Why this kolaveri di Exam Version

Summary of the address of Akhila Bharatha Seva Pramukh, Sri Sitaram Kedilaya in the Guru Vandana Pooja held at Udupi

Today we are all gathered here to perform GURUVANDANA POOJA. Before starting the ceremony let us understand the meaning of the words GURU and POOJA. Guru literally means something huge, heavy or enormous. Pooja means worship; that signifies we are worshiping something enormous today! But you may wonder when I spelt pooja why didn't we perform any formal rituals as they do in the temples, instead just saluted the Bhagawad Dhwaja and presented to it a part of what we earned? That means, in this pooja the intention behind it and way of performing it completely differs from the formal rituals. In formal rituals there will be some greed or wishes for self; means in other words we pray for some wishes of our self. But here there is no such criterion, we pray for humanity, for the country. No man is perfect or complete/pure. Hence if we worship any humans then our worship also tends to be incomplete. Hence the Bhagawad Dwajha which is pure and perfects in all aspects itself is GURU for a swayamsevak for which he should worship without any greed for self. Worshiping doesn't merely means performing rituals by chanting mantras; it should be the true dedication towards what you worship,values you follow on that; hence incarnating a character of the same in yourself. The Hindus didnot worship in this way at all; if they would've done so, Bharatha would not have reached the miserable conditions as of now. If every Hindu worshiping Lord Sri Ram had incarnated his character in their self, then Ayodhya wouldn't have a foreign region to Hindus. This also refers same in the case of Dwaraka and Manasa Sarovar at Himalayan ranges.
Bhagawad Dhwaj comes from the ethenticity of Hinduness. Now a day the anti Hindu entities are trying confuse the faith of people in Hindutva using the pseudo secular philosophy. Hindutva is not a religion, nor a caste or anything what these pseudo secular people regard. It is the art of living or the way of life. As any other religion of the world there are no records from the pages of the history for the origin of Hindutva. It was before, it is now and it will be forever. All the other countries are man built and the boundries of those are made by man itself. But Bharatha was not a country that was built; it is a land that existed, boundary formed by Mother Nature ie Himalayas at the one end and the Arabian Sea at the other. Many people in the past conqured many places using sword or inthe name of trade. But the hindus carried faith in their heart, knowlege in their mind and values in their hands to spread them throughout the world. Recently antihindus are using media just to mislead the people of country; Media forgetting their responsibility in the society support these pseudo secular groups. How can one refer Hindus as Saffron Terrorist where since historic times they don't have even a single instance of bloodshed?
It is the duty of every Hindu to understand the heritage of Hindutva; follow a systematic life according to it and preserve the Hindutva and its principles. In this regard, the children should be nurtured with etical values of Hindutva. Hindutva is a "SANATHANA DHARMA", a way of life and not exactly a religion.

Note: This is just a summary of the address of the Akhila Bharatha Seva Pramukh Sri Sitaram Kedilaya in The Guru Vandana Pooja held in Udupi. I have tried my level best to reproduce the same based on my memory. I sincerely regret any mistakes or any misinterpretations that might have occured due to my lack of experience or so else.

The Abstract of the Swami Vivekananda's address to the All Religion Summit

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: “As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: “Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me.” Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

Corporate Agriculture; a brief outlook

India was the land of agriculture, in the pre independence era. Many of the British Officials, among those who ruled India before independence have beautifully described the outline of Indian agriculture in their works. During those days India was a land of villages, and the major part of these villages constituted fertile land made fit for cultivation. Hence major part of Indian population relayed on agriculture for their livelihood. In this situation the country was sufficiently rich in food grains, and there were no issues of food scarcity. The availability of nutritious food made the man fit and healthy, in other words the people were healthier and the country had a strong human resource. Due to the abundance of greenery in the country, the atmosphere was healthier with minimal pollution.

This was the main reason for the advent of foreigners on India. The cultural and agricultural heritage of India made the greedy invaders eyes yellow. The foreigners who invaded India exported the food grains, spices to their lands. This was the first blow on Indian agriculture. The Indian agriculture also had a strong outline of the regional cultural heritage. This can be witnessed even today at the rural part of India. When the British invaded India they broke down the regional cultural heritage of India, which resulted in the loss of integrity between the people. At the end of the British rule, India had become poor in the field of agriculture, and the major part of the cultivation land had become barren.

When India acquired independence, as you all know the new democratic administration was established. The written constitution was formed by Dr. B.R.Ambedkar. During this time preference was given to agriculture as well as development. Many steps were taken to sustain and develop agriculture, in which the major one was the five year plan, which granted a huge amount of finance to the development of agriculture. In spite of all these measures, since independence the field of agriculture is facing several problems and its declining day by day.

Root cause for the problems in the field of Agriculture

In the post independence period, India began to develop socially, economically, technologically in a rapid manner which diversified the interest of the people from agriculture. Thus the standard of living of the people increased, thus India started emerging out as a globally recognized country. This made the Indian government to look into industrial and technological sector in preference, thus on the other side it developed a negligence outlook on the field of agriculture. Thus the development policies lead to globalization, industrial revolution etc. Thus the government started acquiring the fertile agricultural lands to initialize the industrial developments. This in return led to the urbanization of the rural provinces of India. Thus the fertile lands were converted into gigantic industries, and villages into cities, which in coarse attracted farmers away from agriculture. The existing farmers started facing many problems such as scarcity of fertilizers, poor yield, monsoon failure, raising inflation etc. Several times due to draught both farmers and government had to face tough time.

Corporate Agriculture; a boon or curse?

The phrase ‘Corporate Agriculture’ might be unfamiliar to many at this point of time. Corporate Agriculture in simple words signifies the acquisition of the agricultural market by the corporate giants. Extreme corruption and negligence of the agricultural department of the government has made the agricultural markets fall down. Thus the crops grown by farmers cannot easily reach the needy (common man). Even the farmer doesn’t get proper reward for the crops grown/sold. Many a time failure of the inventory system causes a huge loss to the farmers also resulting in the scarcity of nutritious food. This has created sufficient favorable condition for the Corporate Agriculture to emerge out. You might’ve noticed some stores selling vegetables and food grains in the shopping malls, and many of you are happy with that in a notion that, the household groceries are easily accessible. But this is the initial sign of the advent of corporate agriculture on the society.

These markets are profit oriented and subject to market risk. In order to sustain their business and increase their profit, they even compromise with the quality of the agricultural products, which may have serious adverse effect on the health and hygiene of the people. Agricultural products are considered as one of the basic essential goods, hence in practice it doesn’t (strictly speaking shouldn’t) obey the law of demand in the context of economics. But the corporate society concentrates only on gains; hence the rising inflation will not have any control over the prices of agricultural goods. This will severely affect the life of people below poverty line.

The other major threat of corporate agriculture on the agricultural markets is the foreign investments and the competition by the gigantic corporate companies. India might lose its hold on the agricultural markets in case the foreign policy relaxes for the investors; in the name of development. The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is one of the results of the same. The private sector companies might take over the production of agricultural goods, inventory monitoring, distribution, supply and sales. But at present, the global economy is in a depreciating trend; which results in continuously rising inflation. To accomplish these adverse effect these companies will go for price hikes of basic necessity items, without taking into account the economically backward sections of the society. Thus life of people becomes miserable and standard of living decreases.

Conclusion

After discussing so much about the drawbacks and adverse effects of the Corporate Agriculture, we cannot deny the possible positive approach of the same. Corporate agriculture governed by the proper policies framed by the legislature, properly supervised by the judiciary will be effectively reliable for the common man.

Before I go, I remember a line from our national song; vande mataram, ‘ ಸಸ್ಯ ಶಾಮಲಾಂ ಮಾತರಂ’ which describes the greenery of our country. As the responsible citizens of India, let us make our country greener and healthier.

Jai Hind