Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls

By Vasu Murti

Reposted with permission. 

The pyramids are “basically expensive tombstones…” says Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Yes. That’s the way Sri Rupa dasi (Amy Smith) referred to the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal was built in India by Muslim ruler Shah Jahan as a memorial to his deceased wife.

It’s considered an exhibition of the emperor’s undying love for his departed wife.

But devout Hindus see it differently!

According to the Vedic (also known as Hindu) literatures, the soul or conscious self is different from the physical body, and transmigrates from body to body, throughout 8,400,000 different species of life.

Because the conscious self is different from the physical body, Vedic civilization was based on liberating the soul from the cycle of repeated birth and death.

Contemporary Hindu spiritual master Ravindra-svarupa dasa (Dr. William Deadwyler) explains:

“In that Vedic culture, everything was organized to further self-realization. Self-realization marks the ultimate…

LASA 2014 – CALL FOR PAPERS

(Please see below a call for papers for the forthcoming Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress in Chicago, May 21-24, 2014)

Assembling the Contemporary Latin American City: South-South Circuits, Planning Exchanges, Policy Mobilities

In the wake of structural adjustment programs and region-wide reforms to democratize and decentralize central government authority, several Latin American cities became sites of increased experimentation and innovation in urban planning, urban development and public participation. Municipal authorities throughout the region reinvented land use, transportation, housing, and public space as planning tools to address a range of new and long-deferred infrastructural, social, and environmental issues. In this context, urban planning became a highly contentious and experimental arena where a range of actors –from public sector planners to NGOs to social movements to organized private actors- seized opportunities to push and legitimize new models of urban planning and development. Although North-South policy exchanges…

Golden Rice is being tested in experimental fields in the Philippines but some people there don’t want it. Matt McGrath at the BBC reports that, a few days ago, local farmers vandalised the field trial. I’m grateful to my fellow blogger Finn Holding at The Naturephile for drawing attention to this.

Golden Rice is a variety of Oryza sativa. It was made by genetic modification (GM, also called genetic engineering or GE) so it’s one of the biotech crops. It makes β-carotene (provitamin A) in its grains. The idea is that people in poor countries, especially pregnant women and young children, could eat Golden Rice.

Here’s how it works. β-carotene is a ‘provitamin’ because the body converts it to Vitamin A. We need Vitamin A for our eyes and immune system, among other things. In many poor countries, people are malnourished so that Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD) is a…