Ovi magazine; Wednesday May 3rd, 2023

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Wednesday May 3rd, 2023

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Scrapping Charles Darwin: Hindutva’s Anti-Scientific Maladies by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Welcome the canons of pseudoscience.  Open your arms to the dribbling, sponsored charlatans.  According to a growing number of India’s top officialdom, teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to children in their ninth and 10th grades is simply not on.

Last month, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), a purportedly autonomous government organisation responsible for curricula content and textbook publishing for India’s 256 million primary and secondary students, continued its hostility against Darwin as part of its “content rationalisation” process.  NCERT had taken the scrub to evolution during the COVID-19 pandemic, implausibly arguing that it was necessary to drop its teaching in moving classes online. (Darwin would have been most bemused.)

A closer look at the list of dropped and excluded subjects in the NCERT publication of “rationalised content in textbooks” from May last year is impressive in its philistinism.  In addition to dropping teaching on Darwin, the origin of life on earth, evolution, fossils and molecular phylogeny, we also see the scrapping of such subjects as electricity, the magnetic effects of electric current and the “sustainable management of natural resources”.

Evolutionary biologist Amitabh Joshi of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research was less than impressed, calling the measure “a travesty of the notion of a well-rounded secondary education”. 

Continue reading HERE!

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The Vine #poem & #painting by Nikos Laios

“The fruit of
The vine;
Flowing 
Red wine
Glowing,
Glowing,
Glowing.”

Continue reading HERE!

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AntySaurus Prick #65 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

For more AntySaurus Prick HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Ovi magazine; Wednesday November 24th, 2021

 

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Wednesday November 24th, 2021

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Electric Car Delusions by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Fresh from attending COP26 in Glasgow, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was keen to impress the Australian public that he was willing to make good his word about the role technology would play in combating climate change. An important component of his limited strategy lies in the realm of electric cars, the very thing he warned Australians against in 2019. His then opposite number, Labor’s Bill Shorten, was accused by the prime minister during the election campaign of wishing to end the Australian weekend. “I’ll tell you what, it’s not going to tow your trailer. It’s not going to tow your boat,” he warned.

Things, however, had changed. COP26, pressure from other countries, and potential electoral pressure within traditional Coalition seats, had made the prime minister shift his position. In a joint press release from the Prime Minister and Energy Minister Angus Taylor, the government promised, as part of the Future Fuels Fund investment, $250 million on vehicle charging and hydrogen fuelling infrastructure; heavy and long-distance vehicle technologies; commercial fleets and household smart charging.

Continue reading HERE!

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“Empty Harbour” #poem #painting by Nikos Laios

“Death by pestilence,
Congealed lungs
And sallow skin
Clinging to bones,
Vacant stares
And empty streets,
Bowls of half-finished
Bat soup on dirty
Tables,
Closed borders
And airports.”

Continue reading HERE!

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Evolution: the survival of any species by Joseph Gatt

The evolution of any species is fairly simple and straightforward. There are basically four broad types of behavior any species will follow to move forward: love, deceive or attack. And then there’s the defense aspect of the game. Let’s break those down.

Love: no species can survive alone. Love is as much about reproduction as it is about social harmony and cohesion, solidarity and sharing food and other survival needs.

In some species, there is a hierarchy of sorts in love. One member leads, the others follow. This can play out in different forms. The leader can stay still while others follow the leader’s orders (as in bees), or the leader can lead the pack and move a certain direction while others follow (as in birds or foxes) or the leader can order different members of the group to head certain directions, while the leader himself moves around (as in cats or humans).

ntinue reading HERE!

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Sceptic feathers 21#22 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

For more Sceptic feathers, HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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