorded in the  Chinese history also.  Takshila, another center of Hindu and Buddhist learning was before Nalanda. The  English language  came in existence from Greek and Latin in the 16th century .
 
Clearly, Macaulay's attempt was to de-sanskritise and perhaps even de-spiritualize India, even if the motives was to` modernize 'the country. Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi, former HRD minister Govt.of India and Mr.Abdul Kalam, former President have also made  references like ours in their speeches.
 
The results of the policies followed of Macaulay can be seen from the census published in 1901. The male literacy in India was ten percent and female literacy half a percent as per this census . What happened between 1836 to 1901 was hardly a rapid climb in literacy. It is reasonable to infer that those policies led to de-sanskritsation and de-spiritualization of six generation of students. Worse, the policy was based on an imperialist design fostered by  shallow opinion on many vital matters concerning India
 
Among the western scholars Goethe of Germany, who extolled the achievements of India’s national culture. In fact Goethe studied  Shakuntala by Kalidas,  rated Kalidas very high and can be said much  above Shakespeare
 
How can we substantiate thought Research? No Funds has been the cry  of Astro-researchers since long. For instance Astrologers have given correct predictions on rainfall but these are rarely acknowledged. The meteorological department spends30000 crore and their forecasts are often incorrect but astrology has not got even a single paise. Therefore  to expect any substantial research is out of place Not one rupee was spent by the Government before 2000 for either promotion or for preserving astrology.

The debate of Akarma and Vikarma: To quote Mr K.N.Rao " I remember that it is the fourth chapter of Gita. Both words Vikarma and Akarma occur here. In Sankrit it will be Akarmah while in Hindi it will be Akarma
kim karma kim akarmeti
kavayo `py atra mohitah'
tat te karma pravaksyami
yaj jnatva moksyase subhat (cp 4 shloka 16)
 
All my life I have seen karamkandis miss the finer and subtle points  of Gyanakhanda for which knowledge of Sanskrit is not necessary at all-K.N.Rao

Keywords: Journal of Astrology, KN Rao, Journal of Astrology Newsletter, Deepak Bisaria

Full Site Search
-->
Online Lyrics by ViArt Free CMS