Skewed policies to blame for diesel hike

Monday, 17 September 2012 16:06

The weighted average price of Indian crude imports was approximately US$ 22 a barrel in 2001-02. A decade later in 2011-12 this was well in excess of US$ 110 – a 400% increase! Put differently, the US$ had significantly depreciated against crude oil – a fact that is lost on most debating the diesel price rise. That is not all. The Rupee was approximately Rs 48 to a US$ in 2001-02. Over the decade it has depreciated by close to 12%. Put pithily, the Indian consumer faces a double whammy when it comes to the diesel price increase – a massive depreciation of the US$ against crude oil and on top of it, a depreciation of the Rupee against the Dollar. Hence, in Rupee terms crude has increased close to 500% in the past decade. Nevertheless, the price of diesel to consumers in Chennai has increased from approximately Rs 20 in 2001-02 to a shade lower than Rs 50 now – an increase of a "whopping" 150%. Despite such massive hike in prices, the fact remains that it has mercifully not kept pace with the international prices of crude expressed in Rupee terms. Consequently, diesel has been substantially subsidised in domestic markets. The net effect – the subsidy only on account of diesel works out to Rs 29,000 crores for the first quarter ending June 2012 (well in excess of Rs 100,000 crores for the entire year). Surely, one will agree that this is becoming an unworkable proposition. It may not be out of place to mention that we allowed subsidised diesel to fuel our SUVs for our rich, when in fact we should have used this money for funding education, health and infrastructure. One way out was possibly to cut the excise duty (ED). But there is a catch – the ED on diesel works out to a mere Rs 2.06 per litre leaving very little headroom to manoeuvre. Let us also not forget that the petroleum sector is the largest revenue earner for the central government. Hence, any cut in ED could possibly be counter-productive. The increase in international price of crude is the outcome of the weakness of US$. One way out of the imbroglio is to facilitate Rupee appreciation against US$ to counter the US$ depreciation against crude oil. Inexplicably, Indian policy framers have been wedded to a weak Rupee without exploring any alternatives. And that is the crux of the issue. But a weak Rupee has its upsides. It encourages exports and some of us are beneficiaries of this policy. Secondly, it favours foreign investments into India. Marginal depreciation of the Rupee over the decade was a huge deterrent for foreign investors to exit India. Having entered when the Rupee was 45 to a US$, who would like to exit when the Rupee is 55? That implies a neat loss of Rs 10 for every dollar invested in India, irrespective of the profit or loss made by such investment. That is how, by a planned devaluation of the Rupee, RBI has protected the Indian stock markets. A government that often measures its performance through stock market indices is bound to genuflect in front of foreign investors. Higher diesel price is an outcome of such skewed economic policies where the government exists by the Sensex, for the Sensex and of the Sensex. In the process, if the common man has to pay a higher price for diesel to protect stock markets, the thinking in the government seems to be "so be it." http://www.deccanchronicle.com/editorial/op-ed/skewed-policies-blame-diesel-hike-045

From The Heart Of A Muslim

From The Heart Of A Muslim By Tawfik Hamid"I am a Muslim by faith, a Christian by spirit, a Jew by heart, and above all I am a human being." ~ Dr. Tawfik Hamid.Dr. Hamid is an Egyptian scholar and author of the article. The world needs more people like him---ones who have the courage to face-up to reality. I was born a Muslim and lived all my life as a follower of Islam.  After the barbaric terrorist attacks done by the hands of my fellow Muslims everywhere on this globe, and after the too many violent acts by Islamists in many parts of the world, I feel responsible as a Muslim and as a human being to speak out and tell the truth to protect the world and Muslims as well from a coming catastrophe and war of civilizations. I have to admit that our current Islamic teaching creates violence and hatred toward non-Muslims. We Muslims are the ones who need to change. Until now we have accepted polygamy, the beating of women by men, and killing those who convert from Islam to other religions. We have never had a clear and strong stand against the concept of slavery or wars, to spread our religion and to subjugate others to Islam and force them to pay a humiliating tax called jizia. We ask others to respect our religion while all the time we curse non-Muslims loudly (in Arabic) in our Friday prayers in the mosques. What message do we convey to our children when we call the Jews "descendants of the pigs and monkeys"? [Yet, both Arabs and Jews are descendants of Ibrahim (Abraham)!] Is this a message of love and peace, or a message of hate? I have been into [Christian] churches and [Jewish] synagogues where they were praying for Muslims. While all the time, we curse them, and teach our generations to call them "infidels", and to hate them. We immediately jump in a 'knee jerk reflex' to defend Prophet Mohammad when someone accuses him of being a pedophile while, at the same time, we are proud with the story in our Islamic books that he married a young girl seven years old [Aisha]when he was above 50 years old. I am sad to say that many, if not most of us, rejoiced in happiness after September 11th and after many other terror attacks. Muslims denounce these attacks to look good in front of the media, but we condone the Islamic terrorists and sympathise with their cause. Until now our 'reputable' top religious authorities have never issued a fatwa or religious statement to proclaim Bin Laden as an apostate, while an author, like Rushdie, was declared an apostate who should be killed according to Islamic Shari'a law just for writing a book criticizing Islam. Muslims demonstrated to get more religious rights as we did in France to stop the ban on the hijab (head scarf), while we did not demonstrate with such passion and in such numbers against the terrorist murders. It is our abs olute silence against the terrorists that gives the energy to these terrorists to continue doing their evil acts. We Muslims need to stop blaming our problems on others or on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As a matter of honesty, Israel is the only light of democracy, civilization, and human rights in the whole Middle East. We kicked out the Jews with no compensation or mercy from most of the Arab countries to make them "Jews-free countries" while Israel accepted more than a million Arabs to live there, have their own nationality, and enjoy their rights as human beings. In Israel, women cannot be beaten legally by men, and any person can change his/her belief system with no fear of being killed by the Islamic law of 'apostasy,' while in our Islamic world people do not enjoy any of these rights. I agree that the 'Palestinians' suffer, but they suffer because of their corrupt leaders and not because of Israel.  It is not common to see Arabs who live in Israel leaving to live in the Arab world. On the other hand, we used to see thousands of Palestinians going to work with happiness in Israel, its 'enemy.' If Israel treats Arabs badly as some people claim, surely we would have seen the opposite happening. We Muslims need to admit our problems and face them. Only then we can treat them and start a new era to live in harmony with human mankind. Our religious leaders have to show a clear and very strong stand against polygamy, pedophilia, slavery, killing those who convert from Islam to other religions, beating of women by men, and declaring wars on non-Muslims to spread Islam. Then, and only then, do we have the right to ask others to respect our religion. The time has come to stop our hypocrisy and say it openly: 'We Muslims have to change.'

Last bugle by Congress Quota Goondas

UPA Congress goondas having read the writing on the wall and now they have no illusions that they will be thrown out lock, stock and barrel in 2014 for cheating the people of India. As is the practice of these goondas, they will go drowning but not before further damaging the delicate fabric of India’s social unity. Hum dub chuke sanam tumhe bhi sath leke dubenge! seems their theme song! And what came as coup de grace was the Promotion quotas! It is too disgusting for me to write further in expressing my anger and disgust.

Anti-national quota scums must be rejoicing for their coup in bringing an esoteric promotion quotas bill through amendment to the backward Constitution—essentially to blunt a Supreme Court decision against such quotas. It will certainly act as a red-herring to multifarious scams in which the UPA goondas are involved. More scams are in offing after the whopping coal scam of Rs 1,86,000 crore !!!

Congress goondas are assaulting the ethos of India with quota after quota. What is forgotten in this turmoil is the original sinner who is called Mahatma Gandhi and who is the father of the quotas. Many do  not know about what exactly is the Poona Pact.

The untouchables were forced to sign the Poona Pact that brought the communal award of a fixed quota of seats to be elected by separate electorate of untouchables and to be filled by persons belonging to the untouchables. How were they forced to sign? It was by the coercive fast of treacherous Gandhi !

Dr. Ambedkar, to his credit, denounced the fast the very next day saying “The untouchables were sad. They had every reason to be sad.” Ambedkar kept denouncing it till the end of his life in 1956. He denounced it in private discussions, public meetings, relevant writings, in fact on all the occasions that demanded denunciation.

 “There was nothing noble in the fast. It was a foul and filthy act. The fast was not for the benefit of the Untouchables. It was against them and was the worst form of coercion against helpless people to give up the constitutional safeguards of which they had been possessed under the Prime Minister’s Award and agree to live on the mercy of the Hindus. It was a vile and wicked act. How can the untouchables regard such a man as honest and sincere?”

Yet he succumbed to Gandhi’s treachery by enacting quotas for the SCs/STs albeit for only 10 years. Many also don’t know that Indian Constitution was virtually written by one-man army Ambedkar though a seven-member team was formed initially to write it.

Without going deep into the award suffice me to say that neither Ambedkar was happy with the Gandhian largesse nor did he stop abusing Gandhi.  

Gandhi was also responsible for bringing in and supporting Nehru over the head of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel for primeministership. Unlike Nehru Sardar was a statesman and visionary. Nehru had a Muslim tilted bias and insisted on taking control of Kashmir affairs while Sardar was trying to unify the nation. Had Sardar got into it Kashmir cancer would never have festered as it is today. Traitors have become rulers what can one say?

It is interesting to note that Prof Anil Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad had suggested to the then law minister Veerappa Moily not to purvey quotas left, right and centre. He pleaded for expansion of opportunities for first-generation learners to enter the educational system without the need to provide quota crutches. He said coaching to compete for the civil services and a mentoring and tracking system for those who did make the entry would bring a sea change in the way we live and think. Don’t treat the symptoms, he had warned. “The government cannot from time to time introduce reservations. A time comes in its life when it needs to show how really inclusive it is. There are several things the government should be doing in capacity building: invest more money on depressed candidates so that they can compete. But it chooses the easy way out.”

Quota Goondas ignored the suggestion as distributing quotas made them larger than life. This despite the courts consistently holding that there should be quantifiable data showing backwardness of a class and inadequacy of representation to have quotas. Efficiency in administration and a 50 per cent cap on reservations are other benchmarks it follows. But goondas who have land grabbed the Parliament have made it clear that they will hold caste and not class as the benchmark for deprivation.  

Promotion quotas will catapult the anti-national Congress into limelight once again as it will admirably polish off all the evidence in multifarious scams, the latest and not the last being the coal scam worth Rs 1,86,000 crore like they did by the simple expedient of burning all the files related to Adarsh by setting fire to the part of secretariat holding the files. If the goondas can do that so brazenly it is no surprise that they are stooping to new gutter level to bring in promotion quotas when there is already accelerated promotion for SCs/STs since last 50 years. In any Central government office a SC with 7 years experience can become a gazetted officer compared to 20 years of experience by general class.

Goondas have once again opened the Pandora’s Box with a new type of mischievous quotas. Goonda Mulayam is opposing it not because he loves to see a United and prosperous India. He is opposing because OBCs are not included. All he is saying is give more quotas not less. 

Backwardness has become a fashionable disease. Showing off one’s backwardness brings in laurels and elevates the moron who does it to new spiritual levels. Take for example, Parupalli Kashyap who made history at the London Olympics 2012 by reaching the quarters in men’s singles badminton event after defeating Sri Lanka`s Niluka Karunaratne. He showed excellent talent and the way he defeated the Sri Lankan made me think that he will win the gold easily. NO NO. When he faced the Malaysian Lee Chong Wei in the quarterfinals Kashyap was overpowered by the cancer of backwardness and went down tamely to Chong Wei. It was a SHAMELESS display of feeling weak and helpless and instead of getting brickbats the quota goondas heaped praises on his backwardness saying he was the first Indian in the quarters!! His defeat was made to stand on its head as some sort of achievement!

From the day anti-national Congress took over the reins of power after Independence it has indulged in a steady stream of rising corruption now reaching to astronomical proportions. Are quota goondas presuming that promotion quotas can wash away the sins of Congress and its astronomical loot? Had this money been spent on poor there would have been no need to bring in quotas in the first place!

The danger of promotion quotas is not so much as SCs/STs benefitting from it but to the fact that once the girl has been raped she becomes a fair game to all other rapists. Yes, others will demand today or tomorrow and whichever party is at the Centre will have to cave-in to broaden promotion quotas.

Why does my child study Sanskrit?

 Irish Daily

Why does my child study Sanskrit?

by Rutger Kortenhorst

Rutger Kortenhorst, a Sanskrit teacher in John Scottus School in Dublin, Ireland, speaks to parents of his school children on the value of teaching Sanskrit to children, based on his own experience with the language.

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, we are going to spend an hour together looking at the topic `Why does my child study Sanskrit in John Scottus?' My bet is that at the end of the hour you will all have come to the conclusion that your children are indeed fortunate that this extraordinary language is part of their curriculum.

Firstly, let us look at Why Sanskrit for my child? We are the only school in Ireland doing this language, so this will need some explaining.

There are another 80 JSS-type schools in UK and also around the world that have made the same decision to include Sanskrit in their curriculum (they are all off-shoots from the School of Philosophy).

Secondly, how is Sanskrit taught? You may have noticed your son or daughter singing Sanskrit grammar songs in the back of the car just for the fun of it on the way home from school. I'll spend some time telling you HOW we approach teaching Sanskrit now since my learning from India.

But Why Sanskrit?

To answer that we need to look at the qualities of Sanskrit. Sanskrit stands out above all other languages for its beauty of sound, precision in pronunciation and reliability as well as thoroughness in every aspect of its structure. This is why it has never fundamentally changed unlike all other languages. It has had no need to change being the most perfect language of Mankind ever.

If we consider Shakespeare's English, we realize how different and therefore difficult for us his English language was although it is just English from less than 500 years ago. We struggle with the meaning of Shakespeare's English or that of the King James Bible. Go back a bit further and we don't have a clue about the English from the time of Chaucer's `Pilgrim's Progress' from around 700 AD. We cannot even call this English anymore and now rightly call it Anglo-Saxon. So English hadn't even been born!

All languages keep changing beyond recognition. They change because they are defective. The changes are in fact corruptions. They are born and die after seven or eight hundred years –about the lifetime of a Giant Redwood Tree- because after so much corruption they have no life left in them.

Surprisingly there is one language in the world that does not have this short lifespan. Sanskrit is the only exception. It is a never-dying constant. The reason for the constancy in Sanskrit is that it is completely structured and thought out. There is not a word that has been left out in its grammar or etymology, which means every word can be traced back to where it came from originally. This does not mean there is no room for new words either. Just as in English we use older concepts from Greek and Latin to express modern inventions like a television: `tele [far] – vision [seeing]' or `compute –er'.

Sanskrit in fact specializes in making up compound words from smaller words and parts. The word `Sams – krita' itself means `completely – made'.

So what advantages are there to a fundamentally unchanging language? What is advantageous about an unchanging friend, say? Are they reliable? What happens if you look at a text in Sanskrit from thousands of years ago?

The exceptional features of Sanskrit have been recognised for a few centuries all over the world, so you will find universities from many countries having a Sanskrit faculty. Whether you go to Hawai, Cambridge or Harvard and even Trinity College Dublin has a seat for Sanskrit –although it is vacant at present. 

May be one of your children will in time fill this position again?

Although India has been its custodian, Sanskrit has had universal appeal for centuries. The wisdom carried by this language appeals to the West as we can see from Yoga and Ayurvedic Medicine as well as meditation techniques, and practical philosophies like Hinduism, Buddhism and most of what we use in the School of Philosophy. It supports, expands and enlightens rather than conflicts withlocal traditions and religions.

The precision of Sanskrit stems from the unparalleled detail on how the actual sounds of the alphabet are structured and defined. The sounds have a particular place in the mouth, nose and throat that can be defined and will never change.

This is why in Sanskrit the letters are called the `Indestructibles' [aksharáni]. Sanskrit is the only language that has consciously laid out its sounds from first principles. So the five mouth-positions for all Indestructibles [letters] are defined and with a few clearly described mental and physical efforts all are systematically planned: [point out chart]

After this description, what structure can we find in a, b, c, d, e, f , g…? There isn't any, except perhaps that it starts with `a', and goes downhill from there.

Then there is the sheer beauty of the Sanskrit script as we learn it today. [Some examples on the board]

You may well say: `Fine, but so why should my son or daughter have yet another subject and another script to learn in their already busy school-day?' In what way will he or she benefit from the study of Sanskrit in 2012 in the Western world?

The qualities of Sanskrit will become the qualities of your child- that is the mind and heart of your child will become beautiful, precise and reliable.

Sanskrit automatically teaches your child and anybody else studying it to pay FINE attention due to its uncanny precision. When the precision is there the experience is, that it feels uplifting. It makes you happy. It is not difficult even for a beginner to experience this. All you have to do is fine-tune your attention and like music you are drawn in and uplifted. This precision of attention serves all subjects, areas and activities of life both while in school and for the rest of life. This will give your child a competitive advantage over any other children. They will be able to attend more fully, easily and naturally. Thus in terms of relationships, work, sport– in fact all aspects of life, they will perform better and gain more satisfaction. Whatever you attend to fully, you excel in and you enjoy more.

By studying Sanskrit, other languages can be learnt more easily; this being the language all others borrow from fractionally. The Sanskrit grammar is reflected in part in Irish or Greek, Latin or English. They all have a part of the complete Sanskrit grammar. Some being more developed than others, but always only a part of the Sanskrit grammar, which is complete in itself.

What Sanskrit teaches us that there is a language that is ordered, following laws unfailingly and as they are applied your child gets uplifted, not only when they grow up, but as they are saying it! This means they get an unusual but precise, definite and clear insight into language while they are enjoying themselves.

They learn to speak well, starting from Sanskrit, the mother language of all languages. Those who speak well run the world. Barack Obama makes a difference because he can speak well. Mahatma Gandhi could move huge crowds with well-balanced words. Mother Theresa could express herself with simple words which uplift us even now.

The language of the great Master Teachers of mankind from times past is all we have got after centuries and millennia, but they make all the difference. We can enter the remarkable mind of Plato through his words. If your daughter or son can express themselves well through conscious language they will be the leaders of the next generation.

Sanskrit has the most comprehensive writings in the world expressed through the Vedas and the Gítá. The Upanishads –translated by William Butler Yeats have given people from all over the world an insight into universal religious feelings for more than one century now.

To know these well expressed simple words of wisdom in the original is better than dealing with copies or translations as copies are always inferior to originals. We really need clear knowledge on universal religion in an age faced with remarkable levels of religious bigotry and terrorism arising from poorly understood and half-baked religious ideas.

Culture

Vivekananda, a great spiritual leader from India revered by all in the World Religious Conference of 1880 in Chicago said:

You can put a mass of knowledge into the world, but that will not do it much good. There must come some culture into the blood. We all know in modern times of nations which have masses of knowledge, but what of them? They are like tigers; they are like savages, because culture is not there.

Knowledge is only skin-deep, as civilization is, and a little scratch brings out the old savage. Such things happen; this is the danger. Teach the masses in the vernaculars, give them ideas; they will get information, but something more is necessary; give them culture.

Sanskrit can help your child to express universal, harmonious and simple truths better. As a result you will really have done your duty as a parent and the world will reap the benefits in a more humane, harmonious and united society. Sanskrit can do this as it is the only language that is based in knowledge all the way. Nothing is left to chance.

Just think for the moment how confusing it is for a child to learn to say `rough', but `dough'. And why does the `o' in `woman' sound like an `e' in `women'? How come the `ci' in `special' is different from the `ci' in `cinema'?

Teachers may well say `Just learn it' as there is no logical explanation, but it only demonstrates to a child that it is all a bit of a hit-and-miss affair. What else does this randomness in the fundamental building-blocks of language teach a child about the world? That it's just a confusing, random chance-event? How can this give anyone any confidence?

Now go to a language where everything is following rules. Where nothing is left to chance from the humble origin of a letter to the most sophisticated philosophical idea. How will that child meet the world? Surely with confidence, clarity and the ability to express itself?

I have seen myself and others growing in such qualities, because of our contact with Sanskrit. I have just spent a year in India. Though it felt a bit like camping in a tent for a year, it was well worth it.

For many years, we taught Sanskrit like zealots i.e. with high levels of enthusiasm and low levels of understanding, to both adults in the School of Philosophy and children in John Scottus School. We did not perhaps inspire a lot of our students and may have put a number of them off the study of Sanskrit. It felt to me like we needed to go to the source.

Sanskrit teachers worth their salt need to live with people whose daily means of communication is in Sanskrit. I had already spent three summers near Bangalore at 'Samskrita Bharati' doing just that and becoming less of an amateur, but it really needed a more thorough study. So I moved into a traditional gurukulam for the year. This meant living on campus, eating lots of rice and putting up with a few power-cuts and water shortages, but by December 2009, I made up my mind that I would step down as vice-principal of the Senior School and dedicate myself to Sanskrit for the rest of my teaching life.

It felt like a promotion to me as quite a few could be vice-principal but right now which other teacher could forge ahead in Sanskrit in Ireland? [Hopefully this will change before I pop off to the next world.] With Sanskrit I'm expecting my mind to improve with age even if my body slows down a little.

Sanskrit is often compared to the full-time teacher, who is there for you 24/7 whereas the other languages are more like part-timers. The effects of studying Sanskrit on me have been first and foremost a realistic confidence. Secondly, it meant I had to become more precise and speak weighing my words more carefully. It also taught me to express myself with less waffle and therefore speak more briefly. My power of attention and retention has undoubtedly increased.

Teaching method

Now, let me explain for a few minutes, HOW Sanskrit is taught. To my surprise it is not taught well in most places in India. Pupils have to learn it from when they are around age 9 to 11 and then they give it up, because it is taught so badly! Only a few die-hards stick with it, in time teaching the same old endings endlessly to the next generation. This is partly due to India having adopted a craving to copy the West and their tradition having been systematically rooted out by colonialism.

For learning grammar and the wisdom of the East, I was well-placed in a traditional gurukulam, but for spoken Sanskrit I felt a modern approach was missing.

Then I found a teacher from the International School belonging to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. His name is Narendra. He has developed a novel, inspiring and light method to teach grammar, which doesn't feel like you do any grammar at all. At the same time it isn't diluted for beginners so you don't end up with partial knowledge. I also followed a few Sanskrit Conversation camps, which all brought about more familiarity.

Narendra says he owes his method to Sri Aurobindo and his companion The Mother who inspired him to come up with the course we now follow in Dublin. This is one of the many things The Mother said to inspire him:"Teach logically. Your method should be most natural, efficient and stimulating to the mind. It should carry one forward at a great pace. You need not cling there to any past or present manner of teaching."

This is how I would summarize the principles for teaching Sanskrit as we carry it out at present:

1. Language learning is not for academics as everyone learns to speak a language from an early age before they can read and write and know what an academic is. So why insist in teaching Sanskrit academically?

2. The writing script is not the most fundamental thing to be taught. A language is firstly made of its sounds, words and spoken sentences. [The script we use -though very beautiful- is only a few hundred years old.]

3. Always go from what is known to what is new.

4. Understanding works better than memorisation in this Age. Learning by heart should only take up 10 percent of the mental work, rather than the 90 percent rote learning in Sanskrit up to the recent present.

5. Don't teach words and endings in isolation; teach them in the context of a sentence as the sentence is the smallest meaningful unit in language.

6. Any tedious memory work which cannot be avoided should be taught in a song.

7. Do not teach grammatical terms. Just as we don't need to know about the carburetor, when we learn to drive a car.

8. The course should be finished in two years by an average student according to Narendra. This may be a little optimistic given that we are a little out of the loop not living in India, which is still Sanskrit's custodian. At present I would say it is going to be a three-year course.

9. Language learning must be playful. Use drama, song, computer games and other tricks to make learning enjoyable.

We have started on this course since September and it has certainly put a smile on our pupils' faces, which makes a pleasant change. I now feel totally confident that we are providing your children with a thorough, structured and enjoyable course. Our students should be well prepared for the International Sanskrit Cambridge exam by the time they finish –age 14/15- at the end of second year. We will also teach them some of the timeless wisdom enshrined in various verses. At present we are teaching them: "All that lives is full of the Lord. Claim nothing; enjoy! Do not covet His property"- in the original of course.

The future

Let us look at the 500 – year cycle of a Renaissance. The last European Renaissance developed three subjects: Art, Music and Science to shape the world we live in today. It had its beginning in Florence. The great Humanist Marsilio Ficino made Plato available to the masses by translating it from Greek to Latin. We live in exciting times and may well be at the beginning of a new Renaissance. It also will be based on three new subjects: Some say that these will be Economics, 

Law and Language.

Language has to become more universal now as we can connect with each other globally within seconds. NASA America's Space Program is actively looking at Sanskrit in relation to I.T. and artificial intelligence.

Sri Aurobindo said "…at once majestic and sweet and flexible, strong and clearly-formed and full and vibrant and subtle…".

What John Scottus pupils have said:

It makes your mind bright, sharp and clear. It makes you feel peaceful and happy. It makes you feel BIG. It cleans and loosens your tongue so you can pronounce any language easily.

What Sanskrit enthusiasts like Rick Briggs in NASA have said:

It gives you access to a vast and liberating literature.

It can describe all aspects of human life from the most abstract philosophical to the latest scientific discoveries, hinting at further developments.

Sanskrit and computers are a perfect fit. The precision play of Sanskrit with computer tools will awaken the capacity in human beings to utilize their innate higher mental faculty with a momentum that would inevitably transform the mind. In fact, the mere learning of Sanskrit by large numbers of people in itself represents a quantum leap in consciousness, not to mention the rich endowment it will provide in the arena of future communication. NASA, California

After many thousands of years, Sanskrit still lives with a vitality that can breathe life, restore unity and inspire peace on our tired and troubled planet. It is a sacred gift, an opportunity. The future could be very bright.

Rick Briggs [NASA]

You may well have a few questions at this stage after which I would like to introduce you to a plant in the audience. A parent turned into a blazing ball of enthusiasm over Sanskrit grammar: John Doran. I would like him to wrap up.

I'll give NASA's Rick Briggs the last word from me:

One thing is certain; Sanskrit will only become the planetary language when it is taught in a way which is exiting and enjoyable. Furthermore it must address individual learning inhibitions with clarity and compassion in a setting which encourages everyone to step forth, take risks, make mistakes and learn.

sare jahan se accha, Quotastan nahi hamara
hum bulbulain hai is ki, Quota gulisitan nahi hain hamara

ghurbat men hon agar ham, rahta hai dil vatan men
samjho vahin hain vatan, sara mile jule dil ho hamara

parbat voh sab se uncha, quota se nahin chadenga hum 
voh sacha santari hamara, joh logon ko nahi batein dhul mein

godi men khelti hain is ki hazaron nadiya
gulshan hai jin ke dam se, quota se barbaad nahi honge log hamara

aye ab, raud, ganga, voh din hen yad tujhko
jab batein hua rahte te, azadi nahi ta tab hamara?

maz'hab nahin sikhata apas men bayr rakhna
Quota ke durbal mein ham, hindostan ka azadi nahi todenge hamara

yunan-o-misr-o-roma, sab mil gaye jahan se
quota be kam nahi hai jab mitaye nam-o-nishan hamara

kuch bat hai keh hasti, milati nahin hamari
Satan santari se desh bikr jayegi, mushibat ka daur-e-zamana hamara

iqbal ko'i meharam, apna nahin jahan men
m'alum kya kisi ko, kya kahen Quota-ye-dard-e-nishan hamara

Muslims neither backward nor powerless !

My friend S Narayanaswamy Iyer breaks the myth that Muslims are backward as propounded by quota goondas. Interesting read.

Dr Farrukh Saleem, as every other self-deprecating Muslim, is entirely mistaken both in his facts and in his conclusions.

Briefly,  Muslims are neither backward nor powerless.  Consider the following irrefutable facts.

Throughout the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds, every single Muslim child, male and female, from the age of four onwards, is educated regularly in local madraasaas under expert and strict teachers.  He or she is immersed in the study of the Koran and the Hadiths, the life and doings of the Prophet.  He and she, from an early pliable age, and are mentally conditioned by daily repetition to despise, hate and destroy everyone and everything that is not patently Muslim, or Islamic.  This includes libraries, universities, art, monuments, teachers and students, ordinary people, their culture, language, dress, cuisine, songs and dances, musical instruments, everything.

Every single Muslim child is taught that killing a non-Muslim is rewarded by Heaven and pleasures of the flesh there, such as food and drink, companionship of and union with, virgins.  Even greater merit is achieved by suicide-bombers, as self-destruction is a noble sacrifice to Allah.

Every such child is taught to avoid association with non-Muslims, except for the sole purpose of converting them to Islam, particularly vulnerable women and girls, old and lonely people, the poor and the sick, the deserted and the desperate.

The Muslim world DOES NOT lack the capacity to produce knowledge!

On the contrary, only knowledge of the life and reported sayings of the Prophet are allowed.  And there is plenty of material there, augmented by ayatollahs and other brain-washers.  The Muslim's mind is effectively closed to all other kinds of knowledge, as these do, or might, conflict with the Koran, the Hadiths, and the Prophet's sayings, his vision, and his life.

The Muslim world is NOT failing to diffuse knowledge.

The knowledge it profusely, deliberately, and constantly dispenses, through madraasaas for 4-to-8-year-old infants, through schools, colleges, universities, and special institutions for older students and for adults, the pre- and post-Haj and Umrah briefings for pilgrims to Mecca and Medina, the annual fasting-month lectures and seminars, the ritual annual slaughter of cows, sheep, goats, camels for Al Adha, by slitting their throats through slow sawing gestures  --  all these, and more, emphasise and diffuse knowledge of what it takes to become, and to remain, a Muslim.  Newspapers, radio, magazines, television, the Internet, mosques and madraasaas, loudspeaker broadcasts five times a day, public performances of namaaz, take diffusion of knowledge to hitherto unknown heights of effectiveness. 

The Muslim world is NOT failing to apply knowledge.

Muslim Pakistan has the nuclear bomb.  Soon, Muslim Iran will have it, too.  Muslims everywhere have built magnificent sky-piercing minarets, mausoleums, tombs, mosques, palaces, to the glory of Allah and of Islam.  They have built some of the tallest hotels, commercial buildings, pleasure domes, harems.  They have applied their knowledge to the hunt for, and subjugation of, tens of millions of other humans in Europe, Asia and Africa, as their slaves, both male and female.

NO Lack of education.

Muslims have no lack of education.  They benefit from the knowledge, derived from their Muslim education, that they have only to sit tight, marry (or impregnate) as many women as they can, and produce children, one per year per woman, if at all possible.  Following the Prophet's example, you can marry a six-year-old girl, make her pregnant when she "matures" at eight, and produce one child per year till she reaches menopause at the age of 47.  That is 46 offspring per wife.  Four wives plus, say, two mistresses, or concubines, or slaves, will enable you to produce in total of 276 offspring in your single lifetime.  (Under Muslim law, illegitimate children --  i.e. children born to parents who are not married  --  are legitimate.)

If you disagree, just look at Peninsular Malaysia.  About 40 years ago, the Muslim population was less than 40 percent of the people.  Today, it is pushing 70 percent.  Such increase is EXPONENTIAL, not arithmetical.  Extrapolate the possible explosion of numbers into the present-day world Muslim population of some "estimated 1,476,233,470 on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas."

No, Dr Farrukh Saleem.  The future of Muslims is NOT depressing, nor hopeless.  The future of non-Muslims is.

S Narayanaswamy Iyer