Today Tamil scholars say that Tiruvalluvar lived before the Christian era, usually placing him ca. 100 BCE, but some date him as early as ca. 200 BCE… - Ishwar Sharan

Whatever the faults of the Indian Express in the 1990s, it had an honourable beginning and still had some of the moral authority it acquired in the Freedom Movement. This is not true of The Hindu which was established with the sole objective of making money from the British Raj. It was known as "The Sapper" prior to 1947 – even the British- owned Mail was more nationalistic - and after the White Sahib went away it was called "The Old Widow of Mount Road". 1 Its formula for success is a studied, high-tech mediocrity – name and form and no content – and a faithful toeing of the Chinese government line. It is class-conscious, casteist and fashionably anti-Hindu. Its moral response to any media- created national crisis – such as the demolition of an unauthorised Muslim building in Ayodhya – is to fill its columns with the lugubrious drivel of various popular Marxist professors. In short, The Hindu is self- righteous and boring unless one is looking for a suitable girl for a suitable boy with B.Com. and an American Green Card.... . Today in 2010 it is called "The Chindu" because of its slavish pro-China editorial policy. The Hindu has been a quisling newspaper throughout its whole career though it calls itself India's national newspaper.

The first Christians to emigrate to India came in 345 CE. They landed at Cranganore in Malabar, the ancient port of Muziris on the mouth of the Periyar River where it joined the Arabian Sea. They were four hundred refugees from Babylon and Nineveh, belonging to seven tribes and seventy-two families. They were fleeing religious persecution under the Persian king Shapur II. He had driven them out of Syria and Mesopotamia because he considered them a state liability. Rome, Persia’s arch enemy, had begun to christianise under Constantine, and Shapur had come to suspect the allegiances of his Christian subjects.

This nineteenth century Gothic cathedral is built on a high point of the Mylapore beach and replaces the sixteenth century Portuguese church that was built on the same site. Both the church and bishop's house beside it are built over the area of the original Kapaleeswara Temple demolished by the Portuguese. The church, now designated a minor basilica, is dedicated to St. Thomas and contains two of his tombs, two sets of his relics including the bit of arm bone from Ortona, Italy, and the metal spearhead that is said to have killed him. Other churches in Madras that are associated with St. Thomas and are identified as having been built on temple sites are Luz Church in Mylapore and Our Lady of Health Church on Little Mount at Saidapet.