Virgin Mary’s Tears to be Tested for Authenticity

Rationalists from the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, headed by president professor Narendra Nayak, will be testing the veracity of the claims made by locals and priests alike that the image of the Catholic religious figure is shedding tears. The Bishop has invited the Rationalists to make sure that this phenomenon being hailed by locals as a miracle is not a scam. This event will take place on the 6^th of March, 2010 at Alleppey in Kerala.
After this event, the rationalists are holding a press conference in which the flex print of Premanand is going to shed tears, because he is very sad that cheap stupid tricks are being passed off as miracles.

It is not shedding tears now, but will do so on the 6^th

Also please note that there will be a rationalist training program by Dr. Nayak on the 7^th, at Alleppey.

The contact person for details on all three events (miracle investigation, press conference and training program) is Anil Kumar of the Kerala Yuktivadi Sangam. Phone no:+919846126080.

Update: The follow-up after the conclusion of the official investigation has been posted here.

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Dates: 6-7 March, 2010

Location: Mulali Juba Kendra Hall near Moulali crossing close to Sealdah station, Kolkata.

The Science & Rationalists Association of India ( Bharatiya Bigyan O Yuktibadi Samity) has completed 25 fruitful years. There will be a  celebration of the silver jubilee on 6-7 March 2010. The annual conference will also be held during the two days with delegates attending seminar, workshop and interactive session during the day. The program on the evening of March 7, 2010 will be open to all. For more details about our activities you may visit our website, www.srai.org.

The program on the 7th will start from 5 pm with songs and discussion by the veteran Bengali folk song maestro Sri Swapan Basu, followed by our anti-superstition demonstrative show “Aloukik noy, Loukik”.

You are invited to attend the function and make it a grand success!

Prabir Ghosh
[G.S. Juktibadi Samiti]

Sumitra Padmanabhan
[President, Juktibadi Samiti]

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Reaching out to the younger generation is our priority number one. All our efforts are to reach out to this generation. The older generations with their fixed mindsets they are either with us or against us. Some fence sitters may need a push or pull from us to come our way. But, most of the times it is preaching to the converted or nonconvertible! Read the full story

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The details of the meeting are as follows.

Date : 14.03.2010

Time : 10.30 A.M to 5.30 P.M

Venue :

Akhila Karnataka Makkala Koota,
Pampa Mahakavi Road,
Fort, Chamarajpet,
Bangalore - 560018
(Near Kannada Sahitya Parishath, opposite City Institute Club)

The first state level Rationalist meet will be held on the 14^th of March 2010. The goals of the meet are to strengthen the Rationalist Movement in the state, to incorporate scientific temper, to fight against superstitions, miracle mongers and fundamentalism. Most importantly, we aim to encourage the youth to join the movement. We wish to have the support of people from  all walks of life. No restrictions on the numbers of members from any delegation for attending the conference. However, only two persons from each district are allowed to present a paper on the above subject.

For further details/clarifications contact by e-mail: babukadur44@gmail.com ; phone : 9886679088 and 080-41476288

B.V.V.Subbarao
Convener
Bangalore Rationalist Association

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Editor’s Note: Professor Narendra Nayak has embarked on another rationalism tour in India. This time he focuses his efforts around the Maharashtra and Karnataka regions covering large cities like Mumbai to tribal regions like Itarsi. This tour begins its first event on Feb 13^th and ends on March 7^th, a week before the Karnataka Rationalist Association meet. For more information on Prof. Nayak and his demonstrations and training programs, please see the Related posts at the bottom of this post.

February

13 - 15^th a training program at Mahad for dalith activists from all over Maharashtra. Contact person- Pravin Gangurde 98906 31933
16 - 18^th to be fixed. Contact person- Pravin Gangurde 98906 31933
18 - 19^th Thane. Contact person- Dr. Rajendra Nayak-02225854378
20 - 21^st at Itarsi, four interactions each day at an equal number of tribal villages, organised by Tribal Welfare Department of MP Govt. Contact person- Rajesh Parashar- 9425310803
22^nd at Bhopal organised by the above department. Contact person- same as above.
23 - 27^th, training program for students of social work organised by Social Development Foundation, New Delhi. Contact person- Anand-9893642880.
28^th feb at Mumbai. Contact person- Dr. Rajendra Nayak 02225854378

March

1^st at Mumbai. Contact person- Dr.Rajendra Nayak 02225854378
2^nd back to Mangalore
6 - 7^th at Alleppey organised by Kerala Yuktivadi Sangham. Contact person- Anil Kumar 9846126080

The Karnataka Rationalist Association meet at Bangalore is on the 14^th of March. Read more about it here.

Power Transmission Grid School (2009 Tour)

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A group of activists, academics and leaders of the Freethought Movement have come together to propose the foundation of a well-organized, non-profit, freethought organization in India.

Summary: This is a proposal for a management-oriented approach to a Nirmukta organization. It is in three parts- (1) establishing why such an approach is needed, (2) presenting a mission statement and (3) proposing clear objectives to be implemented immediately.

Introduction

Nirmukta had its first online “meeting” on Saturday the 23rd of January, 2010. The members of the Nirmukta team who participated in this meeting include Prof. Narendra Nayak president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA), Dr. Prabhakar Kamath, Pankaj Kulkarni, Siddharth Singh, Ajita Kamal and Kedar Kulkarni. We also had a guest panelist, Blair Scott, the National Affiliate Outreach Director for American Atheists, to help bring us a unique perspective from an established freethought organization in the United States. While the meeting was beset with technical problems, some avoidable by refining protocol and familiarizing ourselves with the format, and some unavoidable (such as the bandwidth issue), we were still able to come up with some good ideas and share them with the group. Read the full story

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Editor’s Note: On January the 23^rd, 2010, the Nirmukta team had its first web-conference. Some specific ideas were discussed during this conference, and a commitment was made towards planning to manage the future of the freethought movement. After the conference, Professor Narendra Nayak, president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, prepared the below statement and had it sent to the rest of the Nirmukta team. The team was already preparing a preliminary proposal, and took Professor Nayak’s statement into consideration along with more general management strategies. What follows below is Professor Nayak’s statement. The Nirmukta team’s proposal can be found here.

At the panel discussion held on the 23^rd January, Ajita and Pankaj set off some thoughts which have been in my mind for long. The motives are very selfish- to see that the movement for which we have worked so hard grows even stronger. Of course I do hope that one would not begrudge that to me. I was also thanked for having shared my three decades of experiences. It is my feeling that the thanks should be the other way round, for having provided me that opportunity to build up a stronger and younger movement by sharing my experiences with the new generation. Read the full story

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Indian Skeptic is the magazine that reports on the Rationalism Movement in India. This movement is spearheaded by the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA), under its president Professor Narendra Nayak. The magazine was founded and for many years published by eminent rationalist and debunker Basava Premanand, along with with Prof Nayak. That original Indian Skeptic was retired after Premanand’s death. Recently, a new avatar of Indian Skeptic was born at the 2009 National level FIRA conference. The magazine still deals with issues concerning rationalists and skeptics of supernatural claims, particularly in India. The editor and publisher of the new Indian Skeptic magazine is T.V. Manoj. Read the full story

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(Note: This is the 7th article in the series on the evolution of early religious thought in India, by Dr. Prabhakar Kamath. The previous article in the series can be accessed here. All Dr. Kamath’s previous articles can be accessed from this page where you can also sign up for Dr. Kamath’s RSS feed.)

Intellectual Ferment

By 600 B.C.E. a great intellectual ferment was brewing across the Indo-Gangetic plain the likes of which India has not seen since. Countless different Kshatriya-inspired philosophies sprang up from the agitated intellect of the Indo-Gangetic Civilization. During this period (900-500 B.C.E), thousands of wandering sophists, known as Parivrajaka, crisscrossed the country questioning anything and everything, including the doctrines of the Gunas and Karma, the Vedas, Vedic sacrificial rites, animal sacrifices, Varna Dharma, and supremacy of Brahmins. They engaged each other in robust public debates on every topic on earth. They challenged their adversaries to either win them over in debate or to follow them. These ‘argumentative Indians‘ came to be known as ‘ ‘Hair splitters’ or ‘Eel wigglers.’ The public halls all over Aryavarta were packed with curious people eager to learn and experiment with new ideas to cope with life’s vicissitudes. New Age Philosophies thrived everywhere. They were all sick and tired of Brahmanism’s remedy for every problem in the world: Perform sacrifices! Read the full story

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In this sequel to what I had written about my last trip to Uttarakhand, I am reporting on my latest visit to this state. This is my third visit to this area; the first was in 2006 when I had been to Kotdwar and Pithoragarh and the second was in April,2009 when I had been to Uttarakashi and Hardwar.

Like the previous two this visit is also to train youngsters in developing scientific temper in connection with what we call as our “Miracle Exposure Program“. We have been conducting hundreds of these in collaboration with various organizations, mainly the National Council for Science and Technology Communications, popularly called the NCSTC. This organization had started supporting our mentor Premanand in his training programs and had already published a book called “Seeing is not Believing” in Hindi and English. They had also made a kit for presenting the same, and have been engaged in such activities for nearly three decades. Read the full story

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