Media Release
Mangalore, Aug 25: The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) Award was conferred on noted rationalist Prof Narendra Nayak for his distinguished services to humanism at Oslo recently. The president of IEHU Sonja Eggericx handed over the award.
Prof Nayak is today India’s most active anti-superstition activist, fighting the magical conception of the world, and building a grassroots movement.
He speaks nine languages and can lecture in all of them, which is what he has been doing across the length and breadth of India for several years, and especially since he took voluntary retirement from his well paid job as a professor of biochemistry at a medical college in Mangalore.
He resigned from his job because of the call of duty: the mantle of promoting rationalism fell on him as the indomitable but ageing Premanand asked him to step in. He has been true to Premanand’s vision and commitment - he has conducted at least 3000 miracle-exposure and science popularization shows, and trained several hundred activists. He addresses gatherings in villages and in town halls; he speaks at important high-level workshops on science.
He travels so much by train that his close collaborator Babu Gogineni has recommended that he should pay rent to the Indian railways rather than to his landlord in Mangalore where he is also quite well known as a consumer rights activist.
His public sessions are aimed at educating people of all ages, starting from children to professionals. The sessions are also entertaining and make spectacular visuals: National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel and Australia’s Channel 9 have all showcased his work.
As a life-long teacher he has been sharing his knowledge with others: he is a national level resource person for the National Council for Science and Technology and played an important role in the Children’s Science Congresses in India.
Millions in India have seen him on TV performing psychic surgery, materializing objects from nowhere, and challenging Godmen in India and Nepal to demonstrate a miracle. He has offered a million rupees to anyone who can demonstrate a miracle. His million rupees seem to be safe!
He is president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations which is now growing from strength to strength. Prof Nayak has been closely associated with IHEU in all the recent initiatives in the Indian subcontinent, participating and supporting.