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WORLD  About the AuthorOther Stories by this Author Prime Minister To Hand Deliver ROOPA To UN BY RAGHUNATHA ANUDASA USA, Nov 16 (VNN) — Prime Minister of India to Hand Deliver ROOPA to United Nations My fiance, Janavi and I've traveled 10,000 miles this summer visiting 22 temples, thru 30 states and 2 countries. Also met with a thousand or more devotees, friends, dozens of professors, family members, several political parties as well as the general public. The response to ROOPA has been phenomenal. Here are some highlights. ROOPA: Responsibility Of One's Products & Actions. ROOPA simply request that people cover the social cost of their activities and products. The interesting part is that "bad" things prove to have steep economic liabilities while "good" things happen to have economic rewards. Smoking for example is considered a "bad" thing and happens to cost Americans $100 billion a year in smoking related medical cost. 1) WAVES Conference-An annual gathering of 350 professors from around the world at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken New Jersey to share the latest findings of their respective areas of Vedic study. WAVES: World Association of VEdic Studies. A professor will be less forgiving with fuzzy details then devotees have been with me. This was not one professor, but a roomful of economics professors. Yes, I was nervous. The number of questions and comments over the next couple days, however, confirmed their interest. Several offered to get involved. Vrindavan das from my guru-kula days videotaped the presentation. He was there to video for his Oregon TV show now going into its 5th year of production. Vrindavan also gave a resounding presentation on sanskrit as the origin of all languages. The professors were impressed. Professor of Economics, Kusum Ketkar, from Seton Hall University, New Jersey: "So where did you get your economics degree?" My reply: "I am one of those village boys you read about from Vrindavan India's Bhaktivedhanta Guru-kula. My primary education was a little Gita, a little kirtan." She loved it and offered to help me develop ROOPA further. Lawyer. Her husband is the president for the national bar association of India. She asked: "How to implement ROOPA? My answer: Have your husband sue all companies of vice for their social cost to India. Dr. Madan Sankhdher, Professor of Political Science, Chancellor of Delhi University, Cabinet Minister to Prime Minister: "I will write the forward to your book The Economics of Love." He asked, "How to implement ROOPA?" My answer: "ROOPA would send the Bangladesh government the bill for all the 'social cost' of the 700,000 persecuted Hindu's forced out of Bangladesh." His reply: "I can have the Prime Minister of India hand deliver that bill to the UN." Special thanks to Nandini, the Bill Muster Foundation and the Pray for Peace Foundation for sponsoring me at the WAVES conference. 2) ISKCON Foundation Considering sponsoring a formal (university lead) academic study of ROOPA. Navin Krsna, foundation board member: 'ROOPA is complimentary to the In God We Trust Party started by Balavanta and so likely to include ROOPA in its political platform. Balavanta wants to sue the meat industry.' My reply: "Put together a lawsuit against all the companies of vice for the total social cost of their products to the American tax payer-up to $500 billion per year in added taxes and insurance premium. That would provide a formal court record of ROOPA if not some media attention." He loved the idea.. 3) Green Party-Headed by Ralph Nader, has about 5% of America's voters. Met with the regional director of the Green Party for Colorado. She's interested to meet with me after the election for an in depth review. Distributed about 150 copies of ROOPA at their events. People loved it. 4) Natural Law Party-John Hagelin won the Reform Party ticket (started by Ross Perot) but lost it to Pat Buchanan in back room politics. The Natural Law Party has about 1,000 candidates running under their ticket throughout the country and won about .3% of the vote in the last election and anticipate twice as many this time or about a half million votes. They also project that up to 5% of their candidates will win their respective local, state or federal seats. Met with the presidential candidate, Dr. John Hagelin. He found the ideas interesting. Dr. John's Spokesman, Mr. Robert Roth, took particular interest in our 30 minute meeting. He asked for an audiotape-which I have sent-summarizing ROOPA so he could play it while on the road with John. He is considering ROOPA for the Natural Law Party platform. 5) Ganapati Swami is traveling to college campuses across the country. Some of his Brahmacari's are now distributing ROOPA pamphlets to students on campus. There are other developments which we can share later. I distributed about 700 hardcopies of ROOPA throughout the 22 temples, conferences, political rallies, colleges etc visited this summer. Hundreds more were reached vai the net. Talking with the hundreds of people and dozens of professors proved invaluable to polishing ROOPA's presentation from earlier drafts sent out over the net in the beginning of the year. ROOPA's latest draft seems to have really struck a cord with people. I have committed the last few weeks to upgrading the presentation from the essay handouts used so far. I am now putting ROOPA into a chart. I finished the first of 4 charts. It lets people understand ROOPA in just seconds. The charts should be on the web site by the end of the month at www.ROOPA.org. I am now in San Francisco with Ananda and his wife learning basic layout, web design and Outlook from him so I can better manage my 500 people mailing list and correspondence -I have about 2,200 emails waiting review and response so please mind my tardiness. Hope to be caught up by months end. Your friend Raghunatha Anudasa (John Michael) About the Author Other Stories by this AuthorComment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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