HISTORY
Science and Technology are intimately interwoven with human civilization. By late eighties of the 20th century, the revolutionary strides that occurred in science have brought many materials and methods for every comfort man could aspire for. These developments have also necessitated a paradigm shift in our perception of the physical world around him. Science has the natural power to quell away pseudoscientific and metaphysical attributes of the physical world with its impeccable temper of objectivity and verifiability. On the other side, dogma and obscurantism were raising their ugly heads from the groundless soils of religious fundamentalism and artificial divisions among people. Forces destined to serve exploitative class by their fascist, exclusive, nefarious and theocratic agenda, that were kept at bay by the inclusive and secularist cultural traits of our country, were stealthily garnering ways of countering the scientific outlook of the nature and socialist distribution of the fruits of science and technology. While every nation was recouping its strengths for sustainable development and self-reliance, imperialist forces were busy in designing viscous architecture of controls on science and technology so as to make them and the potentially upcoming nations such as India, subservient to their interests. The fundamentalists are wedded unnaturally with the imperialists.
A nation-wide movement, then, was necessary to awaken the people towards scientific mindset and to be conscious of self-reliance. Towards this objective was the BHARATH JANA VIGYAN JATHA or the BJVJ-87, remembered now as a national event, spearheaded in the year 1987 by all the organizations of people’s science movement in the country.
Subsequently, Jana Vignana Vedika (AP) was founded on February, 28th, 1988, the National Science Day, as a result of the inspiration gathered by those activists BJVJ-87 in the state of Andhra Pradesh. In order to take forward the ideas of the BJVJ in mission mode and to nurture a protracted people’s science movement in Andhra Pradesh, the JVV has taken shape with the following specific objectives:
- To popularize science and to promote scientific temper among people
- To eradicate obscurantist, superstitious and paranormal and mystical practices from people by means of popularization of science
- To understand the basic and fundamental cause for several of the problems faced by the people and to explore remedial scientific solutions for the same
- To facilitate the fruits of science which are otherwise confined to the rich to reach the underprivileged also
- To encourage quest for knowledge and to strive for national integrity, self reliance, world peace, social progress and cultural vibrancy
- To foster conservation of natural resources by ecological balance, biodiversity and environmental upkeep towards sustainable development while associating with fraternal environment activist organizations.
- To encourage research in divergent areas with people’s welfare as the prime motto
- To design programmes suitable to realize the objectives set as above