Science and Spirituality: Does the Universe exist?

This is that time of the year when science and spirituality are celebrated hand in hand in our country. In February, India celebrated the National Science Day, and in March, it celebrated the Maha Shivratri.

India observes the 28^th of February every year as National Science Day in honour of the famous Indian physicist Sir C V Raman. It was on this day in 1928 that the phenomenon known as “the Raman Effect” was discovered by Sir C V Raman. The Raman effect is not only leveraged effectively in Raman spectroscopy commonly used in chemistry, but also explains various visual phenomena including why the sea is blue. It postulates changes in the wavelength of light when a light beam is deflected by molecules, and that a fraction of the incident light emerges in directions other than that of the incident beam. The water molecules in the sea scatter white sunlight into wavelengths that fall in the blue regime of the visible spectrum, and therefore the sea appears blue. The theme of the National Science Day observed on 28^th February 2019 was “Science for the People and the People for Science”, and rightfully so as science is the greatest tool devised by mankind to interpret the universe and to understand its behavior.

Amritsar: The Lake of nectar or a city of massacres

I was in Amritsar on the fateful Dussehra day when more than 60 people were massacred in a bizarre train accident. Tragedy struck Amritsar on Friday the 19^th of October 2018, when a speeding train ran over scores of Dussehra revelers standing on the railway track after having been induced away from a burning effigy of Ravana during the Dussehra celebrations at dusk near the Joda Phatak. Men, women and children had spilled over to the tracks, and no one saw or heard the speeding train in the glow of Ravana’s flames and the din of celebratory fireworks.