The birth anniversary of 24th Tirthankara Sri Mahavir Ji is an appropriate occasion to ponder how this tiny faith successfully tamed the natural impulses of human hedonism and emerged as a sparkling exemplar of the Indian civilisational spectrum. India’s native traditions lie embedded in a common geographical and spiritual-cultural matrix, … Read More
In an extremely myopic manoeuvre aimed at pleasing the world gendarme, India aborted all chances of rising as a regionally respected power by supporting the US-led resolution to censure Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Commission for alleged war crimes against civilians in the climax to its prolonged war … Read More
Recent elections in five states showed voters rejecting the undemocratic political culture of the two major national parties, where central leaders with declining ability to harvest votes have promoted a politics of patronage and entitlement, indifferent to the needs and aspirations of voters. Both parties lie battered. The Bharatiya Janata … Read More
By agreeing to examine the validity of the Bodhgaya Temple Act, 1949, to nullify Hindu control over the famed vihara, the Supreme Court has inadvertently exposed The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, to scrutiny and opened the door for Hindu claims to historical temples they have demanded for … Read More
New Delhi must invoke the UN Convention on Biodiversity to fight the growing piracy of India’s biodiversity by multinational companies, rather than leave this vital task to well meaning activists and NGOs that could be out-manoeuvred by powerful corporates backed by the clout of the Western capitals in which they … Read More
Marx claimed that the State would wither away once the proletariat took over the material and productive forces of society and made the state apparatus redundant; classes would cease to exist and political representation would be unnecessary. This writer has always held this stateless communism in disdain, preferring democracy where … Read More
Whatever the eventual fate of Gen. Vijay Kumar Singh and his petition seeking legal remedy on the issue of his date of birth, the responsibility for driving the glorious institution of the Indian Army and its Chief into this fight rests on the shoulders of the Prime Minister, the Defence … Read More
New Delhi has moved with commendable alacrity to clarify that it has not asked oil firms to reduce crude imports from Tehran. Iran remains India’s second largest crude oil supplier despite the UPA’s twice voting that the International Atomic Energy Commission refer Iran’s nuclear issue to the Security Council in … Read More
On 21 December 2011, the Tamil Nadu chief minister gave a virtual carte blanche to Christian evangelism in the State by giving the community a massive freebie at taxpayer expense, viz., financial assistance for 500 Christians to take a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, annually. Announcing this at a Christmas celebration hosted … Read More
Christianity being a millenarian ideology aims at world dominion, at least since the time it established its headquarters in Rome in the early centuries after Christ. Former Canadian Protestant and now a Smarta Dashnami sanyasi, Swami Devananda Saraswati alias Ishwar Sharan, perceptively deems it to be a continuation of the … Read More
