🕉️ @Noon: The Transformative Effect Of Dharma

1. 🕉️ Dharma v/s 🛐 monopolistic religions

A sham? Muslims — particularly from Bollywood —worshipping Ganapati, performing aarti etc or veil-clad Muslim women dressing up their children as little Krishna are called shams.

• But it will be unfair to dismiss the entire phenomenon as a sham.

• There is a genuine civilisational process happening here, and it is important we acknowledge and understand it.

Conversion v/s transformation: The conversion happens through coercion or fraudulent means or through supremacist propaganda that devalues one religion and elevates another.

• As against this, deeply spiritual, civilisational Dharmic religions transform. They transform every religion that comes into contact with the family of Dharmic religions.

• Even an exclusivist, expansionist, monopolistic religion, given a long period of time, gets transformed in its core for the better and for the betterment of its own adherents.

Examples: An Abdul Kalam exhorts students of a university to sing Saraswati Vandana. He did not leave Islam. He was a Muslim who performed namaz five times a day till the end of his life.

• A Bismillah Khan becomes the face of the spiritual music of Kashi. He had the darshan of Krishna Himself and played shehnai for the deities of Kashi. He did not leave Islam. He was a devout Muslim all his life.

• Begum Parveen Sultana sings heartfully and movingly for Durga, the goddess. She is a Muslim.

• A Sheikh Chinna Maulana (1924-1999) was so immersed in the bhakti of Sri Ranganatha that he anchored his essence in the sacred town of Sri Rangam and established Sarada Nagaswara Sangeeta Ashram in Sri Rangam. He also became the Asthana Vidwan of both Tirupati and Sri Rangam devasthanams. He did not leave Islam.

What Hindus should do: We face the dangers of the war of proselytisation waged on the Dharmic family of religions in India.

• It is very much there and is also increasing disproportionately to the transformation that is happening.

• We need to create an environment which can facilitate civilisational and spiritual change naturally faster.

Aravindan Neelakandan explains his views in detail here.

2. 📈 🏆 What Cyrus Mistry deserved

Pity that Cyrus Mistry will be remembered for his spat with Ratan Tata and his ouster from the chairmanship of Tata Sons in 2016.

• He should be remembered for his larger contributions to entrepreneurship, including in his own Pallonji Mistry group.

• Mistry got blamed for the weak performance of the Tata group under him when in reality, the huge debts had been run up during Ratan Tata’s tenure.

What Mistry did right: Mistry had begun the task of reducing the group’s debts even while increasing its ability to service them.

• During his tenure, a reduction of 3.3 percent in net debt was observed in three years.

• Mistry knew that cash-rich Tata Consultancy Services was the saviour, and hard decisions needed to be taken on the over-indebted loss-makers.

What went wrong: The collaboration could have worked if Mistry was forever running to Ratan Tata for advice and validation of his business decisions.

• But, with his own sense of business acumen, it would have been demeaning and unacceptable for him.

• Bad luck was the reason why he could not rescue the group earlier, rather than poor leadership, as the Tatas are wont to allege.

• He had to deal with some of the legacy decisions of Ratan Tata.

• Tata, apart from investing money in the right businesses at the wrong time and wrong price (steel, autos), also exited the wrong businesses at a difficult time earlier.

R Jagannathan hopes that the Tatas will bury the hatchet and give the man his due.

• He helmed the group in difficult times, and its revival and rejuvenation today had its origins in Mistry’s tenure.

• The man at least deserves this level of acknowledgement.

• Mistry was a good man caught in the wrong leadership position at the wrong time.

3. 🕉️ When Madurai was flooded 🌊 and Shiva had to act 🙏

Picture above: Shiva carrying a basket of mud to fix an embankment - the utsava murthy (festive icon) of Shiva at the Madurai Meenakshi Sundareshwarar temple.

Context: The Madurai Meenakshi Sundareshwarar temple yesterday marked the event of Shiva himself helping to fix the banks of the river Vaigai when the town of Madurai was flooded.

• Shiva, in disguise as a young lad, offers to assist an old lady with the embankment work in return for the delicious food she sells.

• The young lad is not serious about work and the king has to punish him, which is when he is made to see that the entire play was to grace the old lady.

• Shiva has since been addressed as the one who got thrashed while carrying mud in exchange for pittu.

The event is part of Madurai Avani Moolam festival where 12 such divine plays of Shiva are depicted.

• The festival also includes Shiva's coronation.

• The divine couple of Meenakshi and Sundareswarar (Shiva) share the crown of Madurai for 4 months and 8 months of the year respectively.

4. 🕉️ 🔴 Onam appropriation in Kerala

Communists ignore the moral lessons of the Vamana-Mahabali episode.

• They treat the account as a perfect example of how Brahminical patriarchy exploits the downtrodden lower castes, crushes them, and cheats them of their riches through deceit.

• Thus, the story becomes a secular Marxian fable of class exploitation; how the proletariat are robbed of their rights by the bourgeoisie.

Why they appropriate: It helps them to

• further caste divides by demonstrating that prejudice was intrinsic to Hindu texts,

• guilt-trip the upper castes into shamed silence,

• and prove that religion was indeed the opium of the masses.

5. 📱 🛒 A new digital journey

ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) is an open e-commerce system to power smaller players and partners.

• Unlike big e-commerce platforms, it will be a plug-and-play system for sellers and other stakeholders in the equation.

• The eventual goal of the system is connecting local milk or fruit vendor, with nothing but a cart, smartphone, Jan Dhan Account connected to Aadhaar, and a UPI ID, to the buyer.

The challenges include infusing trust for online payments before delivery,

• the logistics,

• managing returns and exchanges,

• and getting the consumers onboard.

Tushar Gupta explains this initiative in detail.

6. ⛈️ 🌊 Why Bengaluru got flooded

Wettest South-West monsoon in history: Bengaluru received a massive 953.4 mm of rainfall since 1 June.

• The previous record of 949.7 mm was recorded in 2017.

• The top two of the wettest SWM seasons in recorded history have occurred in the last five years.

7. 🔭🌌 India's First-Ever 'Night Sky Sanctuary'

The Dark Sky Reserve will be located at Hanle in Ladakh as a part of Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary.

• Hanle is best suited for the project as it is away from any form of human disturbance and clear sky conditions and dry weather conditions exist throughout the year

• All stakeholders will work towards stopping unwanted light pollution and illumination - this is a serious threat to scientific observations and astronomy the world over.

8. New 🚀 missile in town!

News: DRDO says that it has finalised the design of a new 1,500km range ballistic missile that will have anti-ship capabilities.

Context: China's presence in the Indian Ocean is on the rise.

• Last month, the docking of a Chinese intelligence-gathering ship in Sri Lanka caused much disquiet in India.

• When deployed in the coastal region, the new missile's 1,500-km range will allow it to target enemy warships in large parts of the Indian Ocean.

• China is also deploying a range of anti-ship ballistic missiles, including DF-21D, often referred to as 'carrier killer', to deter the United States Navy.

Caveat: DRDO is still waiting for approval from the government to move to the development stage.