Marriage was a hot topic this week in the Indian press following rulings by two Delhi Courts. The High Court held that apostasy was automatic grounds for granting a divorce under the country’s Muslim Marriage Act, while the Court of Additional Sessions in Delhi ruled that there was no such thing as “marital rape” under [Read More…]
What does it mean to be transgendered in India?
April 18, 2014 by
Is it possible to write intelligently about sex in the non-Western world for an American media audience? Or, is our culture so narcissistic, so incurious, so parochial that a newspaper would be wasting its time in attempting to explain the difference between our world view and their’s? A recent spate of articles in the American [Read More…]
No sex please, we’re Indian
January 9, 2014 by
Rape and religion returned to the front pages of India’s newspapers this week after a judge in Delhi stated premarital sex was sinful. The Hindu reported: Pre-marital sex is “immoral” and against the “tenets of every religion”, a Delhi court has said while holding that every act of sexual intercourse between two adults on the [Read More…]
USA Today offers faith-free look at meditation, stress
August 6, 2013 by
Journalists who try to cover the life and teachings of Deepak Chopra always face the same question: How much ink should they dedicate to the debates about whether his fusion of Hinduism and science are secular or sacred? In other words, is this man a religious leader who is teaching specific doctrines or not? The [Read More…]
Kudos for Quartz’s coverage of business and religion
July 31, 2013 by
“Business is religion, and religion is business,” said Maltbie Babcock. “The man who does not make a business of his religion has a religious life of no force, and the man who does not make a religion of his business has a business life of no character.” While few people today would completely agree with [Read More…]
India and rape: Spotting some tricky ghosts
January 19, 2013 by
In about 99 percent of the mainstream news reports you will ever read about India and religion, there will be a reference that reads something like the following, from a Washington Post story that I have been meaning to get to for a week or so. This is part of the wave of coverage — [Read More…]
Serious story on separation of yoga and state
October 30, 2012 by
When I saw this story come in (clicking on a URL from a reader), I immediately thought, “Here we go again.” But the reader was right. This is not another story that simply assumes that yoga is a practice that can be stripped of all specific religious content. That’s the kind of story that, alas, [Read More…]
