Gujarat has made a major stride in the proper definition of the nation’s Indic traditions by delineating the Jaina and Bauddha streams as part of the larger Hindu community for purposes of evaluating religious conversions. The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill 2006 is significant precisely for the logical coherence it … Read More
It is even more duplicitous that a Catholic school resorted to such a cheap subterfuge to force minor children into baptism against the knowledge and wishes of their parents. When challenged in a recent television interview that such a practice was against Catholic theology, sister Monica admitted that the church … Read More
Pushing the envelope firmly while regretting the ‘misunderstanding’ caused by his discourse on violence in Islam, Pope Benedict XVI has sounded the battle-cry for Christian domination in Europe. His initiative in a speech supposedly about faith and reason at Germany’s University of Regensburg vindicates the Western world’s political foresight in … Read More
It is a sad and undeniable truth that the California Hindu community has failed to win a substantive victory in the US courts in the matter of the shoddy depiction of Hindu faith and culture in school textbooks. The substance of the so-called success boils down to the judge accepting … Read More
If Iranian President Ahmadinejad is serious about opening a Euro-based oil bourse in Tehran to undermine the US dollar, now is the time to strike. Strategic experts believe that internationally, the mega strategic energy deals are slipping away from corporate America, whose strong arm tactics are alienating growing nationalist sentiment … Read More
There is a delicious irony in the Congress-led UPA government declaring national mourning for Varanasi icon Bismillah Khan on the very day that Union HRD minister Arjun Singh issued a directive making the recitation of Vande Mataram optional in educational institutions on September 7, the centenary of its adoption. Consider … Read More
Strongly affirming the role of religion in defining individual and group identity, Jharkhand’s beleaguered Sarna tribe is demanding immediate withdrawal of reservation benefits in government jobs and educational institutions from members who have converted to Christianity. The Kendriya Sarna Samiti (KSS), which has taken the lead in this matter, asserts … Read More
The word Hindutva entered our contemporary political vocabulary nearly two decades ago, along with the movement to liberate the Ram Janmabhoomi. Since then, it has been a loaded concept, infused with negative connotations imposed by its opponents who have failed to comprehend, much less appreciate it, but have nonetheless obliquely … Read More
The BJP’s rise in national politics, to the point where it led a national coalition in 1998, was both the triumph of Hindu nationalism for the first time since 1947 and a powerful affirmation of the RSS’ goal of empowering the Hindu community. Naturally, this was bad news for our … Read More
Archbishop Mar Varkey Vithayathil recently startled India’s intellectual elite with his call for more babies to arrest the decline of Kerala’s Catholic community. Perturbed at the toll taken by abortion and the small family norm on the Syro-Malabar Church, he insisted the burgeoning national population is no problem and that … Read More
