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The activities
of the Federation of Indian rationalist Associations in conjunction
with various other organizations and in which the President had taken
active part are as follows:
On the
15th
February, two lectures were held at Mangalore by Dr. Eric Hoevel and
Simone Riessner. One was at the College of Human Resource Development
where Dr.Hoevel spoke about- The rise and decline in tolerance level
from the time of Voltaire to present. The talk was followed a question
and answer session in which the students took an active part. The speaker
was introduced by Narendra Nayak who took part in the discussions. The
same evening, a lecture was held at the seminar hall of the Canara College,
Mangalore. Dr. Hoevels gave the same presentation while Ms. Simone spoke
about the psycho analytical basis of religious beliefs. The meet was
presided over by the President of the Dakshina Kannada Rationalist Association
Dr.K.S.Madhava Rao. The talks were followed by a question answer session
in which the members actively participated. On the 17th February the same two talks were presented
at Udupi with the collaboration of the Udupi Rationalist Association.
Sri Gopala Shetty, the president of the association welcomed the guests.
The talks were followed by discussions on the various aspects of the
rationalist movement and activities of FIRA.
On the
23 and 24th February, the silver jubilee of the Akhil
Bharathiya Andha Shraddha Nirmulan Samithi was observed at Nagpur. The
two day event was inaugurated by the President of FIRA by cutting a
ceremonial toran which is supposedly an auspicious symbol and
its fall denotes a bad omen. However, nothing untoward was observed
during the two days! This was followed by his lecture on the tasks ahead
for our movement. The key note address was delivered by Shyam Manav.
Prof. Sharad Pateel, Harish Deshmukh and Umesh Chaubey spoke on various
aspects. The procession which preceded the event was well attended
and the route was lined by hundreds of spectators who were astonished
at the sight of the comrades from Tamilnadu, Panirselvam, Gopal and
others, pulling a car with hooks passed through the skin of their backs
and also performing many so called miracles like passing skewers through
the cheeks, flame throwing, standing on sharp swords etc. The first
day seminars were on the role of media in removal of superstitions followed
by a demonstration of techniques for exposure of so called miracles
by Narendra Nayak and Vakhani of the Gujarat Muslim Satya Shodak Samaj.
That was followed by a cultural program in which young rationalists
demonstrated debunking of superstitions through street plays. The second
day had seminars on topics like whether the anti superstition campaign
is anti religious and an open session.
On
the 25th February, a lecture demonstration was
held for the students of the Vijaya Teachers Training College, Tirupathi
in the forenoon. In the afternoon, there was a seminar on developing
scientific temper at the Padmavathi Womens university, Tirupathi.
Jack Jeffery
the Vice president of IHEU spoke on various aspects of scientific temperament.
Babu Gogineni, the International Director of the IHEU spoke about humanism,
Narendra Nayak demonstrated various experiments for developing a scientific
temper. The function was organized by Dr. Tummapudi Bharathi of the
Department of Ambedkar Studies.
On the
26th
February, a team consisting of the members of Parivartan, an organisation
devoted for the propagation of rationalism and humanism, members of
IHEU and FIRA visited a village called Miniki at Madanapalli district,
Andhra Pradesh. The purpose of the visit was to investigate the exodus
of a number of villagers due to fears of spirit manifestations. A separate
report on that has been prepared. That was followed by a program on
development of rationalistic humanistic ideas at a school nearby. There
were lectures by Jack, Babu and Narendra about various aspects of humanism
and development of scientific temper.
On the
27th,
a program on awareness about rationalism and humanism was conducted
for students at the Besant College, Madanapalli. It was presided over
by the President of the local humanist group Parivartana, Prof. Venkat
Reddy. He dwelt at length on the need for developing humanistic values
at a young age and the social evils of superstitions. Babu Gogineni
spoke about humanism and the need for the development of such values.
Jack spoke about the application of science, particularly with respect
to drinking water and environmental pollution. Narendra Nayak demonstrated
the so called miracles and gave a call to the students to join with
our movement to clear the superstitions from the minds of people with
lesser levels of formal education.
On the
28th
the team was invited to the Krishna Devaraya University, Anantpur to
participate in the science day celebrations. The program was about the
celebration of the birthday of Sir C.V.Raman as the science day. The
vice chancellor of the university presided over the function. The members
of our team Babu, Jack and Narendra spoke about various aspects of rationalism
and humanism. Some video footage of our activities was also shown.
On the
29th
Jack returned to England and Narendra continued his program at Bangalore
with an interaction with the students of the Gurukul School at Bangalore.
The program was attended by Sri A.S.Nataraj, President of the Bangalore
Rationalist Forum and Dr. Jose an eminent pediatrician and an active member of
the same organization.
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