Basava Premanand was an Indian skeptic and rationalist from Kerala, India. He organised many tours around rural India for the promotion of scientific thinking, exposing alleged miracles and scams carried out by various charlatans and godmen while spreading awareness of dangerous superstitions. Premanand was the founder of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, the convener of Indian CSICOP, and the owner-publisher-editor of the monthly magazine The Indian Skeptic, which investigates paranormal claims in India.
Abraham Thomas Kovoor was an Indian professor and rationalist who gained prominence after retirement for his campaign to expose as frauds various Indian and Sri Lankan "god-men" and so-called paranormal phenomena. His direct, trenchant criticism of spiritual frauds and organized religions was enthusiastically received by audiences, initiating a new dynamism in the Rationalist movement, especially in Sri Lanka and India.
Sreeni Pattathanam is a rationalist, activist, and writer from Kerala, India. He was born in the Pattathanam area of Kollam City in the Indian state of Kerala. Pattathanam was the editor of Ranarekha, a monthly in Malayalam, which ceased publication in the 1980s. He started publishing another monthly in Malayalam called Yukthirajyam. This journal is the official journal of the organization, Bharatheeya Yukthivadi Sangham. He was also the secretary of the Kerala state branch of Indian Rationalist Association. Pattathanam later left IRA and started, with like-minded people, another rationalist association, Bharathiya Yukthivadi Sangham. He is the vice-chairman of the National Level Rationalist Organization, RAI, Rationalist Association of India that was established in 1930. RAI is one of the founding members of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), based in London. www.iheu.org
Narendra Nayak is a rationalist, sceptic, and godman debunker from Mangalore, Karnataka, India.Nayak is the current president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA). He founded the Dakshina Kannada Rationalist Association in 1976 and has been its secretary since then. He also founded an NGO called Aid Without Religion in July 2011. He tours the country conducting workshops to promote scientific temper and showing people how to debunk godmen and frauds. He has conducted over 2000 such demonstrations in India, including some in Australia, Greece, England, Norway, Denmark, Sri Lanka and Nepal. He is also a polyglot who speaks 9 languages fluently, which helps him when he is giving talks in various parts of the country.
Indian CSICOP is a well-known rationalist group based at Podanur, Tamil Nadu, India. Founded by Basava Premanand (1930–2009). Indian CSICOP is in the forefront of the rationalist campaigns in India which attempt to expose perceived miracles and to eradicate superstitions.
Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham is a rationalist organization based in Kerala, India. The organization says it stands for rationalism and humanism. It is the initiator of the umbrella organization for rationalism and humanism, Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations.The Rationalist Movement in Kerala had started with the Sahodara Sangham, formed by K. Ayyappan on May 29, 1917 at Cherai, in Ernakulam. This fraternity forum propagated 'Mishra Bhojanam', which was unthinkable as well as very revolutionary at the time. These movements paved way for a rationalist organization which started functioning in 1967. Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham is the continuation of this parent avatar. The organization started functioning in 1967. It has units in all the districts in Kerala and in the Union Territorial district of Mahi. Yukthirekha, a monthly in Malayalam, is the official magazine of Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham, which has been in circulation since 1983. KYS has a youth wing, Humanist Youth Movement, and a parallel wing, Kerala Misra Vivahavedi, a sub-organisation for the cause of inter-religious and inter-caste married lives. KYS also manages A T Kovoor Trust and Pavanan Institute. KYS is an associate organization of International Humanist Ethical Union, now Humanist International, headquartered in London.
Babu Gogineni is an Indian Humanist, rationalist, and human rights activist, who served as Executive Director of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU).
Prabir Ghosh is the founder and president of Bharatiya Bigyan O Yuktibadi Samiti, a science and rationalists' association based in Kolkata, India. He is the author of a number of books in Bengali disputing supernatural claims and is well known for his book series titled Aloukik Noy, Loukik.
Narendra Achyut Dabholkar was an Indian physician, social activist, rationalist and author from Maharashtra, India. In 1989 he founded and became president of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti. Triggered by his assassination on 20 August 2013, the pending Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance was promulgated in the state of Maharashtra, four days later. In 2014, he was posthumously awarded the Padma Shri for social work.
Malleshappa Madivalappa Kalburgi was an Indian scholar of Vachana sahitya in the Kannada-language and academic who served as the vice-chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi. A noted epigraphist of Kannada, he was awarded the National Sahitya Akademi Award in 2006 for Marga 4, a collection of his research articles.
Rationalist Association of India (RAI) is an Indian rationalist organization that was established in 1930. Dr. D' Avoine was the President of the Rationalist Association of India (RAI) from 1938 to 1944. It is a full voting member of International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a global representative body of the humanist movement, uniting a diversity of non-religious organisations and individuals.
According to the 2011 Census of India, around 2.9 million people in India did not state their religion in the 2001 census and were counted in the "religion not stated". They were 0.24% of India's population. Their number have significantly increased 4 times from 0.7 million in 2001 census at an average annual rate of 15%. According to the 2012 WIN-Gallup Global Index of Religion and Atheism report, 81% of Indians were religious, 13% were non-religious, 3% were convinced atheists, and 3% were unsure or did not respond. While a demographic study by Cambridge University Press in 2004, have found that there are 102.87 million atheists and agnostics living in India, thus constituting 9.1% of the total population, out of total 1.1296 billion people respectively.
The Sanatan Sanstha is a Hindu organization seeking Hindu nationalism in India. It is a non-government charitable trust founded in 1999 by hypnotherapist Dr Jayant Balaji Athavale. It is headquartered in Ramathi, Goa.
The Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013 is a criminal law act for the state of Maharashtra, India, originally drafted by anti-superstition activist and the founder of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), Narendra Dabholkar (1945-2013) in 2003. The act criminalises practices related to black magic, human sacrifices, use of magic remedies to cure ailments and other such acts which may exploit people's superstitions.
Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti is an organisation dedicated to fighting superstition in India, particularly in the state of Maharashtra. It was founded by Narendra Dabholkar in 1989. since 2010, the organization has been headed by Avinash Patil.
Govind Pansare was a left-wing Indian politician of the Communist Party of India (CPI). He was also the author of the best selling Marathi language biography of 17th century ruler Shivaji, Shivaji Kon Hota. He and his wife were attacked on 16 February 2015 by gun-wielding assailants in Kolhapur district. He died from his wounds on 20 February, 2015.
Ravipudi Venkatadri is an activist in the rationalist and humanist movements. He was born into a middle class peasant family in 1922 at Nagandla, a village in Prakasam district in Andhra Pradesh, turned to rationalist ideas in 1940 after reading Sambukavada written by Tripuraneni Rama Swamy. Ravipudi is the founder director of Kavirajasram, Nagandla (1943). He propagated rationalist ideas in and around Nagandla. He attended the study camps organised by M. N. Roy at Dehradun (1946) and Mussorie (1949). He was the founder president of Rationalist Association of Andhra Pradesh. He was elected president of Rationalist Associations of India (RAI) in 1989, and Radical Humanist Association in 1993. He established Hetuvada Manavavada – HEMA – Foundation and is the founder editor of Hetuvadi – a rationalist periodical in Telugu language which was established in September 1982.
Gauri Lankesh was an Indian activist and former journalist from Bangalore, Karnataka. She worked as an editor in Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada weekly started by her father P. Lankesh, and ran her own weekly called Gauri Lankesh Patrike. She was assassinated outside her home in Rajarajeshwari Nagar on 5 September 2017. At the time of her death, Gauri was known for being a critic of right-wing Hindu extremism. She was honoured with Anna Politkovskaya Award for speaking against right-wing Hindu extremism, campaigning for women's rights and opposing caste based discrimination.
Maharashtra Rationalist Association was an organisation dedicated to spreading rationalism and humanism in Maharashtra, India, and was an integral part of the rationalist movement in Maharashtra. The organisation is succeeded by Mumbai Rationalist Association, which in turn has paved the way for Sunday Sapiens.
