Ram Puniyani On October 25 (2016) the seven member Supreme Court Bench started hearing to revisit ‘Hindutva’ cases. These are group of cases where the use of term Hindutva-Hinduism to be used during elections is to be opined. One such case was that of Manohar Joshi who in his election speech said that if he…
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya An advertisement published in the Times of India (Kolkata edition) on December 10, 2014 entered by Nakshatra Diamond Jewellery (certified by Gemological Science International, International Gemological Institute, Independent Gemological Laboratories and others) contained a half-page picture of a bejewelled Bollywood film-star. The advertisement was entitled ‘This Pushya Nakshatra / Buy from the amazing…
Ram Puniyani Caste hierarchy is the major obstacle to the goal of social justice and it continues to be a major obstacle to social progress even today. There are many a theories, which have tried to understand its origin. The latest in the series is the attempt of RSS to show its genesis due to…
Ram Puniyani Fali S Nariman recently made a very significant observation on the current political situation in India. The distinguished Constitutional jurist noted: “Hinduism has traditionally been the most tolerant of all Indian faiths. But, recurrent instances of religious tension, fanned by fanaticism and hate speech, have shown that the Hindu tradition of tolerance is showing signs…
Ram Puniyani The phenomenon of God is probably the most complex one in the World. For believers there is a range of belief system about the supernatural powers. For agnostics it is ‘I don’t know’ and for atheists there is no supernatural power. The systems of thought relevant to the topic range from Animists (nature…
Ram Puniyani While defining religion is a theological exercise, many a times the tribunals and judges are pontificating on the nature of Hindusim on the basis of common sense and their own perceptions of it. Many of these perceptions are dictated by the contemporary politics, which wants to present Hinduism in a different light. It…
Ram Puniyani Srimad Bhagwat Gita or Bhagwat Gita or Gita has been in the news recently for various reasons. Few months ago, the matter came up when a Siberian Court in the Tomsk City of Russia was to decide about the ban on the translation of Gita by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad Swami, the founder of…
Narendra Nayak Loosely translated into English, Made Snana means taking bath on leftovers but a detailed one would mean rolling over the leaves on which others have eaten and discarded. .Again, a lengthier one would be lower caste people rolling on the leaves on which Brahmins have eaten! This has been taking place since hundreds…
Prof Narendra Nayak with the couple after their wedding Well this is not the cliched title of a wedding invitation but the narration of events that led to this wedding! For, Sandesh is a Pambada, a caste of dalits who are untouchables except when they get possessed by spirits- sorry not of those of the…
Here is report on a disgusting annual ritual practised at Kukke Subrahmanya, a prominent temple in Karnataka. This temple, located in one of the most forward districts in Karnataka and patronized by such luminaries from the Indian sports and the cine world as Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Aishwarya Rai, and Shilpa Shetty, attracts lakhs of devotees…