Vikram’s Talking Points

In his Hindu column, diplomat-grandee and belles-lettrist Shashi Tharoor agrees that Malyalees are the most cosmopolitan of all Indians:

"Already in the 1920s Malayalis were exposed to Impressionism, Dadaism, Post-impressionism, Cubism etc. through the writings of Kesari Balakrishna Pillai," says Mr. Sreetilak. "A Malayali who reads at least one Malayalam newspaper and one good magazine is likely to have at least heard the names of Garcia Marquez, Saramago, Gunter Grass, Milan Kundera, all of whom are available in Malayalam translation." Most non-Malayali professors of literature, he avers, are ignorant beyond their Shakespeare and Eliot. Debatable, perhaps, but hard to disagree that Kerala is undoubtedly more intellectually cosmopolitan than any other Indian State taken as a whole …

Harvard’s Hindu students have founded this spiffy new journal. With the Pluralism Project’s Diana Eck as advisor, it’s bound to be a high-quality affair.. 

Swadharma - Harvard’s Hinduism Journal

Afro-centric site Amonhotep believes this Vietnamese Shiva (10th century, C.E.) is evidence of an African presence in Asia.

Meera Nanda, snarky atheist who blames everything that ails India -nationalism, illiteracy, obsurantism, Delhi belly- on Hinduism, is out with a new book that takes on religious fundamentalism in the United States and back in the desh. 

While I have not have the pleasure of reading it yet, she has apparently reworked Theraveda Buddhism into a "religion of reason" that will propel India’s superstitious hordes into an era of enlightenment. Good luck with that, Meera.

The Hindu : Book Review : In defence of secularism