Over the past few weeks the Indian media has been bringing to light stories about holy men indulging in not-so-holy activities! Well, screaming headlines and video footage bordering on pornography for the sensation mongering media have brought to the fore what religion is about- sex! If one were to look for the common factor between jihadis, swamis and the priests of the Roman Catholic Church it could be only one- obsession with sex.

As has been said before, one craves more for what one has been deprived of, and sex is the one thing that has been denied to all these categories. It is not that such behaviour does not occur between followers of other religions in similar circumstances, but their number is significantly less and hence does not hit the headlines as often. However, some such acts have been reported among Jains and Buddhists too. Read the full story

This article was written by Prabir Ghosh and Sumitra Padmanabhan

This is the first of a 2-part article. Click Here for Part II.

The program Muqabla on NDTV on January 7, 2006, from 10p.m. to 11.30p.m. showed Prabir Ghosh, the General Secretary of Science & Rationalists’ Association of India face to face with  Swami Ramdev, the latest Guru of India.

The guru, a self proclaimed healer of all diseases could not answer some point blank questions by Prabir. This very popular program conducted by Mr.Debang ended with a challenge thrown by Prabir on behalf of the Rationalists’ Association of India. In this challenge, a patient sent by Prabir has to be cured of his ailment and a bald-headed man selected from Delhi will have to be cured of his baldness by growing hair on his scalp; both by using Ramdev’s Yogic therapy and not by using any modern medicine or skin-grafting etc.

No. Ramdev-ji did not accept the challenge. Read more about this “guru” is Prabir’s own words.

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