Glimpses of Youth Festival 2018 - English Department

#YouthFestival2018

Congratulations to SSCCM team and Prin. Dr. Hetal Mehta for winning general championship third consequetive time, and KPES team ( Chirag V Vyas, Jagat Bhatt) for being Runner Up.

The students of

Department of English - Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University got three ranks:

1. Zankhana Matholiya - third in Rangoli;

2. Vidhya Pandya - Second in Western Solo;

3. Vidhya Pandya, Niyati Pathak, Riddhi Joshi, Jagruti Vasani, Dipti Gohil and Avni Dave - Western Group Song.

Other photos can be viewed here: 

https://www.facebook.com/dilipbarad/media_set?set=a.10156950419312472&type=3

Planting and Nurturing Trees

The Unintelligent Americans

Books on the intelligence of the Americans

1. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future - Mark Bauerlein

This shocking, surprisingly entertaining romp into the intellectual nether regions of today's underthirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a society of know-nothings.

The Dumbest Generation is a dire report on the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American democracy and culture.

 

For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. But at the dawn of the digital age, many thought they saw an answer: the internet, email, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.

 

That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more aware, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports from the National Endowment for the Arts, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American culture and democracy.

 

Over the last few decades, how we view adolescence itself has changed, growing from a pitstop on the road to adulthood to its own space in society, wholly separate from adult life. This change in adolescent culture has gone hand in hand with an insidious infantilization of our culture at large; as adolescents continue to disengage from the adult world, they have built their own, acquiring more spending money, steering classrooms and culture towards their own needs and interests, and now using the technology once promoted as the greatest hope for their futures to indulge in diversions, from MySpace to multiplayer video games, 24/7.

 

Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up? Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, The Dumbest Generation presents a portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies. The Dumbest Generation pulls no punches as it reveals the true cost of the digital age—and our last chance to fix it.

(https://www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Generation-Stupefies-Americans-Jeopardizes-ebook/dp/B0015DWN8I)

2. The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters - Tom Nicholas

In The Death of Expertise, Nichols condemns what he describes as the many forces trying to undermine the authority of experts in the United States. He blames higher education, the internet, and the explosion of media options for the anti-expertise and anti-intellectual sentiment which he sees as being on the rise. While conceding that experts do sometimes fail, he says the best answer to this is the self-correcting presence of other experts to recognize and rectify systemic failures.

“	These are dangerous times. Never have so many people had access to so much knowledge, and yet been so resistant to learning anything.	”
— Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise

3. 

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free - Charles P. Pierce

The three Great Premises of Idiot America:

· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units

· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough

· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it

 

With his trademark wit and insight, veteran journalist Charles Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.

 

Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, Idiot America is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves.

4. The Age of American Unreason - Susan Jacoby

A cultural history of the last forty years, The Age of American Unreason focuses on the convergence of social forces—usually treated as separate entities—that has created a perfect storm of anti-rationalism. These include the upsurge of religious fundamentalism, with more political power today than ever before; the failure of public education to create an informed citizenry; and the triumph of video over print culture. Sparing neither the right nor the left, Jacoby asserts that Americans today have embraced a universe of “junk thought” that makes almost no effort to separate fact from opinion.

Shitala Saatam - Religion Vs Science; Inoculation Vs Vaccination; non-acceptance of intellectuals

Sitalaa Saatam is the day which we witness the conflict between religion and science. When we observe society, traditions and rituals, we find that we, as society , are still not rational enough to consider either science or religion with authenticity. We fail to argue with religious practice as well with scientific inventions.

On the occasion of such days, we feel the conflict between science and religion in our lived experience.

Say for instance, we have to go for vaccination to save ourselves from the life threatening disease like small pox (શીતળા). We know that શીતળા is under control and is now, not able to kill people or disfigure faces as it used to happen 70 years before. 

And yet, the tradition of not making goddess શીતળા unhappy by making hot food in the homes continue. Such are the fears incepted so deeply in the collective subconscious that it is not possible for rational argument to overcome it.

Let us use such unique days to ponder about the regressive rituals and progressive rational thoughts.

1) Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination 

By Stefan Riedel, MD, PhD

https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_dy/t_dy_Q14_frameset.htm

2) Read paper on the claim that India first started to cure smallpox before the West

https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_dy/t_dy_Q14_frameset.htm

(Do not miss to read that it was practiced in very small groups and was not able to eradicate the disease as Jenner's vaccination has done in much lesser time. Even with inoculation in practice in India , the disease was widespread and almost uncontrollable. Seeing thing fairly is more important than going ga ga over national pride.)

3) As the concept of worshiping goddess Shitalaa is failing and with thay questions are raised against the practice of eating cold food, the new breed of nationalists have emerged to justify it as practice to overcome deficiency of vitamin B12. See the letter in gujarati.

Before we come to any conclusion on this, we Need to read full research paper on the process of research.

We also have to survey the people who are suffering from deficiency of B12.

I know many who are observing sataam by eating cold food every year and yet they have deficiency of B12 and are taking injections rather than eating cold food.

I know many who are not observing saatam n eat hot food and yet are not suffering from B12 deficiency.

So, such research are not authentic.

Secondly, eating overnight cold roti/ભાખરી / રોટલો / દહીં / માખણ is normal practice in many indian houses. However, people may be suffering from deficiency or may be not. But eating cold food on saatam waa never ever practiced for vitamin b12 is for sure. It was practiced to safeguard from the wrath of શીતળા માં.

4)શીતળા એ પ્રથમ રોગ હતો જે લોકોએ જાતે કરીને અન્ય પ્રકારના ચેપોથી પોતાને ઇનોક્યુલેટ કરીને નિવારવાનો પ્રયત્ન કર્યો હતો; શીતળાનું ઇનોકયુલેશન ભારત માં તેમજ અન્ય દેશો માં વર્ષો થી થતું પરંતુ તેને સામુહિક સ્વીકાર ના હતો. લોકો આ બીમારી થઈ ડરી ને તેને દેવી તરીકે પૂજા અર્ચના કરતા, મંદિરો બનાવતા અને તે દેવી ને ખુશ કરવા ચુલ્હા ઓ ઠંડા રાખતા. આ બધું હજુ પણ પરંપરા ના ભાગરૂપે કરવામાં આવે છે.

લોકો નવા વિચાર કે વર્તન ને સ્વીકારી સકતા નથી. નવો કે અલગ વિચાર આપનાર બૌદ્ધિકો ની મજાક કરવામાં આવતી હતી, આવે છે. તિરુસ્કૃત પણ કરવામાં આવે છે.

આપણે ત્યાં હજુ પણ એવા લોકો છે જે શીતળા ની રસીકરણ તો કરે અને તો પણ એમાં અને એવા વૈજ્ઞાનિક સંશોધનો માં વિશ્વાસ કરવાને બદલે , ધાર્મિક રીત રિવાજો માં વધુ માને અને તેમને વિટામીન B12 ની ઉણપ દૂર કરવા માટે થતી વિધિ સાથે જસ્ટીફાય કરવાનો બાલિશ પ્રયાસ કરે. અરે એવા પણ લોકો છે જે હંમેશા દરેક વસ્તુ ની શોધ ભારત માં જ થઈ છે તેવું માને છે. તે લોકો જુના સમય માં થતા ટીકાકરણ ને રસીકરણ સાથે જોડી ને દલીલ કરતા હોય છે. ટીકાકરણ થી આ રોગ કાબુ માં નહોતો આવી શક્યો અને તેનો ઉપદ્રવ વધતોજ જતો હતો અને એડવર્ડ જેનર ના સંશોધને , તદુપરાંત WHO વર્લ્ડ હેલ્થ organisation ના પ્રયત્નો થી શીતળા ઉપર કાબુ મેળવી શક્યા છે. 

પણ જેમ આજે સામાન્ય પ્રજા ને બૌદ્ધિકો પ્રત્યે ચીડ અને ગુસ્સો છે તેવો ઈંગ્લેન્ડ માં એડવર્ડ જેનર પ્રત્યે અને તેની વેકસિન પ્રત્યે પણ હતો. આ કાર્ટૂન માં તેની મજાક ઉડાડવામાં આવી છે.

source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=146958001&objectId=1638225&partId=1

The #cartoon caricatures Edward #Jenner (1749–1823) immunising people against #smallpox, using the #vaccine he created and for which he is best known. Despite the success rate of his experiments using cowpox, Jenner – who trained as a surgeon – was #ridiculed by the #public; this satirical caricature shows people receiving the vaccine and then sprouting cow heads all over their bodies. Nevertheless, Jenner’s smallpox vaccination was eventually widely accepted and 30 years after his death it was mandatory in England and Wales. 

(The cow-pock - or - the wonderful effects of the new inoculation! Hand-coloured etching by James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey, 1802. Wellcome Library, London.)

Munshi Premchand Birth Anniversary Hindi Department

A Brief Talk on Munshi Premchand on his birth anniversary celebration on 31 July 2019 at Department मुन्शीof Hindi, MKBU

PG Students Orientation Programme MKBU

Speech by Dilip Barad in Orientation Programme of PG Students of MKBU

Debate on Art and Politics

Literary debate on Art and Politics

Can artist be committed to political party and yet remain faithful to art?

Is it necessary for an artist to be committed to social cause?

Is it possible to exist as an artist committed to politics as well as art?

Party is a 1984 Hindi film directed by Govind Nihalani. The film boasted an ensemble cast of leading art cinema actors of Parallel Cinema,^[1] including Vijaya Mehta, Manohar Singh, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, and Rohini Hattangadi. It based on the play Party(1976) by Mahesh Elkunchwar. (Wikipedia)

Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained

Majoritarianism and Religious Identity

Majoritarianism spreads by fear. The fear that they are the most persecuted religious group. The people are shown fear that they will persecuted if they become minority. They give examples of similar conflicts among religious groups. The fear that minority religious identities will become majority. Thereafter, the life of the majority religious identities will be terrible.

Such people who show fear of religious persecutions do not inform people to stay away from religions but advice to cling steadfastly to their religious identities. This is exactly what is going to do what they are prophesying. 

The only way to stop these religious persecutions is to keep new generations away from religions of any sort. 

Girish Karnad: The Artist, the Citizen and the Question of Truth

In 2005, in his Nobel Speech, Harold Pinter referred to what he wrote in 1958: 

‘There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.’

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.

If there is any writer in recent past on whom this 'fits in', it is Girish Karnad. The controversies in obituaries offered to him are an example enough to prove the point.

Here are some write-ups written as obituary and videos on the demise of Girish Karnad when he passed away on 10th June 2019.

These are views against Girish Karnad:

1. 

2. Girish Karnad: A Consummate Hindu Hater, An Opportunist And An Appeasement Expert

3. In Memoriam: The Dreams of Tughlaq-Tipu Girish Karnad

4. Saurabh Shah's FB post - Views on Girish Karnad in Hindi:

I agree 100 % with this forwarded post by someone written in Hindi. આપણી તકલીફ એ છે કે ગિરીશભાઈ કરતાં દસગણા ટેલન્ટેડ લોકો આ દેશમાં છે, દરેક ક્ષેત્રમાં છે પણ આપણને લેફ્ટિસ્ટ સેકયુલર મીડિયા તરફથી એવા જ ટેલેન્ટેડ લોકો વિશે સતત કહેવાતું રહે છે જેઓ પોતે વામપંથી વિચારોના પુરસ્કર્તા હોય. આ જ લોકો અત્યાર લગી અવૉર્ડઝ, સરકારી માનપાન-સુવિધાઓ તથા પદ-પુરસ્કારોને લાયક ગણાતા. આને લીધે non leftist and non secular ટેલેન્ટેડ લોકો હાંસિયામાં ધકેલાઇ જતા એટલું જ નહીં હાંસીપાત્ર પણ ગણાતા. મરનાર વિશે સાચું જ લખવાનું એ તો આપણને આવા જ ટેલેન્ટેડ પત્રકારો વિનોદ મહેતા અને ખુશવંત સિંહે શીખવ્યું છે. R I P Girishbhai 🙏🏻

Forwarded post👇

सवेरे टीवी खोला तो देखा तो पता चला कि गिरीश कर्नाड मर गया।
न्यूजचैनलों पर यह भी याद दिलाया जा रहा है कि इस देश ने गिरीश कर्नाड को पद्मश्री, पद्मभूषण, साहित्य अकादमी, ज्ञानपीठ सम्मान से सम्मानित भी किया था।
लेकिन उन्हीं न्यूजचैनलों द्वारा यह नहीं बताया जा रहा कि इसी गिरीश कर्नाड ने पाकिस्तान परस्त देशद्रोही अरुंधति रॉय के साथ कंधे से कंधा मिलाकर आतंकवादी अफ़ज़ल गुरु की फांसी की सज़ा के खिलाफ बड़ी जोरदार ज़ंग भी लड़ी थी।

न्यूजचैनलों द्वारा यह नहीं बताया जा रहा कि इसी गिरीश कर्नाड ने कर्नाटक के महान योद्धा और अत्यधिक सम्मानित शासक रहे केम्पेगौड़ा के नाम पर बने बंगलुरू एयरपोर्ट का नाम बदलकर टीपू सुल्तान एयरपोर्ट कर देने की मांग का अभियान इसलिए चलाया था क्योंकि उसके अनुसार केम्पेगौड़ा और छत्रपति शिवा जी तथा महाराणा प्रताप से भी बड़ा और महान योद्धा टीपू सुल्तान था। गिरीश कर्नाड की इस कुकर्मी मांग के खिलाफ कर्नाटक की जनता सड़कों पर उतर आई थी और हज़ारों की संख्या में उसके पुतले फूंक कर, उसके घर पर अद्धे गुम्मों की जमकर बरसात की थी। परिणामस्वरूप इस गिरीश कर्नाड को हाथ पांव जोड़कर माफी मांगनी पड़ी थी।

न्यूजचैनलों द्वारा यह नहीं बताया जा रहा कि JNU में हुई "भारत तेरे टुकड़े होंगे" और "भारत की बरबादी तक ज़ंग चलेगी ज़ंग चलेगी" सरीखी देश विरोधी नारेबाजी में नामजद और गिरफ्तार हुए कन्हईय्या कुमार के खिलाफ दर्ज मुकदमे के विरोध में यही गिरीश कर्नाड बंगलौर में धरना प्रदर्शन अनशन की नंगई पर उतारू हो गया था।

न्यूजचैनल ये नहीं बता रहे कि गिरीश कर्नाड गौमांस भक्षण का इतना बड़ा समर्थक था कि गौमांस खाने की वकालत खुलकर करता था और गौमांस की सार्वजनिक दावतों में चीफ गेस्ट बनकर जाता था।

अब आज इस गिरीश कर्नाड के मरने पर मैं कैसे शोक मनाऊं, कैसे श्रद्धांजलि दूं.?

These views are in favour of Girish Karnad:

4. Girish Karnad | The dogged defender of liberal values

5. A few obituaries in Gujarati news papers.

6. Girish Karnad was more than just an accomplished actor and a celebrated playwright. He was a strong public voice who decried religious fundamentalism and defended freedom of expression. He passed away in Bengaluru on June 10 at the age of 81.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=646642815816861&id=268114290336384

#Girish_Karnad
This line in the tweet by Prime Minister @narendramodi is a #tribute in truer sense to artists like Girish Karnad.
Karnad's implied political satires on Nehru or Indira's style of governance neither turned him into the #Harold_Pinter of India, nor his social satires termed him as the #Arther_Miller or #Tennesse_Williams of India, nor did his retellings of myth categorised him with the postcolonial insight of #Rushdie. . . And yet, being a versatile artist, he was not all lost to the socio-cultural-religious-political power.
He was never a #Lost_Leader like #William_Wordsworth on whom Browning has to write these lines:
"Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat—"
Those who
'Lived in his (Karnad's) mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die' will not have Browninging-like frustrations from Karnad.

If 'Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!'
then, Karnad, too, is in the galaxy of these stars.
Whenever India is in the fen of stagnant waters, Karnad will be there, shining bright, to guide the lost caravan!

If you are on FB, you can read comments under this post.

Why are We so Scared of Robots / AIs?

Why are we afraid of robots?

Why are we scared of Artificial Intelligence?

Even though robots and AI are products of human imagination & intelligence, the human creative imagination loves to tell stories where in we are warned against Robots / AIs. Why? Why our stories about robots and AI scare us? Is there some deep truths in these narratives? or are they useless apprehensions?

If we look at the stories told to us, we find that we were always warned or scared or told to be afraid of some monsters. The fear of wolves was always narrated to the sheep. The form of wolf keeps on changing. The wolves of the Aesop's fables turns into human-monsters in mythology. The great epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata scared us against crossing the 'Laxman-Rekha' or else be ready to face the Ravanas. The Kansas, the Duryodhanas, the Dushashanas - are remembered time and again so that we remain perpetually scared. In the industrial era, the machines run on electricity were monsters. In the digital era, robots run on artificial intelligence are here to scare us.

Why?

Is it so that the fear of monster strengthen and alerted against impending danger and so we survive today? Is there any direct correlation between fear and survival instinct? Does survival instinct strengthen with fear mechanics?

If so, we should keep on telling stories to be scared of, the stories of monsters. Let the form of monster keep on changing with the advancement in science and technology. Let us move away from the monster of the hell and face the monster of the laboratory. Let us tell the stories to scare us to find a way out.

After all, there is nothing more human than the will to survive.

Let us see these sci-fi short films on AI - Robots to scare ourselves.

 
1. Ghost Machine: The first one is about babysitter robot who becomes so obsessed of the child that murders the murder. Director: Kim GokCountry & year: South-Korea, 2016

2.  The iMOM: The second one is on the iMom - Mom robot. Dir. Ariel Martin

3. Anukul: The third is on Satyajit Ray's short story 'Anukul' (1976) - directed by Sujoy Ghosh