The Tower of Silence located in Parsi Gutta, the final resting place of the 1,200-strong Parsi community in Hyderabad,...
Issues Articles
Kamalrukh Khan: Anti-conversion law should be nationalised
Wife of late Wajid Khan writes on her sufferings in an inter-faith marriage, says anti-conversion law should be...
Bombay Parsi Punchayat May be Dissolved
The newly-elected Bombay Parsi Punchayet faces dissolution. The over 350-year-old trust, among the oldest in the city, had for the first time conducted a universal adult franchise to elect trustees...
Warnings From Vanishing Vultures
KARACHI, Feb 25 (IPS/IFEJ) - "The thought of my carcass being pecked at by vultures isn’t at all pleasant," said Bapsi Sidhwa, a leading Pakistani diasporic writer now living in the United States....
Controversial Renovations at Iranshah in Udvada
We have received a note from Geve Eruch Narielwalla regarding the recent renovations at the Iranshah Atashbehram in Udvada. Geve has put up a website about the same issue The most sacred Zoroastrian...
Inside the young Parsi mind
Cosmopolitan or confused? Liberal or conservative? For almost every term that can describe the Parsi youth, the opposite also holds true. To understand the mindset of the young Parsi, Lata Narayan,...
Parsis reduced to tears for homes
As if the 25-year wait for a house was not enough, allegations that she and many like her lied to get a house became too much for a 55-year-old Parsi woman at the charity commissioner’s office on...
Vulture Conservation Project in Surat
The following text and pictures were forwarded to Parsi Khabar by Goldi Gandhi BCSG Surat chapter and Nature Club Surat have taken up a project of Vulture Conservation. Many activities are...
The Last of the Zoroastrians
Postcard from Yazd By Deena Guzder Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2008 Far removed from Tehran's bustling tin-roofed teashops and Isfahan's verdant pomegranate gardens, the deserts known as Dasht-e Kavir and...
Bombay Parsi Punchayat fails to release list of homes
After promising the charity commissioner twice that they would present a list of people they examined since assuming office on October 23, 2008, the Bombay Parsi Punchayet failed to release the list...
For some Parsis, the wait just got longer
Several Parsi families that were allotted flats by former trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) this year have now been put on the waiting list again. On Friday, they were present at the...
Parsi Panchayat to make elderly a priority
Senior citizens belonging to the Parsi community have a reason to smile. The newly-elected Parsi Panchayat members have promised to put issues related to the elderly in their community to the top of...
After Parsis, Sikhs most prone to breast cancer
Disclaimer: This article was published in the Indian Express. The doctor makes a statement about Parsi women being the most prone to breast cancer. I am posting this article hoping that someone...
Parsis too seek reservation in govt jobs
All these years they have never asked for any favour from the government. In fact, they favoured the government by building hospitals, colleges and research institutions in the city. However now,...
A House in a Baug
by Manoj R Nair - Mumbai Mirror - 02 Sept, 2008. Bombay Parsi Punchayet will allot more than 70 flats of the trust to members of the Parsi-Zorastrian community who are on the wait-list for houses...
Last-minute drug ban could save India’s almost-extinct vultures
99.9% of India's vultures have died out over the last 20 years, the victims of unintentional poisoning. It took years to find out why India's three vulture species -- the long-billed, slender-billed...
Shernaaz Engineer on the BPP Elections
The below is an article circulated on a newsgroup. It makes interesting reading with the BPP elections in the near future, as the subject matter. With a heavy heart and a poignant pen, SHERNAAZ...
Converting Ambedkar: The Chance that Parsis Missed
By Farrukh Dhondy Being part of a minority has its advantages. I have been part of several. The minority status one achieves as, say, a record-breaking runner is different from that which one is...
Mumbai Parsi Panchayat election heats up
With the new challengers unveiling their panel, the war for elections to the Bombay Parsi Panchayat is already heating up. For a community which believes in maja ni life this crowd of Parsis was...
Parsis set to exercise their franchise for BPP polls
The Parsi community is all set to witness a change this October, as its members will exercise their franchise for the first time in 350 years since the Bombay Parsi Panchayat was established. From...
Parsi punchayat gears up for polls
Otherwise known to be a genteel people, the Parsi community is likely to witness mud-slinging, name-calling and character assassination over the next two months as the 350-year-old Bombay Parsi...
The Parsis October Revolution
Those Russians call it double - 10 from 10th October, when the Tsars were overthrown. We, Parsis, will call it the October Revolution. When a frustrated, fed up, angry, exasperated, irate, end of...
Dwindling Numbers: A Legal View
A very interesting article from the Indian Law Blog "Law and Other Things" Dwindling number of Parsis The National Minorities Commission 's Report on the dwindling number of Parsis in India...
Vulture Culture
This is a youtube video about the Parsis of Bombay and the issues that face the community today. If the video does not show, please click here
Parsis may be silenced by success
By Sudha Ramachandran BANGALORE - The clock is ticking for one of India's most prosperous communities, the Parsis. Always small, the Parsi population is diminishing at an alarming rate, prompting...
Fertility clinic gives hope, aid to dwindling Parsi community
Mumbai: After the Hakims married, they looked forward to a quiet life, interrupted often by the laughter of children. Five years later, none had arrived. Troubled by the void, they began visiting...
Parsi Reformists Ready with a New Fire Temple Plan
By Manoj R Nair A group of Indian-Zoroastrian reformists acquires land at Malad to build a fire temple that will be open to even spouses of community members married outside the fold It could be an...
Voting rights? But whom do we choose?
Ask Parsi youth, who want to know whether issues like housing will be resolved MUMBAI: Last week, the High Court passed a judgment, one that would in many ways shake the age-old hierarchy of the...
India’s Parsees: Slow breeders
From The Economist print edition Apr 17th 2008 | DELHI Adherents of an ancient faith worry about its disappearance TWO of India's biggest business clans—Tata and Godrej—are Parsees, descendants of...
Marry, live in joint families: Minority panel to Parsis
The clock is ticking away fast and furious for India’s Parsi community. Alarmed by their dwindling numbers - as per the last census the Parsi population was less than 70,000 - the National...
Kolkata: Parsis delighted with the vultures’ return
The return of vultures to the Kolkata sky after a three-year gap has delighted the Parsi community in Kolkata despairing of the loss of their traditional way of disposing the deceased. The vultures'...
Who are they talking to?
Dr. Kersey Antia was in the Zoroastrian news recently, for better or for worse. In fact, the officers at the Colaba Police Station will also tell you who he is. Dr. Antia came to Mumbai to...
Vultures on the brink
The Indian government has a big job on its hands. It is accused today of ‘overseeing’ the decline of tigers. Another iconic creature, the vulture, is also on the brink of extinction and the...
Migrants, your grunts, everyone’s stunts
by Bachi Karkaria in the Times of India I cannot promise to raise a statue of Shivaji in Dadar Parsi Colony. But, in the ultimate cultural surrender, I hereby change my surname to Karkare. Many...
Open up to world, Zoroastrians told
Original article published in the TOI He is a man of peace. But whenever he dwells upon the crisis that has begun to loom large over the Zoroastrian community in terms of their dwindling numbers,...
Orthodox Parsis heckle liberal’s talk
This article appeared in the TOI. The controversy over acceptance of Parsis from mixed marriages into the Zoroastrian fold blew up on Saturday as the orthodox sections of the community disrupted and...
Parsi community caught in contradiction
Paris community is caught in a contradiction, a community whose numbers are fast dwindling but is adamant on shutting its doors on the children of mixed marriages. It is an old debate that has...
Liberal Parsis take on the orthodox
The Parsi community is set for a showdown with liberals taking on the orthodox, demanding that non-Parsis who have married into the community — and their children — be allowed to convert to the...
The great Parsi population plan
By Farrukh Dhondy Finally the Indian National Council for Minorities (NCM) has got around to what should be one of the central problems facing the country. A member of the Commission, one Mehroo...
Godrej hosts Salman Rushdie, angers Muslims
An Islamic group in India is asking Muslims to boycott products of a top Indian business group if its owner does not apologise for hosting author Salman Rushdie on a brief holiday this week. Rushdie...
Iran Plans on Destroying Tomb of King Cyrus, Friend of the Jews
Iran is planning on submerging the tomb of King Cyrus (Coresh), the Persian King known for authorizing the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Holy Temple. According to a report by...
UP Parsis Have only One Mobed
The Parsi community is facing a unique problem. With only one Parsi priest left in the state, the community is facing difficulties in performing religious rituals. Such is the situation that now...
Indian Parsis seek NCM’s help to dispose of dead
NEW DELHI: India's official National Commission for Minorities (NCM) has come to the rescue of the tiny Parsi community, which is worried over the disposal of their dead because of the dwindling...
We Are Getting Wiped Out
[Note: The following article expresses the views of Dr Fredie Mehta, the well known executive in the Tata house Are we imparting any religions knowledge to our children? Dr Fredie asks. Every other...
Dwindling numbers: Parsis at the fire temple in Secunderabad.
HYDERABAD: In a bid to understand the genetic factors, which are apparently leading to high incidence of various kinds of ailments among members of the Parsi community, a project named...
Naqsh-E-Rustom In Danger Due to Railway Track Construction
Despite all oppositions made so far by Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts, and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) against construction of Isfahan-Shiraz railway only in 500-meter distance of Naqsh-e...
Rolling in gold but still poverty-stricken
IN 1865, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata - a one-time opium trader and scion of a sparkling line of Parsee priests, Zoroastrians who had fled to western India from persecution in Iran - attended a lecture...
Save the Tehmulji Nursing Home
In the recent weeks, there has been news about the selling off of a very important Parsi heritage building. The Temulji Lying In hospice has for generations been the first point of entry into the...
Numbers down, but not their spirit
Numbers down, but not their spirit Family planning, migration, restrictions on conversion are reasons behind decline in Parsi population. Kolkata, June 21: Some thirty years ago, they were 4,000....
Protests against hoarding at Tower of Silence
Parsis are protesting against a hoarding that has come up on the premises of the sacred Tower of Silence at Doongerwadi--declared a green belt and a heritage site by the Supreme Court. Accusing the...
Funeral billboards raise cash, ire in India
Some might see the towering billboards that rise out of a centuries-old Bombay funeral ground as a message from beyond the grave. But the signs -- which exhort motorists to "Rev up your night life"...
Vulture breeding plan shelved
The world's first vulture breeding programme for a socio-religious purpose has been shelved. Parsis are traditionally laid to rest in Mumbai's Tower of Silence where vultures (now endangered) devour...