They die unsung – children of a lesser Goddess!

It was a British magazine 'The Guardian' which revealed that more 500 Indian workers have died in Qatar since 2012.  Qatar is on a fast-track building spree. It is hosting the world football tournament in 2022. So it is harnessing all the human labour it can to build infrastructure. Indian embassy in Doha has meekly confirmed to The Guardian the deaths of 237 Indians 2012 and 241 in 2013 and another 24 Indians in January 2014. It has been found by the reporters that at Doha's main hospital r more than 1,000 people, falling from heights, constructing the needed infrastructure for 2022 World Cup, had been admitted to the trauma unit of the facility in 2012. Ten per cent of these were disabled, and the resulting mortality rate was "significant." Suddenly the warning of International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) that up to 4,000 workers may die before a ball is kicked in 2022 without meaningful reform of the Kafala system, does not seem to be an empty rhetoric but a dire warning of the shape of things to come. 

Kafala system is actually a kind of adaptation. With adaption looked down traditionally in Islamic world, it has come to mean a form of slavery. It ties workers to their employers. Thus Kafala is the Islamic equivalent of indentured labourer system. It places the worker somewhere between a complete slave and a sponsored labourer. Poor Indians and Nepalis seeking livelihood, haunted by unemployment and spiraling prices and escalating bills to be paid for the bare minimum standard of living including education for the children, come to Gulf countries with dreams of a better future. They come ready to toil and sweat. However their willingness to work hard and their extreme financial needs have made them a great human pool of exploitation by the forces that run the Kafala system.  Kafala system is a big pipe which pumps in cheap labor from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Lanka.  Those who are brought through this system are worse than slaves They live entirely at the mercy of the touts and if they survive all these it is a miracle.

During the British colonialism India's poverty was caused by colonial exploitation. The famines created by the British were then used to export Indians to British colonies all over the world to work as indentured labourers. Today with the present political system exploiting India with the same ruthlessness, our people are selling themselves for a dream of a better life – for the enjoyment and entertainment of the Western and Arabian world. The wealth that has been stolen from Indian masses by the political establishment is a huge one. Usually this stolen wealth finds its way into foreign banks. In other words we are in the same situation our forefathers were before independence. The net result is such ugly phenomenon of Indian workers dying for the entertainment of the world. Indian lives have become so cheap thanks to the callous attitude of our government and more deeply thanks to the corrupt Indian polity.

Exploiting this deep malaise certain fake messiahs have arisen in the political field. Anti-national to the core, fascist in their attitude and mob anarchy as their methodology they want to further weaken the democracy of this already wounded nation. Corruption is of course a major disease that is ruining this nation. However such a ruthless corruption of fellow Indians is the result of the lack of patriotism. If a political party hobnobs with anti national forces like the Jehadists and Maoists, if a political party cannot even pay respect to the bodies of the CRPF jawans martyred in the Naxal terror attacks then that party can only capitalize on corruption but cannot root out corruption. Meanwhile Indian fishermen continue to get killed and jailed in the Indian Ocean. Italian marines who killed our fishermen are promised no capital punishment and that they would not be charged under piracy. 

It is anyone's guess that there are substantial number of Indian Muslims in those workers who died in Qatar. The marines who killed the Indian fishermen were Catholics like the fishermen themselves. Yet in both cases their religion did not matter much to their more affluent co-religionists who are from Arabia and Europe. Major Archbishop Mar George Alencherry, an Indian, who was then ordained Cardinal by then Pope even spoke of using Catholic influence in Kerala politics to secure not justice for the slain Catholic fishermen but secure the safety of the killer marines of Italy. In other words, alien religions work as savior of alien people at their service. Indians are ultimately brown skinned heathens left alone as children of a lesser Goddess in the world dominated by Abrahamic religions. Religion is soft-power used by colonial and to-be colonial Arabia and the West.

It is in such a situation that we Indians should forget all our differences to bring in a leadership to the nation that is dynamic, determined, which can provide an all inclusive development model and which is fiercely Indian. We need someone as a Prime Minister who will guard the catholic fishermen from the alien killers and who will bring justice to Indian workers who toil in Qatar under the Kafala system.  We need a leader who stands by the words of Swami Vivekananda – to shun all sectarianism and worship only Mother India and her children as Divine. Today India needs a leader who stands by this true secularism which is defined simply as India first – always and ever. 

Aravindan Neelakandan

YB-ET

Yuvabharati : Youth Icon : April 2014

Wendy Doniger and Freedom of Speech

When Penguin publishers decided to withdraw the book 'The Hindus: An Alternative History' in an out of court settlement with a litigant, many overjoyed Indians over this 'victory', have failed to notice that this may be a well constructed exercise in defaming India and Hindus. 

The book was published in 2009. Professor Wendy Doniger, the author, is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor Chair in History of Religions at the University of Chicago. Her works exhibit a major uniting chord: a reductionism which reduces Hinduism as a symbolic manifestation of Freudian unconscious. Some of her works can definitely be classified as having some kind of brilliance. But as she emerged as a power-center in American academy she increasingly became obsessed with Freudian reductionism of all aspects of Hinduism. She favored such a study of Hinduism among Indologists.  Each of her important doctoral students has produced works that have deconstructed Hindu phenomenon in an amateur Freudian fashion.

For example David Gordon White in his 'Sinister Yogis' has argued that the modern conception of yoga derives much from nineteenth-century European spirituality and in Indian tradition they are mainly  'wonder-workers or sorcerers who use their dangerous supernatural abilities—which can include raising the dead, possession, and levitation—to acquire power, wealth, and sexual gratification'.  Wendy Doniger herself stated, “The Bhagavad Gita is not as nice a book as some Americans think,… Throughout the Mahabharata ... Krishna goads human beings into all sorts of murderous and self-destructive behaviours such as war.... The Gita is a dishonest book; it justifies war…. I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in 'good' wars.” (Philadelphia Inquirer of 19 November, 2000)

Another important uniting theme in her writings as well as in the writings of the scholars of her lineage is that they want to denounce the good image that Hinduism has among the Westerners and deconstruct everything in Hinduism that appeals to the western mind.  Once the Freudian deconstruction of Hinduism, however unscientific it was, became the rule in American academic institutions teaching Hinduism or Indology, they received a support from an unexpected quarter, Indian Marxist academicians. For long, Marxists have stated that Freudian psychoanalysis was a bourgeois degeneration. But now when the object of attack is Hindu religion and culture they happily joined hands with the Freudian right. 

Jeffrey Kripal another of Wendy Doniger's disciple wrote a book on Sri Ramakrishna 'Kali's Child' in which he portrayed Sri Ramakrishna's spirituality as emanating from his repressed homosexuality. The book was promoted in the American academic circles so much so that at one point  the book was placed prominently in the "related books" column of the "Ramakrishna" entry in the online edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in 2000. Here it should be mentioned that Wendy is a member of the International Editorial Board of Encyclopedia Britannica. The assault continues unabated as for example, in an undergraduate study on Hinduism in an American university another Freudian deconstructionist of Hinduism, Paul Courtright has his work on Ganesa as textbook which informs the students that Ganesa 'remains celibate so as not to compete erotically with his father, a notorious womanizer, either incestuously for his mother or for any other woman for that matter'. The attack on Sri Ramakrishna mission extends far beyond the walls of academic world. For example, in his 1985 book the 'The City of Joy', Dominique Lapierre slandered the monks of Ramakrishna order as 'pimps' selling the victim children of a cyclone devastation into prostitution in Mumbai with assistance from Indian police. The book went on to become a best seller. However the then Marxist government in West Bengal refused permission to shoot the film as a book in Calcutta and even Satyajit Ray is said to have declined to make a film on Teresa as they saw these as colonial attempts to defame the self reliance of the people of the Third World. But then the neo-Marxists we have today have better connect with the globalized transnational capitalism when it comes to attacking Hinduism.   

Such attacks on Hinduism in the western world are almost taken for granted in a way attacks on Jews in the works of 'scientific studies' and fiction were taken for granted in the pre-holocaust west.

However, what is the most salient feature of these attacks on Hinduism has been that Hindus in United States never indulged in violence. Of course a rare angry Hindu shot an email threatening with violence and these authors tried to make of them, a Hindu version of Salman Rushdie and market them the American way. However the mainstream Hindus in United States took an entirely different approach to the problem. They published a detailed Hindu study of each of these Freudian deconstructionists and published an anthology of completely annotated studies of these worthies. It was the professional Hindu deconstruction of the amateur Freudian deconstruction.

Titled 'Invading the Sacred', Rajiv Malhotra's Infinity Foundation launched the book. The book provided the Hindu fraternity of students in the American academic world the needed counter points, point by point, sometimes angry, sometimes polemical but always authentic. It did not incite violence, it did not cry 'insult to religion', it did not ask to cut the slits for blasphemy; it simply put down the facts from Hindu side and misquotes, tortured texts, wrong translations which plagued the armor of the other side. It was an honest, brilliant, democratic call for an open debate and dialogue. Prof. Balagangadhara of the University of Ghent, spoke of this dignified scholarly Hindu response as 'early signs of an awakening' that signal the realization that 'western explanations of their religions and culture trivialize their lived experiences; by distorting such explanations transform these, and this denies Indians access to their own experiences.'  

But the Wendy's side not only shied away from the debate but also wrote tangentially and threateningly that Hindus being a minority in United States should behave.

In India:

The problem reached India during the NDA rule. L.K.Advani was then the home minister. A request was made to ban the book Kali's Child. But Sri.Advani refused to ban the book, disappointing the pseudo-secularist forces which were waiting to beat the Hindus and portray them as fanatical.  On the other hand two monks from Sri Ramakrishna mission, Swami Tyagananda and Pravrajika Vrajaprana, came out with a scholarly work 'Interpreting Ramakrishna Kali's Child Revisited'. The book analyzed in detail the framework in which Kali's Child was written: the historical context, the review of literature and then went into the actual textual data. It proved beyond doubt that the author of Kali's Child, Jeffery Kripal had mistranslated and then misinterpreted the mistranslations and then had sensationalized the misinterpretations of the mistranslations. Again the silence from the other side was deafening. In the case of ''The Hindus: An Alternative History' Vishal Agrawal an Engineer turned Indic scholar, has made an exhaustive study of the errors in the book (Vishal Agarwal, The Hindus: An Alternative History by Prof. Wendy Doniger, A Chapter-wise Review, Voice of India).  There has not been any worthwhile response from the denigrators of Hinduism.  However the particular litigation against the book is on flimsy ground and it is most likely that the case would have been dismissed in favor of the book.

So why did Penguin decide to remove the book?

Hindus do not have the ability to indulge in mass violence as for example it was done by certain religionists in the case of a controversial youtube video or Danish cartoons case. Nor Hindus have the ability to do backdoor lobbying in the corridors of power as certain religionists did when Dan Brown's movie 'Angels and Demons' was to be released in India or when they stopped a premier channel from airing a documentary on the alleged burial site of Jesus and Magdalene. So why did Penguin act this way – four years after the publication of the book, when it has become a no issue. It may be a strategy by Penguin to play 'martyr' and at the same time a marketing strategy to get the book popular and also a political ploy to paint India as 'becoming fascist'.

We have as our example Adi Sankaraacharya who went out of his way to save the Jain texts which Jain scholar Amarasena, was committing to fire in a mood of defeatist depression, after Sankara vanquished him in debate. Hindus do not seek book banning and book burning.  Hindus seek a neutral platform and debate and dialogue with no ulterior motive.  

Aravindan Neelakandan

YB-ET

From delusion to God...

Life in our times appears to be mundane and hectic bundled together. With no great purpose on hand and with all the material indulgences pulling us away, we get desperation and delusion at regular intervals. Will spirituality provide the solution for this muddle? Will it not be fine if an “Avatar” descends at our time to salvage us from our problems?  These thoughts do come in our mind as we are helpless.

But there is one person who can guide us from this delusion.  Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna, who is an embodiment of our spiritual and cultural heritage, shows us the way. Knowing well that the material thirst is one which can never get satiated, he advises  people to meditate and be with the thought of God constantly, as that alone can take us towards the  liberation. He says,” The magnetic needle always points to the North, and hence it is that the sailing vessel does not lose Direction. So long as the heart of Man is directed towards God, he cannot be lost in the ocean of Worldliness.”  This longing for God will ultimately lead a person towards a virtuous life. This is crux of Indian spirituality where 'Dharma' is the bedrock.

We need conviction, commitment in our search for God. Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna Says that in order to realize God one must have perseverance and utmost desire. To emphasise this he gives an analogy. 'when can I realize God? asked a disciple. The guru didn't reply.Instead he caught his disciple by the hand, took him to the river and pushed his head down into the water and kept it like that for a few minutes. The aspirant struggled for breath and the guru wouldn't leave him. Finally in a desperate action the disciple gathered all the strength he had and pushed away Guru's hand. When he came out of the water Guru said, “when you have desperate desire to get your breath back, you gathered all your strength to come up. Likewise you can realize God with the same kind of strength and persistence. It will not come with mere study”. Sri Ramakrishna was in fact called as mad for his love towards God. Swami Vivekananda articulates it nicely for people to understand the persona of Sri Ramakrishna when he says, “ I know one ( Sri Ramakrishna) whom the world used to call mad, and this was my answer: 'My friends, the whole world is a lunatic asylum. Some are mad after worldly love, some after name, some after fame, some after money, some after salvation and going to heaven. In this big lunatic asylum I am also mad, I am mad after God. If you are mad after money, I am mad after God. You are mad; so am I. I think my madness is after all the best.' (cw3:100).

It was Sri Ramakrishna, who arrived at a time when our spirituality and cultural heritage were waning. He revived it and revitalized it by living rather than eulogizing it. His contribution can be understood through the words of French Litterateur, Romain Rolland, who said, “The man whose image I invoke here was the consummation of two thousand years of spiritual life of three hundred million people'. These words will imply the importance and greatness of Sri Ramakrishna and his crucial role in reviving the lost sheen of our Spiritual and Cultural Heritage. Bhagavan Sri Ramakrishna continues to inspire us and guide us. His light will help us through the tunnel.

V.V.Balasubramanian.

YB-ET

Yuva Bharati : Youth Icon : February 2014

Back to the roots and basking in glory

Joe D' Cruz is an eminent Tamil writer who established for ever his place in Tamil literary field with his first work: 'World surrounded by Ocean' (Aazhi Choozh Ulagu: a phrase from Kamba Ramayan). His second work 'Korkai' is about the ancient port town Tuticorin. The epic narrative of 'Korkai' traces through multiple layers an inner chord of spiritual struggle between an earth-bound goddess tradition and an imposed system alien to that tradition. A dwindling, community leadership almost becoming endangered and ultimately extinct was painfully aware of the loss. Joe d Cruz explains this from the retold memories about a community leader, a generation or two ago.

Thonmichael was not as much interested in positions of power and leadership titles as he was charged when it comes to his community's concerns. It is said that after he assumed position, in a very short period, he started giving life to abandoned traditions. He cried in inner agony how the Catholic religion that had demanded the lives of thousands and thousands of Parathava fishermen as sacrifice, was today presiding as a mute witness over the destruction of their very social fabric fiber by fiber. He would often lament, with a pained heart, what faith these foreigners had imported here which was not there already in our people. Reviving the old tradition, on the day of his coronation (as community head) he would go and get Darshan at the Goddess temples of Kanyakumari, Madurai, Thiru Uttarakosa Mangai and Korkai Santhanamari and do special pujas there.  ('Korkai', pp.21-22)

However the destruction of the Goddesses traditions was done by forces that knew what they were doing. There were precise political and power equations involved. However amidst the waves of ocean and away from the grips of temporal power structures, the conversations of simple fishermen portrayed in the novel, bring out the socio-political equations of theological imperialism:

“Hey, I am talking about the white man. Arabs and Greeks before him came here only for trade but not for planting his flag here and govern over us.”

“Now this… this is really a fair statement”

“OK… They trade and they even capture power… Let them do that. But why should they propagate their religion here?”

“Oh… that? That is because, even with all his military and trade, people here will see him as an enemy and outsider. This he knew. To change that perception completely, that is possible only through religion. This he knew. We sing hymns to our Virgin Mary as 'standing on the crescent moon and wearing sun for her robes, and twelve stars on her crown'. Now, if we are told to worship Santhana Mariamman instead of Virgin Mary will we then do it?”

“What kind of thing you are talking?”, Lonchin asked.

“That is exactly what the white man has achieved. Boy! Know one thing for sure … Our Santhana Mari Amman and Our Kanyakumari Amman are no ordinary goddesses. In this expanse of ocean, they alone are our protection. Remember that.” ('Korkai', p.79)

The novel presents individuals who resist the powers of establishments which are imposed on their community. And that results in a paradox. While the imposed power structures have alienated the Parathava fishermen community from the other communities of the land, the individuals within the community who resist the power structures stand alienated within the community itself. And is it this alienation within, that has made these individuals realize the eternal embrace of the Mother who is waiting for her children to return?

When fishermen leave the terra firma and find themselves amidst the roaring waves, at the mercy of the primal forces of nature, the Goddess returns to the memory of her children in all her glory, untouched by patriarchal theological covers. Joe de Cruz portrays the moment of the resurfacing of the Mother, through various conversations studded throughout the novel:

From the stern came Philians voice, “We have crossed Kolachael tower and now Kumari light is visible”

“Then break a coconut for Kumari Mother” said Lenchin. ('Korkai', p.87)

The next wave wrathfully entered the deck and retreated back with the ropes and other things from there.

“Aamu… we have left Her whom we worshipped for generations and are doing today many other things. Santhana Mari please save us and get us safely to the shore. When in the sea we cry to Santhana Mari and when we reach shore we go to Mary? We will come one day to your own temple Mother and we will light the lamp and we will celebrate your festival.” ('Korkai', p.145)

The whole novel can be seen as a cyclic narrative that starts with a previous generation of community leaders feeling the widening spiritual vacuum created by the imposed structures and ends with a descendent of this vibrant community feeling the complete alienation in the end of his life. And both hear the voice of the Eternal Mother calling forth her lost children. The fishermen community, whose more democratic traditional social structures have been usurped by power structures that are pyramidal with string pullers elsewhere, is today undergoing the awakening of a new consciousness which is actually as old as the dawn of human race itself.  

Swami Vivekananda once gave a moving picture of a global spirituality that is always alive and whose true inner fire no proselytizer can destroy:

Here is the selfsame Old Shiva seated as before, the bloody Mother Kâli worshipped with the selfsame paraphernalia, the pastoral Shepherd of Love, Shri Krishna, playing on His flute. Once this Old Shiva, riding on His bull and laboring on His Damaru travelled from India, on the one side, to Sumatra, Borneo,

Celebes, Australia, as far as the shores of America, and on the other side, this Old Shiva battened His bull in Tibet, China, Japan, and as far up as Siberia, and is still doing the same. The Mother Kali is still exacting Her worship even in China and Japan: it is She whom the Christians metamorphosed into the Virgin Mary, and worship as the mother of Jesus the Christ. Behold the Himalayas! There to the north is Kailâs, the main abode of the Old Shiva. That throne the ten-headed, twenty-armed, mighty Ravana could not shake — now for the missionaries to attempt the task? — Bless my soul! Here in India will ever be the Old Shiva laboring on his Damaru, the Mother Kali worshipped with animal sacrifice, and the lovable Shri Krishna playing on His flute. Firm as the Himalayas they are and no attempts of anyone, Christian or other missionaries, will ever be able to remove them 

What Joe D Cruz has captured in the local flavors of his literary masterpiece, is that sound of Siva's drum, that music of Kali's dance and the beauty of Krishna's flute - an emerging spiritual consciousness whose roots are deep and connect across entire humanity obliterating the barriers of space, time, nationalities and cultures. He has captured the spirit of a people so unique to his own community and yet so universal to all communities across the globe who have lost their original identity to imposed structures. It is the voice of the truly silenced souls that is crying out through his pen. And those who can hear are indeed blessed in their heart for theirs is a tomorrow of harmonious co-existence not only among communities and nations but also with the entire planet. 

Yuva Bharati joins the Tamil world in conveying its congratulations to Joe D Cruz on the occasion of his novel 'Korkai' winning the Sahitya Academy award. D' Cruz has come to Vivekananda Kendra camps to enlighten our young workers about the roots of history and the problem of identity. That he received this on the 150th year of Swami Vivekananda's birth centenary makes us feel happy and proud. 

Aravindan Neelakandan

YB-ET

Yuvabharati : Youth Icon : January 2014

Mars Mission and India’s Vision

India launched its Mars mission Mangalyaan – mission to planet Mars in November 2013.  As the PSLV- C25 with India's Mars Orbiter on board lifts off majestically at 2.38 p.m on November 5, 2013 from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, a new saga opened up in Indian space odyssey. The real start for all these happened during the first anniversary of Pokhran-II.  It was a passing remark by Dr.K.Kasturirangan then chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in Delhi on May 11, 1999 that actually triggered the chain of events which ultimately culminated in the two milestones in Indian space research in less than one decade. That simple sentence was “India has the capability to undertake a mission to the moon.” The statement made a deep impact on the then union minister for science and technology Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi.  After the lecture the physicist-minister inquired the space scientist if he could materialize what he had declared in the podium. When Kasturirangan nodded in affirmation, Joshi promised all help from his government.  The project was analyzed in all its details before it was decided to give a full go ahead. In 2003 August 15th speech the then Prime Minister announced the world that India would launch its moon programme – he called it Chandrayaan.  

Both Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan have something in common with another scheme that comes from the same era. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) is a scheme conceived in 1999 a national mission to achieve universal primary education.  Chandrayaan, Mangalyaan and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – they all have one thing in common.  What can high flying space missions have in common with the ground level fight against illiteracy and school-drop out percentage?

It is a well ingrained Indian ethos.

Kopillil Radhakrishnan, the current chairman of ISRO, explained how ISRO made Mangalyaan the world's least-expensive Mars probe. Dismissing the phrase 'frugal engineering' which was increasingly used by the western media, he stated: “ISRO's general philosophy is cost effectiveness. The Russians look for robustness and the Americans go after optimization. Our aim at ISRO was how do we get to Mars on a budget.” Yes. It is cost-effectiveness that is the connecting string between Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. In the words of Dr.Joshi who conceived the SSA, “The basic thrust will be to come up with innovative techniques. Low-cost teachers from the community can make a school. The buildings can come up later."  Cost-effectiveness permeates almost all aspects of Indian technological innovations. In India wireless technologies have been developed to connect rural uses with switch exchanges at low costs, thus opening up rural areas.

The cost-effective designing of Indian technologists can change the way the space research is being conducted. One of the important programmes of ISRO is also the most innovative of ISRO's near future project: scramjet Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) which has been named Avatar. The Avatar is a hyperplane vehicle that can take off from conventional airfields, collect air in the atmosphere on the way up, liquefy it, separate oxygen and store it on board for subsequent flight beyond the atmosphere. The Avatar-RLV was first announced in May 1998 at the Aero India 98 exhibition held at Bangalore. Avatar can give India a great edge in global space research. Gregory Benford an astro-physicist at the University of California and an advisor to NASA and the Whilte House Council on Space Policy states that the Avatar RLV project will enable India to leap ahead of Chinese and once the low-cost to orbit comes alive it will drive cheaper methods of doing all our unmanned activities in space.

In the 1960s, Vikhram Sarabhai the architect of the Indian Space Program observed: 

There are some who question the relevance of space activities in a developing nation. To us, there is no ambiguity of purpose. We do not have the fantasy of competing with the economically advanced nations in the exploration of the moon or the planets or manned space-flight. But we are convinced that if we are to play a meaningful role nationally, and in the community of nations, we must be second to none in the application of advanced technologies to the real problems of man and society.

When in 2013 we look with pride at the way we have become a serious player in global space programmes, we should also remember that actually ISRO has contributed vastly and innovatively to the problems humanity faces down at the earth. In fact ISRO has the largest such human-development oriented contribution by any space agency –even those of highly developed nations with huge budgets. In this connection Swami Vivekanadna has been a great inspiration to the scientists of ISRO. Dr.T.G.K.Murthy a renowned scientist of ISRO had worked in ISRO for forty years. He had developed number of novel electro-optical systems, having application in diverse disciplines such as Agriculture, Geology and Defense. He attributed his success to Swami Vivekananda, who changed the course of his life through his remarkable ideas and values like truthfulness, purity, modesty and humility. Cost-effectiveness and humanity-oriented research are the hallmarks of Indian Space Research Organization. Hence its successes are the successes of a civilization that is after centuries of subjugation claiming its place among the world nations and is becoming a guiding inspiration to the developing previously colonized countries. In effect the efforts of ISRO are fulfilling the vision of Swami Vivekananda of declaring the great Mother India to the world in the voice of peace and benediction.   

 Aravindan Neelakandan

YB-ET

Yuva Bharati : Voice of Youth : December 2013