Abraham Kovoor “If Mr. Kovoor s materialistic theory of the mind is accepted, all possibility of survival after death has to be ruled out, which means that all religious teachings that postulate a life after death are false”. (G.G. Munidasa – Times of Ceylon – 30-4-67). “What Mr. Kovoor thinks will happen to his own…

A.N. Moorthy Rao  From the stage when man regarded nature forces and animals like the crocodile, the snake and the monkey as God, we rose to the stage of the ‘Trimurti’ concept and have presently reached the vision of a single God. We may rightly say that our cogitation has indeed progressed. It is true…

Ram Puniyani From last several months (April 2013) the Bihar Chief Minister Niteesh Kumar is becoming more vocal about his opposition to his electoral ally BJP projecting Narendra Modi as the Prime ministerial candidate. He went on to say that the PM candidate should be one who has a secular image, in obvious reference to…

B Premanand The psychic claims to have powers to hypnotize every one. He calls six persons from the audience. On the left side he asks five people to stand facing the audience and on the right side the sixth person. He hypnotizes the five volunteers and shows a pack of cards and asks each one…

Ram Puniyani When on this (14th April 2013) anniversary of Dr. Bhimrao Babasaheb Ambedkar, we pay tribute to his yeomen services towards the cause of social justice and bringing to fore the values of democracy; we also need to think as to how his dream and vision of annihilation of caste can be taken further. Where…

Abraham Kovoor “Mr. Kovoor’s sound arguments to prove the absence of a life after death are, no doubt, very convincing. Yet, 1 like to ask Mr. Kovoor what he has to say about the numerous cases of rebirths investigated scientifically and confirmed by persons of high integrity and learning like Dr. Ian Stevenson, Prof HN…

A.N. Moorthy Rao We have not succeeded in our attempt to understand the nature of God by the inductive method. Since each one of the gods that we encountered in our attempts has some shortcoming or the other, none of them could be the Supreme God, the Monarch of the Cosmos. We describe God with…

Ram Puniyani The legend of some of the kings continues in different forms and is used by different political formations. These political formations draw their identity from the past and project it on the present. These sectarian streams have been using the names of different kings and glorifying them in various ways. There is a…

B Premanand The psychic gives a pack of cards to a volunteer for shuffling, and after shuffling he takes it back. After spreading the cards in his hands, he asks the volunteer to pick a card, remember what card it is, and then put it back in the pack. He is then asked to shuffle…

Ram Puniyani Most of the countries of South Asia have faced the barbaric problem of violence targeted against religious minorities. The form of this may have been different, but the outcome has been similar, the brutality against religious minorities, violence against innocent human beings. The current times (Mid 2013) may be one of the worst…

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…

Pak Zoo was carved out of Hind Zoo in 1947, when the imperialistic British zoo-owners got bored of toying with the inhabiting animals, and decided to abscond from animal parks all over the world. For the decade or so leading up to the British selling Hind Zoo, it was clear that the zoo’s ownership would…

Ram Puniyani South Asia has been in the grip of sectarian violence since fairly long. During last three decades and more particularly during the last decade this violence has been intensifying in degree and spread. It was sad news to hear that the Christian Community of Joseph Colony, Badami Bagh Lahore was the victim of…

Ram Puniyani The withdrawal of invitation for Narendra Modi to speak at Wharton Business School of Pennsylvania (March 2013) has been looked at in different ways by different commentators. Those who are opposing the invitation withdrawal, point out that it is a violation of the norms of freedom of speech. They say that Modi is…

B Premanand Parapsychologists believed that Uri Geller was the ultimate proof of the existence of psychic powers. Much research and many books came out, explaining the investigations conducted on Uri Geller as evidence that he really did his feats using psychic powers. Uri Geller became an international hero and he was invited to every country…

Ramkrishna Bhattacharya If one sets upon oneself the task of translating the Sad-dharma-puṇḍarīka-sūtra (SDPS), a first-century CE Sanskrit Mahāyānī Buddhist text, into a modern Indian language, one will face no problem with the word lokāyata. It is current in all and can be retained in translation without bothering to explain what lokāyata means.[1] But translating…

Ram Puniyani The acts of violence led by the Islamists, Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) are tormenting our neighboring Bangla Desh, more than 50 dead, injuries and destruction of Hindu, Budhha temples amongst other losses. Its spill over is also being felt in Kolkata to some extent (Feb-March 2013). In Kolkata a strong crowd owing allegiance to Muslim…

Ram Puniyani The release of Vishwaroopam, the latest film from Kamal Haasan was mired in controversies. (Feb 2013). Haasan decided to arrange a pre-screening for some groups, despite the film being cleared by the censors. These Muslim groups raised lots of objections and demanded for the ban on the film. As matters unfolded, these groups…

B Premanand At a séance, four or more people sit around a table in darkness, with palms down on the table. The little fingers of their hands touched that of the people on both sides. All the volunteers concentrate on a dead spirit which is to raise or move it to prove its presence. Suddenly…