RMF Summary: Week of October 31 - November 6, 2011

October 31
Times of India article on BEING DIFFERENT
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/spirituality/vintage-wisdo\ m/Order-chaos-and-creation/articleshow/10552328.cms ... 
  


November 1
Re: Indians' greater comfort with complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity
Venkat posts: Ref: Indians' greater comfort with complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity, improvisation, blurred boundaries, inter-connectedness

This is the reason why there are more Indians in MNC leadership position and also in Obama administration compared to the Chinese and Japanese (who have been in the US for a longer period of time).


India May Be the Ideal CEO Training Ground - TIME
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2084441,00.html

"The Indians are the friendly and familiar faces of Asia," says Ader. "They think in English, they're used to multinationals in their country, they're very adaptive, and they're supremely confident." The subcontinent has been global for centuries, having endured, and absorbed, waves of foreign colonizers, from the Mughals to the British. Practiced traders and migrants, Indians have impressive transnational networks. "The earth is full of Indians," wrote Salman Rushdie. "We get everywhere." Unlike, say, a Swede or a German, an Indian executive is raised in a multiethnic, multifaith, multilingual
society, one nearly as diverse as the modern global marketplace..."

November 2
Journal if ICPR Review of Invading the Sacred
This review of my earlier book, *Invading the Sacred*, has appeard in India's most prestitious and academically influential journal of philosophy. Please read...


November 3
Relevent to chpt 5 of BEING DIFFERENT: The trouble with Sanskrit tra
Two interesting comments below . The article has to do with current controversy over AK Ramanujam's essay on Ramayana.

http://www.sandeepweb.com/2008/03/15/ramanujans-ramayana/

The trouble with Sanskrit being translated by westerners is that it lacks experience of the Indianness or Santanness. In the 19th and 20th century, pandits were hired and texts were translated. The colonisers knew their language and the Santanpandits knew Sanskrit. Now , the pandits clearly did not know language of colonisers. Then what would you get for translation in English. All skewed work. I have been in
Hare Krishna movement for 35 yrs, from a western background. I feel you have to live in India and all funding should be done in India to delineate the texts. It is only in India where you still have persons who speak, write and chant Sanskrit very correctly.

Sanskrit is the only language which has a ” sadas” which approximately means “Debate with an audience”. In no language you have a ‘sadas”. Here the ugly competition of academics is totally missing. Hence there is no bias.
I have attended such debates in India. They are marvellous and absolutely no hatred is there, which comes out prominently in an academic atmosphere. It would be good if pandits are funded to do research in India rather than give it to westerners, who just hold the pulpits of academics for funding , which is to sensationalise and survive with enlarged egos. The beauty of Vedic texts is that no sage
was bothered for credit, whereas acdemics are always bothered about credit..."

....Ramanujan, poor fellow, in the article complained of here, was merely discharging his duty to Pollock whose witless remarks on the Ramayana have to be seen to be believed. (vide
http://socioproctology.blogspot.com/2011/04/sheldon-pollocks-fatalistic-view-of.\
html
)

Pollock, of course, is a Padma Shri and gets money from Infosys and so on. The odd thing about both Witzel and Pollock (Wendy O’Doniger is just bat-shit crazy) is that their reliance on a historicist hermeneutics privileges one particular sacerdotal caste. Pollock in his ‘language of Gods and men’ makes statements utterly devoid of logic. He presents evidence against himself and, without even noticing
the contradiction, goes on to make ridiculous claims. No Hindu, of whatever caste- including Sanskrit speaking Kannadiga Mathurs- make such claims....
 

BNA responds:
"Some of the worst and crude translation of a bunch of Cigar smoking alcoholic Western scholars
lead to equating their own behavior to justify them with Vedic living.

examples:
"Madhu" was translated as alcohol in stead of Honey. Fruit juices also became "Wine" for them;

The brown liquid the priest were drinking, that worked like a stimulant.
They forget to read that this comes with adding hot water to a leaf that was green and yellow dried to dark brown
to get that brown liquid stimulant is "Tea" abundant in Himalayas and not Wine - that they drank before and after havans.
Coffee is not native to India, but tea is."
 
November 3
Prof. John Hobson's review of BEING DIFFERENT
Reviewer: John M. Hobson, author of The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Professor of Politics and International...

November 6
Article validating the Breaking India thesis
http://www.samachar.com/Pakistan-and-Chinas-proxy-war-against-India-llfb\ Klgdhab.html?utm_source=top25_most_read&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=sama\

November 6
TOI comments- Breaking india and Tamil Nadu nuclear plant
In the below article ... the comment which has garnered most "agree" mentions Rajiv's Breaking India. The sixt comment by a different reader also...

November 6
Re: BEING DIFFERENT to become textbook in University of Delhi-- fant
Fantastic! This is the most important develiopment. I hope others will soon follow. N.S. Rajaram...

  
  








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