017. Religious fanatics in Kerala government promoting moral policing in schools.

Religious fanatics in Kerala government promoting moral policing in schools.

News: Dharma Sena divides teachers. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: While the government has come up with new measures to spruce up moral values of school students, a majority of teachers fear that the initiative may lead to a 'licensed' group of moral police.
TNN | Jun 14, 2012, 10.45AM IST


 

The curse of Kerala is teachers not becoming education ministers, doctors not health ministers and engineers not public works ministers. Political parties do not prefer educated professionals to become party members, contest in elections and represent party in the state cabinets. As long as it does not happen, Taliban-inspired state ministers will, according to their religious agenda, try to bring about moral policing in schools and colleges. Is this state minister bold and committed enough to allow police enter campuses when law and order of this country is challenged there? A few anti-social elements are born with the inherent tendency to harass, intimidate and exploit students who are peacefully learning in the educational centres in the state, expose these sacred institutions to betrayal, hatred and violence and prepare way for terrorists to come and go freely in these sacred establishments of society. This decision by the state educational authorities is plainly religion-inspired and harm-motivated to constitute moral police wings in schools and colleges. When every other way to facilitate terrorist organizations’ tricks to invade Kerala were closed by the brilliant officers of Kerala Police and National Security Agencies, they came up with another plan to make the same thing possible by influencing and ordering politicians in their payroll to create administrative support for this idea. If properly inquired into, it can be proved that this idea was discussed and hatched in religious institutions. In Afghanistan 150 girl students were recently poisoned through drinking water by Taliban to prevent girls from getting educated. Here in Kerala also the same objective is aimed to be achieved by making campuses hell for decent and obedient students and girls can thereby be ordered to not go there. There are people behind this move who have perfect training to disrupt the tranquillity in Kerala’s social life. A few years back, there was this Arabi Nikkahu when the Arabis came to Kerala, gave money to poor parents who could not send away their daughters in marriage, married those little girls and spoiled them and when the Arabis had to go back after a few weeks, simply deserted them. It was safe prostitution disguised as marriage. When consciousness of Kerala roused against this, it stopped. Then came the Love Jihad from the same quarters when Hindu and Christian girls were systematically captivated by trained young men, given a child and abandoned in the expectation that such children born out of wedlock would be rebellious enough to join the ranks of terrorists when they grow up. Literate Kerala exposed this and police intervened in many places and it lost its speed. Then came the Moral Policing which was another word for blackmailed prostitution. When it was duly exposed it also waned. Now this state minister publicly approves the rightness of moral policing even in schools! Whom does he represent?

 

This is clear indication of the education department being run by the nervously broken down. It is strange to note that moral policing factions, who had been looking into the cultural, political and marital activities of people in the northern districts of Kerala, never looked into the most prominent feature of the social and political life in Kerala-corruption. Never once did they block a single government official or politician who is notoriously noted for corruption. They centred on man-woman relations in targeted families where they liked to see some kind of immorality which they could not make use of directly by blackmail. So they turned to moral policing, in strict imitation of the abhorrent Skimmetty Rides described in Thomas Hardy’s novels. This makes clear the source and inspiration for this wave of moral policing-bribery and corruption gangs that wanted to divert people’s attention away. And money offered by anti-national elements for causing disruption in social life was an added bonus. Corruption is the only field where some kind of policing is needed and no state minister in Kerala has ever come forward with a genuine formula, invention or scheme for blocking corruption. How can one deny one’s roots and lifeblood? If cricket bats and hockey sticks are going to the law enforcement tools for moral policing, what if acid bulbs and gas canisters are used by defenders? Taliban says they are moral police. Does the state education minister of Kerala who publicly support moral policing in schools deny that moral policing is Talibanism or Talibanism is moral policing in disguise? If police can’t curb social crimes using the national civil code and the criminal procedure code, or if the police force of the state has become too much of a hindrance and obstacle to law breakers, is it not legalizing moral policing in schools creating parallel policing, fulfillment of the long cherished dream of religious fanatics and outside-the-nation-terrorists? Political parties in Kerala have been doing this moral policing through their goon gangs the last of which was conducted at Onchium village in North Kerala, resulting in the manslaughter of a rebel communist party leader. In whatever name moral policing is called, it is violation of criminal procedure code, something to be booked under. No one has the right to teach others what is right and what is wrong, unless he violates something that is proved as violation by a constitutional body and also no one has the right to monitor a student or a teacher or a parent unless warranted by an act of suspected crime. Privacy of neither a child nor a grown up man shall not be violated by hr new goons. Even cabinet ministers, parliament members, diplomats and Supreme Court judges are charged with sexual harassment, seduction and rape. Who are these clean people of Kerala the education minister and education department are going to constitute the Moral Police Force or Dharma Sena or whatever it is called, with?

 

Students and parents policing in schools, substituting state police is absurd which would lead only to lawlessness in schools and later in society. This idea ought to have been nipped in the bud. Instead, it was given official support. Educational authorities who want to stamp their marks on something they can claim was introduced during their reign are diverting students’ and parents’ attention away from learning. Instead of caring his own son and daughter why should a parent look into the affairs of another man’s son and daughter? If each parent looks into and watches the activities of his son and daughter, no policing would not at all be needed in schools. So this Kerala Education Department’s decision to introduce moral policing in schools is a stunt, aimed at pleasing the frustrated mullahs and clergymen who want to let loose their goons in schools also. It is a church and mosque-originated idea, aimed at creating turmoil in schools and preparing way for infiltration of terrorist groups into academic centres. Today or tomorrow, these parent and student goons joining school police would eventually find their way to the recruiting centres of religious fanatics and terrorists. Who is qualified to police another’s morals? Where there is moral violation resulting in immoral conduct, there are Indian laws to curb them. Need or demand for moral policing is a sign of police failure in the country. Let us take the example of the professional courses in colleges which are now admitted into after receiving huge amounts as capitation fees and donation which means the admitted students will have money and would want to do a little flirting or even rape in the campus. Because they paid money to the management, the principals would fear to report their crimes in the campus to the police, fearing that reporting such incidents would displease the management who in their turn fear that rich students would not again be attracted to their colleges. It is rich students who bring the much sought after revenue, not poor obedient scholars. Rich parents know that venting the excessive sexual fascinations of their sons and daughters through normal channels available in college is good for them even at the cost of the chastity and lives of poor students in the name of ragging. They prefer not to have police interference so they influence and order ministers in cabinet to come up with this idea of introducing moral policing in campus, knowing in advance that it would be them, having contributed much, who would be the members of this moral police force. Moreover, the argument that ‘we have already introduced self-policing in colleges’ would somewhat weaken the aggressive opposition against ragging. This is just the trick of immensely rich parents and money hungry managements to evade police interference when incidents of ragging and rapes occur in colleges. The state’s educational authorities are only their slaves, paid for the work done.

016. Why doesn't the district collector look after his Trivandrum collectorate?

Why doesn't the district collector look after his Trivandrum collectorate?



News: Special squad to crack down on illegal abattoirs. The Trivandrum corporation has decided to depute special squads in all the health circles
in the wake of district administration resorting to section 144 to crack down the illicit slaughter houses in the city.
TNN | Jun 11, 2012, 12.56PM IST

The district collector of Trivandrum has no time to look after the affairs of his office which is Collectorate of Trivandrum. He is very busy meddling in the affairs of other department offices in his district. The Collectorate receives thousands and thousands of grievance petitions from the people of the district each month and there is no collector there to look into these papers. It is for doing the administration of the Collectorate and redressal of grievances expressed in complaints submitted to his office that he is being paid salary by the revenue administration of Kerala. He will not even reply to or take action on the numerous complaints sent to his office by post or online in his official email address affixed by the Government of Kerala. One of the main subjects of these complaints is the bulldozer and soil and land mafia of Trivandrum district removing soil from poor people’s land and endangering their homes. Persons with a hovel on just two or three cents of land make these complaints, expecting making a complaint to the collector would bring immediate action. Instead, the news is leaked to the mafia who retaliate by bulldozing away the house itself. When complains on this subject exceeded hundreds in numbers, Malayalam newspapers began to publish stories of people who have lost their homes due to the atrocities of this mafia. Even then this district collector took no move to declare emergency and seize these bulldozers and tipper lorries. He certainly has read stories of cars in which raiding IAS and IPS officers travelled being crashed by land mafia in Indian states and these officers killed. There have been numerous such cases caused by the sand mafia reported in Kerala also. So naturally any IAS officer who has a family, wife and children would fear to interfere, IAS or not. But here, when the railway at Trivandrum needed soil for construction of a platform at Kochuveli, they engaged soil contractors who in their turn contacted the city corporation, intimating their willingness to accept a few truck loads of city waste as filler for the platform construction. When trucks began to arrive, the natives of Kochuveli objected to their unloading, fearing heavy pollution as the place is sea reclamation. The collector became furious and declared Emergency situation in Trivandrum for one month upon which the protesting natives were drove away. He said, it is being declared as an anti-measure for dengue which is spreading in the city. It is not the first time that dengue is spreading in Trivandrum. As long as he is not bold enough to remove the thousands of dogs from the city streets, dengue will continue and reappear. Even when dozens of people died in Trivandrum from dengue, no emergency situation was declared. When soil, land and bulldozer mafia came close to loosing a few rupees, he intervened and even declared emergency situation in a capital city, in the name of fighting mosquitoes! Where in India has such a thing happened before?

News: No more garbage trucks to Kochuveli, says mayor. Thiruvananthapuram: Defying the district administration, the city corporation has decided not to send garbage-laden trucks to Kochuveli from Thursday.
TNN | Jun 14, 2012, 10.22AM IST

When contagious diseases break out in Trivandrum city and in the district, there is the health department there who can contain the disease from spreading and treat efficiently those afflicted with the diseases. They have knowledgeable doctors, efficient nurses and paramedical staff and a whole fleet of trained health inspectors. In the past when dengue and chikungunya spread in the district they handled it well, without declaration of any emergency or section 144. Now there was no human death which was due to their timely intervention. Do not anyone with semi-knowledge meddle in their routine work. The district administration found it is their work but they are not trained in this kind of specialized work. Leave it to the doctors. Even after learning that it is dogs with the help of mosquitoes spreading these diseases, the district administration did not do a thing to remove these dogs from the streets and homes which are serving as animal reservoir hosts to these Arboviral infections. They do their duty and leave the rest to the doctors. Viruses responsible for Zoonosis diseases complete their life cycle not in the body of mosquitoes but in the body of ticks which reside in plenty in animal bodies. How can a poorly educated and partially intelligent man lead a district administration if he does not know even these rudimentary facts of science? He is, like Don Quixote, fighting mosquitoes by declaring emergency under section 144 which is unheard of before in the world. How can ticks live on the body of something smaller than them like the mosquitoes? That is why they live on the large body of dogs and, if available, monkeys. It is easy to contain this disease by removing the host animal than killing all the mosquitoes which is impossible. If one does not know, one should learn if he is the first person in the world to beat mosquito community with section 144 because ignorance is pardonable but negligence is punishable. Instead of asking medical professionals about these things, the district administration discovered that the street vendors and slaughter houses of Trivandrum are the sources for the outbreak of these diseases. Also the administration found out that the waste heaps in the city are the responsible. Man, they only breed mosquitoes, the mosquitoes infect ticks with the viruses, the dogs carry these ticks and get infected, and when they are bitten, the mosquitoes get back an adult virus to infect the man with. It is not section 144 that is needed to contain dengue and chikungunya but wise application of pest control act. But those who keep dogs in their homes will never confess to the role of dogs in spreading these diseases because if they do, their house kitchen and bedroom will declare lock out. Which authority from the World Health Organization to the local District Administration does not keep dogs in their houses for the amusement of their wives and daughters?

015. The state organizers of National Rural Health Mission live like kings.

The state organizers of National Rural Health Mission live like kings.

News: NRHM scam: CBI raids residential premises of ex-UP health minister. New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday carried out searches at the residential premises of former Uttar Pradesh health minister Anant Mishra in Lucknow and Kanpur in connection with National Rural Health Mission scam (NRHM).
TNN | Jun 2, 2012, 10.24AM IST


 

The state organizers of National Rural Health Mission live like kings with the money allotted from central government funds. It is widely believed that Accountant General’s branches in the states are not allowed to look into their accounts. We shall take the particular example of Kerala which has the highest rates of literacy and health standards. When this scheme was introduced, the initial amounts allotted were utilized not for creating infrastructures in villages but for purchasing scores of costly cars for the officers to travel. They were all air-conditioned cars. Why were non-a/c Maruti 800 cars not purchased? The first directive to have come from central government ought to have been limiting only one car to each district and limiting the purchasing price of one car to 3 lakhs rupees. Costly cars purchased should immediately be sold in auction and replaced with Maruti 800s. This would bring millions back for being diverted to the rural areas. Then the spree was for purchasing buildings. The health services departments in all Indian states have enough buildings and space in the districts and in the headquarters to house NRHM offices. It is also transparent to operate this scheme from health services premises. Why did government allow this spend thrift scheme to operate outside the main stream? Was it not to allow a new generation of officers to have enough freedom for corruption? The organizing and operating of the scheme should have been from the government secretariats. Every building taken by NRHM pays exorbitant rents and every building purchased cost far higher than market rates. Crores of rupees were pocketed by state organizers on this account. Does the government of India have this much money to spare? Is it not people’s money? Every building purchase and rental by NRHM officers should be investigated and illegally made money brought back to public exchequer. Now it has become something lucrative to be posted as an NRHM officer, just like postings to key check posts of the sales tax department. If the salaries the officers draw are looked into, we will not believe that they are serving the poor government of India. Each decides his own salary which is unbelievably higher than what are paid in equivalent posts in the state health services. Some argue that unless paid salaries commensurate with corporate standards, bright officers would not be available to lead NRHM. Why should we pay corporate salaries to a bunch corrupt to the core? There are brighter candidates to replace them at the state health department level salaries, at least in Kerala. Purchase of luxury cars, purchase and rental of buildings at exorbitant prices and rates and self-fixation and drawal of inconceivably high salaries in all states must be immediately investigated by the government of India and the state branches of the Accountant General assigned the charge of conducting their audits.

014. Do not make simple domestic disagreements lucrative court litigation.

Do not make simple domestic disagreements lucrative court litigation.

News: Housewives' pay: Court throws ball in government's court. Discretionary power to grant monthly allowance to housewives is part of the state government's freedom in framing policies, the Kerala high court has ruled.
TNN | May 23, 2012, 05.33AM IST.


 

Payment to housewives from the husband for the jobs she is doing in the house to run the family is unethical. If it had been actually needed and could have been made possible without affecting the integrity of the society, mankind would have instigated it in the far distant past itself. Do not anyone think that 20000 generations in the past did not ever think about this and that those who think about this now are the first in this planet to tell this. Human society developed, based on the division of labour. Hunting was the job of the males and agriculture, animal husbandry and house administration were the responsibility of the women. The first was the kind of work in which people most often died and that was why it was the job of the males, because if the woman could be saved, mankind would continue. That was their logic. History tells us that the works assigned to the women were comparatively light and less risky. The males did protect their women. Many ignorant people, including our new generation law makers and a few parliamentarians, think that women were never allowed to rule society. They never have read any history, not even the history of the evolution of law. For thousands and thousands of years, it was the rule of the mother in the world which we call matriarchy. Patriarchy was just brief and intermittent and only during the times of major crises. It is because of this kind of tender caring that the world’s women did not grow up mostly as Amazons. The man-woman bond is sacred and divine and it is perhaps the only thing human, which cannot be measured in terms of coins. They do not serve each other but supplement each other. By monetizing women’s works in the house, family and society, our illiterate law makers are laying axe to the very roots of human society. The advocates just would think about it as a great new source of lucrative litigation. Just like simple domestic disagreements are now made into psychiatric hospitalizations, greedy lawyers, lazy woman liberators and wicked politicians are going to turn sacred household relations into fierce courtroom battles. If there is at least one sane person in government, this shall not be allowed. Uttar Pradesh and Goa are bad examples. We have before us the condemned example of women bus travellers after a half-baked litigation without proper medical support of decades. When bus accidents occur, men decided to die and save their women and children by seating them on the back seats so that the family may survive. In direct collisions, the impact of glass and steel would be fatal most on the men who sit in the front seats. This arrangement also prevented drivers from getting their attention diverted. Then one day some pig brained woman litigator discovered that the womb of the women bus travellers is getting shaken with the jolting of the buses. With lightning speed judiciary interfered and we all know what happened next. Proven stamina of women to travel standing was not even considered.

013. Forest department has no right to restrict pilgrims to Agasthyar Koodam.

Forest department has no right to restrict pilgrims to Agasthyar Koodam.

News: Forest department to restrict off-season trek to Agastyakoodam.Kerala Forest Department is planning to restrict the entry of off-season tourists to Agastyakoodam to not more than 50 people at one go and that too, only for two or three days a week.
TNN | May 3, 2012, 06.29AM IST


 

Firstly, it is not Agasthyakoodam but ‘Agasthyar Koodam’, the ‘r’ usually used to denote respect for a name in the South Indian dialects. The Kerala Forest Department has no right to restrict entry of visitors to Agasthyakoodam, the Pilgrims’ Peak in the Southern Sahyadri Ranges. They shall not restrict access to people, whether it is season or off-season. They are bound to provide visitors resting, eating and staying facilities for which they can consider revising the rates of fees for admission. One should visit this place regularly and learn to respect the peacefulness, cleanliness and loftiness of our nature. We know that many visitors from these trips return awed and inspired by nature’s care and majesty. It is people’s presence in sacred places like these that guarantees the preservation and continuance of delicately balanced ecological structures. It is people’s interference that has successfully prevented many nature’s preserves from being over-exploited by timber and mining industries. The Forest Department cannot be taken into confidence in this matter. A few years back, we flagged off an adventure trip by a Quilon-based Nature and Adventure Club which took the route from Shankhily- Vencollah to Ponmudi and the entire route was video graphed. A few years after, when another such trip was undertaken, the new videos showed that many huge trees seen standing on the wayside in the first video graph were not to be seen there in the second. They were bulldozed and removed in Lorries which could not have been undertaken without the help of Forest Department Officials. Had people not travelled in this route and filmed whatever was there on the way two times, nothing would have come out. The same situation applies to Agasthyar Koodam also. The Department restricts photographing the area, for fear of over exposure to the rare and rich plant life there. Why does the Department prohibit photography? What have them to hide from people and from the world? It is the vigil of ordinary people that prevents major looting of tree wood and medicinal plants in rare Biodiversity Hotspots. The dormitory in question in Agasthyar Koodam has been left in ruins for so many years by the Forest Department. Its condition is antihuman. Regarding the accumulation of discarded plastic in this route, it should be noted that practically no plastic waste is generated during the proper pilgrimage season when hundreds of visitors travel the route. It is because, as against in the past, the Department now provides food including idli, dosai, poori, chappathi and porridge at three places, i.e. at Bonakkadu, Athirumala and one place in between, so that pilgrims won’t need to transport food and plastic to carry them in. Therefore now there is no question of cooking food on the way with firewood, resulting in forest fires. The Department also provides night shelters two times on the way to and fro, thereby eliminating the need for making fires during night to escape from cold.


 

The food given to Agasthyar Koodam pilgrims by Forests Department is made available through the various Eco Development Committees formed including the local Aborigines living in the nearby settlements. Everywhere in Kerala the services of these EDCs is admirable, for they generate employment for the locals who successfully prevent local pilfering and poaching. Employing local girls as this kind of forest watchers is actually the only praisable thing the Forest Department of Kerala did recently. It is the trekkers who generate waste and destroy the forest, not the pilgrims. The pilgrims, who go each year, have learned to behave themselves, and many of them usually collect plastic waste which they bring back to authorities. The right policy to be adopted by the Forests Department is to allow visitors only during the pilgrimage season and do with allowing trekking in large groups. Agasthyar was a great saint of many divine faculties and it is believed that Sri Rama, the incarnation of Lord Vishnu, on his return journey from Lanka after defeating Ravana went to Agasthyr’s abode in this peak and begged to accept him as a student. As such, in Hindu ascetic practise, Agasthyar’s peak is forbidden to womenfolk and every person in Kerala and Tamil Nadu observes this practice. So, if the reports that many Hindu Madames going to the place after illegally obtaining permission from topmost Forest Officials is true, those persons should immediately be sent away from their chairs, even if it the Forests Minister of Kerala or the Forests Secretary. It is an unpardonable violation of ethics. The Wild Life Warden of Trivandrum complains about large scale movement within his forest area. It cannot be helped. It is a renowned Hindu Pilgrimage Peak. Can we restrict people going to Sabarimala, Malayattoor or Mecca? We can only manage people to cause the least damage. Agasthyar Koodam area is not unpopulated. Nor can we move people out like we did in the Kerala- Karnataka border reserves. This place has numerous settlements of aborigines. They live even up to Kunnattherri, the very heart of this silent land. The greatest thrill and reverence to Agasthyar Muni is climbing this peak from the Eastern side from the Tamil Nadu part which is very risky. So the desiring devotees wear a saffron dhoti and climb the peak from the eastern side, posing as a Hindu saint. The local aborigines, or Adivasis in the local dialect, alone dare doing this. How can and why should one prevent them from doing this act which is part of their religion? Can we dare say that people who go to sacred Hajj shall not stone the Ka Aba? What rights have us to interfere in age-old customs of religious people? We can only tolerate and prepare ourselves for meeting it. Forest Department or No Forest Department, Bio Diversity Zone or No Bio Diversity Zone, no one can prevent Agasthyar Koodam becoming a great pilgrimage centre in South India in the future.

012. Why this many ministers in the Kerala cabinet?

Why this many ministers in the Kerala cabinet?

News: UDF ministry expanded, IUML gets 5th berth.
The Congress-led UDF ministry led by Oommen Chandy in Kerala was expanded today with the induction of Manjalamkuzhi Ali of the Indian Union Muslim League and Anoop Jacob (KC-J), raising its strength to 21.
PTI | Apr 12, 2012, 11.36AM IST


 

A small state in India with just 140 members in their legislative assembly but with 21 members in their cabinet! If we travel in a fast car from the south to the north of Kerala, before it is seven hours, Kerala is over. When we travel in a fast train Andhra Pradesh will take about a day to cross. So, to run a small state like Kerala, why should there be an unnecessary 21 members in the cabinet of their ministry of their government? What an inexcusable waste of state resources! For several years the state ministers of Kerala have been boasting about fully computerizing the departments under their administrations, resulting in reduction in staff. If the finance ministers of the state are to be believed, not less than 500 crores have already been spent on computerizing top government offices in the capital city alone during the years. If what the so-called technical experts in the state bureaucracy say can be believed, one single chief minister can run the affairs of the entire state with a limited staff. Looked anyway, the state today, ought to have been run by 5 ministers. 15 ministers are in excess, just there to eat into public treasury. When computerization progresses in government, considerable number of staff are shed away, terminated from service or redeployed elsewhere. By the same logic, why are not the number of ministers in the cabinet reduced proportionately? More ministers means more state expenditure on account of their and their staff’s salaries, allowances, tour and medical expenses, escort, housing and pension, all for doing no job except inaugurating multi-crore private establishments all over Kerala everyday, at people’s expenses. They may say that it is part of the public relations of government. But for maintaining public relations, there is a paid full department in the government. Every movement, word, gestures and decisions of the ministers, including their clandestine relationships and involvements with inappropriate people, are reported the instant verbatim by the news papers and television channels. Also they can public relate directly from their offices through their computers. What do they travel during office hours for, instead of staying in their offices from 10 to 5? If we examine the travels made by these ministers during the past five years, we shall see that 99.99 percent of them were totally unnecessary, i.e. for the people of Kerala. They spent billions of state revenue for their popularity as if it is their privilege they should enjoy for the tiresome job of governing us. Kerala State is waiting for a fair chief minister who swears in with the right five ministers.

011. Why Trivandrum Observatory does not have new learners?

011. Why Trivandrum Observatory does not have new learners?

News: Kerala University to honour founder director of observatory. The Kerala University will hold a commemorative meeting to honour the memory of John Caldecott, founder director of the Trivandrum Observatory established in 1837 by the then Travancore king Swathi Thirunal.
TNN | Apr 1, 2012, 11.17AM IST


 

The Trivandrum Observatory started by the Travancore king Swathi Thirunal in 1837 is one of the earliest observatories in India. As Swathi Thirunal himself was a gifted poet, musician and art lover, he encouraged the talented. So this Observatory which is situated at a lovely prime spot in Trivandrum city flourished. The lenses needed for this Observatory were grinded here itself and this installation provided excellent sky observation and space learning facilities for the young and old and the learned and the beginner in Trivandrum for decades. When Kings ruled Travancore, they cared well for this observatory. They were well aware of what they were doing. As years passed and as the number of unruly youths in Trivandrum increased, lesser and lesser number of young men came to this observatory for learning. Lonely sky watching does not provide them with the thrills of day light flirting. Gradually this fine observatory came to be frequented only by the old admirers of this establishment and no new generations developed there to continue their tradition or skills. Another unfortunate incident also occurred. When one of the previous Travancore Maharajas passed away, the administration of this installation fell into the hands of some kind of people’s committee constituted with unlearned and uncouth individuals. The Observatory no more was extended with the fine and tender care of the kings who loved and admired these kinds of things. When the Planetarium at the P.M.G. Junction came into being, the Royal Observatory was pushed into the rear. It needs loyalty and dedication to restore the proudness and excellence of this Observatory. The University of Kerala is doing one of the great things it can do by honouring the memory of the founder directory of this observatory, John Caldecott, and remembering the invaluable services of our dedicated and committed previous administrators.