Indian women can enter temple
NEW DELHI: India’s top court on Friday revoked a ban on women entering a famous Hindu temple following a decades-long legal battle, ruling that patriarchy cannot be allowed to trump faith.
The decision is the latest by the Supreme Court in recent weeks to reflect a more liberal outlook in the largely conservative and traditional society of 1.25 billion people.
Women in India have been intensifying campaigns in recent years to be allowed to enter Hindu temples and other religious sites.
The Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala — the subject of Friday’s ruling and considered one of the holiest for Hindus — has traditionally barred all women of menstruating age, between 10 and 50.
The temple’s rule emanated from the still widely held belief in India that menstruating women are impure. In rural pockets of the country, many women are still made to sleep and eat separately during menstruation.
The custom in the temple in the southern state of Kerala was challenged by a clutch of petitioners who argued that women cannot be denied the constitutional right to worship.
NEW DELHI: An Indian coffee shop chain rhyming with Starbucks and with a similar logo has agreed to change its name after being sued BY THE US GIANT, THE INDIAN IRM said Friday.
Starbucks, which entered the vast Indian market in 2012 and now has 125 outlets, began legal proceedings against “Sardarbuksh”, which has 25 shops in New Delhi, in July.
“Our name rhymed with Starbucks which is why the court has ruled (on Thursday) in their favour,” Sanmeet Singh Kalra, co-founder of SardarBuksh, told AFP.
His company has agreed to change the name to the not-particularly-different “Sardarji-bakhsh” within two months.
But Kalra said that his logo, which like Starbuck’s is a circle of green and BLACK WITH A IGURE AT THE CENTRE — albeit a man in a turban and not a MERMAID — WILL NOT CHANGE.
Harish Bijoor, a branding consulTANT, SAID THAT INDIAN IRMS OFTEN USE names that are similar to well-known multinational brands.
“Such imitators have limited ambition and they enjoy their moment of limelight of having ambushed an iconic brand in India,” Bijoor told AFP.
In 2015, US fast food giant Burger King reportedly took a street vendor in the northern city of Ludhiana to court for using the name “Mr Singh Burger King”.
Indian chain “Burger Singh” has been left alone, however, opening 20 outlets in India with plans to expand into the British market, according to media reports.
“Singh” is a commonly used last name in India’s Hindu and Sikh communities.