Saw this interesting post in newspapers today – Bangalore Body Fake. It says:

They had miserably failed to prove the legal existence of Iskcon, Bangalore as an independent autonomous body, it said… It had fabricated documents and was falsely claiming its right over the properties. There was no evidence on record to show that the properties were built by Iskcon, Bangalore.

Over a period of time, I have been closely associated with ISKCON and its arm Akshay Patra. This legal battle saddens me.

It looks like to me that the Krishna’s money, which He directed me to transfer to another account is being mismanaged by His other followers. Should I just put all the blame on Him and still keep supporting ISKCON?

Then if everything anyway belongs to Him, who the hell are ISKCON’s agents fighting legal battle in a high court? Who is higher authority than Krishna Himself?

I am planning to restart this blog again with few blog posts a week. I have been neglecting this page for quite sometime now and this has resulted in my Astrology knowledge going down. I can’t read charts as well as I could last year. Hopefully, it will improve again with practice.

Another problem that arises with this neglect that my name’s relevance in Google search has gone down. When I search for “Kshitij Sharma” on the net, links on this website are no longer on the top. Talk about an egocentric approach to blogging Sounds corny, but true – people will do all sorts of gimmicks to keep themselves in limelight. Google searches are a spotlight that I seek.

Since I do not get to read about Astrology all that much now-a-days (something that I will try hard to fix). I am planning to add another category called “religion” and will start blogging under that category.

Please expect me to be fairly active on this blog from now on.

To further my claim in the previous article that there is no scope for “unbiased” and “independent” research in this country, I would like to draw the attention of the readers to this article in Times of India, How Allahabad HC exposed ‘experts’ espousing Masjid cause. You can find relevant part of the judgment here - http://www.rjbm.nic.in/sa/Judgment%20RJB-BM%20Vol-15.pdf

The article quotes a so called “expert” Suvira Jaiswal who happens to be someone called an “eminent historian.” She is a Professor of Ancient Indian History at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She was elected president of Indian History Congress in 2007 as well.

She says, and I quote from the judgement:

whatever knowledge I gained with respect to disputed site is based on newspaper or what the others told, i.e., from the report of historians.

Further, she said she prepared a pamphlet titled “Political misuse, Babari Mosque-Rama birthplace dispute:”

I had prepared this pamphlet from news published in newspapers and having a discussions with medieval (history) expert of my department.

If such is the state of experts in our country, then Ram only can help us.

PS: We have our neighbour in the same boat – interesting to read this – Rampant Fraud…

The day came and went and India remained calm. We all got home early from work and were glued to the television screen to hear the verdict. I heard it on the television and then rushed to the computer to download the PDF file of the verdict from the Allahabad High Court website. Read it, made some sense and then sat thinking – have I really moved on or have I stopped caring.

I distinctly remember the day of 6th December 1992. I was still in school, hadn’t reached voting age, but was aware enough to make sense of all mandal-kamandal nonsense that was happening around me. I lived in a very peaceful city that has never seen and (God willing) will never see even a curfew. One of the shopkeepers in the local market who was a BJP activist had organized a bhajan mandali right in front of a shop whose owner was a Muslim. I still purchased stuff from this Muslim shopkeeper, laughed at the poor quality of bhajans that were being sung and went home. Doordarshan, the mouthpiece of the Government of the day did not say that the mosque was pulled down and just said “bhari nuksaan”. It was the time before Times Now, NDTV and for  news reporting, BBC and Voice of America were still the credible sources. Unfortunately, India did not figure in their viewer/listener list then.

I grew up. With the advent of Internet and Wikipedia, I lapped up all that I could find about this particular controversy. There was no media frenzy to guide me – just patient research by surfing… and I reached the conclusion in my mind about what is right and what is wrong.

The folks who are against the temple try to reason that Ram never existed and that it is only a matter of fath. They call Him a only a mythological figure. Well, you can never prove that something does not exist, therefore, these so called scientists who deny His existence are purely doing it based on nothing else but their faith. While we are at it, they should consider the ASI report that clearly says that there was a temple structure below the mosque and that the mosque built on the foundation of this structure.

Let us all allow the other bunch of scientists work on proving that Ram and Krishna did in fact exist. It is unfortunate that any attempt in this country to gain a historical perspective on Hindu itihaas in past 60 years has been severely undermined in the name of secularism. In my opinion, this is an equally dogmatic approach and the folks in seat of power who discourage any such research are equally bigoted.

I am of the opinion that there a temple must be built at the place because it is a matter of faith and because a majority of Indians believe that Ram was born there and have considered it as Ram Janmabhoomi for couple of millennia. Lets not call them bigots and consider them dogmatic in their approach. It is their faith, let’s respect it.

I welcome this judgment. There is something for everyone here. I welcome that fact that one third land has been given to Muslims. I am sure government of the day can grant them additional adjoining land to build a grand mosque there – and I would whole heartedly support any such move. I am satisfied that the janma-bhoomi itself remains with Hindus and we can now start building a temple there – it need not be a bhavya mandir but it will still be more respectable than the tent that exists there right now.

I am a responsible citizen of this country of India, who happens to be a Hindu and I exhort the government to allow me to express my religious freedom within my rights.

This is essentially a rehash of my old articles with some mathematics thrown in.

Further to the article on “General Strength of a Bhava”, here is a small technique for calculating the strength of a yogakaraka planet. Dr. B.V. Raman prescribes giving points to each of the parameters mentioned in the above article. When coupled with Shadbala and residential strength, this gives a good way of judging if a planet is indeed capable of giving results of the yoga it is involved in.

Just because a planet is involved in a yoga, it does not mean that all the results of such a yoga will show up during the person’s lifetime. The planet should have the intention as well as the capacity to provide such a result.

The intention of a planet to provide good results is measured by the beneficence associated with it in the horoscope. We can similarly measure the intention of a planet harming the prospects of a horoscope. If we start assigning points to various parameters:

• Give +1 if the planet is a functional benefic for the ascendant, a 0 if it a neutral and –1 if it is a malefic lord. For details, see the article on benefic and malefic planets.
• If it is in its own, moola-trikona, exaltation or friendly sign, add 1. If it is debilitated, combust or in an inimical sign, subtract 1.
• For association with benefic lords (see “rules of combination of planets”) a +1, otherwise –1.
• Count the aspect strength on the planet. For all the aspecting planets throwing a drishti on this planet, add or subtract units if the aspecting planet is beneficial or malefic in the chart. Partial drishi is to be considered here, e.g. usually, 3, 10 is 1/4th dristi, 5, 9 is 1/2 dristi and 4, 8 is 3/4th drishti. 7th house aspect is of course a full dristi for all planets.

If the values are very much on the positive side, the planet is considered to be a benefic. It will be intentionally good for the chart. For values close to zero, it is considered feebly beneficial. It is considered a malefic otherwise.

The capacity of a planet to do good comes from its strength in the chart. For this, Shadbala and residential strength needs to be looked at.

It may happen that a planet is very beneficial for a horoscope based on the parameters mentioned above, but does not have the right Shadbala or residential strength. It will therefore not be able to influence the chart and the effects of the yoga will not be seen. A malefic planet may as well lose its capacity to do harm if this hapens.