VSK TN
Jai Thiruvalluvar, Jai Bharat!
On March 7, Rashtriya Samskrit Vidyapeeth, the Sanskrit University in Tirupathi organized a national seminar on ‘Thiruvalluvar-Thirukurral’ on orders from HRD Ministry, Government of India. Samskrita scholars from Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Tamilnadu submitted papers in Samskritam on the various aspects of the ancient Tamil text Thirukkural. One of the participants from Tamilnadu observed, “This is national integration in the true sense”.
In life and death an exemplary swayamsevak
When Shri Ranganathan (70) breathed his last on February 23 in Chennai, there was neither cremation nor burial. His body was donated as ‘Deha daanam’ to the Government Stanley Medical College. He was a cycle-rickshaw man all his life. But RSS was the centre of his life. Everyday at Royapuram (Chennai), Prabhat Shaka it was his voice that led the Sangha prarthana, ‘Namaste Sada vatsale..’ for years. A few years back a Sangh sympathizer offered to find another job for him, but Ranganathan refused saying ‘I am the boss of my Rickshaw and I want to stand on my own legs’. For a couple of weeks he was an in-patient in the Government hospital having been admitted for treatment of cancer; he has no relatives to look after him; Sangh karyakathas including Palanivel took personal care and saw to it that Shri Ranganathan’s last days were spent peacefully. From out of his meager income, Ranganathan paid subscription for the Nationalist Tamil weekly Vijayabharatham.
An attempt to vilify Mangalsutra scotched
Puthiya Thalaimurai television, a Chennai based Tamil news channel had a quaint idea of celebrating Womens’ Day. It announced that a debate on ‘Is Mangalsutra a pride or bane for women?’ Clearly, this was a blatant vilification of one of the identities of Hindu women held very sacred for millennia. Hindus led by Hindu Munnani functionaries including State Secretary Shri Parameshwaran and Shri Elangovan, City Secretary held a protest demonstration demanding stoppage of the proposed telecast. It had the expected result. The channel ‘postponed’ the telecast. Basically, good sense had dawned on the channel on account of a few thousand phone calls from responsible citizens. The callers questioned the habitual Hindu-baiting by the Channel. Meanwhile, ten Hindu Munnani functionaries who participated in the demonstration were arrested and remanded in judicial custody under sections 147, 341, 294(),323, 506(2). The following day the ‘usual suspects’ cried hoarse over the freedom of expression.