Election of 2014 in India- a forecast

Who will rule India in 2014?

India is expected to go to the Polls by 2014. Every political party has arrayed with one another, most of them waiting for the outcome to forge an post election alliance to derive maximum advantage.

In the present context, leading the pack of cards is UPA which has been in rule since 2004. Opposing them is the NDA which has lot of space in much state as well as in various union territories.

The elections of 2014 are expected to bring out queer results. Both the national formations UPA, NDA have lost touch with the people and their aspirations. But, both of them are confident of sweeping the Polls. There is also clamour for the third front, as both NDA and UPA seem to be the bird of the same feather which flocks together. The extreme eagerness amongst the regional parties, who would want to forge a federal front has been getting clamour. But it looks non starter since inception. Their divergence is the moot point that they cannot come together. They have fundamental differences, that will inhibit becoming part of a front, even if formed can be found to suffer longevity.

Each state has two fronts, each enemy of one another

DMK/AIDMK

Nitish Kumar/Lalu Prasad Yadav

Mamata/Communists

SP/Mayawati

Abdulla/Mehabooba (JK)

In Karnataka, we have a Yedurappa factor, which can spoil sport. Even Gowda, the spent sport can also rejuvenate at times. NCP will be coy to any developments in Maharashtra. BJP/Shiva Sena can send shock waves in Maharashtra, but Shiv sena divided, may be not be invincible as it was.

North East may play considerable role which may not be significant but important to both the fronts.

The fresh infighting in the BJP due to NaMo factor may see cross voting. But who will stab who remains to be seen. This will rule true in MP, Rajasthan, Himachal, Haryana, and other places. Congress too, will be struck with in-fighting. There may be permutations and combinations on the eve of elections. Subsequent to the elections, Aya ram, Gaya Ram, will come to play. But stable government is ruled out. The electoral moods of people, if taken as of today, the people are a worried lot. They do not expect any miracle.

A new alignment mat manifest.

Based on our intricate study, following will be the electoral success in the 2014 elections.

State	Lok Sabha seats	Third Front	Congress	BJP	Left Parties	Independent	Others	Unknown
Andhra Pradesh	42		5	2	3	6	26
Arunachal	2					2
Assam	14		5	4	3	2
Bihar	40	20	18	2
Chhattisgarh	11		4	7
Goa	2			2
Gujarat	26		1	23	1		1
Haryana	10		5	4	1
HP	4		2	2
J&K	6		3				3
Jharkhand	14		7	4	2
Karnataka	28		14	9			5
Kerala	20		11		8	1
MP	29		7	22
Maharashtra	48		21	27
Manipur	2		2		1	1
Meghalaya	2		1			1
Mizoram	1					1
Nagaland	1		1
Orissa	21	15	2	4
Punjab	13		4	9
Rajasthan	25		14	11
Sikkim	1		1
Tamilnadu	39		5		2	1	32
Tripura	2				2
Uttarakhand	5		2	2		1
UP	80		15	20	4		41
West Bengal	42	25	8		9
Delhi	7		3	3		1
Andaman Nicobar	1		1
Chandigarh	1	1
Dadra Nagarhavali	1					1
Daman Diu	2							2
Lakshadweep	1	1
Pondicherry	1						1
Total	574

If there is a Third front consisting of Trimool Congress, BJD (Biju), BJ(U) Nitish Kumar, they stand to bag 80 seats out of 574 parliament seats in the 2014 Poll. Jayalalitha’s AIDMK is expected to bag 25 setats, also 1 seat in Puducherry, while DMK may win 7 seats, while SP/Mayawati may win positively in 41 seats.  Chandra Babu Naidu may wrest 26 seats. Left front may romp home with 36 invaluable seats, while the tally of independents posting wins will be around 18. Two seats may go to anyone.

Congress may bag 162 seats, while BJP will emerge as the large single party with a mandate of 169.

The seat position in the 15^th Lok SDabha will be as follows:

Sl Number	Party	Strength
1.	Congress led UDF	162
2.	BJP led Front	169
3.	Third Front	80
4.	Left Parties	36
5.	Others*	109
6.	Independents	18
7.	Unknown	2
	Total:	576

Let us hope, the election of 2014 will crop up new leadership decisive to lead the nation to prosperity and Rama Rajya.  

India’s new economic model of “Adam Smith, Keynes and Me” Model

The welfare definition of economics is an attempt by Alfred Marshall, a pioneer neoclassical economist, to redefine his field of study. This definition expands the field of economic science to a larger study of humanity. Specifically, Marshall's view is that economics studies all the actions that people take in order to achieve economic welfare. In the words of Marshall, "man earns money to get material welfare." This is why economists since Marshall have described his definition as the welfare definition of economics. This definition enlarged the scope of economic science by emphasizing the study of wealth and humanity together, rather than wealth alone.

In his widely read textbook, Principles of Economics, published in 1890, Marshall defines economics as follows: "Political Economy or Economics is a study of men as they think and move and life in the ordinary business of life. It examines that part of individual & social action which is most closely connected with the attainment & with the use of material requisites of well-being”

Economics has been called “the science of how people get a living.” We all have to make a living! And our daily lives are beset with economic questions! Why is it so hard to buy a home? Why does the cost of college rise so fast? Why are willing, able workers unable to find jobs? What about us, the voting citizens — is basic economic literacy out of our reach?

Economics is a “given pie”; it is not a pie that every economist can make at will or for which he can prescribe his own recipe. Economic theory has a “nature of its own” that must be respected; certainly it must be recognized if its distinctive contribution is to be made at all. But the pie that is the economic aspect of affairs is bigger than that traditionally treated by economists; it embraces all human action. The slice that makes up economic theory may—so long as it is cut from the correct pie—be cut in any arbitrary way. “It is impossible to draw a clear-cut boundary around the sphere or domain of human action to be included in economic science.” “The scope of praxeology, the general theory of human action, can be precisely defined and circumscribed. The specifically economic problems ... can only by and large be disengaged from the comprehensive body of praxeological theory.”

But if it is urged that economics is primarily concerned with man, and then there is an obvious need to make clear precisely which aspect of the study of man economic theory is concerned with. Different approaches have been made toward the solution of this problem. The conception of economics as a science of wealth, attention must be drawn to one of the most popular of these approaches, viz., and the view that sees economics as dealing with the phenomena connected with economic welfare.

Wealth promotes the economic welfare of man. If exclusive attention to the objects of wealth was to be declared scientifically inexpedient, then the problem could be avoided by shifting attention from the goods themselves to the welfare to which they minister. Instead of studying the effects of various measures on the wealth of a nation, economic analysis may be viewed as going a step further and studying the welfare of the nation as affected by these measures.

Such a conception of economics provided a framework into which the received body of doctrine could be fitted without excessive strain, while at the same time it reflected the new recognition of the subjective basis of market phenomena. The shift to this fresh conception seemed merely a broadening of the scope of the subject from one narrowly concerned with goods to one concerned with happiness. Cannan, writing at the beginning of this century on developments since the appearance of Mill’s Principles, saw this broadening as the work of the theory of marginal utility:

Whatever definition of economics may be adopted, it is clear that the conception of its subject has become wider than it was. The economist of today recognizes that he has to do with man in relation to one particular kind of human welfare...It would be impossible for any economist of the present day to repeat Malthus’ remark that Adam Smith mixes the nature and causes of the wealth of nations with the causes which affect the happiness and comfort of the lower orders of society.

From the point of view of the long–run developments in the definition of economic phenomena, this broadening of the economics of wealth into the economics of welfare does not mark so radical a change as that marked by the appearance of any of a number of later conceptions to be taken up in subsequent chapters. In fact, as against the other definitions of economics, both the wealth and the welfare formulations contain much in common; many of the features found to be objectionable in the wealth criterion appear unchanged in its welfare counterpart. Both formulations are “classificatory” and “departmental” rather than “analytical.” Both see economics as studying something that is produced, whether goods or happiness, rather than a certain type of activity. Especially where economic welfare is understood as meaning material welfare, the concept of welfare evinced a strong bond of continuity with that of material wealth.

Nevertheless, as the neoclassical expression of the classical wealth–oriented definition of economics, the welfare and utility criterion did call for a conscious alteration of focus in the contemplation of economic phenomena. This point of view, while it became popular only after the introduction of marginal utility economics, had its forerunners as far back as the classical economists. One of Adam Smith’s successors, Dugald Stewart, considered political economy as dealing with “the happiness and improvement of political society.” The position of Henri who broadened economics so as to deal, not with the wealth of nations, but with the “prosperity” of nations—a concept that included “civilization” as well as wealth. John Stuart Mill, when he came to consider the question of defining economics, criticized Say for having a similarly wide conception of political economy. Sismondi’s emphasis on happiness and consumption in economics and Lauderdale’s all–embracing definitions of wealth place their conception of economics in the same group.

            The Love of Money, Leslie attacked the notion that the pursuit of wealth represented a self–contained human motive. The love of money means completely different things to different people. Unique category of wealth through reference to the heterogeneity of the demand side of economics undoubtedly contributed toward a better grasp of the nature of economic theory. For example, it was the increased attention to the demand factor that made it possible for Jevons to “take utility...as the subject matter of economics,” or for an American writer to declare that all definitions of economics reduce to “the science of enjoyment or . the science of the means of enjoyment.”

 Welfare, utility, ophelimity—these were the terms around which expositions of economic doctrines revolved. Economics is essentially concerned with welfare, or at least with material well–being, was probably the view most generally accepted among the English economists.. Cannan, however, held the criterion of material welfare to be the real distinguishing feature of economics..

Of course, the identification of economics with the study of economic welfare raised fundamental questions about the justifiability and validity of propositions concerning changes in social welfare. Sir Dennis Robertson cites the contention that the implications of envy make it uncertain that welfare would be increased even if everyone had more of every commodity. Robertson’s characteristic reply to this possibility would certainly have won Cannon’s concurrence:

The maximization of want-satisfaction invites a brief digression on the idea of a specifically economic motive or impulse. It is clear that the meaning, if any, that is to be attached to such an expression depends on the view taken of economic activity generally. Economic activity is concerned with the sustenance of human life, and then the urge for self-preservation may fairly be understood as the economic impulse.

What makes the question of the meaning of the economic motive especially relevant is that the developments that have been discussed in the conception of economic activity point for the first time to the possibility that no such economic drive may in fact exist. So long as an objective entity—viz., wealth or economic welfare—is singled out as the phenomenon of interest to the economist, then, of course, the concept of an economic motive is meaningful in terms of a drive towards this objective entity. And when economics is understood, as it has been in definitions considered in the present chapter, as examining the phenomena that are attendant upon the activities of man in so far as he is in pursuit of a definite end, viz., wealth, then the economic impulse emerges as the very focus of the economists’ interest. But when the pattern of human activity aimed at maximizing want-satisfaction is made central to economics and the idea of wealth is quietly discarded, then the nature of any economic motive becomes highly problematical.

To be sure, the praxeological perspective embraces a range of human action far wider than that usually treated in economic theory. All human actions, motivated though they may be by the entire range of the purposes that have inspired and fired men to act, come within the sway of the ideal praxeological discipline. The constraint that men feel to fulfil their purposes in spite of obstacles pervades all aspects of life. It is the position of praxeology that the common category that embraces the entire range of human efforts is the key to economic science. We have seen at various points in this book that economists have again and again searched for something in economics that should differentiate it from the rest of human action. These thinkers were deterred from expounding the praxeological character of economics for the very reason that this character is common to other aspects of social life. The praxeological view sees economic science as the branch of praxeology that has been most highly developed. Perhaps other branches will one day attain a similar stage of development.

Even Adam Smith conceived economics which according to ‘Wealth of Nations’ written 350 years ago, visualized sharing of wealth, eouspousing the theory of wealth and not greed of the persons amongst whom the wealth was shared. In 1936, Keynes communicated a new idea- duty of the state to intervene to raise the level of activity of the country. He conceived the idea of charity by force. His conclusion was to rob the rich through taxes to bring in inclusive growth among the poor. Government of India, with economist of the ilk like P Chidambaram and  Jairam Ramesh, who have invented the theory of inclusiveness among the have nots, preach one side morality beside Adam Smith and Keynes. They believe, that in an egalitarian society, there is nothing wrong in passing on the pain to the tax payer to conceive populist schemes of inclusiveness that would enable the state to dispose large sums of money to the hopeless and hapless needy. MNREGA is a flag ship scheme of the united progressive Alliance, which is aimed to create financial inclusiveness among the unemployed rural people, or assure a minimum amount during 200 days of the year, by contracting them for work, or assign work. But, the spent money did it create any rural asset, of a fixed nature so that it automatically cycled further economic good to the community? If in an economic activity, money spent should create visible asset, which would in turn create more activity, only if it created a permanent asset which had its own economic ability to create wealth. Here, the funds were deployed to create a dead end. There was no visibility for the return or making of further assets. Is it financial inclusion? Now, the creation of Food Security Bill where crores of crores is sought to be invested. Would, at the end of the tunnel, would it solve the food scarcity, so that the end beneficiaries can depend upon some plank of economic activity that would enable them to earn for their own food. It is a duplicate Keynesian thought that never aims or even pretend to create fixed assets on which economic activity would evolve. Today’s Food Security would become a legal right tomorrow. Have the planners who devised this strange plan aware of its implication. Or is it a gamble to portray their amour to the people on the eve of elections, a sort of politicking to score points over the rivals. In democracy, you have only partners and not rivals. The absurdity of spending precious money for projects which does not realize or create fixed assets which in turn is automatically able to create further wealth is fraught with serious economic consequences. Do we leave it to the people to prepare military strategy? Is it done democratically? Good idea is not compulsorily taken nor is it a legal right that every good idea should be part of democratically tested?

After a lot of dithering or procasting, Central Government has come to veer around the compulsion that Goods and Services Tax have to be rolled out by Feb 28,2014 (the date of the budget)(whether interim or not). Proposed GST will have a dual tax structure, one will be levy of the Central Government (Central GST) and another by State (State GST). The prices will not depict the levy nor will it be disclosed to the consumer. The central government wants to hike the tax levied while it is not bound to revel the break up, for the same reason it does not want to invite wider criticism. State and Central component may add up to 20%. In the matter of taxes, centre and state have concurrent jurisdiction, and each will tax a product 10% each through Goods and Services Tax. While the basic features of GST would be uniform, the dual model would be implemented through multiple statutes. All political parties are board, and this is national consensus. A unique economic model of Indian Polity, of the polity for the suffering public!

How to revitalize the Rupee

How to arrest Rupee’s slide?

Rupee slid to an all time low of Rs 58.15(11-6-2013) against the dollar as against Rs 57.32(June 28,2013)/dollar sending shock waves to the worried exporting fraternity, who have put on hold export dealings for the time-being in anticipation of better tidings. It could further erode to touch Rs 60/to $1, if no effective steps are not undertaken. Government’s lax in providing excuses instead of finding a permanent solution to the vexed problem is a result of party paralysis.

The slowdown in exports will irrestibly reverse the momentum of reforms, which is already shaky. It will impact economic growth momentum to the Asia’s 3^rd largest economy which has been beset with sharp deceleration of growth, worsening the public finances; Balance of Payment position (insufficient reserves in FER) (present FER enough to tide over only for 7 months)(the lowest ever in the last 13 years). Export substitution by importing inputs has made exports less glamorous due to pricing difference and thin margins. Fluctuation in the capital inflows has been a cause for Rupee weakening, says PM’s advisor C Rangarajan. Once the inflow eases, the weak Rupee will gain, he says. Experts don’t bite this bullet.

Partially convertible Indian currency’s nose drive has affected Indian exports adversely..

RBI’s inaction cannot be justified. There is a risk that needs to be taken note of in the currency fluctuation territory. There is also management of currency fluctuation for which remedial measures need to be taken. But RBI does nothing but remains passive. RBI needs to herald a realistic Policy by putting place humps which will restrict Rupees bump. A mature exchange risk mechanism should be an addendum to RBI’s annual fiscal Policy to control erosion of the Rupee value against greenback.

RBI’s present practice of piecemeal market intervention must be replaced by Policy intervention to stabilize Indian Rupee.

The problem rose in 2002 when Bimal Jalan was the Governor of RBI. He did nothing to look into the symptoms or the disease to arrive at an equitable policy mechanism. His successor too, did nothing (Dr YV Reddy). Subba Rao, is wild off the mark towards the issue. In 2002, Rupee was Rs 48.7341 to a dollar. Down 7 years, the value came down to Rs 40.82 (2007). The Tirupur Exporters Association (I was its Executive Secretary then) submitted a paper suggesting methodologies to rein in Rupees abrasion. In 2007, India’s exports rose from $ 40 billion in 2002-03 to $ 140 billion, which resulted in our Foreign Exchange Reserves turn around about $ 275.954 billion which was adequate to meet 1 year’s import bill.

Reckless import Policy which saw import of Rs 65 K Cr (edible oil), 100 K Cr (Gold), 40 K Cr (other imports0, burdened the exchequer in addition to import of petroleum products. While the economy suffered against import of petroleum products, and their domestic prices were often raised by the Oil companies which fuelled inflation. India’s higher BoT and the widening gap between BoP and BoT created huge trade deficit which affected economic growth. The price instability caused by high cost of import of inputs for export substitution substantially pushed the cost of production while the export returns were not commensurate with the high costs resulting in trade disadvantage.

RBI’s belief that crisis will blow over time and normalcy will return automatically is an undesirable economic conclusion which does not stand the test of theories. This is a faulty thought, part of policy paralysis, which has affected various growth institutions curtailing its growth. Services sector has borne the brunt of such a fallacy of thought; off shore infrastructure costs override few profits of the on-shore activity. IT industry is for Himalayan trouble.

It is high time, government and RBI take cognizance of the problems manifest in the Rupee devaluation direction. MoF would do well to keep quiet and leave it to RBI to do its job

Modern-day Bhishma's words does not count- LK Advani's saga

Bhishma’s words which does not count- LK Advani’s saga

Lal Kishan Advani was one of the greatest leaders representing BJP in Indian Politics. He was the Prime Ministerial candidate in 2004, wherein a major political upheaval caused BJP to quit; and in 2009, he was Prime Minister-in-waiting. Wait he did, but the responsibility eluded him. BJP lost both the elections.

Now in 2014, when the political stars are good, chances have again made him lose his grip on the Party he had founded. He was a patriarch. Now, he is likely to be elevated to the post of Patriarch Emeritus, a title for coveted discarded former bosses!

It is an irony of fate, that Advani nourished young blood. He gave leadership to many youngsters. He supported Modi, in the turbulent 2002 at the same venue 2002; after 12 years, the time has turned full circle. It was Advani who was cast aside and was eclipsed top to bottom though he sulked being absent from the meet, first time in the last many years since BJP’s formation.

This brings us to the story of Rama and Hanuman. Rama was represented by Advani in the present saga and Hanuman by the political tiny tots of BJP. Hanuman was sent as Rama’s emissary to the Court of Ravana to find and spot Sita. When Hanuman saw Sita, he could have accomplished what Rama accomplished after a War that devastated the entire Sri Lankan army and loss of life and limb to many others in the monkey sena. Hanuman knew that this was his tryst with destiny to prove to Rama his unbinding loyalty. Why did he resisted carrying Sita and fly away to Rameshwaram. He could have accomplished his mission and avoided a costly War. He could have crushed Ravana and his entire army, whether he had miraculous weapons in his armory or not. But being an obedient bhakata, and knowing full well that he was only an emissary, he did not take a role that would have catapulted him to a hero and twisted the story of Ramayana. He did what he was told, and never changed the script.

BJP was the life line of Advani. He was the chankya, who plotted its poll strategy. He was Rama in the BJP. How could his chela, the modern Hanuman, eclipse him?

There is one stark difference. Rama avatar is over. This is the era of Kalki avatar. We are in Kaliyug. Modi is the new found Robin Hood whose Sherwood Forest is the battle field of Indian electoral politics.  He is the primus interus pars of modern polity. But can he deliver? Stories of treachery abounds another Indian epic, Mahabharata. When he say Dhridarashtra, the blind King whose quote appears in the first line of Bhagavt Gita, quote: Sanjay, tell me, what my children and Pandu’s sons are doing in the battle of Kurukshetra? Panavas and Kauravas had a childhood, together under Dhridarashtra as on Pandu’s death, Dhidarashtra had ascended Pandu’s throne.  Many describe this stanza to drive home King’s selfishness, as the King. was equally responsible for the well being of Panadavas and Kauravas. Is it the fault of Dhridarashtra to be selfish, when the author, Vysya who had written these lines was himself blindfolded to his character Dhridarashtra? Actors only play their part; the author of the epic was responsible for that curious acting by the blind king? In the present script, Modi represents those who are disgruntled to the present state of affairs of BJP in which Advani’s role cannot be washed away.

There might be a lot of angst. But those who believe in their growth only, forget that their growth is synonymous to the growth of the organization they claim to represent. If the bell curve of BJP does not attain a position of importance to lead the Government in 2014, to what position will Modi be regaled? History alone can tell.  

Astrology: India, Mecca of seekers of Vedic Knowledge & Jytish sastra

From astronomical references in ancient Hindu literature, scholars have been able to ascertain the dates of authors.   The scientific knowledge of the Rishis was great; enormous; in the Kaushitaki Brahmana we find precise astronomical passages indicating that in 3100 BC, the Hindus were far advanced in astronomy which had practical value in determining the auspicious times for astrological ceremonies. An article by Tara Mata in East West Feb 1934 says of the Jyotish or body of Vedantic astronomical exploitations.   “It contains the scientific lore that kept India at the forefront of all ancient nations and made her the meeca of seekers of knowledge.’  Brahmagupta, one of the Jyotish works, is an astronomical treatise dealing with such matters as the heliocentric motion of the planetary bodies in our Solar system, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the earth’s spherical form, the reflected light of the Moon, the earth’s daily axial revolution, the presence of fixed stars in the Milky Way, the Law of Gravitation, and other scientific facts that did not dawn in the Western World until the time of Copernicus and Sir Issac Newton.

The so-called Arab numerals invaluable in the development of Western Mathematics came to Europe in the 9^th century A.D. via the Arabs, from India, where the system of notation had been anciently formulated. Further, light on India’s vast scientific heritage, will be found in Sir P C Roy’s History of Hindu Chemistry in B N Seal’s Positive Sciences of Ancient Hindus, in B K Sarkar’s Hindu Achievements in Exact Science and his Positive Background of Hindu Sociology and in UC Dutt’s Materia Medica of the Hindus. Astrology is too vast, both mathematically & philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by men of profound understanding. If ignoramuses misread the heavens, and see there a scrawl instead of a script, that it is to be expected in this imperfect world. One should not dismiss the wisdom of the wise.

Astrology is too vast, both mathematically and philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by men of profound understanding.

The Hindu scriptures place the present world age occurring within the Kali Yuga of a much longer universal cycle than the simple 24,000 year equinoctial cycle with which Sri Yukteswar is concerned (Hold Science)(Yoganda Sastanga Society of India) .

The universal cycle of scriptures is 4,300,560,000 years in extent, and measures out a Day of Creation. This vast figure is based on relationship between the length of the Solar year and a multiple of Pi (3.1416.), the ratio of the circumference of the diameter of a Cycle.

The life span for a whole universe, according to ancient seers, is 3, 14,159,000,000,000 solar years or ‘one age of Brahma’.

The Hindu Scriptures declare that an earth such as ours is dissolved for one or two reasons: the inhabitants as a whole become either completely good or evil. The world mind generates a power that releases the captive atoms held together as earth.

Dire pronouncements are occasionally published regarding an imminent end of the World. Planetary cycles, however, proceed, according to an orderly divine plan. No earthly dissolution is in sight; many ascending and descending equinoctial cycles are yet in store for our own planet in its present form.

One of the six systems of Hindu philosophy, Sankhya teaches final emancipation through knowledge of 25 principles, starting with prakriti or nature and ending with purusha or soul.

God, lives without breath; the soul made in His Image becomes conscious of itself, for the first time, only during the breathless state. When the breath-link between soul and body is severed by evolutionary karma, the abrupt transition called death ensures; the physical cells revert to their natural powerlessness.  God talks with Arjuna in the Bhagavt Gita which is known as ‘Royal Science of God Realization’.  The Bhagavt Gita is India’s most beloved scripture. It consist of a dialogue between Lord Krishna (symbolizing spirit) and his discipline Arjuna (symbolizing the should of the ideal devotee). Words of spiritual guidance that is timeless in their applicability by all truth seekers. The central message of the Gita is that man may win emancipation through love of God, wisdom and performance of right actions in a spirit of non attachment.

God (Lord Krishna) shows the Vishwaroopa to his fond discipline Arjuna on the battle field of Kurukshetra. The same Lord, as a young boy, opened his mouth and showed the entire earth whirling in his mouth to Yashoda, his foster mother. While, Arjuna was all gratitude to the Lord for showing him the Vishwaroopa, Yashoda, Krishna’s mother swooned on seeing the world turning on its own axis inside Krishna’s mouth. Yashoda knew that her son was divine incarnation, who showed his mother a glimpse of his all out strength.

If you search scriptures, Upanishads and other sacred tests, you are told repeatedly that God is formless. Who created the forms for Gods? Sarwaswathi with her veena, Lord Narayana on the sesha in a reclining pose, has any body seen Gods? Are they not perfections of human form with body and soul? Who has created the artistic forms of beauty? Raja Ravi varma, drew from a vast canvas, the pictures of many gods and goddess. When photography was unknown, how Ravi varma could visualized the figures of Gods and goddesses. Was it the sketch from imagination of the formless gods as pictured in many ancient texts recaptured through mind inducision? Michelangelo gave a figure to Jesus Christ.  Was it imagery or based on the feeling of creating a human form through imagination?

The ideal of a well rounded civilization is not a chimerical one. For millennium, India was a Land of both spiritual light and widespread material prosperity. The records of history present India, up until the 18^th century, as the world’s wealthiest nation. If the plunders of Somanath and Peacock thrones were in possession of some of the later grown empires which did not have consistent history, it meant, that some nations believed in the power of the might plundered the riches of the orient and became traders to create more wealth. Incidentally, nothing in the Hindu literature or tradition tends to substantiate the current western historical theory that the early Aryans ‘invaded’ India from some other part of Asia or from Europe. The scholars are unable to fix the starting point of this imaginary journey. The internal evidence in the Vedas, pointing to India as the immemorial home of the Hindus, has been presented in an unusual and very readable volume, Rig Vedic India by Abinas Chandra Das, published in 1921 (by Kolkata University). Prof Das claims the emigrants from India settled in various parts of Europe and Asia, spreading the Aryan speech and folklore. Even K M Munshi, of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan will faint dismiss Aryan supremacy over India. The Lithuanian tongue, for example, is in many ways strikingly similar to Sanskrit. The Philosopher Kant, who knew nothing of Sanskrit, was amazed at the scientific structure of the Lithuanian language. It possesses, he said, the key that will open all the engines, not only of Philosophy but also of History. The Bible refers to the riches of India, telling us (11 chronicles 9:21:10) that the ships of Tarshish brought to king Solomon gold, silver, ivory, apes, peacocks, algum (sandlewood), trees, precious stones from Ophir and Muziris (Sopara-Mumbai Coast). Magasthenes, the Greek ambassador (4^th century BC) has left detailed picture of India’s prosperity. Pliny ( 1 AD) tells us the Romans actually spent 50 million sesterces  ($ 5,000,000) on imports from India, which was then a vast maritime power.

Chinese travelers wrote vividly of the opulent Indian Civilization, its widespread education and excellent Government. The Chinese priest Fa Hsien (5 Century) tells us the Indian people were happy, honest and prosperous. Buddhist Records of the western world (Samuel Beal)(India was the western world to the Chinese), Tuber London; Thomas Watters on Yuan Chang’s Travels in India AD 629-45 (Royal Asiatic Society).

Columbus, discovering the new world in the 15^th century, was in reality seeking a shorter trade route to India. For centuries, Europe was eager to possess the Indian exports- silks, fine clothes-of such sheerness as to deserve the descriptions- woven air, invisible mist, cotton prints, brocades, embroideries, rugs, cutlery, armour, ivory, ivory works, perfumes, incense, sandalwood potteries, medical drugs, unguents, indigo, rice, spices, coral, gold, silver, pearls, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, etc. Portuguese and Italian merchants have recorded their awe at the fabulous magnificence throughout the Empire of Vijayanagara (1336-1565). The glory of its capital was described by the Arabian Ambassador Razzak as ‘such that the eye has never seen, nor has heard of, in any place equal to it on earth.

In the 16^th century, for the first time in her long History, India as a whole fell under Non-Hindu rule. The Turkish Babur invaded the country and founded the Moughal dynasty. By settling in the ancient land, the new monarchs did not drain it of its riches; weakened, however, by internal dissentions, wealthy India became the prey in the 17^th century of several European nations who came in the guise of traders to colonize India. Whether they be, Portuguese, Dutch, French, or the English, though England finally emerged as the super power who ruled India from 1757-1947. One of the greatest peculiarities of India was, whether, they be imperial dynasties like Mouryans, Kushans, Guptas, Satavahanas, Slave dynasty, Mughals, British rule, the actual periodicity of their reign lasted 200 years. This might have been a historicity of fact.

The sad division of the land on British parting from India into India and Pakistan has been one of the saddest incident rare in world history. The sad division of the land into India and Pakistan, and the short but bloody interlude that ensued in a few parts of the country, were caused by economic factor, and not necessarily by religious fanaticism though the latter cannot be 100% ruled out. It may not be, that a minor reason, often erroneously presented as a major one, need to subjectively be attributed to partition. Countless Hindus and Muslims, now as in the Past, have lived side by side, in amity. Men of both faiths, in immense numbers, became the disciples of the creedless master Kabir (1450-1518); and to the day, he has millions of followers. Under the Moslem rule of Akbar, the wildest possible freedom of belief prevailed throughout India. Nor today, is there any serious religious disharmony amongst 95% of its simple people. The real India, the India that could understand & follow a Mahatma Gandhi, is found not in the large restless cities but in the peaceful 700,000 villages, where single and just forms of self government by panchayts have been a feature from time immemorial. The problem that beset a newly freed India today will surely be solved in time by those great men whom India had never failed to produce.

Though India possess a civilization more ancient than any other, few historians have noted that her feat of survival is by no means an accident but a logical incident in the record of devotion to the eternal verities that India has offered through her best men in every generation. By sheer continuity of being, by intransivity before the Ages, India has given the wealthiest answer of any people to the challenge of time. The waters of Mother Ganges, Holy River of the Hindus, have their region in an icy cave in the Himalayas amidst the eternal snows and silence. Down the centuries, thousands of saints have delighted in remaining near the Ganges; they have left along its banks an aura of blessing. An extraordinary perhaps, unique, feature of the Ganges river is its unpollutability. No bacteria live in its changeless sterility. Millions of Hindus use its water for bathing, and drinking. Dr John Howard Nortop, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1946), “We know that the Ganges is highly contaminated, yet Indians drink out of it, swim in it, and are not affected. Perhaps, bacteriophage renders the river sterile. The Vedas inoculate reverence for all natural phenomena.

Truth is no theory, no speculative system of philosophy, no intellectual insight. Truth is exact correspondence with reality. Truth is unshakable knowledge of his real nature his self as ‘soul’. Lord is heard only in the immaculate silences. For him, no Himalayan heights are inaccessible.

Out of about 17,000 hyms in the Vedas, slightly less than half relate to metaphysics which Bhagavat Gita says is the ‘supreme science’. The remaining hymns pertain to mantras, in praise of Gods, scientific rituals/ceremonies and aryankas (simple rules for the old people). However, Vedic metaphysics is meant for all ages. It relates to social and physical sciences and divine nature, cosmic laws of necessity, soul, spirit, formless and ineffable supreme soul and many other subjects. No single book can comprehensively cover Vedic metaphysics; for glimpses of Vedic physics a seeker need to sublime into the vast sea of vedantic knowledge.

The atomic structure of matter was well known to the ancient Hindus. One of the six systems of Indian Philosophy is vaisesika from the Sanskrit root visesas ‘atomic individuality’.  One of the foremost Vaisseika expounders was Aulukya also called Kanada, the atom eater, born about 2,800 years ago!

In an article by Tara Mata in East West (April 1934), a summary of Vaiseika scientific knowledge was given as follows: Though the modern atomic theory is generally considered a new advance of Science, it was brilliantly expounded long ago by Kanada, the atom eater. The Sanskrit anus can be translated as ‘atom’ in the latter’s literal Greek sense of ‘uncut’ or indivisible. Other scientific expositions of Vaisesika treatises of BC era include

(1) the movement of needless towards magnets;

(2) the circuculation of water in plants

(3) akash or ether, inert structureless, as a basis for the transmitting subtle forces

(4) the solar fire as the cause of all other forms of heat

(5) heat as the cause of molecular change;

(6) the law of gravitation as caused by the quality that inheres in earth atom to give them their attractive power or downward pull.

(7) the kinetic nature of all energy; causation as always rooted in an expenditure of energy or a redistribution of motion

(8) universal dissolution through the disintegration of atoms

(9) the radiation of heat and light rays, infinitely small particles darting forth in all directions with inconceivable speed (the modern cosmic rays’ theory’)

(10) the realtivity of time and space.

Vaisseika assigned the origin of the world to atoms, eternal in their nature i.e. their ultimate peculiarities. These atoms were regarded as possessing an incessant vibratory motion.  The recent discovery that an atom in a miniature solar system would be no news to the old Vaisesika philosophers, who also reduced time to its furtherest mathematical concept by describing the smallest unit of time (kala) as the period taken by an atom to traverse its own unit of time. The law is mechanically operative: its workings may be scientifically manipulated by men of divine wisdom. The world is a bridge, pass over it, but no house on it.

Purana and itihasa is one and the same, though many of the ideams and ideas, thought content is unfortunately cannot be explained due to its abstractness.

That human brain is a computer has been proved by Shakutala Devi. She beat the present day computer in delivering the answer much faster than that took by the computer. Before an august audience consisting of mathematical profossentials and wizards, she was asked to multiply 41 integrals with 21 integrals, and her answer came out before computer gave its results. She also did impossible mathematical feats, to the astonishment and surprise of many.Srinivasa Ramanujam also did some complicated mathematical theories, which gave him the title of prodigal. India was not only the cradle of civilization it was, its men were far advanced to their age.

In a series of books published on Himalayan Masters, there are references to certain Swamis who are more than 400 years old. They could perform many siddis, through Yoga and tantric powers. Indians made Panchagas, and were able to predict Lunar eclipse, solar eclipse and other notable events in the future. The literature on some of these subjects is available, and they need to be taken up for exhaustive study. They throw light on the future, and stand for all the scientific inventions, discoveries, and unknown facts about many things for which we seek answer.