We at Pune Collective, invite you to our joint program with All India People’s Science Network on Saturday, 21st, August 2021, at 5.45 pm.
We will commemorate Dr Narendra Dabholkar and salute all such personalities, organisations and movements who have been working tirelessly to help develop a scientific temper and a spirit of rationality amongst the people.
Promoting scientific temper, which is a constitutional fundamental duty for each one of us, requires us to oppose the promotion of pseudoscience, especially by governmental bodies. We express our great concern in regard to the encouragement and promotion of fake data, pseudosciences and irresponsible decisions by the Central and some state governments, on the one hand, which have contributed to the spread of the pandemic, and the neglect of a planned response based on scientific policy on the other. Covid cannot be fought without scientific temper. Fighting Covid scientifically requires the reversal of policies promoting private health care for profit leading to the neglect and decline of effective public healthcare systems in most states of India. Fighting Covid requires effective implementation of a national policy for universal free vaccination on a crash basis. It requires planning based on honest data collection. Instead, governments are busy suppressing the voices of ordinary citizens, social activists who are exposing pseudoscience. Media organizations and journalists reporting accurately the situation on the ground are being systematically targeted and sought to be silenced by the misuse of the state apparatus.
On this background, we would like to invite you all for our session, COVID & Scientific Temper.
In this session, we will be joined by three towering personalities: Parivartan Vyasanmukti Kendra & Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti Activist, Psychiatrist, Hamid Dabholkar; along with Writer, Engineer, Journalist and Science Activist, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of NewsClick, Prabir Purkayastha and Microbiologist, Virologist and Fellow of Royal Society, Scientist, Gagandeep Kang.
In this session, AIPSN & Pune Collective will be felicitating Manipur based journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem and activist Erendro Leichombam for their sterling and courageous role in opposing the pseudoscience. Both of them were booked under NSA after BJP functionaries complained about their Facebook posts, which correctly said that “cow dung and cow urine” don’t cure Covid-19.
We appeal to all citizens, mass organizations and educational institutions to participate in the National Scientific Temper Day (NSTD) observances for promoting scientific temper in these challenging times and to raise our voices against the brutal killing of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh.
This session will be in Marathi, Hindi and English.
You can join us using any of the following links at 5.45 pm, on Saturday, 21st, August 2021.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/punecollective
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/punecollective
Twitter: https://twitter.com/punecollective
Website: https://punecollective.in
Instagram : https://instagram.com/punecollective
Telegram : https://t.me/punecollective
Mailing List : http://eepurl.com/ha9mXT