Jan 12, 2019 10:46 PM
https://www.thequint.com/news/india/nare...e-congress
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsod...-had-airpl
EXCERPTS: A delegate at the 106th Indian Science Congress on Friday, 4 January, said that modern physics as we know it will be destroyed and will soon be replaced by a 'new understanding' of physics. And once that happens, the world will know 'gravitational forces as 'Narendra Modi waves' and the Gravitational Lensing Effect as 'Harsh Vardhan effect', the man claimed. That's not all. The man in question, one Kannan Jegathala Krishnan, also claimed that both Issac Newton and Albert Einstein had little understanding of physics.
Krishnan was not the only one to make such overreaching claims at the 'Science' Congress. [...] Nageswara Rao, a vice chancellor at Andhra University in South India, said that Ravana, a demon god with 10 heads, had 24 kinds of aircraft of varying sizes and capacities — and that India was making test-tube babies thousands of years ago. Dinosaurs were created by the Hindu god Brahma, said Ashu Khosla, a scientist with expertise in paleontology at Panjab University in the North Indian city of Chandigarh.
Not exactly the kind of remarks you would expect at an event whose mission is to advance and further the cause of science, to stimulate discussion on scientific theories and to create an awareness of science-related issues, especially among children — and that is funded by the Indian government's Ministry of Science and Technology.
Krishnan, Rao and Khosla were addressing a group of 5,000 children assembled from all over the country at the event's Children's Science Congress. Their lectures were posted on YouTube and reported widely by the press. The congress organizers were red-faced, and the scientific community in India was outraged. Many citizens tweeted their shock [...]
About 15,000 scientists from India and around the world attend the conference every year, said Ashok Saxena, a zoologist and a former president of the congress, in an interview with NPR. They are a part of the 50,000-strong Indian Science Congress. [...] Addressing the comments made during the children's event, Saxena said, "We never dreamed that some of them would spout such irrational ideas. They were invited to speak based on their science credentials."
But this isn't the first time the Indian Science Congress has been mired in controversy. In 2016, Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan famously called the event "a circus" because of the way religious ideologies held sway over science and said he wouldn't attend another session.
Many scientists believe that politics is the problem. The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, in 2014 meant that the ideals of the organization that it is closely linked with — a right-wing group called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — are now mainstream. The RSS believes in propagating Hindutva as a nationalist movement. The term refers to the effort to establish a Hindu way of life and glorifying Hindu beliefs.
[...] Indian scientists have expressed their displeasure over the controversial comments...
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsod...-had-airpl
EXCERPTS: A delegate at the 106th Indian Science Congress on Friday, 4 January, said that modern physics as we know it will be destroyed and will soon be replaced by a 'new understanding' of physics. And once that happens, the world will know 'gravitational forces as 'Narendra Modi waves' and the Gravitational Lensing Effect as 'Harsh Vardhan effect', the man claimed. That's not all. The man in question, one Kannan Jegathala Krishnan, also claimed that both Issac Newton and Albert Einstein had little understanding of physics.
Krishnan was not the only one to make such overreaching claims at the 'Science' Congress. [...] Nageswara Rao, a vice chancellor at Andhra University in South India, said that Ravana, a demon god with 10 heads, had 24 kinds of aircraft of varying sizes and capacities — and that India was making test-tube babies thousands of years ago. Dinosaurs were created by the Hindu god Brahma, said Ashu Khosla, a scientist with expertise in paleontology at Panjab University in the North Indian city of Chandigarh.
Not exactly the kind of remarks you would expect at an event whose mission is to advance and further the cause of science, to stimulate discussion on scientific theories and to create an awareness of science-related issues, especially among children — and that is funded by the Indian government's Ministry of Science and Technology.
Krishnan, Rao and Khosla were addressing a group of 5,000 children assembled from all over the country at the event's Children's Science Congress. Their lectures were posted on YouTube and reported widely by the press. The congress organizers were red-faced, and the scientific community in India was outraged. Many citizens tweeted their shock [...]
About 15,000 scientists from India and around the world attend the conference every year, said Ashok Saxena, a zoologist and a former president of the congress, in an interview with NPR. They are a part of the 50,000-strong Indian Science Congress. [...] Addressing the comments made during the children's event, Saxena said, "We never dreamed that some of them would spout such irrational ideas. They were invited to speak based on their science credentials."
But this isn't the first time the Indian Science Congress has been mired in controversy. In 2016, Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan famously called the event "a circus" because of the way religious ideologies held sway over science and said he wouldn't attend another session.
Many scientists believe that politics is the problem. The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, in 2014 meant that the ideals of the organization that it is closely linked with — a right-wing group called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — are now mainstream. The RSS believes in propagating Hindutva as a nationalist movement. The term refers to the effort to establish a Hindu way of life and glorifying Hindu beliefs.
[...] Indian scientists have expressed their displeasure over the controversial comments...
