Good show at the Baltic Sea Competition

On the auspices of the UNESCO Philosophy Day (19th Nov), Finland organizes a Philosophy competition for countries around the baltic sea. Since 2008, India also sent entries to this competition. Students are supposed to write an essay on 1 out of 4 topics given in a supervised span of 2 hours. The local organizer is then supposed to select 2 of the best essays and send them across to the Finnish organizers, who then go throug ha rigorous process of filtering the essays, quite similar to the International Philosophy Olympiad and declare the medals. Those who miss the medal by a very short difference are given an Honorable Mention. The result for this year has been good for India with Chitra Adkar (SYJC Ramnarain Ruia College, Matunga) getting Bronze and Prathamesh Kubal (SYJC, Abhinav Vidyalay & Jr. College, Dombivli) getting the Honorable Mention. Details will be shortly put up on the organizers web sites.

The topics for essay this year were:
1. ”The misfortune of a republic is when intrigues are at an end; which happens when the people are gained by bribery and corruption: in this case they grow indifferent to public affairs, and avarice becomes their predominant passion. Unconcerned about the government and everything belonging to it, they quietly wait for their hire.”  - MONTESQUIE, The Spirit of the Laws, 1748
2. "Some people have thought that it is never possible for us to do anything different from what we actually do, in this absolute sense. They acknowledge that what we do depends on our choices, decisions, and wants, and that we make different choices in different circumstances: we are not like the earth rotating on its axis with monotonous regularity. But the claim is that, in each case, the circumstances that exist before we act determine our actions and make them inevitable. The sum total of a person's experiences, desires and knowledge, his hereditary constitution, the social circumstances and the nature of the choice facing him, together with other factors that we may not know about, all combine to make a particular action in the circumstances inevitable." - (Thomas Nagel, "What does it all mean?", 1987)
3. "Knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect, for nature is only subdued by submission, and that which is contemplative philosophy corresponds with the cause in practical science becomes a rule." (Francis Bacon, "Novum Organum", 1620)
4. "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of." (Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 1670)

Online Lectures for G3

We are testing the possibility of having online lectures & study sessions for an entire class or a small group of students, sitting at home or in the cyber cafe, using a PC with a speaker and a decent internet connection. the teacher uses instant messenger or chat rooms to voice communicate with the students at a pre-decided time and sometimes (for smaller groups) uses advanced web-conferencing tools. So far the trials have been partly successful.
To get details of how to use these technologies, visit our web site.

International Philosophy Olympiad 2008

Hi all,

I am very happy to announce to the Abhinav family that two girls from our school represented India in the Int'l Philosophy Olympiad held at Iasi, Romania between 18th & 22nd May 2008 and that contrary to everyone's expectations, they performed exceedingly well. The overall result was that Vallari Sawant (XI, presently at St. Xavier's College) stood 14th missing the bronze medal by just 0.1 mark, and secured a Honorable Mention for her talent, while Chitra Adkar (X) secured a special award by ranking 23rd from amongst almost 60-odd students from about 24 countries.

I must say that this is a incredible achievement for these girls since this is the first time India has participated in this Olympiad organized by the Federation of International Philosophical Societies which runs under the aegis of UNESCO. This was the 16th year of the Olympiad which primarily is a test of talent for high school students in the field of philosophy. What is more interesting is that the 4 hour essay that the students have to write on one the four given topics (quotes by different philosophers) is based entirely on European philosophy and thus our students had had no formal training in the subject.

I had selected these students after circulating the information to some nearby schools and educators in the month of December. As it is the first time I was organizing this, it was not possible to include a larger group in the selection process. Then we had some long and some very long sessions (as all my students are used to) discussing various aspects in Ethics, Metaphysics, Aesthetics or Praxeology. Ultimately around March we began discussing the Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of the Mind. The girls and I discussed quite a few essays and read a lot of books and papers/articles over this period. At the Essay round of the Olympiad, Vallari got a topic from her favorite area - "Is the Person identical with the Body?" - while Chitra got her favorite subject of Political ethics to do with Ludwig Von Mises's quote about Freedom and Tolerance.

Our participation was quite unsure up to the last moment due to Visa hold-ups, but cooperation from the Romanian Ministry of Youth & Culture was of great help in this process. The journey was an adventure to all the three of us - the girls had many a thing to learn about the cultures and lifestyles, while I had quite a few insights into the way western philosophers thought, particularly as I am a layman to philosophy. (I used to tell everybody that since I am an Astronomer, my philosophy is out there) We all made some good friends and exchanged a lot of thoughts about our culture and theirs. Most of the countries being European, (except for Korea & Japan) they were very inquisitive about our culture and thoughts. The theme of this years event was "Philosophy: A space for inter-cultural dialog" and as such every country's delegation was very happy to receive the delegates from the land of a billion, the land of Swami Vivekananda and Gandhi and the land of the most ancient of philosophies.

And now for the lighter side ... as is usual there were quite a few "inter-cultural" mishaps. On a tour to a nearby monastery we were shown some large bells on a tower and one of the group mimicked ringing the bell. Taking cue from this I actually gave a loud jolt to the largest bell there was and then there was a huge clang and then a huge silence ... all the monks, all the workers there were and all my group members were shocked and angered by this act. The only way i escaped the impending punishment was when I explained to them that in Indian temples, bells are meant to be rung to invoke the Deity and thus i only acted according to my culture. Another incident was during the opening ceremony when everybody was invited to dance the typical Romanian dance where everyone goes dancing around a circle while a couple comes forward and does some special steps for the duration of one chord. It happened to be my turn to perform something with my partner and not knowing "any" steps I simply broke into a Koli dance 'Aamir Khan isthyle' and all the people shocked at first eventually enjoyed. The similar thing happened when at the closing ceremony, some of the organizers started doing the same dance, some of the Greek students barged in and hijacked the floor transforming the Romanian steps into Zorba's dance - goes slow in the beginning and then rises to a very fast beat. This eventually was transformed into a Russian folk dance by one of the very talented Russian students and things went on from there.

We actually lived "Multi-culturalism" for the seven days of the Olympiad. Please look-up the photos from the slide-show I have put up on Picassa.

Thus apart from the DVD-players & the I-pods that the girls got as a prize, and of course the certificates showcasing their talent to discuss deep issues of philosophy, the girls also got a once-in-a-lifetime lesson about being a global citizen. That confidence that each of them gained and the awareness that freedom comes only with tolerance of the other persons ideas, was I think, equivalent to a Gold Medal.

This is but a beginning of my meddling with Philosophy. I intend to have more of our students and more students from around Mumbai (eventually India) thinking ... thinking about the various issues that affect their lives and the various problems that plague the world; thinking about the essence of life and meaning of meaning; thinking about the use of ideas and also about the use of thinking ...

Abhinav Photographer 2007

Pictures from the Abhinav Photographer competition during Stimulus 2007. Students of the final round were asked to photograph the given spacecraft paper-models in the best possible manner.

Stimulus 2006

This is a test entry to welcome the XI std students of 2007.
These students probably never knew how to blog.....so here it goes

Back to a Summer School

Hello everybody,

I had promised people that I would put up the National Science Day movies & pics on the net, but since the 28th Feb celebrations, things have been running at a hectic pace. Many decisions to be taken regarding the coming academic year and the ongoing exams took all of my time. Besides I have to prepare for the next National Astronomy Olympiad scheduled to happen in May. So all you 9th & 11th Std students will have to wait a while longer...

In fact some of you could help me make a proper video out of the 30-odd min film I took at the NSD. This could be a good summer activity.

So here we are with the summer vacations and the Summer School 2007. If the prospect of being at school the whole of April sounds too boring to you, do check out the plans this year. I am sure something or the other might interest you. For the uninitiated the SS 2007 is an activity where students of secondary & higher secondary participate in various research & work experience projects for about 20 days under the guidance of someone from the school or an expert from outside. Basically its objectives are three-fold:

1. To allow students to try their hands at real life jobs so as to be able to check out possible career options
2. To distract the staff from regular drudgery and allow them to try teaching new courses, so as to polish the skills they had learnt a while ago but never had a chance to use.
3. To be a test-bench for various ideas which could be later employed in regular schooling under the aegis of our Activity-Based Learning Program

So here's your chance to do something useful and interesting this summer. Hope to see you on Tuesday the 3rd of April to finalize enrollment. The Summer School begins on the 5th.

Stimulus 2006 - A Festival of Learning

Hi all,
Last three weeks of December were full of hectic activity, with almost all of the 1500 students of this school and about 100 students from outside and all 70-odd staff, working and enjoying what Abhinav has come to learn as Stimulus. It is the joy of playing games – old and traditional as well as new and exciting. It is the confidence that you are capable of learning something new and putting it across to any person – old or young, learned or simple. It is the feeling of nostalgia which sets in when you see all your friends and colleagues merrily working together unmindful of any tensions – hunger or thirst, studies or exams, success or failure … It is the satisfaction of having done things well and having got a pat-on-the-back for it. It is the pride of having done things differently and having explored your creativity. It is the awareness of the world around you in more ways than one. It is learning that you are able to think, able to act and thus able to live a happy & successful life.
There were tiny tots and young lads & lasses, preparing to sing and dance for their cultural event during the school day. Then there were exasperated parents running after them making sure that they looked good and that they ate well, for they had forgotten the world around them. There were teachers scurrying about with their plans and charts, marking the students & conducting events. And then there were the young men and women of G3 struggling with their computer skills to get their posters & videos right. Some were creative artists in that they compiled professional looking documentaries while some were business-minded professionals making sure that their entire 15-odd slide presentation fits in 2 minutes, for that was the time for which they could expect to hold sway over the audience. The audience of the exhibitions was a huge 3000 strong – mostly school children of all ages – excited and eager to learn, chatty & witty enough to quiz and confuse their friends who presented the exhibits.

What began with seminars and non-working days (to work on the projects) for G3 and sports for the G0 to G2, went through at break-neck speed with the school day, the public exhibitions, the inter-school & inter-college competitions and the G3 sports. The culmination was the G3 camp. This year standard VIII went in for a night-out for the first time, while standard XI enjoyed full two days camping. IX was out for about 4 days.
Seminars were on Defense related careers by professionals from the Naval Materials Research Lab on one hand and defence educators like Major Subhash Gawand & Colonel Chandrashekhar Ranade on the other. Keynote address by Mrs. Kavita Gadgil (m/o Flt. Lt. Abhijit Gadgil who died in a MiG crash leading to his mother taking on the Air Force establishment) was an inspiring moment for all.
Sports were as usual colorful with lots of exuberant faces shouting and howling and a lot of springy bodies jumping around. The obstacle marathon was the high-point of the event. With mental and physical hurdles to overcome the teams learnt how to stay together, how to strategize & how to support each other through the tasks.
The Defense Forces theme of Stimulus this year was a hit with the students. The projects ranging from marching tunes and badges and uniforms of the armed forces to the art of maneuvers in battles and espionage were captivating to the visitors. The Police Weapons exhibition was a brilliant demonstration of police techniques and instruments - the best part was when the students were asked to hold the AK-47’s and revolvers. The robotics people TRI showed five gizmos squirming around, while the Army and Navy PRO’s discussed career options with eager parents of teenagers. The HBCSE “Yes You Can Do It!!!” was as usual a hit with youngsters who could see science in action in their own hands.
The Abhinav Stars competition was a unique blend of intellect and wit on stage and many bright students fought hard to get through the grueling selection only to be called the Abhinav Scientist or the Abhinav Photographer amongst other titles. The high point came with the finale of the Quiz & Debate where excitement knew no bounds. The 400-strong audience seemed to know more than the tense teams competing on stage.
Camping was fun as usual…being with Nature, peaceful & without worries … oh! only the kids to take care of, though. It was a 6 day workout with the college and then the 8th & 9th students coming in to stay at the base of Matheran. Morning warm ups, flag-hoisting & drills as usual, knots & pioneering, pitching tents and learning to survive was exhausting for the students. Star-gazing in the night and movies with endless discussions about the characters are the hallmark of camping a la Abhinav. Students had to do their chores and had to take punishments for not keeping up to the discipline of the camp. But all pain was washed off in the river when we all literally chilled out once every day.
Overall the Stimulus was invigorating for one and all. I am sure it has stimulated a lot of young minds to think differently about the world around them; to observe and to analyze and then to form opinions; to feel and empathize and hence to make judgments. The theme – Defense Forces – must have motivated many a young man and many a young woman to serve the motherland with full zeal and passion. I hope I have made the difference…

Your World ... An Astronomical Insight

Shruti Iyer (Std X) & Chitra Adkar (Std IX)

How will our universe end? Why can’t we communicate with our fellow extraterrestrials if a Hritik Roshan can befriend Jadoo in Koi Mil Gaya? Our textbooks fabulously elaborate on the enormity of our universe yet such questions remain unanswered.
I wish I could wind back time and take you to the Abhinav premises in the first week of November and you would have seen 8, tired, weary faces, dripping with perspiration, yet displaying the vigour to answer such questions with graphs, equations and logical explanation . These 8 faces belonged to some of the most adorable places of India like Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar, Pune Delhi, Allahbad etc. and were representing India in the 11th international astronomy Olympiads which was hosted this year by leading scientific institutions like BARC, TIFR and HBCSE wherein more than 20 countries had been participating. The jury for the Indian team was Mr. Kedar Soni (Astronomer and Director of Abhinav Vidyalay and Jr. College) supported by Mr. Abhay Deshpande (Amateur astronomer and Physicist) as the Mentor; who conducted the rigorous training of solving problems, lectures, night sky observations for the team in the pre departure camp at Abhinav Vidyalay. The Indian magic worked bearing victorious results of five gold medals, three special golds, and one silver and 1 bronze.
Although the legend of Olympiads back into the 60s, the astronomy Olympiads were initiated in 1996 at Russia by Dr. Michael G.Gavrilov. Astronomy as a career has been given profound importance in the twenty-first century however the layman’s outlook to the subject has not undergone a significant change. Astronomy still remains as a fanciful fairytale consisting of supernatural astronauts, alien rivals in addition to hi-tech gadgets and rigorous action. The fact to be ridiculed is that many people still confuse astronomy with astrology or defy the subject as mere study of planets and their moons. The earth may seem too vast for a common folk, but through an astronomer’s eyes the world starts beyond our skies. Same goes the motto of the astronomy Olympiads which is a platform for the global teen sensation to demonstrate their extraordinary skills & get their hands on some of the physics and mathematics of pure sciences.

A total of 120 participants including eighty students and forty teachers and observers from 18 countries witnessed this event. The students had to crack three rounds- theoretical round (solving problems in theoretical astronomy and astrophysics), practical round (analyzing local observatory data) and observational round (sky watching) at GMRT in Pune. The main paper being set up by Dr. Gavrilov, it is translated into the required languages by the Jury of every country. These papers are then circulated across every unit of the organization to be properly analyzed and checked. “Dr. Gavrilov is a genius who has set up the system so beautifully that every student is assured justice if the answers are logically correct”, says Mr. Soni. Besides these academic competitions the event included cultural shows and visits to historical places as well as scientific lectures at GMRT, IUCAA, Nehru Centre and TIFR by some of the leading scientists of the country. The results of XI International Astronomy Olympiad were announced in a ceremony held in the auditorium of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. The winners of the junior category - Kedar Shriram Tatwawadi, Adwait Vedant Satish Mathkar and, Nikhil Kumar, and among seniors - Mehul Jain, Chiraag Juvekar, Udbhav Singh, Raziman T V and Soumyashant Nayak are currently performing observation and research at Nanital.
Even if these exams are a bit difficult than the regular academic and co-academic examinations they provide a start of a scientific career for its participants and improvises their logical and rational thinking. These exams enable the students to ask many extraordinary questions, some difficult to answer, yet purely logical and sensible. Moreover since the exams are closely associated with the curriculum of IIT they improve the academic performance as well. The medalists are awarded the Kishore Vaidyanik Puraskar Yojna scholarship that assures them a bright career in pure sciences.