The practice had indeed been followed from time immemorial, in the first Shiva temple where it originated, whose place on the beach was now usurped b… - Ishwar Sharan

This cornering is made possible only because of the constitutional right provided to minorities to start and run educational institutions. There is a move now afoot to equate degrees obtained from Muslim madrasas to the CBSE board so that the Muslims in the OBC spectrum may be enabled to corner another major chunk of the benefits of reservation just as the Christians are doing now.

There is simply nothing Indian, much less South Indian, in the setting and ambiance of the Acts of Thomas. All internal evidence suggests Syria, Iraq and Persia – or Parthia as it was called in the first century CE – as the place where the drama of the Acts was played out to its preordained end, or to a kingdom on the edge of the Roman Empire – like Edessa itself – as there are strong Greco-Roman influences in the text, India as a specific place and Gundaphorus and Misdaeus-Mazdai as Indian kings appear to be literary devices used by Bardesanes to give credibility to the unconventional religious theme of the book.

As of today, Christians and Muslims remain excluded from the benefits extended to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Indians, as their respective ideologies do not recognise caste. However, to get around this constitutional obstacle, the majority or near majority of Christians and Muslims have been classified by their religious and community leaders as Backward Class (BC) or Other Backward Class (OBC) and are enjoying the benefits extended by the State and Central Government to these classes to the determent of the Hindus in these classes.