The decision of the Mahoba district administration and the National Commission for Women (NCW) to call Charan Shah’s death a suicide rather than a sati is reminiscent of the Joint Parliamentary Committee’s assertion that commissions paid in the Bofors gun deal were ‘winding up charges,’ not kickbacks. The indisputable fact … Read More
Even as it gears up to take on the non-Christian world and “harvest” souls in its third millennium, the Roman Catholic Church is caught in the throes of an existential dilemma. At stake are the nature and status of both the Papacy and the Vatican City State. The core issues … Read More
As anticipated by leaders across the Hindu religious spectrum, Pope John Paul II has abused this country’s fabled hospitality and doggedly projected conversions as the Church’s sole agenda in India and Asia. Of course, he has made polite noises about our legendary religious tolerance, but it has been too scanty … Read More
We sometimes wonder why God has allowed such wonderful spiritual riches to thrive amongst those who are not children of the promise, even more that he still helps such non-Christian brothers to love him and to seek him on the mystical path in a way which at times baffles us … Read More
The electorate’s unequivocal snub to Ms Sonia Gandhi’s prime ministerial ambitions, witnessed in the sharp decline in the Congress’s all-India tally, is entirely along expected lines, notwithstanding the surprise this seems to have caused amongst dedicated secularists. Reality proved so far from the Congress’s self-prognosis that its claim to be … Read More
The Supreme Court has struck a powerful blow for women’s rights, and above all, for justice, with its recent notice to a convicted rapist asking why his sentence should not be enhanced to life imprisonment. Case law on rape will never be the same again as the impact of this … Read More
Former Lok Sabha Speaker and Nationalist Congress Party leader Purno Sangma has made a rather startling allegation that the Congress president is responsible for the recent attacks on Christians. In an interview to a Shillong newspaper, Sangma said: “Christians were never attacked in India, but people reacted sharply when Sonia … Read More
Sonia Gandhi has wisely refrained from fielding daughter, Priyanka Vadra, against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow. Notwithstanding the carefully crafted media hype, Priyanka as political piece the resistance strains credulity. For the past several years, her public profile consists exclusively of the parties, fashion shows and cultural events … Read More
For most political analysts and social scientists, Bellary is simply the constituency where an uncharacteristically aggressive BJP hopes to make Sonia Gandhi eat humble pie. Certainly Sushma Swaraj’s wholesome Hindu appeal and passionate declamation of the Congress president’s non-native origins have sufficiently underscored her ‘outsider’ status to cause profound unease … Read More
When the first BJP-led coalition was sworn-in last year, Congressmen proposed a funny though inane cliché – that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the ‘right man in the wrong party’. The fact that it sounded witty and no doubt riled the Sangh parivar must have lent it legitimacy in … Read More
