Their names used to reverberate through early morning prayers, fire rites, and sacred chants. As guardians of rain, fire, dawn, and justice, they were the lifeblood of ancient Indian devotion. But ...

While a ceremonial fusillade of firecrackers sounded outside, a black-capped Brahmin pandit recited Sanskrit prayers last week in a factory conference hall at Poona, outside Bombay. It was the time of ...