Ikram Sehgal and Dr Bettina Robotika

Since they are also treated apart as a caste, not so much discriminated as the Dalits are we are addressing the subject separately. Tribal religions in the North, particularly the Northeast mountains of South Asia, believe in various ancient traditions of spiritualism known as animism and/or ancestor worshipping – they believe in cosmic oneness where […]

Since Dalits are excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and are seen as “Avarna,” they are examined separately. Dalit (meaning broken, shattered in Sanskrit) is a name for people who used to belong to the lowest jatis (occupational castes) in India. They are called “untouchables” because they are considered impure in the religious […]

The term “caste” is of western origin based on Latin “castus” meaning pure. It was obviously created and introduced when western (Portuguese, Dutch, French, British) seafarers and conquerors came to India and tried to make out and understand the society they found in India. The caste is legitimised by Hinduism social differentiation that divides the […]

Hinduism, which is also called Sanatana Dharma (eternal law), refers to the idea that its origins go back beyond time and space, has about one billion followers. They represent about 15 percent of the world population. After Christianity (31 percent) and Islam (23 percent), Hinduism is the third largest religion globally other than Islam and […]

Globalisation includes the interaction, cohabitation and mixing of people from different ethnicities, cultures, religious backgrounds, values and world views. The concept has considerably changed the world consisting of nation-states. The growing presence of the “other” in one’s neighbourhood has opened up tensions; questioned identities and resulted in a struggle to hold on to one’s inherited […]

The world is changing and these changes are not going away. They are bound to stay. Getting caught in our daily business, we tend to lose sight of the greater picture. To keep looking at what is going on around us, some history is important to get the right perspective and, thus, be able to […]

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) originated with an inter-governmental agreement between Russia, Iran, India and Azerbaijan. A total of 13 countries (including Pakistan) have since ratified the agreement. The corridor would eventually stretch from Northern Europe all the way to Southeast Asia. Being stalled for many years, the INSTC found renewed impetus in January […]

The world is changing and a new continent has come up in front of our eyes: Eurasia. Continents being defined as “main continuous expanses of land”, one wonders why Europe and Asia-being very much a continuous landmass-have throughout the centuries been perceived as two separate continents. One major reason may be that from the 18th […]

Constituting all of North Asia, Siberia is an extensive geographical region that is sparsely populated (from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east). It has been a part of Russia since the latter half of the 16th century after the Russians conquered lands east of the Ural Mountains. Covering […]

The historic Silk Road was a network of land trade routes connecting Asia and Europe; from the 2nd century BC to 18th century AD. It was central to the economic, cultural, political and religious interactions between these regions. Other than the crusades, this is an early example of peaceful globalisation. Thereafter, it fell into disuse […]