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BAPS, the Eiffel Tower and the curious silence on secularism

I was a little surprised to see how some of those whom I respect for taking a firm stand on patriarchal issues reacted to the manner in which they responded to the recent incident in Paris, in which women employees of the Eiffel Tower were asked to remain "invisible" on September 5 when 100 BAPS sadhus visited one of the world's top tourist destinations.
Recent posts

Ahmedabad world’s least climate resilient major city: AlphaGeo study

  A new study has ranked Ahmedabad as the least climate-resilient major city in the world , highlighting a dangerous gap between the city’s extreme physical vulnerability to climate hazards and its capacity to adapt. Cited by The New York Times , the analysis, conducted by geospatial artificial intelligence firm AlphaGeo , places the Indian city at the top of a list of global urban centres most exposed to climate risk.

Swadhyay skit on Janmasthami in US: Some uncomfortable questions

  One day after Janmashtami , to be exact, on September 5, during my stay in the US, I was taken to two separate celebrations in a town on the East Coast, ostensibly to keep me engaged among NRIs . While one of them had, apart from the ritualistic puja at a temple in the name of Radhe Krishna , located around a small pond on the outskirts, dance and song performances, it was the second one that interested me the most.

People’s audit in Mangolpuri flags voter-roll discrepancies, seeks public scrutiny of Delhi SIR process

  A people-led audit of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Mangolpuri’s Y-Block has brought renewed scrutiny to the accuracy of Delhi’s draft electoral rolls, with citizen volunteers and civil-society groups reporting cases in which voters allegedly found themselves wrongly classified as absent, shifted, dead or duplicate, or missing altogether from the draft list.

Riverfront or river death? SANDRP warns of ecosystem collapse

  The environmental advocacy group South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) has published a hard-hitting analysis of Pune's ongoing River Front Development (RFD) project , framing its concerns around fundamental questions that challenge the project's technical, ecological, and legal foundations.

Breathing poison? The 100/100 pollution score the CPCB doesn't want you to see

  A bombshell study by the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) has revealed that Delhi's four Waste-to-Energy (WTE) incineration plants score a staggering 100 out of 100 on the Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) own Pollution Index — making them more toxic than coal-fired power plants, open-cast coal mining, and copper smelters — yet the regulator quietly moved them into a newly created "Blue" category last year that strips away critical environmental safeguards.

Himalayan floods are deadly debris events, not just water surges: SANDRP

  A devastating catastrophe across the Himalayas has prompted river and dam advocacy group South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) to publish a scathing assessment of regional infrastructure planning, warning that planners and governments are committing fatal errors by treating Himalayan flood disasters merely as extreme water surges rather than catastrophic debris events .