THE sixth CEC meeting of SFI strongly protests the move of the HRD ministry of saffronising various academic bodies such as the ICHR, the NCERT and UGC. It has occurred to some fertile heads in the UGC that there is "the urgent need to rejuvenate the science of Vedic astrology in India."

It is indeed ridiculous the way the NCERT document states "computer scientists emphasise that Sanskrit is the best-suited language for computers among other languages."

The World Sanskrit Conference, held with the blessings of the HRD ministry, has recommended that Sanskrit should be made a compulsory subject at all levels till the 8th standard.

Several scientists have criticised the proposed course on astrology and Vedic rituals advocated by the UGC. The move to set up departments of Vedic astrology in 24 universities will certainly lead our nation backward to medieval times. However, studies have shown that astrology is not a science. Neither its basic assumptions nor its predictions conform to the rigorous discipline that science demands.

Instead of addressing the real issues of the pathetic condition of universities and colleges and giving financial support for modern technical courses, it is ludicrous that the UGC is going after all these nonsenses.

The decisions taken by the HRD ministry and the UGC are a clean move of saffronisation. This clearly establishes the fact that the UGC is determined to saffronise the whole of higher education for implementing the hidden agenda of the RSS. The SFI also demands the resignation of Mr Hari Gautam, chairperson of UGC, who is dancing to the tunes of the Sangh Parivar. The meeting also condemns the decision of the NCERT to drop eminent historians like Prof Romila Thapar, Prof Bipan Chandra, Prof R S Sharma and Prof Satish Chandra before the revision of the curriculum and include those who are close to the RSS, like Prof K S Lal, Prof G C Pand and Prof S P Gupta.

Even though the three day meeting of the NCERT Expert Committee on the history syllabus for classes XI-XII ended without suggesting any major changes, R K Dixit, the head of the social science department, made it clear that changes in history syllabus will indeed be carried out and the NCERT would have to act after receiving a string of complaints from the religious groups. And now the NCERT has decided to withdraw history as a stand-along subject from the new CBSE syllabus. (INN)