Some of you may have already read the story of a recent, extraordinary judgement by the Kolkata High Court that involved the religious conversion of a minor:
Calcutta High Court on Wednesday (16th Dec) granted the anticipatory bail plea of a 26-year-old youth from Murshidabad who had been accused of kidnapping and marrying a 15-year-old girl.
Sairul Sheikh, a resident of Bakultala in Behrampore, had been accused of kidnapping and forcibly marrying Anita Roy.
A division bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice S P Talukdar allowed Sheikh’s plea after his lawyers …

Most readers of this blog would be aware of “Friends of BJP” and the dedicated team that conceived this group last year. One of the stated aims of “Friends of BJP” is to get “Middle India” more engaged with politics, public policy and governance – something that resonates strongly with me.
I was therefore very pleased to receive an email from Rajesh a few days ago asking me for my thoughts/views on issues that the group and the party (BJP) must focus on in the coming decade.
As most of you know, …

Dear All: I am opening this thread to provide a place to discuss all aspects related to Conversions, Christianity, Islam etc.
Please be sensitive in your comments. No personal abuse please. I will be deleting and editing comments that I feel have crossed the line. If you feel I have overlooked something, please alert me by leaving a comment here. Have a good discussion.
For those of you who may be new here, please have a look at my comments policy (and a shorter version here). If you do not wish to …

Please use this thread to share thoughts, comments and ideas on re-organisation of states in India.
To kick-start the discussion, excerpts from a few thought-provoking posts and articles below. The first excerpt from To reform UP, trifurcate it by Pratap Bhanu Mehta:
…But neither political party (Congress or BJP) is willing to be politically imaginative and ask a more fundamental question: what are the reforms needed to bring about the kind of radical change that politics in UP requires?
The answer to this question is complex. But most observers would agree that …

Dear All: I’m opening a new thread on “Why are Christian Missionaries Targeting India” – Part V (Part IV is overloaded with 100+ comments).
Pl. discuss all aspects related to conversions, missionary activity, distortions and mis-interpretations of scriptures and sacred stories by Christian media on this thread.
To kick off the discussion, here is an observation that I posted on twitter just now:
Here’s how you include Jesus & avoid ShriRam in a news-story on Diwali.
I wonder if this inspired the image & shloka (note the words “Sanskrit” instead of “Vedic”?
Is this another …

Dear All: I am opening this second thread to continue the discussion over from On Religious Freedoms and Secularism. I am reproducing the last few comments to maintain continuity in the discussion. I believe the comments have been reproduced accurately but if some of them look misplaced, pl. let me know.
Please continue to share your thoughts below.
Thank you.

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 …

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. …

I am not a big fan of Ashis Nandy but I found this article thought-provoking. Excerpts from “Unclaimed Baggage Part I and Part II” (emphasis mine):
*** “Unclaimed Baggage” Excerpts Begin ***
…Today, we seem to be back to square one. There are some remarkable similarities between the Partition massacres of 1946-48 and the Gujarat riots. This is a wrong context in which to examine the vicissitudes of the Indian experiment with secularism.
…First of all, I must nervously proclaim that I have nothing to do with the decline of Indian secularism. I …

My wife asked this question yesterday while we were discussing history.
I pondered for a moment but could not come up with a good answer. I also realised that I was not aware of the background to the naming of streets/roads in Lutyens Delhi.
I know at least one fellow blogger (perhaps two) who may have a view and/or some information on this.
In the meantime, I would be interested in your views and also if any of you has any additional information to share.
Based on my (limited) understanding of history, Aurangzeb …