Ask Yourself: 1.Do I Feel Like I Can Say What I Need To Say In My Relationship? 2. Do I Listen To My

Consent: If you don’t get it, you don’t get it. Take the pledge to help stop sexual assault at ItsOnUs.org.

All of the animals above — and more — are “critically endangered.”

Today’s ‪#‎dalithistory‬ month post is on the Adi-movements of the 1920’s and 30s. For Dalit history, ‘Adi’ ideologies are highly significant as they bear testament to some of our earliest assertion of equal rights, humanity and citizenship on level with other castes.

By the late 19th century, leaders like the social reformer Jyotirao Phule, had created a powerful anti-caste space, upholding non-Brahmanical thought and presenting the dream of a new egalitarian value system on which to model society on. Soon after, the early 20th century saw several archeological discoveries being made in Mohenjodaro and Harappa in the North, pointing to the existence of an unexpectedly ancient civilization that was likely much older than Aryan migrations. These discoveries struck a profound chord with Dalits all over the subcontinent, who immediately began to identify as an indigenous population who were conquered and subsequently oppressed by an alien religion. Although, the evidence for Aryan conquests remains contested, these interpretation was so compelling that such “Adi” (Ancient/Old/Original) movements sprung up all over the nation completely independently of each other.  

The names of these movements are telling -  Ad-Dharm in Punjab, Adi-Hindu in U.P. and Hyderabad, Adi-Dravida, Adi-Andhra and Adi-Karnataka in South India - all indicating a common claim to nativity and original inhabitation.

The provocative effects of the Adi-movements are best illustrated by an early Maharashtrian pre-Ambedkar Dalit leader, Kisan Faguji Bansode, who warned his caste-Hindu friends in 1909, stating: “The Aryans - your ancestors - conquered us and gave us unbearable harassment. At that time we were your conquest, you treated us worse than slaves and subjected us to any torture you wanted. But now we are no longer your subjects, we have no service relationship with you, we are not your slaves or serfs… We have had enough of the harassment and torture of the Hindus.”

In Andhra, the process was accelerated by the commercialized coastal areas that produced both a mobile Dalit agricultural class and a small educated section that produced leaders Bhagyareddy Varma and Arigyay Ramswamy who managed to mobilize nearly a third of the Malas and Madigas of the Madras Presidency to state their identity in the official census of 1931 as Adi-Andhra.

In Tamil Nadu, some Dalits identified themselves as Adi-Dravidas while Telugu and Kannada counterparts also identified as Adi-Hindu or Adi-Karnataka. In the north, in Uttar Pradesh, an untouchable ascetic, who radically called himself Acchutananda, began to organize an Adi-Hindu identity, arguing, “The untouchables, are in fact Adi-Hindu, i.e. the original and autochthonous Nagas or Dasas of the north and the Dravidas of the south, the undisputed, heavenly owners of Bharat.”

In Punjab, Mangoo Ram Mugowalia, a Dalit who had left the Gaddar movement, unable to stand the Casteism within it, began the Ad-Dharmi movement. By 1926, he had influenced a huge number of Dalits to boldly register themselves a separate “quaum” (religious group) in Hoshiarpur despite the threat of imminent violence. By the 1931 census, nearly 500,000 Dalits registered themselves as Ad-Dharmis all over Punjab.

To counter a growing ‘Adi’ consensus, Brahmins began actively renaming Dalits, ‘Panchama’ (the Fifth). Gandhi used it in his Young India for a long time. Many Dalits of the day strongly pushed back against the term insisting the idea of ‘Panchama’ was derogatory and only served to attenuate the age-long hyper-oppressive framework of Hindu society and solidify their position outside the caste order.

From “The World Set Free“ episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey:

Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about Augustin Mouchot and his role in the history of solar power.

Stephen Hawking’s quote speaks to the heart of why basic income has become such a popular idea in one vital industry in recent years.

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There’s now a smart menstrual device called my.Flow

Meet my.Flow. It’s not a tampon covered with sensors, but rather a special tampon string connected to a wearable sensor. It will monitor your tampon and send you alerts via an app on your phone. Is this really the best solution to the menstruation problem they’re trying to solve?

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This Incredible New Project Is Explaining LGBT Themes To Preschool Kids

While the episodes may focus on explaining a central concept — like what does “gay” mean — “Queer Kids Stuff” also answers questions for children that some adults may not have the ability or language to talk about.

Read the full story here.

Constellations and the Calendar

Did you recently hear that NASA changed the zodiac signs? Nope, we definitely didn’t…

…Here at NASA, we study astronomy, not astrology. We didn’t change any zodiac signs, we just did the math. Here are the details:

First Things First: Astrology is NOT Astronomy…

Astronomy is the scientific study of everything in outer space. Astronomers and other scientists know that stars many light years away have no effect on the ordinary activities of humans on Earth.

Astrology is something else. It’s not science. No one has shown that astrology can be used to predict the future or describe what people are like based on their birth dates.

Some curious symbols ring the outside of the Star Finder. These symbols stand for some of the constellations in the zodiac. What is the zodiac and what is special about these constellations?

Imagine a straight line drawn from Earth though the sun and out into space way beyond our solar system where the stars are. Then, picture Earth following its orbit around the sun. This imaginary line would rotate, pointing to different stars throughout one complete trip around the sun – or, one year. All the stars that lie close to the imaginary flat disk swept out by this imaginary line are said to be in the zodiac.

The constellations in the zodiac are simply the constellations that this imaginary straight line points to in its year-long journey.

What are Constellations?

A constellation is group of stars like a dot-to-dot puzzle. If you join the dots—stars, that is—and use lots of imagination, the picture would look like an object, animal, or person. For example, Orion is a group of stars that the Greeks thought looked like a giant hunter with a sword attached to his belt. Other than making a pattern in Earth’s sky, these stars may not be related at all.

Even the closest star is almost unimaginably far away. Because they are so far away, the shapes and positions of the constellations in Earth’s sky change very, very slowly. During one human lifetime, they change hardly at all.

A Long History of Looking to the Stars

The Babylonians lived over 3,000 years ago. They divided the zodiac into 12 equal parts – like cutting a pizza into 12 equal slices. They picked 12 constellations in the zodiac, one for each of the 12 “slices.” So, as Earth orbits the sun, the sun would appear to pass through each of the 12 parts of the zodiac. Since the Babylonians already had a 12-month calendar (based on the phases of the moon), each month got a slice of the zodiac all to itself.

But even according to the Babylonians’ own ancient stories, there were 13 constellations in the zodiac. So they picked one, Ophiuchus, to leave out. Even then, some of the chosen 12 didn’t fit neatly into their assigned slice of the pie and crossed over into the next one.

When the Babylonians first invented the 12 signs of zodiac, a birthday between about July 23 and August 22 meant being born under the constellation Leo. Now, 3,000 years later, the sky has shifted because Earth’s axis (North Pole) doesn’t point in quite the same direction.

The constellations are different sizes and shapes, so the sun spends different lengths of time lined up with each one. The line from Earth through the sun points to Virgo for 45 days, but it points to Scorpius for only 7 days.  To make a tidy match with their 12-month calendar, the Babylonians ignored the fact that the sun actually moves through 13 constellations, not 12. Then they assigned each of those 12 constellations equal amounts of time.

So, we didn’t change any zodiac signs…we just did the math.

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