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Ignore Those Who Love to Hate:Hate Speech and Communal Politics
Ram Puniyani Mahatma Gandhi, who laid down his life for communal harmony, who was murdered because he was espousing the cause of building bridges of amity between different religious communities had a statuette with three monkeys. One of the monkeys in this puts his hand on his mouth, signifying that we should not speak evil.…
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Port Blair Training Camp on Developing Scientific Temper Concludes
Teaching kids the real science behind “miracles”! Our 5-day training program empowering young minds with scientific temper wrapped up on May 30, 2013. Venue: Science Centre, Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands Event Banner & Workshop Theme Prof. Narendra Nayak Delivering the Keynote Address Workshop Participants Engaged During the Session Demonstrating the Physics and Physiology…
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Burning Water with Psychic Power
Psychics claim elemental power when water erupts into flames at the pass of a hand. In reality, the performer secretly drops a piece of sodium metal hidden inside a thimble into hot water. The violent chemical reaction releases hydrogen gas, which ignites, leaving behind a hazardous solution of caustic soda.
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Science versus Miracles: Piercing a Balloon without it Bursting
A psychic inflates some balloons. He requests the volunteers to come to the stage and gives them the balloons along with needles. He asks them to prick the balloons with the needles and they all burst. Then he takes a balloon and pierces it with a needle. Nothing happens. Thee balloon retains its shape. Experiment:…
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Asghar Ali Engineer’s Struggle for Preservation of Plural Ethos
Ram Puniyani We lost Asghar Engineer on 14th May 2013. It is an irreplaceable loss to human rights movement, anti communal struggle, to the movement for preservation of secular values. This is a small tribute to my esteemed, close and very dear friend. The events of last over three decades have shown us, more than before…
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Eating Hot Chillies Without Sensation
The Practice: Eating Hot Chillies Without Sensation — Charvaka.net Science versus Miracles Deconstructing Supernatural Claims T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S 01The Practice: Eating Hot Chillies Without Sensation 02 The Experiment • Effect • Props & Materials • Method (as practised by performers) •…
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US: No Entry for Mr. Modi
Ram Puniyani Mr. Narendra Modi, for whom some countries are warming up to relate to him in Europe and in the East; the latest report from US must be very disheartening. Despite a strong lobby for pressurizing to grant him Visa, the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), has called on the Obama administration…
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Science versus Miracles: Moving Objects by Mental Power.
Many psychics claim to move things by psychic power. They keep a pencil balancing on the edge of a table and through the psychic power, make the pencil turn and drop. Experiment: 113 Effect: Moving objects by mental power. Props: One round pencil, a table and a chair. Method: Sit on the chair with table…
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Will The Biases About Terrorists Remain Permanent?
Ram Puniyani We have witnessed number of acts of terror in India, during last two decades. While those involved in the acts of terror have been coming from individuals of different religions, the net outcome of the actions of investigation agencies and police has been to arrest Muslim youth, to put charges against them and…
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Science Centre, Port Blair to Organize Summer Camp-2013 for Students
🚀 Summer Holiday Camp at Science Centre, Port Blair! Looking for hands-on learning this May? The Science Centre at Goodwill Estate, Corbyn’s Cove Road, is hosting an interactive Holiday Camp for students from May 1–30, 2013! Each 5-day module runs from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM with deep-dive, practical experiments: 🛠️ Shipbuilding: May 2–6 📐…
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Science versus Miracles: Lifting a Rice Pot with a Knife
B Pemanand Whenever I try to explain and educate the people about the falsity of miracles, supernatural and psychic powers, the news media confuse them with stories of supernatural powers. While I was in Andhra Pradesh conducting a Vijnan Yatra, the news media came up with the story of a temple. When a married couple…
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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Do We Survive Death?
Abraham Kovoor “If Mr. Kovoor s materialistic theory of the mind is accepted, all possibility of survival after death has to be ruled out, which means that all religious teachings that postulate a life after death are false”. (G.G. Munidasa – Times of Ceylon – 30-4-67). “What Mr. Kovoor thinks will happen to his own…
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Excellences and Values
A.N. Moorthy Rao From the stage when man regarded nature forces and animals like the crocodile, the snake and the monkey as God, we rose to the stage of the ‘Trimurti’ concept and have presently reached the vision of a single God. We may rightly say that our cogitation has indeed progressed. It is true…
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Shadows of Trident: Modi as Prime Ministerial Candidate
Ram Puniyani From last several months (April 2013) the Bihar Chief Minister Niteesh Kumar is becoming more vocal about his opposition to his electoral ally BJP projecting Narendra Modi as the Prime ministerial candidate. He went on to say that the PM candidate should be one who has a secular image, in obvious reference to…
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Science versus Miracles: Demonstrating Psychic Powers with Playing Cards – Part III
B Premanand The psychic claims to have powers to hypnotize every one. He calls six persons from the audience. On the left side he asks five people to stand facing the audience and on the right side the sixth person. He hypnotizes the five volunteers and shows a pack of cards and asks each one…
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Whither Annihilation of Caste?
Ram Puniyani When on this (14th April 2013) anniversary of Dr. Bhimrao Babasaheb Ambedkar, we pay tribute to his yeomen services towards the cause of social justice and bringing to fore the values of democracy; we also need to think as to how his dream and vision of annihilation of caste can be taken further. Where…
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Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Rebirth and Prodigies
Abraham Kovoor “Mr. Kovoor’s sound arguments to prove the absence of a life after death are, no doubt, very convincing. Yet, 1 like to ask Mr. Kovoor what he has to say about the numerous cases of rebirths investigated scientifically and confirmed by persons of high integrity and learning like Dr. Ian Stevenson, Prof HN…
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The Concept of One God
A.N. Moorthy Rao We have not succeeded in our attempt to understand the nature of God by the inductive method. Since each one of the gods that we encountered in our attempts has some shortcoming or the other, none of them could be the Supreme God, the Monarch of the Cosmos. We describe God with…
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Science versus Miracles: Demonstrating Psychic Powers with Playing Cards – Part II
B Premanand The psychic is blindfolded. The volunteer is asked to select a card from the card pack given to him and place it on the table with the back of the card up. The blind folded psychic moves his index finger over the card and identifies it correctly. Experiment: 109 Effect: Telling the card…
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Nationalism, Kingdoms and Kings: Looking at Shivaji and Rana Pratap
Ram Puniyani The legend of some of the kings continues in different forms and is used by different political formations. These political formations draw their identity from the past and project it on the present. These sectarian streams have been using the names of different kings and glorifying them in various ways. There is a…
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Science versus Miracles: Demonstrating Psychic Powers with Playing Cards
B Premanand The psychic gives a pack of cards to a volunteer for shuffling, and after shuffling he takes it back. After spreading the cards in his hands, he asks the volunteer to pick a card, remember what card it is, and then put it back in the pack. He is then asked to shuffle…
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Science versus Miracles: Curing the Lame, Blind, Deaf and Dumb
B Premanand Pentecostals and some other Christian groups conduct meeting every year claiming to cure the blind, deaf, dumb and lame and also other incurable diseases. They get forms filled up by the people about their ailments and collect money in the guise of donations. The patients donate generously hoping for a cure by divine…
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Myanmar Communal Violence- a Set back to Democratic Process
Ram Puniyani Most of the countries of South Asia have faced the barbaric problem of violence targeted against religious minorities. The form of this may have been different, but the outcome has been similar, the brutality against religious minorities, violence against innocent human beings. The current times (Mid 2013) may be one of the worst…
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Carvaka Philosophy : A New Look
This concise review of Ramkrishna Bhattacharya’s Studies on the Cārvāka/Lokāyata highlights its crucial role in reconstructing ancient Indian materialism. By analyzing rare fragments and Perso-Arabic sources, Bhattacharya disproves charges of unbridled hedonism, clarifies Cārvāka epistemology regarding inference, and restores a lost tradition of rationalism, skepticism, and rigorous debate.