Source: The Hindu
BANGALORE, INDIA, April 19, 2001: An on-going debate over making Vedic astrology a university subject in India has taken a new twist. The University Grants Commission’s (UGC) Chairman, Mr. Hari Gautam, defended the proposal by saying that “the Nobel laureate, Sir C.V. Raman, had called astrology a science.” Prof. S. Ramaseshan, renowned physicist and Sir Raman’s nephew, in a letter to The Hindu, said: “I am disturbed to find that Raman’s name is now being invoked to defend the introduction of such courses. He held that astrology had no rational basis. He would have been outraged to learn that the UGC wants to introduce astrology courses.” But Ms. Gayatri Devi Vasudev, editor of The Astrological Magazine, and daughter of the late celebrated astrologer Dr. B.V. Raman, in a succinct rebuttal to the same newspaper refuted that Prof. Ramaseshan could have had privy to every detail of Sir Raman’s private life. “That Sir Raman did not believe in astrology, as claimed by his nephew, is no argument against it if he had not made a study of jyotisha systematically. Mrs. C.V. Raman was a regular visitor of my own revered father, the late Dr. B.V. Raman, whose name today is synonymous with jyotisha or astrology and would consult him on Sir Raman’s chart on his behalf,” citing documentation from her father’s autobiography.