Three in a row – on death row. The circumstances were different. But the lessons to be learnt have much in common; from the recent deaths of Bal Thackeray, Ponty Chadha and now Ajmal Kasab. Thackeray’s actual day of death was in all probability artificially prolonged by life support systems, to enable the police and…

The tragedy of Dr Savita Halappanavar’s death continues to unfold. Prima facie, it seems to be a case of medical negligence, sought to be cloaked in religious beliefs. We cannot judge, because we do not know all the facts of the case; including the actual laws of the Republic of Ireland. The death of an…

Three reports in the Secular Citizen of 10th September caught my attention.  They are “Catholic Church Outdated”, “Pope Compares Disobedient Catholics to Judas”, and “Why are Catholics Good at Football But Bad at Business?”  There is much to be learnt from them. The first report on the Catholic Church being outdated is based on the…

“She is a difficult person to describe, because she has no complexes of any kind,” said Govind Swaminadhan about 80 years ago. He was struggling to “describe” his younger sister, Padmavibhushan Capt Dr Lakshmi Sahgal nee Swaminadhan MBBS, DGO, INA. Dare I attempt a description that her brother could not? Here in Kanpur, which was…

Was Jesus afraid, or reluctant to empower his disciples? Did he not rather say that anyone who believed in him would infact “perform even greater works” (Jn 14:12) than himself? Jesus empowered his disciples; he did not feel threatened by them. The explanation lies in the same farewell discourse, “I am in the Father and…

Domination, dominion, domineering – these are words to which I am inherently allergic.  To that I will now add the word “domain”, in the context of cyber domains on the World Wide Web.  I was taken aback by a recent news report that the Vatican has applied for the exclusive use and control of the…