In a recent interview for BBC World Service’s Discovery programme, President APJ Abdul Kalam is quoted as saying that:
“…an evolved, enlightened society – based on Indian ideas – can lead to “a peaceful, prosperous and happy planet.”
“It’s a three-dimensional approach, involving education with a value system, religion transforming into spirituality, and the most important, economic development for societal transformation in all the nations,” he explained.
“The global implementation of this three-dimensional approach, in an integrated way, will lead to a peaceful planet yet.”
I could not help noticing echoes of some thoughts …

The recent controversy around Germany’s proposal to seek an EU ban on swastikas (and later its abandonment: see here and here) prompted me to dig up and refresh this article which I wrote for my newsletter almost two years ago. (Mar ’05):
Swastika and its Religious Significance:
As some of you may be aware, there has been a great deal of controversy in the UK regarding the wearing of an armband by Prince Harry that had a “swastika” badge on it.
This created a predictable uproar in the local media with many people …

Last month (Nov 27), TIME ran a cover story (see “The Pope Confronts Islam“) on the confrontation between Islam and Christianity in the context of Pope’s remarks about the Islam.
I came across several interesting remarks on the story by readers in the “Letters” section of the latest issue of the magazine. E.g. Carolyn D. Lewis remarked that, “Monotheistic religions that lay claim to one and only possible truth are doomed by their very nature to end up in conflict. The only way out is to free ourselves from these ancient …

Just came across S Gurumurthy’s brilliant critique on the recent BusinessWeek article on Karma Capitalism
As he says, “If the Indian management gurus did something similar in India it would attract the abuse of the seculars that they are toxifying even business and economics with saffron concepts! It (secular India) may even charge that the corporate America is becoming addicted to toxic saffron. That is the measure of its hate for thoughts and things Indian.”
Some excerpts:
“Just a century ago, Max Weber, declared that the Hindus and Buddhists remain backward because …

Yesterday, In Search of a “Hindu” Identity got published on IndiaCause and almost immediately began to attract responses and comments.
I am immensely gratified and heartened by the overwhelming response to this essay – here on this blog, on Sulekha and now on IndiaCause.
Sometime over the next few weeks, I will try and collate the comments and put forward a revised version of the essay.
In the meantime, thanks to all who took the trouble to write in…I am truly grateful. Thanks also for spreading the word amongst your friends, loved ones …

Windsor in UK has been the centre of some small-scale (relatively speaking) rioting centred around a “Muslim-run dairy which has become an unofficial prayer centre for workers. Nothing wrong with that you would think – but there is obviously more to it than has been reported..
But the strange thing is the extreme reluctance of reporters and newspapers to print the “M-word”.
London Lite (Daily Mail’s publication) e.g. reported (5th Oct ’06) that, “extra police are being drafted into the Windsor area today after three nights of violent clashes between white and …

In all honesty, I should have written on this topic months, maybe even years ago � Some times I think this should have been the first post on my blog[i] � which I call �Hindu Dharma�.
I have been asked on numerous occasions, what is it to be a �Hindu�? And yet, I desisted writing anything on this topic until now. Why? Not because I had nothing to say � but because I was looking for a good, coherent answer and a pithy explanation; a summary that I could point people …

From �The Telegraph� in Kolkata, India (- thanks to Dr Ambekar for drawing my attention to this)
�Issue Date: Saturday, July 29, 2006�
Tirupati Hindu zone
�G.S. RADHAKRISHNAHyderabad, July 28: The constitutional guarantee of free religious expression will now be suspended across a 322.68-sq-km (80,628-acre) area around Tirupati�s Balaji temple.
No other religion can be preached � and no mosques or churches built � in this area spread across seven hills, the Tirumala Tirupati Dewasthanam said yesterday.
The Dewasthanam till now controlled a 6,600-acre area that includes Tirumala � the small temple town …

In a recent issue of Organiser, Subramanian Swamy wrote �Search for a Hindu Agenda�
Some excerpts from the original article below:
***
�A virile Hindu Agenda must have two components: [1] What Hindus should believe in and do, to qualify to be a good Hindu; [2] What Hindus, being the overwhelming majority of the nation’s population, should be obliged to do for the religious minorities and what Hindus have a right to expect from them in the national interest. At present, most Hindus think that if they go to temples, sing bhajans, and …

Several months ago, a friend asked me the origin of the word India and �Hindu�. That question spurred this brief piece of research.
Most experts agree today that the name �India� was derived from the river Indus (in today�s Pakistan). But the name �Indus� itself has a fascinating history behind it.
In ancient times, the entire Indus river system (along with its seven tributaries – Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Jhelum, Beas and the now extinct River Saraswati[i]) and the area it covered, used to be called �Sapta Sindhu[ii]� i.e. the land of seven …