Guest lectures

Lately I have been engaged so tightly on series of submissions and this delayed my update on this record of lectures. It‘s been even a week since we had couple of lectures. Still then let me shed out whatever is left out in my memory. First lecture was by Justice M.N. Rao . His lecture was on “Religion through the lens of law: Neutrality of state secularization” .His lecture was so lengthy it lasted almost two hours. He said his preparation of lecture runs to 150 pages. Let me try how much I have grasped it.

Once upon a time religion and law was one concept. Through religion, beliefs and faiths regulated the conduct of mankind when there was no proper codification of laws. But today world over has proper codification of laws which regulates conduct of all mankind. . He said religion is the matter of private domain which is the relationship between person and the god whereas law is the matter of public domain which is the relationship between people and the state. Today with change of time everything changes and more people are becoming secular and expose to diverse religions, so neutrality of sate is very important. Religion and state are always inter connected, he said. He said there is no state without religion, so every state has religion. State guarantees freedom of religion but he said it can be regulated by state through law. He cited various cases like where students refused to sing a nation anthem. He said every citizen has duty to respect nation anthem and national flag. Tomorrow if we become the prime minster we cannot refuse to take oath under nation flag and anthem as against our religion. So every citizen has duty to respect the same.

Finally he concluded that every person has right to freedom of faith but practice of that faith can be regulated by state through law.

Another lecture was on 19/2/2011 by former judge of the Indian Supreme Court, Former Chief Justice of AP High Court, Justice U.C Benerjee. His lecture was on sustainable development. The moment I saw this topic it reminded me of our unique philosophy, GNH as this being one of the pillars of GNH. He stressed mainly on preservation of nature, ecological balance, biodiversity, global warming, climate change, etc. Internationally this concept was first appeared in Bretten Wood’s Report then in Rio Conferernce, 1992. But he said to India he was the first judge to introduce this concept in Indian jurisprudence. He introduced this concept in Kolkata Wet Land case in 1993 where he said that economic development should be with the ecological balance. He said with globalization and growth of population economic development of every nation is very important but that should be without compromising the ecological balance. Economic development with the ecological balance is what he wants. He cited various examples of effect of climate change due to global warming. He also cited various industrialized nations which are without fresh air. So he time and again in the course of his lecture reminded that economic development with the ecological balance not with the cost of ecological balance.