September 15, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

As an undergraduate law student, one of the most important legal philosophers we studied in jurisprudence and the theory of law was the British legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Bentham is credited with creating the doctrine of utilitarianism, that at its core believes that the purpose of morality is to make life better by increasing the amount of good things and decreasing the amount of bad things in the world. This philosophy is underpinned by the belief in the principle of the ‘Rule of Law’ and in its absence there could be an increase in a lot of bad things in the world.

The principle of the ‘Rule of Law’ can be traced back to Ancient Greece and th...

September 1, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

The Manchester United captain and England defender was clear in his own mind he had done nothing wrong and had nothing to apologise for after being arrested, charged, convicted and then, in a bizarre twist, set free during his holiday on the Greek island of Mykonos.

BBC News sports editor Dan Roan was cock-a-hoop about his exclusive interview with Harry Maguire when he returned to the UK last week. BBC News emphasised that Maguire’s conviction didn’t stand because he’d been granted the right of appeal under Greek law, so he was innocent of the charges. You could say this was damage limitation.

But it’s hardly a textbook example of PR success when there are gl...

August 8, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

Why the Parsee community is dying this Century – by the Guardian’s Foreign Correspondent in central and Eastern Europe, Shaun Walker, whose mother was a Parsee who married outside of the Zoroastrian faith

This is fascinating – and sad – article. I was lucky to have married a fellow Zoroastrian I met when I joined the BBC and our wedding photo appeared in the Millennium Dome (yes, it was that long ago!)...

July 31, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

An unprecedented amount of interest within the global privacy community was generated on 16 July 2020 when the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU) delivered its verdict in the case brought by Maximillian Schrems against Facebook Ireland (Schrems II).

Europe’s highest court found that the EU-US Privacy Shield mechanism was invalid for protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of EU citizens enshrined under Article 8(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the ‘Charter’) whose personal data was transferred to the US.

And while the CJEU choose not to go down the same road for Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) or Binding Corp...

July 31, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

US Civil Rights leader Joe Lewis wrote an open letter to be read on the day of his funeral that took place on Thurs 30 July 2020, attended by Presidents Obama, Clinton and Bush Jr.

That’s hard to beat – having the presence of mind to crystalise his legacy at the moment he knew he was about to die – Joe Lewis continues to inspire future generations in building a more fair and just America.

Here’s the open letter published in the New York Times yesterday (30 July 2020):

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me...

July 28, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

This is a very interesting YouTube interview with the author, Dinya Patel (himself a Parsee) who achieved his doctorate with this work and is Assistant Professor of History, South Carolina University.

A fascinating book on the life of the extraordinary ‘Grand Old Man of India’ – Sir Dadabhai Naroji, our most famous Parsee

His book – ‘Naoroji, Pioneer of Indian Nationalism’ is published by the Harvard University Press and distributed by Harper Collins.

Share the Guru...

July 26, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

Since the brutal murder of George Floyd, much of the debate has focused on police brutality and reforming the police. Yet systemic prejudice still exists in the US. And there’s no getting away from it – every day in the US, an unarmed citizen killed by American police forces are disproportionately black.

As the Economist newspaper recently reported in its briefing on ‘Race in America’ (July 11-17, 2020): ‘That most brutal of injustices explains much of the power, the extent and the focus of the protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd, protests that have drawn a level of attention to race relations unseen since the 1970s.’

Clayborne Carson, a historian at S...

July 5, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

This is a love story of two people born almost a generation apart, in two different continents and how the wheels of fortune brought them together.

Ratan D. Tata (nephew of Jamshedji Tata), was in Paris hoping to trade in pearls and silk. He wanted to learn French, so his uncle Jamsetji recommended a teacher to him – Madame Briere.

It was here that he met and fell in love with the teacher’s beautiful daughter Susaune, slim and tall with beautiful golden hair. She was twenty years old.

Ratan informed his uncle Jamsetji about his affection for Susaune and his desire to marry her...

July 5, 2020,  Guru in a Bottle  No comments

A poem by Murzban F. Shroff

This is the winter of our confinement

This is the spring of our unease

This is the summer of our expectations

The fall of our species

This is the weakness of our senses

This is the outcome of our greed

This is the collapse of our intellect

The negation of our needs

This is the night of our darkness

This is the prison of our morrows

This is the cumulus of our burden

The song of our sorrows

This is what we brought our world to

Conquering land and sea and sky

Not for a moment did we pause

Thinking where our limits lie

We robbed the earth of its beauty

And we drained the soil of...

July 5, 2020,  News  No comments

This is an article by historian Dinyar Patel that was posted on the BBC News website on Sunday 5 July 2020.

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) is an unfamiliar name these days.

Yet, aside from being the first Asian to sit in the House of Commons, he was also the most important leader in India before Mahatma Gandhi, as well as being an anti-racist and anti-imperialist of global significance.

Now, more than ever, amidst various global crises, he deserves to be remembered.

His life is a stirring testament to the pow...