Aravindan Neelakandan

Aravindan Neelakandan (Tamil: அரவிந்தன் நீலகண்டன், born 16 June 1971) is an Indian writer. Aravindan belongs to the post-socialist Indian thinkers of cultural evolutionism about Indian ethnogenesis. He is known for the book Breaking India, which he co-wrote with Rajiv Malhotra.

Biography

Aravindan Neelakandan was born on 16 June 1971 at Nagar Kovil, Tamil Nadu, India into a family of academicians. His paternal grandfather was a scholar well-versed in the art of Varma ati (Tamil: வர்மக்கலை) of Siddha Marma science. His father, N. S. Pillai, is a respected Tamil scholar, retiring as a professor from Travancore Hindu College in Nagarkoil. His mother is a retired professor of economics at the same institution and was a student leader associated with the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu.

Aravindan started his academic life as a student of agricultural studies and has a master's degree in psychology from Madras University and in economics from Madurai Kamaraj University. He is now working with the ecological NGO Vivekananda Kendra - Natural Resources Development Project in Kanyakumari, at India's southern tip. His work involves research on traditional rural communities, as well as on educating farmers of cost-effective technologies to boost their agricultural output. His personal library includes around 5,000 documents, including books, magazines, journals, and volumnious archives of media reports.

Aravindan began his public presence with his articles on science and Indology in the famous Tamil portal Thinnai.com. He was also a regular contributor of columns to UPI Asia. Apart from his published works, he continues to write columns also in famous Tamil portals DinamaniJunction,^[1] Solvanam,^[2] Tamil Paper,^[3] and Thinnai. His works also appear in the Tamil website Tamil Hindu^[4] in which he is an editor. He is also a contributing author for journals and magazines like swarajyamag.com.^[5] and at sutrajournal.com.^[6]

Aravindan Neelakandan serves as a mentor to the Srishti Madurai, which involves academicians and Independent scholars from universities around the world.^[7] Neelakandan has organised the launch of Maraikappata Pakkangal ("Hidden Pages"), the first book concerning gender variance in Tamil.^[8]

Works

Publications (selected works)

Following is a selected bibliography of Aravindan's books in Tamil sorted by the year of first publication.

Note: These are major publications. Aravindan has also written many pamphlets, introductions, blog articles, and letters to editors. His works can be found in a number of anthologies and collections in various websites.

Notes

External links

Other writings available online

• Writings in Swarajya
• The Grandly Ocean
• Writings in the Tamil Hindu site
• Science Writings in the Solvanam site
• Writings in the Thinnai portal