A new study, done exclusively based on news reports, suggests that Kerala is not United States, but Nigeria. Few years back helmets were made mandatory in Kerala and as usual we Malayalees protested. No words can express what high literacy combined with anger can do to a society than this picture or this.

Motorcyclists in Nigeria have been wearing dried pumpkin shells on their heads to dodge a new law forcing them to wear helmets, authorities say. Road safety officials said calabash-wearers would be prosecuted. Calabashes are dried pumpkin shells more commonly used to carry liquid. [Nigeria bikers' vegetable helmets]

Stories have also appeared in the local papers highlighting passengers’ fears that the helmets could be used by motorcyclists to cast spells on their clients, making it easy for them to be robbed. “Some people can put juju inside the helmets and when they are worn the victim can either lose consciousness or be struck dumb,” passenger Kolawole Aremu told the Daily Trust newspaper. [Nigeria bikers' vegetable helmets]

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The story of the James ossuary continues. This limestone box carried an inscription “James son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus” and if it was proved to be true, could be historical evidence for one man named Yeshua (who may or may not be the one called Jesus of Nazareth).

One school held that the man who announced the existence of the ossuary had faked it. Biblical Archaeological Review held the position that  most scholars claim the ossuary is a fake, based on a hunch and not reason.

After three years in court, the case collapsed.

In the most recent embarrassment for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the government’s star witness, Yuval Goren, former chairman of Tel Aviv University’s institute of archaeology, was forced to admit on cross-examination that there is original ancient patina in the word “Jesus,” the last word in the inscription that reads “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”[Supporters of James Ossuary Inscription’s Authenticity Vindicated | Daily Bible and Archaeology News]

The battle is not over yet, but probably will be after 6 months depending on if the case against Tel Aviv antiquities collector Oded Golan is dropped or amended.

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As the debate continues on if it is prudent to spend money on space missions while there are other needs, it is worth reading how NASA helped invent Silicon Valley.

But if you’d visited the region in 1930, all you’d have seen was a two-lane highway cutting through acres and acres of nothing but farmland and tiny hamlets, and not even a hint of what would someday become arguably the most important commercial technology center in the world.

In December of that year, however, word came that the U.S. Navy was going to open an air station in Sunnyvale, Calif., one that would handle gigantic airships and that would need a mammoth hangar.

The result? The Sunnyvale Naval Air Station, later known as NASA Moffett Field. And today, Moffett is home to NASA’s Ames Research Center, a facility that is at the heart of Silicon Valley, both geographically and figuratively. In 1930 the region didn’t know what was about to arrive, but it soon realized how much change was coming. [How NASA helped invent Silicon Valley - CNET News]

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In the next clip McCain is speaking up close with a woman in the audience who says she can’t trust Obama and then blurts out that it’s because he’s “Arab”. Some reports have it that she said ‘Arab terrorist’. But at least on this tape only ‘Arab’ is audible.

McCain shakes his head, as though losing his patience and snatches the mic back out of woman’s hands. “No, Ma’am. No, Ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.” Again, there’s a lot there when you actually see the video. And I encourage you to watch.[Talking Points Memo | Weird. Sad. Surreal]

Today at a McCain rally at Davenport Pastor Arnold Conrad, who gave the invocation, said:

I would also add, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and election day.[Think Progress » Minister delivers divisive invocation at McCain event. (Updated with audio)]

To paraphrase Swami Vivekananda, “What have the people who pray to Hindu done to get such dumb bigots?.” Compared to Pastor Arnold Conrad, the hate mongers who wrote the Satyadarshini pamphlet are Einsteins.

Also, a quick note to Pastor Conrad: Our God, Hindu, is not interested in a sophomoric “mine is bigger than yours” competition. Mostly it is because our God, Hindu, is not a God. He is an It — the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this Universe.

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“When Vishnu asked Brahma to commit a sin, he immediately did so. How can such a ‘evil Brahma’ be a Creator of this Universe? How is it possible for both the sinner and the entity which provoked the sin to be gods?” (page 39)

Though conversions have been going on for 2000 years since the time of Paul, for Indians one of the biggest challenges happened during the British rule. This was a time when evangelicals openly treated Hinduism with condescension.

In 1792 from Charles Grant, a British politician and Evangelical, proposed English education instead of Indian vernaculars mainly as a way to undermine what he called the Hindu fabric of error. Introduction of English, he reasoned, would show Hindus how absurd their religion was and dispel many of their myths. The spread of English arts, science and philosophy, along with the spread of Christianity, according to Mr. Grant, would enable the Indian people to rise to the level of human beings.

Initially the East India Company maintained a policy of religious neutrality even denying permission to missionaries to work in the country. When the charter of the East India Company came for renewal before the Parliament in 1813, the Evangelicals, including Zachary Macaulay, father of Thomas Macaulay, had become influential as to add a provision allowing missionaries to enter the country legally, as well as provide public funding for Indian education.

Trevelyan, Thomas Macaulay’s brother-in-law, was sure that English education would bring the end of the idolatrous religion of India since Hinduism was not a religion which would bear examination. All that was needed, according to him, was to prove that the world did not rest on the back of a tortoise or is it composed of concentric circles of wine, cake and milk and the religion would be gone. The enlightened natives would need a religion and they would go for Christianity.

One such gentleman, a Professor of Philosophy from Poland named Krezenski came to meet Gandhji on January 2, 1937. Prof. Krezenski told Gandhiji that Catholicism is the only true religion and if he converted he would be as great as St. Francis. Gandhiji had a simple question: why can’t a poor Hindu be St. Francis?

The reason is that both religions are not equal. In the market place of monotheism, there may be tolerance for other religions, but they do not believe that all religions are equal. They sincerely believe, since the days of Akhenaten, that there is only one way — their way — and that is the correct way. It then becomes their moral responsibility to show the heathens the correct way.

The outward condition has perhaps changed but the inward mostly remains. Vilification of Hindu religion, though subdued, is there. If there was a radical change in the missionaries’ outlook, would Murdoch’s books be allowed to be sold in mission depots? Are those books prohibited by missionary societies? There is nothing but vilification of Hinduism in those books. [Vol 67]

What is meant by those pictures in the school-books for children where the Hindu mother is painted as throwing her children to the crocodiles in the Ganga? The mother is black, but the baby is painted white, to arouse more sympathy and get more money. If all India stands up, and takes all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesmal part of that which you are doing to us.”[Complete Works]

The missionary tactics have not changed since the days of Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi. As Maoists mysteriously kill Hindu swamis and rape victims miraculously appear, there is little discussion on the material created and distributed by the missionaries. Their literature needs to be collected and displayed for it will expose them for what they really are: peddlers of hate in the name of a Palestinian Jew who preached love.

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PERSPECTIVE
Asian growth in an American vaccuum
A stronger rupee is the path ahead for India
V Anantha Nageswaran

Frontline worry in the war on terror
Washington must learn to do without a friendly Pakistani general
Nikolas Gvosdev

Fewer laws, more efficient enforcement
There are no shortcuts in the battle against terrorists
Ravikiran S Rao

Towards a new anti-terrorism policy
A seven-point programme
Nitin Pai

IN DEPTH

The Vajpayee-Manmohan doctrine
The moorings of contemporary Indian foreign policy
Dhruva Jaishankar

FILTER
Washington’s Pakistan strategy; Pakistan’s westward drift; The next chapter
Vijay Vikram

ROUNDUP
A new millennium in science
India’s scientific output has risen sharply since 2000
Christopher King

An electric imperative
Bringing power sector reforms back onto the national agenda
Gulzar Natarajan

BOOKS
American Indians
A review of Vinay Lal’s The Other Indians
Chandrahas Choudhury

Read excerpts | Download

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The Battle of Milvian Bridge which was fought between Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius on October 28, 312 was important because Constantine won and it resulted in the end of Tetrarchy, a system by which four emperors ruled the Roman empire. It was also important because on one night of the battle, Constantine claimed that he had a vision from God

It is commonly stated that on the evening of October 27, with the armies preparing for battle, Constantine had a vision which lead him to fight under the protection of the Christian God. The details of that vision, however, differ between the sources reporting it. It is believed that the sign of the cross appeared and Constantine heard “In this sign, you shall conquer” in Greek. [Vision of Constantine]

Constantine, besides being the first Christian Roman Emperor also by the Edict of Milan made professing Christianity not a crime.

There is a scene in The Betrayal: The Lost Life of Jesus: A Novel by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear where one of the protagonists mentions this battle. The monk Cyrus, who once was a soldier with Constantine, tells Kalay the washer woman that Constantine was sitting in his tent all day drinking wine looking for a way to motivate the troops. Constantine knew he had to come up with a myth; either a cross of light or the letters chi-rho (the first two letters in the Greek spelling of the word Christ)

While that was fiction, the truth is not far away. Eusebius of Caesarea spoke to Constantine and wrote in Life of Constantine

when Constantine “was praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvelous sign appeared to him from heaven” (Eusebius, Life of Constantine,1.28). The famous sign in the sky was a cross of light, with theinscription, “Conquer by this”. Eusebius goes on: “At this sight hehimself was struck with amazement, and his whole army also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed the miracle.”[The Resurrection of Jesus as Mass Hallucination]

Another Christian writer Lactantius who was a contemporary of Constantine had a slightly different version.

Lactantius’ early account places the vision of the cross in Constantine’s dream, and on the night before. So, Constantine’s vision is not shared by his army and it is a nighttime dream rather than a vision. [The Resurrection of Jesus as Mass Hallucination]

Thus in Constantine’s time itself one version of the story had the sign as a dream; another as a sign seen by the whole army. Thus a myth was created.

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“Death by Powerpoint”, “Do Powerpoint presentations violate Geneva Convention?”,and “Supreme Court rules against using Powerpoint in Guantanamo” – these are common headlines all the time. But if your job involves reading itemized lists from slides, then this lecture by Garr Reynolds is worth watching. It will change the way you think about presentations.

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In a recent review of Frits Staal’s Discovering the Vedas, Pramit Pal Chaudhuri writes

1. Even a non-history buff will find the role of the Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) and the Iranian Wedge in the evolution of Hinduism fascinating.

2. What led such primitives to dwell so much on infinity or develop numbers so large they “have nothing to do with the universe,” he wonders.

After the Aryan Invasion theory failed, some proponents moved to a convenient migration-of-cattle-breeders-looking-for-pastures theory and the BMAC was hailed as new Aryan homeland They found some evidence too; an antennae-hilted sword found in Bactria looked similar to one found in Fatehgarh. It was also claimed that BMAC people had fire-worship temples, supposed use of soma, a horse skeleton assumed to be used in ashvamedha and cult motifs on precious stones

On closer examination however it was found that most of these claims required imagination in liberal doses. Looking at the evidence of the sword, Dr. B. B. Lal, who was the Director General of the ASI said, “if I said that the occurrence of a cylinder seal at Kalibangan in Rajasthan entitles Rajasthan to be the ‘motherland’ of the Mesopotamian Culture, I am sure my learned colleagues present here would at once get me admitted to the nearest lunatic asylum.” Analysis of other evidence found no use of soma, no proof of ashvamedha, and in case of fire worship, that the migration was from India to Central Asia.

Even if they had some connection, the BMAC people, who belonged to the Bronze age culture of Central Asia, were not primitives, for they had well planned structures, multi-roomed temples, pottery kilns, metal objects, and sculptural art. But as soon as they completed their journey from Bactria to India, they became primitives.

The usual view of Vedas, the composition of these neo-primitives, is that of semi-civilized people wondering about nature, creating anthropomorphic gods and goddesses, moving from polytheism to monotheism to monism. People like Staal condescendingly wonder how such people are able to produce great concepts? Maybe they were not culturally primitive. As Chandradhar Sharma notes, “the correct position seems to us to be that the Vedic sages were greatly intellectual and intensely spiritual personages who in their mystic moments came face to face with Reality and this mystic experience, this direct intuitive spiritual insight overflew in literature as Vedic hymns.”

This attempt to cast people who wrote the Nasadiya Sukta as primitive comes from 19^th century models which portrayed the natives as semi-civilized. Pick up a book like Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation which is used as text book in graduate courses, and you will find that colonial politics is still alive. Even when one part of their theory contradicts the other, it is presented to us with a straight face and if you disagree you are labelled a Hindu nationalist.

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In this tussle for supremacy, India is at a disadvantage because China can count on whatever support it can receive from its friends in India. The latter’s strenuous efforts to scuttle the nuclear deal is evidently a part of their tactic of undermining India’s ambition to secure the “Big 5 plus 1″ position at the high table of diplomacy. The CPM has even been candid enough to admit that one of its reasons for opposing the deal is that the resultant proximity to the US will enable America to encircle China with India’s help. Even if this is indeed the American objective, such an alliance will also have the potential of curbing China’s bellicosity in the north-east, especially in “southern Tibet”, as Beijing likes to call Arunachal Pradesh.

Like the Chinese, the Indian communists believe in the untenable “colonial” nature of the McMahon Line, which calls for adjustments although the Chinese have had no hesitation in accepting the same line in Myanmar. Given this stance, it is hardly surprising that in 1962, E M S Namboodiripad had argued, according to Mohit Sen in his book, A Traveller and the Road: the Journey of an Indian Communist, that “the Chinese had entered territory that they thought was theirs and hence there was no question of aggression as far as they were concerned”.[Together They Stand]

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