This refers to the article, “Planet of the apes and other animals” (January 25) by Ishan Joshi. It is a matter of concern that holding various university degrees and a Constitutional post, a Minister is now issuing a statement against Article 51A (h) of our Constitution that says, “It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. Since this has been enshrined in our Constitution as the fundamental duty of every citizen of India, a Minister is, therefore, supposed to be an embodiment of it rather than a violator of the same.
Unfortunately, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Satyapal Singh has said that evolution is wrong as nobody saw man descend from apes and, therefore, such a theory needs to be modified in educational curricula. But had there been no evolution, could he have had the command of a language to speak out his imaginationIJ
Our political parties are going soft towards regressive prejudices or sometimes even using such myths to get vote-bank dividend. As a result, myths and superstitions are still guiding our actions. Given advertisements for vashikaran for taming a person are mushrooming day-by-day,
they are doing a brisk trade. This means that the umpteenth number of our brothers and sisters are being slowly poisoned in the name of vashikaran or taming.