By Jerome Taylor

On Tuesday we published a report about how a 69-year-old Hindu "guru" from Newcastle is launching a High Court battle next month to try and enshrine in law the right to cremate bodies in the open.

In the past 24 hours my email has been inundated with messages from those who either support this legal bid or angrily condemn it.

Rather than repeat all the arguments on this blog the full article can be read here.

But why not post what you think about this issue below? Is Britain ready for outdoor cremations? Should we try to accommodate a ceremony that has been practiced in South Asia for thousands of years and could be done away from the public gaze? Or is this just another step too far?

Let us know what you think...

By Jerome Taylor

Sikhs have angrily condemned a website (left) which appears to be run by young male Muslims and boasts about seducing Sikh women during freshers week at university.

The website contains pictures of at least 25 Sikh women which the site's administrators claim to have seduced alongside highly provocative remarks about the women and the Sikh religion.

Timed to coincide with the start of the university year - described in the site as a time when "[Muslim] soldiers go hunting for Sikh slappers" - the website's creators encourage friends and readers to send in pictures of Sikh women they have seduced during freshers week.

The website, whose address the Independent has declined to publish in order to protect the women's identities, has caused outrage among many Sikhs and risks damaging the historically tense relationship between Britain's Sikhs and Muslims.

By Jerome Taylor

So the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has finally succeeded in forcing out his increasingly troublesome nemesis and No 3 Tarique Ghaffur (the pair are pictured together in 2005).

In a shock announcement yesterday Sir Ian Blair said that the Ugandan-born Assistant Police Commissioner, who is in the middle of taking the Met and Blair to a tribunal over alleged race discrimination, is to take an "authorised leave of absence".

Is this a shrewd move by Blair or has he just given more ammunition to his rival?

By Jerome Taylor

In the past few days two reports have highlighted what may indicate rising tensions between Britain's Sikh and Muslim communities and if they are correct should we be worried?

In yesterday's paper I reported on how a few Sikh groups are rather upset that the BBC's Religion and Ethics department has made more than 40 programmes on Islam but just four on Hinduism and one on Sikhism since 2001. There is a feeling, and I've heard the same sentiments echoed by Hindu groups, that a disproportionate amount of programming is dedicated towards Islam at the expense of Britain's two other populous Asian religions.

At the same time a new report published today by the think-tank Faith Matters warns that in some localised areas there is a growing gulf between young male Sikhs and Muslims that, if not tackled now, could become a national issue in 5-10 years. (I'll post the link as soon as I have it).

So should we be worried?

By Jerome Taylor

Sarika Singh, the 14-year-old Welsh Sikh schoolgirl who won a landmark court victory against her school after they refused to teach her until she removed a religious bangle, has enrolled in a different school for the new academic year.

Aberdare Girls School in South Wales taught Sarika in isolation for weeks before finally excluding her entirely because she refused to take off her Kara, one of five symbols worn by observant Sikhs. In July, after months of trying to get her school to compromise, she won a High Court battle which ruled that the school had broken Britain's race and equality laws.

Once they had lost the school said they would be happy to take Sarika back but unsurprisingly her mother today has said that her daughter will be enrolling at the school she went to after she was excluded which had no problem with her wearing the Kara.

Personally I'm not surprised as Sarika's school treated her appallingly over the past year.

By Jerome Taylor

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece about how boardrooms have increasingly stopped worrying about what goes on in our bedrooms and have begun opening up to bi, gay and lesbian workers. It was sparked off by Mi5's decision to hire the lobby group Stonewall to advise it on how to hire queer spies.

Coming from an agency that once banned gay employees for fear that outed spies could be blackmailed, it was quite a significant move on behalf of Thames House. The City meanwhile, another generally white male bastion, has also done its part in opening up to gays compared to, say, twenty years ago when it was not unusual for outed employees to be shown the door.

But while some improvements have been made, the latest research suggests that the City may in fact be regressing when it comes to attitudes towards gay workers.

By Jerome Taylor

Every Wednesday for the past ten years, 81-year-old Thelma Percy has travelled from her home in Bognor Regis to the Haslar Immigration and Removal Centre in Gosport to spend time with the thousands of asylum seekers that pass through the centre’s ominous green gates.

Over a cup of tea and biscuits she listens to the myriad of stories from people escaping a world of conflict and strife. For those who have no relatives in Britain, Mrs Percy is often their only contact with ordinary British citizens.

Over time she has forged strong relationships with many of the refugees, particularly those who have fled the current turmoil in Zimbabwe.

But no longer content with lending an ear to her Zimbabwean friends, Thelma Percy is now trying to free them by dipping into her own pocket and personally offering bail money to the courts.

By Jerome Taylor

First it was slavery, then it was looting the world's architectural treasures and hauling them back to our museums. Now it is homophobia.

Over the years Britain has been asked to apologise for many historical wrongs but activists in India are about to demand another apology.

Sixty-six years after Mahatma Gandhi told the British to quit India from a park in Mumbai, thousands of gay activists will gather in the same park tomorrow to call on the British government to apologise for introducing anti-sodomy laws that still make homosexuality illegal in India today.

By Jerome Taylor

When I went down to the enormous Islam Expo in Kensington Olympia last week one of the many things that struck me was how much wonderful Islamic fashion was on display.

Both religious and mainstream designers are really starting to realise that Muslim women are just as fashion conscious as the rest of us and are either creating new ranges of clothing or adjusting their designs to make them acceptably modest.

One fun recent development is a hijab that can be worn during sports (pictured). I'm not sure what the rules are in the UK on wearing hijab and playing sports in school but in Holland it's not allowed on health and safety grounds, primarily because most ordinary headscarves are held together with pins.

By Jerome Taylor

Lambeth Conference only comes around once every 10 years and this week's meeting looks set to be the most hi-tech Lambeth yet.

Many might think that the Anglican Church is something of an archaic institution trapped in a maze of its own needlessly intricate rules and traditions - anyone who sat in on last week's General Synod might concur - but both the Church's leaders and lay folk are just as internet savvy as the rest of us.

A whole host of bloggers will be among the 1,300 bishops, spouses, staff and journalists descending on Canterbury this week. It is a phenomenon that will radically alter the way what actually happens at Lambeth is brought to the public's attention.