The Mumbai police have registered a case against city-based builder Kersi Jamshed Randeria and his son Astaad Kersi...
News Articles
Parsis In Pakistan: A Fading Community And The Silence Of Survival
For a few weeks each year, in parts of Karachi and Quetta, you can hear Avestan prayers in the Parsi fire temples...
Pakistani Zoroastrians Must Keep The Fire Ablaze
Funerals are the only constant for Zoroastrians in Pakistan. For a community of less than 1,800 — last recorded in 2006 in a research conducted by KE Eduljee — the announcement comes faithfully...
India’s Declining Parsi Population: Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera English TV had a panel discussion revolving around the Jiyo Parsi scheme and recent ad campaign. The panelists were Shireen Havewala of Zoroastrian Return To Roots, Hoshaang Gotla of XYZ...
Attorney Narges M. Kakalia Receives Human Rights First’s Pro Bono Star Award
Narges M. Kakalia, a Member of the Litigation Section of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., has received Human Rights First’s prestigious Pro Bono Star award for excellence in...
From Living in a Mumbai Brothel to Seeing the World
Zaneeta E. Daver is a young Zoroastrian living in Washington D.C. Last year she did ….for a second time !!….something we all dream of….sailing around the world. And now she is trying to give the...
Sam Balsara to daughter Lara: Embrace motherhood at the earliest
Sam Balsara, CMD, Madison World has a word of advice for his daughter Lara Balsara, a director in the company, who is soon getting married to KaizadVajifdar, a young pilot with Air India. It is to...
Go Forth and Procreate: Boman Irani At Sanjan Day Celebrations
Eminent Parsi and Bollywood personality Boman Irani endorses the Jiyo Parsi campaign. A video recording of his speech is at the end of this article. Praising the ‘Jiyo Parsi’ campaign of...
Voices of Reason: The Jiyo Parsi Ad Campaign
A week ago, the Jiyo Parsi Scheme administered by PARZOR and set up by the Government of India launched an advertising campaign. The campaign and the advertisements went viral and have incited a...
Lara Balsara to tie the knot
What’s keeping Sam Balsara busy these days? It could be another campaign for Madison’s clients or maybe the upcoming wedding of daughter and Madison World’s Executive Director Lara...
Charter For Co-Existence
Below is a write-up sent by good friend of Parsi Khabar, Mr. Dinshaw K. Tamboly. Charter For Co-Existence Seldom has our small community been so riven with divisiveness and factionalism as now....
Provocative ads to revive Parsis’ numbers
Good advertising has to offend someone to work,“ said Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director of Madison World, at an event to elaborate on Jiyo Parsi, a Rs 10-crore scheme, funded by the...
Jiyo Parsi Launches A Brilliant Print Advertising Campaign
Jiyo Parsi is a Government of India supported scheme to arrest the decline in population of the Parsi Zoroastrian Community in India. Headed by the phenomenal Shernaz Cama, the program launched a...
Twins born to parsi couple, more births due: Jiyo Parsi
The twins have landed. Another eight arrivals are expected by the year-end. A central scheme that encourages Parsis to multiply has sired twins, in a double delight for the community whose numbers...
Mahzarin Banaji: Zooming in on blind spots
On a recent Thursday evening at Deutsche Bank AG’s fourth annual Women in Asian Business Conference, over 800 corporate executives, largely bankers, discovered that they barely knew their own minds....
Kappawalla Agiary: Appeal for Kathi Funds
Below is an appeal we received from Ervad Jamshed Bhesadia, the Panthaky Saheb of the Kappawalla Agiary in Tardeo, Mumbai; India As we are aware that to enable the Fire of Aatash Padshah to...
From Persia to Akbar’s Court: Google Cultural Institute Exhibit
Dr. Shernaz Cama; good friend of Parsi Khabar; and the powerhouse behind such Parsi institutions as the PARZOR Project, the Jiyo Parsi Scheme and the Zoroastrian Return to Roots Program informs us...
Jiyo Parsi Scheme: Mumbai gets first Parsi Twins Under Government Scheme
The govt-funded scheme, Jiyo Parsi, comes as a welcome change as every new birth matters for the rapidly declining community Jyoti Shelar | Mumbai Mirror At a time when the government is promoting...
Why Delhi’s Parsis don’t want non-Parsi spouses in their cemetery
The community is likely to vote against a proposal to allow the husbands and wives of those who marry outside the faith to be buried in the Parsi graveyard. The Parsis – one of India’s smallest...
Meet the Women Fighting the Islamic State
MAKHMOUR, Iraq — Avesta enters the cramped room in a teachers’ residence turned temporary military base, ready for a meeting with her fellow fighters. The six commandos rise to shake her hand....
The Story Behind Kaizad Hansotia and Gurkha Cigar Company
urkha Cigar Company is known around the world as one of the most luxurious brands of premium cigars. With many different blends and lines, there is a Gurkha cigar to fit almost any occasion and any...
Well-known hotelier Jehangir Cama dies at 76
Leading hotelier Jehangir Cama, 76, passed away at a private hospital in Ahmedabad on Monday evening. Cama, chairman of Cama Group, was admitted to HCG Medisurge Hospitals at Mithakali for the past...
Navroze low key for lone Parsi family in East Maharashtra
Chandrapur: Even as their community members celebrated ‘Navroze’ in Mumbai on Monday with fervour, the new year was not that boisterous for ‘Gundevias’, the only Parsi family...
Dossabhai Oliaji: RIP
We are sad to inform the passing away of Dossabhai Oliaji one of the legends of Parsi Hospitality. Good friend and reader of Parsi Khabar Zarir Oomrigar informed us of this sad news. Image...
Administrator appointed by HC to safeguard estate of Purvez Dalal in Rs 200 crore dispute
Two sides-‘heirs’ and ‘confidantes’-are in tussle over properties of Purvez Dalal, who died in 2011. In a dispute pertaining to two wills, both of which list properties worth...
Jiyo Parsi Workshop: Family Life in the 21st Century
Dear friend of Parsi Khabar, Dr. Shernaz Cama informs Dear All, I would be grateful if this Notice could be given wide publicity. It is the 1st in a series of Workshops in the Advocacy section of...
PARZOR Exhibition in Chennai
Preserving the grand ethnic culture Parzor Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that works towards preserving the Parsi culture, will be organising a crafts exhibition for the first time in...
Udvada and Navsari Atashbehrams: A Report by Berjis Desai
Our annual pilgrimage to the Navsari and Udvada atash behrams made us pensive. Although it was not one of the "big days” of the Parsi calendar, there was no sitting space at Iranshah. Occupancy...
Mumbai Samachar: Going strong at 192
On July 1, Mumbai Samachar, the city’s second most circulated Gujarati paper, will reaffirm its position as the oldest surviving newspaper in Asia. When copies of the Mumbai Samachar (MS) hit...
Parsis to meet Heptullah in July over reservations
The trustees of the Bombay Parsee Punchayet (BPP) will meet minority affairs minister Najma Heptullah in the first week of July to discuss reservations for the community in medical and engineering...
Billionaire NRI Dadi Balsara found dead in his Taj room
One of the richest NRIs from Singapore, 71-year-old Dadi Balsara, who had been living in a suite of Taj Mansingh Hotel, died late Wednesday. Prima facie, it appears that he had suffered cardiac...
Hvovi Minocherhomji: Chennai halts traffic to save life
When a human heart was being loaded into an ambulance at the General Hospital around 6.40pm on Monday, 6km away, at Light House, traffic inspector Uday Kumar’s walkietalkie crackled to life....
Kainaz Amaria Accepts Innovation Award from White House NPA
Good friend of Parsi Khabar, Kainaz Amaria recently received an award at the the hands of President Obama on behalf of her team. Earlier this year Kainaz Amaria, supervising editor for the NPR...
Ex-CJI backs out of case against ‘rebel’ Parsi priests
Rejection of request to mediate is a blow to the community which has already spent over Rs 3 crore in litigation Former chief justice of India, Sarosh Kapadia, has rejected a request to mediate in...
An extraordinarily ordinary man laid to rest: Russi Mody
It was the wish of Russi Modi, a former chairman and managing director of Tata Steel, to be laid to rest beside the tomb of his mother, Lady Jerby Mody, at the Parsee cemetery in the city, and so...
SH Kapadia to see action as mediator between ‘renegade’ Parsi priests and BPP
ROW OVER ‘RENEGADE’ PRIESTS: Bombay Parsi Punchayet says Sarosh Kapadia is also Parsi, will click with community while pointing to depleting coffers and huge litigation costs. The...
Colaba Metro Wont Affect the Atashbehrams at Princess Street: MMRDA
There is a possibility of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) not disturbing the century-old Parsi fire temple at Princess Street near Dhobi Talao during the construction of...
Dr. Zinobia Madan and The Jiyo Parsi Scheme: Interview with BBC
Dr. Zinobia Madan spearheads the Jiyo Parsi Scheme that the Government of India has put together with UNESCO Parzor Project. Here she speaks to the BBC on the issue of raising the Parsi population....
Ratan Tata Conferred Knight Commander Rank by Queen of England
The Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday conferred the rank of Knight Commander (KBE) on former chairman of the Tata group Ratan Tata. The KBE is one of the highest honours given by the queen to...
Thousands willing to donate salaries to save Dr Homi Bhabha’s bungalow in Mumbai
Thousands of people are willing to shell out money from their pockets to preserve Dr Homi Jehangir Bhaba’s legacy. With Dr Bhabha’s sprawling bungalow, Mehrangir, situated in the posh...
Prince Charles Visits the Godrej Mangroves
The HRH Prince Charles was recently in India. Below is a small write up by Dorab E. Mistry of UK. Dorab Mistry writes: I am sending you 2 remarkable photographs of HRH Prince Charles visiting the...
After 23 Years World Zoroastrian Congress returns to Mumbai
The Parsi community laid the metaphorical building blocks that made the city of Mumbai. On December 27, the World Zoroastrian Congress — a conference that brings together Parsis from across the...
Kaum Banegi Crorepati
An entire community’s hopes seem pinned on a man called Marzi Bhesania. Its networks have gone viral over this hitherto unheard of fellow-Parsi. By Bachi Karkaria | Times of India He’s...
Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustees cry Rs 45 lakh swindle, put chief in a spot
Four trustees of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) on Wednesday filed a complaint with the joint commissioner of police against their chairman, Dinshaw Mehta, for misappropriation of funds, cheating...
Marzi Bhesania: First Zoroastrian on Kaun Banega Crorepati
Marzi Bhesania of Navsari, Gujarat; India is slated to be the first ever Parsi contestant on Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of the original Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. In the long run...
Ignoring community’s help, Parsi family lives on footpath
They were given monetary assistance and put up at a dharamshala, yet the family of three have, for four years, been embarrassing the community by living outside the Petit Sanatorium at Cumballa...
13 years after judge’s death, ex-pilot in the dock over threat calls
Thirteen years after the death of a former Bombay High Court judge, the court is likely to frame charges against an ex-pilot accused of criminally intimidating him and his family over a property...
Zoroastrian Research Group Online
Bakhtyar Taila of Boston, USA writes: I have started a Zoroastrian Research Group on Yahoo. This group is Dedicated to research and inquiry about Zoroastrianism and about everything Zoroastrian. If...
WZO Trust Funds Launches New Website
Good friend of Parsi Khabar, and Chairman of the WZO Trust Funds, Mr. Dinshaw K. Tamboly informs us: Dear Friends, Donors, Well Wishers, The website of World Zoroastrian Organisation Trust / WZO...
Zoroastrian Return To Roots Program
The Zoroastrian Return to Roots Program is a new initiative launched by a group of 4 young Zarathushtis resideing all over the world. It is a fantastic program and comes with the oversight of...
Mumbai's Zoroastrian Anjuman sells 963 acres of land to Viva Homes
The tiny Parsi-Irani community is one of the largest land owners in and around Mumbai. The Wadia, Godrej and Jeejeebhoy families are some of the big landlords while the Bombay Parsi Punchayat...
Bhicoo Manekshaw Passes Away
We are saddened to inform the passing away of Bhicoo Manekshaw. She was one of the best known names in the world of gastronomical delights. Her cookbooks on Parsi cooking are some of the best...