Science Authors

"No one lies more grossly than Wikipedia when it comes to profiling people who speak up for Hindu Dharma and Ma Bharati."

"Arnab Goswami of Republic TV also deserves acknowledgement for making of this book. At an early stage of #GhazwaVictim case, he invited me on his prime time show to discuss the case. Because I did not join the hysterical chorus baying for the blood of the targeted Dogras, he shouted me down imperiously, instead of listening calmly to my reasoning why the whole narrative was very suspect. This hardened my resolve to investigate the case with thoroughness."

"Likewise, India has a more realistic approach to women’s rights than the American variety of feminism. Madhu Kishwar’s periodical, Manushi, is the pioneer of this rooted and more mature form of feminism in Indian society."

"Modi told me the last straw for him with regard to NDTV was when one of their correspondents, Vijay Trivedi, accompanied him in a helicopter for an interview. When he started asking the same old insulting questions, Modi simply kept quiet and refused to respond any further. Piqued at Modi’s ignoring him, Trivedi spread the canard that Modi nearly threw him out of the helicopter mid-air because he had asked tough questions. Modi says on that day he decided never to give legitimacy to NDTV by giving them an interview or responding to any questions from them. Vijay Trivedi treats this incident as a badge of honour."

"However, the fact that Mushrif has to apologise for giving his community good news from Gujarat, gives us an idea of the kind of intellectual terror Congress and its “secular” allies have come to exercise among Muslims. They must appear as permanent victims in the Congress scheme of things or else be declared traitors as happened with Salman Khan, who dared speak a few mild words in favour of Modi’s regime or, worse still, be bulldozed into silence as happened with Maulana Vastanvi."

"It has already been well-documented how false reports were spread about a pregnant Muslim woman whose stomach was allegedly ripped open, her foetus wrenched out with a sword, and set on fire. BBC lent credibility tothis rumour in its report of March 6, 2002. Harsh Mander repeated the same story in a tear-jerking article published on March 20, 2002, in The Times of India. The Tehelka website lent further colour and credence to it by writing that a woman named Saira Banu had claimed that the victim of that gruesome incident was her sister-in-law."

"The fourth phase of violence starting May 5 saw attacks on Hindu neighbourhoods by mischief mongers with the intent of provoking a backlash. The idea was to influence the scheduled discussion on Gujarat in the concluding session of Rajya Sabha the next day. These stage-managed riots were aimed at misleading the Parliament, as well as the outside world, to believe that the situation in Gujarat was grim and to build a national hysteria around Narendra Modi in order to browbeat Prime Minister Vajpayee into sacking Modi."

"The second phase of stray incidents of violence, from March 18 to March 28, was part of a deliberate strategy by politically-patronised miscreants to disrupt the board examinations at various centres, which started from March 18, 2002. This was done to keep the pot boiling."

"The third phase, starting April 17, was again engineered by miscreants, on the eve of the second phase of board examinations, to subvert return to normalcy conditions so that the world could be told that Modi was unwilling and incapable of controlling the violence."

"One of the early charges against Modi was that when post-Godhra riots broke out, he justified and legitimised violence against Muslims thus proving his complicity. This mischief started with an incomplete statement telecast on Zee TV based on an interview conducted by Zee correspondent Sudhir Chaudhary. Modi’s exact words were: “Kriya pratikriya ki chain chal rahi hai. Hum chahte hain ki na kriya ho aur na pratikriya.” (A chain of action-reaction is going on. We want that there should be neither ‘action’ nor ‘reaction’). But Zee TV deliberately left out the second sentence and presented the mischievously clipped first half of the statement to build a case that Modi had justified the post-Godhra riots as a legitimate reaction of Hindus against the killings of karsevaks at Godhra.... When Chaudhary questioned the CM about the Gulberg Society massacre in which the former Congress MP, Ehsan Jafri, was killed along with more than 50 others, the chief minister in his reply referred to the reports that Jafri had first fired at the violent mob, which apparently infuriated the crowd further. Thereafter, the mob stormed the Gulberg Society and set it on fire. According to Chaudhary, Narendra Modi referred to Jafri’s firing as “action” and the massacre that followed as “reaction”.... However, he could not provide a satisfactory explanation why in the Zee TV telecast, the last line—“Hum chahte hai ki na kriya ho aur na pratikriya”—was deliberately omitted. ...But this admission, coming years later, was not telecast and propagated the way the mischievous half-statement had been. What is worse, Sudhir Chaudhary continues to reiterate even today that Modi had justified the 2002 riots."

"The first phase of violence that began on February 28, 2002 and lasted until March 3, 2002 was characterised by anti-social politicians of all hues exploiting mass outrage against the Muslim community for the Godhra train burning. However, the worst was over in 72 hours due to a swift deployment of the army. By mid-March, the situation started cooling down."

"Given Modi’s determination to crack down and eliminate underworld dons and international crime syndicates who had deeply embedded links in the Congress and many “secular” parties, letting him survive or grow in strength would sound the death knell of the Congress and all such parties. Congress was the first to recognise this danger and therefore went gunning for Modi from the start quickly rallying all other compromised parties to join in the battle. As we shall see in later chapters, it was not Modi, but the Congress Party that played communally-divisive politics in order to derail Modi’s inclusive development agenda With Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the prime minister having already dislodged the Congress Party in the Central government, the Congress Party was in dire need of an issue to target the BJP at the national level and Modi in Gujarat. The Godhra carnage and the riots that followed were the product of this desperation."

"The fourth phase starting May 5 saw even more aggression by rogue elements propped up to attack Hindu localities, with the clear intention of triggering large-scale Hindu-Muslim riots. These were deliberately staged on the eve of the concluding session of Rajya Sabha on May 6 to provide ammunition to the Congress and its allied parties to attack the NDA government. The morning of May 5, 2002, saw organised and aggressive attacks on Parikshit Nagar area of Ahmedabad city. It was marked by large-scale use of firearms and explosives. Miscreants used bombs and rocket launchers in this phase of violence."

"At the same time, Congress’s well-orchestrated chorus calling Narendra Modi a “maut ka saudagar”, mass murderer, Hitler, snake, scorpion, yamdoot, and worse kept getting shriller by the day, duly amplified by propped up NGOs, pliable journalists, and patronised academics. So much so, that many within the BJP also came to believe the charges leveled against him and even demanded that he be sacked. Several BJP allies quit the NDA alliance, which facilitated the ousting of the otherwise popular Vajpayee-led NDA government in Delhi. The anti-Modi hysteria ensured that no one gave him a hearing; no one was willing to look at facts. How Modi retained not just his personal sanity but also emerged, as an outstanding administrator, capable of dreaming big for Gujarat and translating those dreams into action deserves serious study."

"But within days, the narrative started getting manipulated as though an invisible hand was guiding it in the direction of targeting Narendra Modi as the evil genius who personally masterminded the massacre. This line of argument became so aggressive and entrenched that when in 2010, the SIT report did not fall in line with those targeting Modi, SIT members came in for vicious personal attack and slander. They were accused of having been bought over by Narendra Modi. Teesta & Co. launched a full-fledged campaign for disbanding the SIT and replacing it with a fresh inquiry. It is worth asking why the SIT report and various court orders that came before and after the SIT clearing Modi’s name have not altered the tone or tenor of the hate campaign carried out by leading journalists, NGO activists, and jet-setting academics. Why do journalists keep flinging the same set of questions to Modi and repeating the same charges ad nauseam totally ignoring the outcomes of court cases and the SIT report?"

"I am well aware that many will dismiss this book as a hagiographical account of Modi’s term as CM. To them I can only say, for 12 long years you have swallowed uncritically poisonous propaganda against him based on statements and testimonies which are being proven motivated, cooked-up, and plain false by courts and the SIT team. Let this come as a necessary antidote to that malicious smear campaign. I assure you that, unlike most of Teesta Setalvad’s witnesses, none of the people who spoke to me used tutored language. All of them spoke spontaneously on video. Unlike Teesta’s many witnesses, none of these people are likely to disown what they told me."

"The demonisation of Modi did not start with the 2002 riots. “Smear Modi Campaign”started from day one and was carried out in the same do-or-die spirit that one witnesses today when Congress Party wants to eliminate him from the prime ministerial race."

"Such incidents on an important festival were clearly aimed at provoking Hindus. The timing also betrayed their real purpose. The Parliament was scheduled to resume its session on April 22. This fresh outbreak of violence provided much-needed ammunition to the Congress and the Left parties to go ballistic against the Vajpayee government at the Centre and Modi’s government in Gujarat"

"Once again IITians & those engaged in cutting edge scientific research are in forefront of challenging & correcting distorted narratives on Indic faiths floated by Wikipedia."

"This is a classic example of conflicts arising not out of ignorance but surfeit of knowledge combined with the unconsciously imbibed arrogance of Western academia which assumes that its tools of analysis and value systems enable them to understand and pass judgment on the experiences and heritage of all human beings including those who operate with very different world views. Instead of dealing with the criticism leveled at their intellectual tools, many Western Indologists treated the conflict as a case of ‘academic freedom’ versus the intolerance of Hindu community leaders, thus leading to a bitter stalemate."

"Noteworthy-in its biography of Sardar Patel, Wikipedia avoids all mention of how Nehru stole PM office from Patel by blackmailing Gandhi. Nehru didn't get even one Congress Committee to vote for him."

"Please note Wikipedia's devious description of the geography of Kashmir-- as though it is an independent kingdom outside the border of India. "Kashmir region is bordered by China to the east, India to the south, Pakistan to the west...""

"Adults only look like they know what they're doing. In fact, they're all making it up as they go along, especially when giving advice."

"Lawyers exist to tell you everything that could possibly go wrong with anything you want to do. The correct way to interact with them is to say thank you very much, and then do it anyway. Actually no one told me that; I had to figure it out myself."

"OK, maybe being an international pop star is more exciting than the life of an element collector, but it has its moments."

"And so it is that we come to the end of our journey through the periodic table not with a bang, but with a committee."

"The periodic table is the universal catalog of everything you can drop on your foot. There are some things, such as light, love, logic, and time, that are not in the periodic table. But you can't drop any of those things on your foot."

"The old "red in tooth and claw" view of the natural economy has to be updated. We need a new metaphor for the forest, one that helps us visualize plants both sharing and competing. … Evolution's engine is fired by genetic self-interest, but this manifests itself in cooperative action as well as solo selfishness. The natural economy has as many trade unions as robber barons, as much solidarity as individualistic entrepreneurship."

"Our sensitivity to the tone, hue, and intensity of light is bound up with our evolutionary heritage. Even the diversity of our visual abilities may echo our ancestors' ecology."

"Storms in the forest have a more primal character than storms playing over tamed urban land. A vigorous cloudburst is exhilarating, a burst of sensory delight with its leafy smells, gray light, and chill. But a full tree-ripping storm pushes the senses beyond exhilaration or thrill, into fear."

"Human artifacts are not stains imposed on nature. Such a view drives a wedge between humanity and the rest of the community of life. A golf ball is the manifestation of the mind of a clever, playful African primate. This primate loves to invent games to test its physical and mental skill. Generally, these games are played on carefully reconstructed replicas of the savanna from which the ape came and for which its subconscious still hankers. The clever primate belongs in this world. … To love nature and to hate humanity is illogical."

"We can find our way back to thoughtful management for the long-term well-being of both humans and forests. But finding this way will require some quiet and humility."

"When laughing children chase after fireflies, they are not pursuing beetles but catching wonder.When wonder matures, it peels back experience to seek deeper layers of marvel below. This is science's highest purpose."

"The study of twigs seems esoteric. But this impression is dangerously wrong. Counting back through bud scars, tallying yearly growth, I not only see the struggle among native and foreign trees, I read the ledger of the world's atmosphere."

"The skin is impossibly wet, a cloud condensed into animate matter."

"Nuclear power plants are, next to nuclear warheads themselves, the most dangerous devices that man has ever created."

"I may be accused of being a dinosaur, but I would remind you that dinosaurs ruled the Earth for a very long time."

"William Herschel was the first man to give a reasonably correct picture of the shape of our star-system or galaxy; he was the best telescope-maker of his time, and possibly the greatest observer who ever lived."

"You see, anyone who is interested in astronomy will gravitate to it, as I did. If you start teaching it as a school subject, it's going to be taught badly, like everything else these days, and enthusiasm is going to be killed."

"Patrick was the last of a lost generation, a true gentleman, the most generous in nature that I ever knew, and an inspiration to thousands in his personal life, and to millions through his 50 years of unique broadcasting. It's no exaggeration to say that Patrick, in his tireless and ebullient communication of the magic of astronomy, inspired every British astronomer, amateur and professional, for half a century. There will never be another Patrick Moore. But we were lucky enough to get one."

"El purismo aumenta el nacionalismo porque enseña a clasificar todo como croata o no croata, y a que todo lo que supuestamente proceda del propio país se diga que es bueno, mientras que de lo que proceda de otras naciones se diga que es perjudical y malo."

"There is a large discrepancy between the linguistic reality and the language politics and relevant legislation in South Slavic countries. On the one hand, according to all criteria, the linguistic reality can be described as a typical pluricentric standard language with four standardized varieties. On the other hand, school children are being segregated in Bosnia-Herzegovina as if they speak different languages. In Croatia and Serbia, the segregation takes place in the name of minority language rights, ignoring that the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages gives a clear definition of a minority language that excludes the term ‘minority language’ in this case."

"Fälle, in denen mehrere Nationen eine Sprache sprechen, werden in der Sprachwissenschaft als plurizentrische Sprachen behandelt."

"The long-form endings have pushed away the short-form endings completely in the oblique cases. In the last few years, there are attempts in Croatia to bring back again the short forms in the usage. This attempts are the part of the new sociolinguistic politics to bring back the archaic words and forms in the usage and to construct new words, neologisms, in place of customary words - all that with the aim to make the language in the west of the Serbo-Croatian language community as different as possible from the language in the east of the Serbo-Croatian language community. Leaders of the new language politics proclaim as incorrect what was customary, and as correct what was rare, archaic or even did not exist in the usage, and then they carry it out in practice through the control of the media, text-books etc. Such inversion of the criteria for what is correct and what is not correct in the language usage makes the native speakers unsure and frustrated."

"Qui veut être un linguiste conséquent doit appliquer de manière conséquente les critères linguistiques, et non les bricoler pour les conformer aux besoins de la politique, créant l’illusion qu’on se place encore sur le terrain de la science."

"I linguisti croati rifiutano le parole in uso presso la maggior parte della popolazione solo per dare artificiosamente corpo ad una diversità nei confronti della lingua parlata in Serbia."

"What I have learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized."

"We unfortunately seem to be unconsciously biased against those in society who come out on the bottom."

"Even random differences in pay lead to the backward inference of differences in skill and hence to the development of unequal influence. It's an element of personal and office dynamics that can't be ignored."

"Historians whose profession is to study the past, are as wary as scientists of the idea that events unfold in a manner that can be predicted. In fact, in a study of history the illusion of inevitability has serious consequences that it is one of the few things that both conservative and socialist historians can agree on."