Indian Rationalist Association

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The Indian Rationalist Association is a voluntary organisation in India whose 100,000 members^[1] promote scientific skepticism and critique supernatural claims. It publishes books and magazines, organises seminars and lectures and its representatives regularly appear in television and print media exposing superstitions. The present president of Indian Rationalist Association Sanal Edamaruku was elected in 2005. He was the General Secretary of the association from 1984 till 2005.

The earlier name of Indian Rationalist Association was "Rationalist Association of India", and the founding president was R. P. Paranjpye. The organisation published a journal "Reason". The organisation and journal ceased to exist after a few years. Later in 1949, the organisation was re-organised in Madras (present Chennai)in 1949^[2] at Chennai (then Madras). The founding president was R. P. Paranjpye (later High Commissioner of India in Australia and vice-chancellor of Bombay University). S. Ramanathan was the Secretary and he edited and published The Indian Rationalist. After the demise of S. Ramanathan, Prof.R.S. Yadav from Meerut became the President of the Association. When he became the vice-chancellor of Meerut university, Ellen Roy from Dehradun, wife of M.N.Roy, was elected the new president. Upon her death in 1960, the headquarters of Indian Rationalist Association was once again moved to Madras, and was revived by Dr. G.N.Jyothi Sankar. He also established a Ramanathan memorial rationalist library in Chennai. This library was later moved to Hyderabad when M.V Ramamurthy was the General Secretary of the Association.

Dr G.N Jyothi Sankar organised All-India Miracle Exposure campaigns four times with legendary Sri Lankan Rationalist Abraham Kovoor, starting in 1975.

The Indian Rationalist Association has branches in different states of India, with the headquarters of the association located in New Delhi. The Indian Rationalist Association took the initiative to form the Rationalist International in 1995, which organised many International Rationalist Conferences in co-operation with Indian Rationalist Association. Sanal Edamaruku is the founding president of Rationalist International.