Four People's Principles

this article by mr.katju is very good,hence im posting it here .
Only modern science can solve the many problems that India's masses face.
When we discuss science, we must ask what its purpose is. The answer, to my mind, is: to make our lives better and happier. Science is that knowledge by which we understand nature and harness it for our benefit.

Some people may oppose this view, saying that the atom bomb destroys lives, and that science has created weapons of destruction. Scientific knowledge can be misused, but also used to benefit mankind. But without science we will be living precarious, wretched lives.

An objection could also be raised that it is only the applied sciences (technology) that benefit people, not the fundamental sciences. It is true that a scientist doing fundamental research does not care whether his discoveries are of any utility or not. Newton and Einstein did not bother whether their discoveries would benefit mankind. However, these benefit mankind in the long run.

Today India faces huge problems; only science can solve them. Some 80 per cent of its people live in poverty, with unemployment, sky-rocketing prices, problems of healthcare, education and housing, and so on. Forty-eight farmers commit suicide on an average each day. And 47 per cent of the children are malnourished. Our national aim must be to abolish these evils and make India prosperous for all.

To address the problems, I present Four People's Principles (following Sun Yat Sen's Three People's Principles). These should be our guiding principles: Science, Democracy, Livelihood, and Unity of the People.
Science

When India was on the scientific path, it prospered. With the aid of science we built mighty civilisations thousands of years ago when most people in Europe (except in Greece and Rome) lived in the forests. We made outstanding scientific discoveries. However, we subsequently took to the unscientific path of superstition and ritual. The way out is to go back to the scientific path shown by our ancestors — Aryabhatta and Brahmagupta, Sushruta and Charaka, Ramanujan and C.V. Raman.

Here are three examples of Indian scientific achievements in ancient times.

1. The decimal system was perhaps the most revolutionary and greatest scientific achievement in the ancient world. The Europeans called the numbers in the decimal system Arabic numerals, but surprisingly the Arabs called them Hindu numerals. Were they Arabic or Hindu? The languages Urdu, Persian and Arabic are written from right to left, but if you ask any speaker of these languages to write a number, he will write it left to right. This shows the numbers were taken from a language that was written left to right. It is accepted now that these numbers came from India, and were copied by the Arabs.

The decimal system has revolutionary significance. Ancient Rome was a great civilisation, but its people were uncomfortable with numbers above 1000. They wrote their numbers in alphabets, I standing for 1, V for 5, X for 10, L for 50, C for 100, D for 500 and M for 1000. There was no alphabet expressing a number higher than 1000. If one would have asked an ancient Roman to write the number one million, he would have gone crazy: to write one million he would have to write the letter M, which stands for millennium (or one thousand), one thousand times. On the other hand, under our system, to express one million we have just to write the number one followed by six zeroes. We could thus express astronomically high numbers by adding zeroes. In the Roman numerals there is no zero. Zero was ancient India's invention.

2. Five thousand years ago in the Indus Valley civilisation was created the system of town planning, with covered drains and the sewage system.

3. Plastic surgery was invented in India in the 6th century B.C.; Westerners discovered it about 200 years ago.

I am not going into our other great scientific achievements (for details, see ‘Sanskrit as a Language of Science' at the website, www. kgfindia.com).

However, today we are far behind the Western countries in science; that is the real cause of our poverty and other social evils. We must spread science — not physics, chemistry and biology alone: it is the entire scientific outlook. We must spread rational and logical thinking among our masses and make them give up backwardness and superstition. The mindset steeped in casteism, communalism and superstition must change. Science is not the natural sciences alone, but also the social sciences. A worldwide recession is on. This can only be solved by knowledge of economic theory, not of natural sciences or engineering.
Democracy

The second principle is Democracy. When King Ajatashatru of Magadha was planning to attack the Vajjian democracy, he sent a messenger to the Buddha for advice. Instead of speaking to this messenger, the Buddha told one of his disciples: “Have you heard, Anand, that the Vajjians foregather often and frequent the public meetings of their clan? So long, Anand, as the Vajjians so foregather and so frequent the public meetings of their clan, so long they may be expected not to decline but to prosper.

Similarly, Avadan Shatak, a Buddhist Sanskrit text of the second century A.D., mentions that a group of merchants went from North India to the Deccan and were asked by the Deccan King, who was the king who ruled over North India. The merchants replied: Deva, kechit deshah ganadheena, kechit rajaadheena, iti, which means “Your Majesty, some regions are under democratic rule, while others are under kings.” So, democracy is nothing new to India.

The method of shastrarthas was developed in ancient India, which permitted free discussion in the presence of a large assembly. This resulted in growth in philosophy, law, grammar and so on, and also in science, including medicine, mathematics and astronomy.

Some people say democracy is not good for India. I disagree. The problem in India is not that there is too much democracy but too little. We need more democracy, not less, and that means educating the masses, raising their cultural level, and involving them actively in national reconstruction.

Democracy and science go hand in hand. Scientific growth requires certain supportive values, namely, the freedom to think, criticise, and dissent, tolerance, plurality, and free flow of information. These are the values of a democratic society.
Livelihood

The third principle is livelihood for the masses. Today, 80 per cent of Indians are poor, and there is massive unemployment, lack of healthcare, housing and good education. In the recent period, the rich have become richer, and the rich-poor divide has increased. Economic growth has benefited only a handful.

The French thinker, Rousseau, wrote: “It is obviously contrary to the law of nature for a handful of people to gorge themselves on superfluities while the starving multitudes lack the necessities of life.” (Discourse on the Origins of Inequality)

Using our creativity we must find ways to raise the standard of living of the masses. Ultimately, that is what matters. Let the system we adopt be called capitalism or socialism or communism, the real test is whether the standard of living of the masses is going up or not. Surely, a system in which a quarter million farmers have committed suicide in the last 15 years and vast masses live in poverty is unacceptable.

Before the Industrial Revolution, which began in Western Europe in the 18th century, there was feudalism everywhere. In the feudal system the methods of production were primitive and very little wealth was generated, and only a handful of people could be rich. In contrast, modern industry is powerful and big, and enough wealth can be generated to meet everybody's basic needs. Nobody needs to be poor. It is the state's duty to ensure that.
Unity of the people

India has great diversity, with a number of castes, languages, religions and ethnic groups, as it is broadly a country of immigrants (see the article, ‘Kalidas Ghalib Academy for Mutual Understanding,' and the video, ‘What is India,' at www. kgfindia.com). So the only policy that will work here is secularism, giving equal respect to all communities. This was the policy of Emperor Akbar, who was really the architect of modern India. This policy was continued by Jawaharlal Nehru and his colleagues who created our secular Constitution.

In 1947, religious passions were inflamed; Pakistan had declared itself an Islamic state. There must have been tremendous pressure on Nehru and his colleagues to declare India a Hindu state. It is not easy to keep a cool head when passions are inflamed, but our leaders said India would not be a Hindu state but a secular one. It is for this reason that there is more stability in India than in the neighbouring country.

Powerful vested interests are trying to destroy the unity and make us fight one another on the basis of religion, caste, region, language, and so on. It is the duty of all patriotic people to expose these designs and maintain the unity of the people; without that we cannot progress.

(Justice Markandey Katju is Chairman of the Press Council of India. This is an edited version of the address he delivered on January 11 at an international conference organised by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, on ‘Science Communication for Scientific Temper,' in New Delhi)

NEW YEAR AT COORG WITH FRIENDS

Nature is pristine awesome and fantastic in its beauty and diversity, it’s not just my exaggeration about nature but this is what i felt during the time i spent in its lap.this is my first experience with the western Ghats passing through coorg district of Karnataka. Coorg or Kodagu is the District and popular tourist spot in Karnataka state. Coorg is the smallest district in Karnataka; All Districts have railway lines in Karnataka except Coorg. Coorg is also called by many names that are Scotland of india, Kashmir of Karnataka . Kaveri is the main river in Coorg which starts at Talakaveri (tourist place with God Kaveri’s Background) in end of eastern part of the district and border of kerela.westren ghats are the continuous chain of mountains, It runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain along the Arabian Sea. The Western Ghats block rainfall to the Deccan Plateau. The range starts near the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra, south of the Tapti river, and runs approximately 1600 km through the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala ending at Kanyakumari, at the southern tip of India. The average elevation is around 1,200 metres (3,900 ft). The area is one of the world’s ten "Hottest biodiversity hotspots.
If you’re interested, now iam going to take you with me. This new year day left behind several unforgettable sweet memories for my life. This is also my first long trip with friends to any outstation.
My journey started On 3oth December 2011,i boarded my kingfisher flight to reach Bangalore from Delhi. To my fate or what so ever it may be after a week of clear days fog arrived, i had my apprehensions about my journey cursed the fog for its arrival on my date of journey. But the flight was delayed by an hour and without much difficulty I reached Bangalore at almost 9 pm. Two of my buddies Rajesh and Prasad accompanied me from airport to my stay at midway inn near their residence. Mean while on the way I lost my galaxy mobile and I came to know about it only the next day morning.
My stay at the inn was very good. As I woke up, one by one my eight friends started arriving .few came from Hyderabad, one from Chennai, and three are local and me from Delhi. These are all my graduation friends. Even though i came to know that my mobile was missing it doesn’t bothered me much I don’t want to spoil mood of others for my carelessness and that too for a lifeless electronic gadget. After we all freshed up and checked out of the inn, we boarded innova to reach kushal nagar in coorg district.
The traffic of Bangalore annoyed me so much .Throughout my journey I started comparing Bangalore with Delhi. And my first impression about the city was not that good. We started at around 9 :30 am, our destination is almost at a distance of 250 km from Banglore.On the way we also came across Mysore and we had our lunch at fish land restaurant located at outskirts of Mysore ,although its fish land I had veg along with few others.
On our way we first visited the temple of SRIRANGAPATTANAM, here there is sriranganatha swamy .this town is famous for the Tippu Sultans battle with English. Also the temple town is surrounded by cauvery river on all sides so it’s a island town located on kaveri. After our lunch we went through westernghats to reach kushal nagar for our night stay. The journey was awesome, the serenity of vegetation attracted me alot.The fresh breeze gushing in from car windows kissed my cheeks only to pass back and welcomed me. I lost for a while watching the Mother Nature and felt how lucky iam to be in the lap of Mother Nature.
Before reaching kushal nagar, we got down at “NISARGADHAM” near the hill town. This is really a amazing place where the Cauvery cuts across the location .at my first look itself joy stuck me and iam very enthusiastic to get in. To get in we need to cross a hanging bridge over the river. The breeze that is passing through my face brought a very savoury fragrance of eucalyptus trees along with several other unknown trees and herbs. I don’t know from where i got so much energy to live in that exhausted hour of the day even after travelling 200km.i guess the nature recharged me adequately. Some interesting places that we covered here include deer park, bamboo forest, tree house and the Cauvery passing through the hard rocks and cutting across them.
After this we started to kushal nagar and reached there by around 8 O clock in evening. We stayed at kushal lodge to this night .The whole town was in a mood to welcome the new year 2012 even we were there to do the same of course. Due the long journey i was totally exhausted and want to retire to bed after dinner. But I can’t sleep properly till 12 O clock when the crackers are lighted up, and people started shouting to welcome the new year...
I woke up at 4O clock in the morning to get fresh up myself and let others to do the same so that we can start our journey ahead early. At around 7 O clock we checked out of the lodge and went straight to dubera . Here there is to say so much about dubera, almost the entire coorg district being located in hilly region is full of coffee plantations. dubera is a famous tourist spot ,this is famous for its river rafting, elephant park etc...as we reached there early in the morning there is not much traffic. We did rafting with our empty stomachs only. Even we exhausted, it’s really very nice .almost all of my friends feared to jump in to waters. Except me and Ravi all others were pushed in to waters with their lifejackets. it’s a wonderful water play. After river rafting we crossed Cauvery by foot over the rocks to reach opposite bank. We had our breakfast there. The masala dosa here tasted too good for me. Later we moved to abbey falls near madekeri town.
We expected much only to get disappointed here, it’s just a water fall over a narrow strip of area. This is a hot and sunny day compare d to our first day of journey which is so cool and welcoming. I thought of Delhi for a while, what a nature here it’s very hot in Delhi very cold people are dying with cold there..Later we went to madekari town to have our lunch at neel sagar restaurant, the food is very good here too, almost though out south India we can get the same kind of food what we eat in Andhra.
After our lunch we went to RAJASEAT view point, it’s marvellous we see the valley down from the view point .it’s almost at a height of 2000 ft. it had a breathtaking view its really fantastic too look at the valley down the hills which are circumscribing it. After this we moved to OMAKARESWAR TEMPLE. From there we reached to golden temple located nearby. Actually this golden temple is a Buddhist vihara i.e A place of worship .here there is also a Buddhist monastery. Even though I went in but I’m almost exhausted by now so not able to admire it.
We stared to Bangalore by around 6 O clock in the evening on the way we people played ANTHYAKSHARI [to sing with the lated letter that ended in previous song],Rajesh entertained us with his own creative lyrics to which every one of us laughed just like anything, after so many days we enjoyed like this. And we had our dinner at McDonalds and reached Bangalore by 12 O clock that is the starting hour of the next day. Mean while sarat got down to at majesty rail terminal to reach Chennai but he missed it and reached by bus. After this i again took a room in the same midway inn ..I slept just like anything and wake up only at 8:30 am in the morning. Later I went along with Rajesh to police station to register complaint against my missing mobile, I registered complaint successfully. We had our lunch at Andhra flavour restaurant.
After lunch Rajesh took us to ITPB[international technology park Bangalore] where he works and the heart of Bangalore it industry located at white fields I found that the whole of Bangalore is surviving only because of this it industry existed here, I found that if there is no IT there is no Bangalore, and these guys are doing labour day and night just like anything..I thought for a while if I also accepted the offer made by TCS I might also have been one among them in the same Bangalore but my life pulled me other side .I played bouncer in the mall nearby, and had some coffee and departed to my room back to fresh up and check out.
I checked out of the room and said good bye to all my dear friends and boarded my bus to reach my home town Chilakluripet. With this my New Year celebrations came to an end this is what i did in this two memorable days. I can’t forget these days in my life...i started this year with joy and happiness and a lot of fun. I wish and hope this throughout my life not only this year to me and all
Now it’s time for me to say thank you for spending your valuable time to read this.
May god bless you............bye bye