Thanks to Krishen-ji for alerting me to this news-item…Christian pick on Congress poll list from which, a brief excerpt (emphasis mine):
…For the first time, a major Christian body has asked a political party to give poll nominations to candidates from the community, and the party has obliged.
The All India Christian Council, a conglomerate of all Christian denominations, wrote to Sonia Gandhi a few weeks ago requesting tickets for Christians in the Maharashtra Assembly elections.
The Congress has accepted two of the council’s nine nominees, both political lightweights. Janet D’Souza has been …

This post is essentially a collection of excerpts from three recent articles/reports on the Saraswati-Sindhu civilisation beginning with a list of five questions that were asked of Prof. Michael Witzel.
Many of you must be aware of the recent controversy around Prof Michael Witzel’s visit to India. I received this email/ list of questions from a google group that I am subscribed to. It is worth reproducing in full (I have taken out email addresses to protect privacy). The questions explore the issue of scholarship with particular reference to Ancient Indian …

To all my readers I owe a big apology. I have long been promising a definition of the word “Dharma” – a word that crops up every now and then in many discussions on this blog – and is also the part of my blog’s sub-title. But as I started to write this post, I realised that this should actually have been one of my first posts, if not the first. Anyways, better late than never.
As I began to do some background reading on this subject, I realised that it …

Last evening as I was trying to explain to my 14-year old why a possible US withdrawal from Afghanistan could be bad for India, I realised how hopeless the US case for continued involvement in Afghanistan looked.
In a statement that sounded pretty unconvincing, David Axelrod, Senior Advisor to President Obama said:
We have a different situation in Afghanistan. It is actually the place…where the folks who attacked us on 9/11 are holed up and plotting against us still…
It’s a threat that still exists. We have to deal with it and so …

This post has been pending for a while. A few months ago, the Freedom Team of India (of which I am a member) released its draft policy on Religious Freedom and Tolerance for public comment. I was reminded of this when I read Atanu Dey’s recent article in Pragati. I believe this matter is worthy of serious debate and at the heart of some critical challenges that we face in our polity today.
I am therefore reproducing excerpts from the FTI policy and Atanu’s article below to prompt a discussion. Pl. …

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna (in Rajya Sabha on 30th July ’09):
In spite of Pakistan’s reluctance to help us to improve our relations, India’s endeavour will be to continue to impress upon Pakistan that we have to have good neighbourly relations…
Our hope is that Pakistan will see sense in such kind of approach.
.
No comment.
Some past quotes.