Skip to main content

Anti-NaMo Elevator, straight to the TOP!

“Journalism should be practiced like a honey bee & not a housefly, 
as houseflies sit on filth and spread it around.
And, journalists should be like bees, productive, but capable of retorting with a sting, when needed."
"Journalism should not spare people, who don’t think in the nation’s interest."

~ Narendra Modi

India's Government Is Becoming Increasingly Antiscience

Scientists join writers, artists and historians in protesting the Modi government’s growing interference in academic affairs

By Apoorva Mandavilli on February 3, 2016




First up, and as always, little bit about the author, only to get a 360 degree perspective. The bio on the website of Ms. APOORVA MANDAVILLI says, and I quote:
“I’m a science journalist. I write and edit articles on a wide range of topics, but I’m particularly drawn to infectious diseases, the brain, public health and policy.”
Going by her earlier writings across various on-line platforms and her own blog, I did not find ONE single “Political Commentary”. Yes, I actually scanned all the way until 2007, and NONE! 

Therefore, going by the credentials of the author, drawn from her own Bio and Interests that revolve around infectious diseases, the brain, public health and policy, the author actually has nothing to do with Indian Politics. 

In short, a Science Journalist makes a highly toxic Political Comment that ironically appears on a totally unrelated & irrelevant platform : SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, A DIVISION OF NATURE AMERICA, INC

So, a ‘debut’ attempt at ‘political commentary’ and the easiest way of getting eyeballs and hits is to write some really nasty stuff on THE most popular world leader - Mr. Narendra Modi. 

For the emigrant & highly aspirational Indian-origin Americans & Green Card holder, who are constantly knocking at the gates of elite American Academia, Mr. Narendra Modi as a 'Hindu' Prime Minister of India is easy fodder. Hence, with a scintillating performance in this piece under her belt, the author would now surely ‘arrive'. Bravo!

***

Coming to the article, the very first thing one would notice is the picture. Clearly the author must have done phenomenal research over the selection of 'most suitable' picture that must go into this article, as can be seen from the picture credits: 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi

It is not that easy to select the most ‘toxic’ picture of India’s Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi from a huge huge archive of western press/media. Al Jazeera was obviously one of the best source.

Great job there indeed!

***

Now about the contents of the article, they are just ‘here-say’, or at best some loose inputs from ‘prime time’ English News - they have nothing to do with facts & data. However, the author in one of her responses, tweets as follows:

apoorva_nyc: actually the reporting for this was done in Hyderabad, India, 
"ground reality" as it were. not in a posh office

Few quotes from the wonderfully researched article with 'ground reality' will be self-explanatory (emphasis mine):
The BJP and Modi, in particular, are aligned with the extremist right-wing group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. (This unholy alliance is comparable to the relationship between the Republican Party and the Tea Party, but the RSS is a paramilitary group with more violent overtones than the Tea Party has shown so far.) Together, the BJP and RSS promote the agenda of Hindutva, the notion that India is the homeland of Hindus and all others — the hundreds of millions of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others in this sprawling, secular democracy — are interlopers.
Despite his blatantly anti-secular stance, Modi’s stated goals for economic development are wildly popular, particularly among the country’s majority Hindus.
Vemula was a Dalit, a member of an oppressed caste in India.
I would not even attempt a rebuttal to these highly toxic "Hindu-phobic" remarks, which anyways are tossed around every single day as unguided missiles. It is just to bring out the fact that we have spotted yet another Indian-American as a 'rising star' in the crowded galaxy of ‘eminent intellectuals’.

***

Here is an account of ‘personal experience’ by an Indian Scientist, Kaneenika Sinha; an assistant professor in Mathematics at IISER Pune, who happened to personally meet the PM, Mr. Narendra Modi at one of the interactions, as part of a delegation comprising of 30 scientists across India. 

I am only quoting some of the highlights here from this candid blog-post “A meeting with the Prime Minister”: (emphasis mine)
The PM wanted a discussion on the current state of Indian science and from what I understood in a smaller preparation meeting before we headed out to RCR, he had conveyed his eagerness to hear diverse viewpoints. The secretaries of the science ministries (mostly scientists themselves), therefore, were to play a moderating role and let the other invitees from the science community do most of the talking.
He also made some remarks about a disconnect between writing research papers and translating the research into technology. One of the examples he mentioned was why agricultural research has not addressed the problem of poor yield of pulses in India. 
It was heartening to note his awareness of science challenges in the country and that his thoughts on science are not restricted to Ganesha and plastic surgery, as many journalists would have us believe. 
Speaking personally, I came back with a strong feeling that this government perceives the science community as underperforming and wants it to produce more. 
***

And then we get this junk of an article being pushed around in the name of 'ground reality': 
India's Government Is Becoming Increasingly Antiscience - How ‘Unscientific’ research was that, Ms. Apoorva Mandavilli? 

Conclusion: For an Indian-American, to get an entry into the ‘gated community’ of highly evangelic & anti-Indian ecosystem of American Academia, Mr. Narendra Modi has become the fastest and safest Elevator to the TOP!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Nero’s Guests, the age of inequality: A Review

The reason why I have taken up to write a review of Nero’s Guests is because it needs to be widely circulated, written and talked about, as much as possible; so that everyone gets to see it, those who still do not get the time to watch it, may further need to be motivated to do so, and only then it will reach out to the wider audience and be able to make a real impact. The mainstream media today is totally degenerated and corrupted as it does not cover anything that is not “breaking news” or that is not considered “glamorous” enough to catch eye balls. For this obvious reason, Nero’s Guests has been completely ignored by the mainstream media (both print & electronic) and is not given its due space & visibility. The subject itself is not new to any of us and it has become a part of our daily lives - mere statistics. It is about the severe agrarian crisis that the country is faced with, as a result of which farmers are still committing suicide and as many as 200,000 farmers h

Down Memory Lane: Satpura National Park

Memory … is the diary that we all carry about with us ~ Oscar Wilde This one is a sequel to the earlier post: Story of Satpura , where we introduced and talked about the person, Shri K. S. Saxena (Retd IFS), who was at the centre of creation of what we know today as Satpura Biosphere Reserve.  We pick up where we had left with the concluding remark: “And he looks forward to visiting Satpura National Park sometime …” Satpura National Park After three successive COVID-19 lockdowns and all the trauma, it was only in October’21 that we could conclude the most awaited trip down memory lane to Satpura National Park, exactly forty years after it was inaugurated. Calling it mere ‘nostalgic trip’ for Shri. K.S. Saxena (ex-IFS) on his 86th Birthday would be nothing short of an insult to his passion and love for the jungles of Satpura.  Sharing here few pictures of the trip from our personal archives, please feel free to ‘click to enlarge’ pictures for better views.  The planning for the trip was

Ideological Subversion

And then, there are the communists, Blacker hearts still. They feed on the pus of all this corruption, Like maggots in a corpse! And like maggots have left a swell, They will eventually swarm like flies, And spread their rotten philosophy, Across the country and across the world, Those then, Are our enemies! ~ Inspector Chester Campbell / The Peaky Blinders Post independence, India had the option to chose & follow a particular path to build its own destiny as a Sovereign Nation State in the new world order, after almost 1000 years of foreign rule. This opportunity was actually the result of those Freedom Fighters who laid their precious lives to liberate India from foreign rule. Unfortunately, they did not live to witness the national tricolour being hoisted on 15th August 1947. The real heroes of our freedom struggle are the ones who contributed immensely during the 90 years, starting with 1857 through 1947. They were the real sons of the soil, most of whom martyred as nameless &