X-rated' textbook for sex education
Singapore: Students pursuing Islamic religious education at mosques and private centres in Singapore will now receive sex education through a textbook with the words "X-rated" on its cover.

Fatwa: Adam-Eve pictures create furor in Pakistan
Publication of "half-naked" photographs of Hazrat Adam and Amma Hawwa, considered the first creations of the god, by the Pakistani magazine Octane, has attracted the ire of a section of the clergy who has demanded death to its owners and publishers.

Morals, hypocrisy and culture
Any statement about one's beliefs, morals, which is part of one's culture, puts one on shaky ground. To question what one calls one's culture is even more dangerous.

Technology: Net Sane in these Berserk Times
How wary we are of the impersonality and ambiguity of the net! We look askance at the strangeness of virtual communities. We wonder if they are clued into reality and fear our kids may become disconnected to human contact and so indifferent to the fragili

Speech: Saying the right words
In today's fast paced world our words too are quick to come forth and without much thought to what we are saying. We often speak more harshly, more rudely, more angrily than we need to. Such words never give us a positive result - and yet we continue on t

Generosity: Giving away
The benefits of giving away old clothes are two-fold - you get rid of waste material from your home, and so, open your house to fresh 'chi' or energies and secondly, you do a good deed by giving something to someone and light up their lives a little.

Peace be upon us
I am not a believer in organised religion, but spent three days with the Dalai Lama learning first-hand some of the teachings of Buddhism. They are worthy of sharing as we enter the New Year searching for that elusive element - peace.

The artist and the baseball player
Thus far human purpose has been defined by what we know about ourselves, but our collective perception of an order behind all acts of life does not guarantee an understanding of why that order exists. Likewise our ability to form beliefs does not assure t