RMF Summary: Week of April 16 - 22, 2012

April 16

A reflection from one of the digested   Arun shares:James Baldwin, October 26, 1965: "The white South African or Mississippi sharecropper or Alabama sheriff has at bottom a system of reality which compels them really to believe when they face the Negro that this woman, this man, this child must be insane to attack the system to which he owes his entire identity. For such a person, the proposition which we are trying to discuss here does not exist.... Also see .... April 16 A piece on Hinduism on CBS News Kajal shares: This post is a little off topic but I was relieved to see that there was a 10 minute piece on Hinduism without a single mention of caste!... April 17 A critical review of Being Different by Kalavai Venkat http://beingdifferentcriticalreview.blogspot.com/ . Regards, KV... April 17 Museum of Hindu Contributions to the world - request for facts I have been invited by the head of this important museum in Canada as adviser to help set up educational displays. We are collecting factual and accurate information on Hindu contributions to the world in various fields. If you have specific information, files, posters, links, etc. to send me please do so off line.... If you wish to volunteer to compile such information, please write to me as well.   [this post below had a lot of responses and will be covered in a separate post]. April 18 Fair-skin complexion - digestion of indian aesthetics? http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/19/india-fair-skinned-be\ auty http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7010885.stm ... April 18 Request for serious research volunteers I have been doing a massive project for 20 years that is getting out of hand because the information is exploding faster than I can keep up. I need to also... [those who are really interested and inspired to work on such projects can contact Rajiv offline]. April 21 BD turned into a social game - need volunteers with interest to help Someone who is a game designer has sent me a proposed social game based on BD. I need volunteers to help evaluate it, guide it on my behalf, etc. Pls contact... April 22 Manushi magazine review of BD http://www.manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1592 The review is written by a prominent traditional scholar who was also a discussant at the BHU seminar.... Seshadri responds: The reviewer has quoted from Tagore's works many times and it is very informative and inspiring. The phrase used by Gurudev "slavery of taste", sums up the current state preoccupation of millions  of 'minds' in India especially those of the so called "educated" and "vociferous". We have to wake up before the 'silent majority' is irreversibly buried under the weight of waste piling up as a result of by mindless following of the 'universal' western models of individual destiny and balance."

RMF Summary: Week of February 28-March 6, 2011

March 1

New video uploaded: Swami Dayananda Saraswati's address at Chennai book launch This is the link to Swami Dayananda Saraswati's 45 minute talk, which we have edited for YouTube into 2 parts totaling under 30 mins. His insights into the main issues examined by the book is remarkable. March 2 India's Think Tanks (422) second to US??!! I just googled Think Tanks India. and a TOI article (below) says India has the second largest number of think tanks in the world after the United States. March 2 Fw: [saja-disc] J-ETHICS/INDIA: Sunday Times on Paid News in Indian Media This link is relevant to Rajiv's comments on media persons seeking payment for news.  March 3 Breaking India Book Introduction at Madurai ConvenerMadurai Readers'Club  Flat A,GF,Anmol Bougainvillaea, 106-107 PT Rajan Road, Madurai 625014 March 4 How to read this book fast Rajiv Malhotra: The first reaction when someone gets the book [Breaking India] is about its size. It is 660 pages and that can overwhelm many. So here's advice on how to deal with it in modules. For a quick read in 2 hours, one should read chapter 1, then read the first few pages of each chapter which give an overview with the help of a flow diagram. The various boxes in the overview diagram are summarized in a para each, right at the beginning of the chapter. This way one can get through the whole book fast with a good idea on the various themes. Once you have done this, each chapter is pretty much stand alone and you can jump straight to the ones you like... March 6 Appendix C of the book: Parallel developments in Africa It was indeed a wake up call to read the analogy given with Africa in Appendix C of the book. If Joseph Conrad's stories on "the dark continent" weren't enough... March 6 True significance of 'Paul Harrison' award given to Binayak Sen I was amused when about 10 years ago, I came across the Dalitstan web-site. Some of the stuff on the web-site was so crude that I thought it was a joke. Now I..