Try holding a candle to Joshi’s birthday party

Dozens of ‘friendly’ scholars, intellectuals, physicists, philosophers, orientalists and historians will gather to felicitate the ‘‘intellectual of intellectuals’’ on his 70th birthday. Members of the felicitation committee (set up in early September), chaired by former Chief Justice of India, Justice Ranganath Misra, were adamant that they were not going to launch any populist schemes and yojanas.

Instead, the theme was ‘‘celebration of thought power’’ as the committee’s secretary, Prof Meera Srivastava, former head of the department of Hindi at Allahabad University, puts it.

‘‘Dr Joshi has been modest about his stupendous intellectual prowess and no one has cared to celebrate his deep mind,’’ gushes Prof Srivastava. ‘‘That is why we decided to bring together the best minds of the country to create a magnetic field of intellectualism. We were clear we did not want this occasion to be hijacked by politicians. It is a trans-political meet,’’ she says.

It certainly helps that Joshi is the head of a ministry which oversees and controls some of the top research institutes of the country in education, historical research, social sciences and culture.

Invitees include former prime ministers V P Singh and Chandrashekhar (both alumni of Allahabad University), V C Srivastava, director, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies; G C Pandey, historian, Allahabad University, Dr Joseph Penrose, physicist, Oxford University (‘‘as famous as Dr Amartya Sen,’’ says Srivastav), journalist M J Akbar and Rajya Sabha member L M Singhvi. The function will be presided over by another scholar, ‘Acharya’ Vishnukant Shastri, governor of Uttar Pradesh.

‘‘There are 36 intellectuals on the felicitation committee, who have all been invited to attend the function in Delhi,’’ says Srivastav. ‘‘Plus there are at least 100 others who will be coming here from all over the country. The ceremony has been conceptualised befitting Dr Joshi’s scholarship and academic prowess.’’

The HRD Minister, also a physicist from Allahabad University, has been credited for the exuberant growth of brahminical thoughts in Indian academia by introducing Vedic studies, astrology, ancient mathematics and religious rituals for salvation in Indian universities.

Joshi’s day tomorrow will begin with a seminar on ‘Science and Spiritualism and the Future of Society.’