Tonight on The Buck Stops Here:
109 Dead But Temple Says No Ban On Fireworks: Tradition Trumps Safety?
A day after the horrific temple fire in Kollam in Kerala in which 109 people were killed, the Travancore Devaswom Board - in charge of nearly 1,000 temples - said it will not obey a ban on fireworks. This as details emerged of the incredible pressure put on the District Commissioner and ADM, despite which they had categorically banned the fireworks display. Now the police are saying they had no choice as "thousands would have turned violent". On The Buck Stops Here, we debate: faith versus the law - does anything justify deadly firework displays at places of worship?
Right To Worship: Faith vs Emancipation
On a day when Supreme Court asked, "can we constitutionally reconcile with the idea that women can't be allowed into the sanctum sanctorum (of temples)," Shankaracharya Swaroopanand came up with a shocker. He said women entering the Shani temple in Maharashtra will mean that there would be more rapes now. On The Buck Stops Here, we debate: faith vs emancipation, are the Shankaracharya's views on women entering temple deeply sexist and totally out of sync with modern India?