Bøger af Govindasamy Agoramoorthy

Humanity strives for happiness. A quick check of the word ¿happy¿ in Google yielded more hits than ¿God¿. Everyone knows about the beauty of happiness and no one wants to face pain, sadness and miseries in life. But in reality, happiness does not lasts forever. It rather comes in discontinuous bouts, so the joy is often buried in distress of daily activities. Then, one may ask: is there a way to achieve long lasting bliss? Do religions help to speed up this blissful endeavor? These questions haunt the minds of millions of souls globally at some point in their lives. In fact, religions provide social support that people often need. They outline all ethical guidelines on how one should coexist in society peacefully. Hinduism is considered to be one of the oldest living religions of the world with over a billion followers. It offers some interesting options to ultimate happiness. In this monograph, the author, who is a global expert on nature and culture, has explored both practical and philosophical insights into ancient Hindu scriptures to unlock the secrets on the ultimate human happiness saga.

India is known for its diversity of wildlife and it harbors over 100 species of bats, both small and large. The largest is the Indian flying fox and the rarest is the Salim Ali¿s fruit bat. In 1948, naturalist Angus Hutton collected this species from the High Wavy Mountains of Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu state. But, it was misidentified as the common short-nosed fruit bat. In 1972, taxonomist Kitti Thonglongya reexamined the specimen and declared it as a new species. It was named after the renowned ornithologist, Salim Ali. This endangered species has a restricted distribution and it entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 1993 as one of the three rarest bats in the world. The author is one among a few biologists who have actually seen, studied, captured and released the Salim Ali¿s fruit bat into the wild. This book provides rare field data on the population status, ecology, behavior and conservation of fruit bats in Tamil Nadu state of India, including the highly endangered Salim Ali¿s fruit bat.

Yoga has become increasingly popular worldwide. The annual turnover from yoga business in USA alone has increased to 10 billion dollars in 2015. Yoga has eight critical components that include ethics, self-discipline, physical posture, breath control, sensory transcendence, mental focus, meditation and the final state of ecstasy. But, yoga seekers are attracted more towards the easier part of exercise and thus yoga has mushroomed as an economic enterprise endorsing wellness. Indiäs sages have practiced yoga over millennia. I continue my journey in those revered footsteps. Intrinsically, the essence of yoga to me is nothing but observing the arising mental thoughts so that follow-up actions result in purity-propelled excellence ensuing simplified life with nature. In this book, I have synthesized all about what nature and yoga means to me as a naturalist. By the way, yoga is an integral part of nature. Nature as such is complex as the world itself. When I internalize the yoga way of life with nature, I have become eternally free.

In my professional career as field biologist, I came across thousands of people with diverse background, from politicians to policy-makers, and from indigenous people to intellectuals-Harnath and Sharmishtha Jagawat do not fit into any of them. They belong to an unusual class of India's rural development practitioners. Harnath is an idealistic institutional leader, who always looks far into the future to eradicate poverty plaguing the drylands. His creativity, administrative aptitude and physical robustness brought up in the remote Chambal valley from childhood embodied with the upbeat spirit armored by his competence and genuine big-heartedness helped countless farming communities for over four decades by his tireless social work centered on irrigation water. In contrast, Sharmishtha is a down-to-earth person, who bows down to greet all humans irrespective of their age and status-from children to chief ministers, she expresses her lovely enthusiasm with genuine human touch. In this book, the author, who is Tata Visiting Chair at N M Sadguru Water and Development Foundation, highlights their enormous contributions to India's rural development eradicating poverty while revolutionizing village-level food security.

In today''s world, we do not pass a day without reading or hearing the words "climate change". Politicians and policymakers have been converging at global climate summits every year to find ways to ease the crisis. It is known for decades that human creativity has developed resource-intensive economies with their unprecedented toll on nature. However, the technocratic approach to development has ignored certain spiritual and philosophical values that have channeled human energy within culture-specific ethical boundaries for centuries. Humanity requires not only scientific solutions but also spiritual guidance in its use of the limited resources of our planet. In this context, one can also ask if the teachings of the ancient spiritual scriptures persuade contemporary Hindus to take action aimed at mitigating the effects of human action on the environment. In this monograph, the author, an international environmentalist, addresses the seldom discussed subject matter of easing the climate change crisis using spirituality in the context of Hinduism.

Infanticide or the killing of dependent offspring by a mature animal of its own kind occurs in various species of monkeys. The interpretation on the adaptive significance of infanticide in monkeys has been one of the most controversial topics in animal behavior. Documenting infanticide in non-human primate species in the wild is not an easy task since it often occurs quickly and field observers could easily miss out the actual process. The author, who is an international primatologist with 25 years of experience in watching wild monkeys in all three tropical continents, has managed to observe several cases of infanticide among Hanuman langurs of India, red howler monkeys of Venezuela and proboscis monkeys of Borneo. In this book, the author has synthesized his field observations on infanticide in monkeys including theoretical interpretations and explained the evolutionary cause and function of this bizarre behavior. This book should serve as an introductory and reference text on animal behavior, primatology and zoology related courses in colleges, universities and other institutes of higher learning around the world.