Secrets of secularism from a high-tech Guru
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who is visiting London after nine years, has a panoramic view of London from the 39th floor of the luxurious Shangri-La Hotel, At The Shard, the capital's tallest building.
After a 40-minute wait in the huge drawing room of his suite, I am ushered in for my interview with the 60-year-old "Guruji".
Ravi Shankar, who was born in Tamil Nadu but now lives in Bangalore, speaks perfect English. He is in the UK to address public meetings in Manchester, Leicester and London and to speak to parliamentarians.
He begins: "The big question in everyone's mind is, 'What is the purpose of life?' This is when the journey towards the spirit begins."
He advocates meditation and yoga as a way of dealing with the stresses of modern life.
He patiently adjusts the wrap-around glasses round my head so that I can see a video of one of his immense gatherings.
He recommends his "apps" when I ask whether meditation can be self-taught.
"Do breathing exercises - take some deep breaths," he says. "And sit and meditate for a while. And how to meditate if you ask me, I make a number of apps. To give you an initial experience of how to meditate. So you can download them."
"Though yoga and meditation have their roots in Hinduism their outlook and approach are very secular," he tells me. "Secularism is not in contradiction to spirituality. In fact, secularism is part of spirituality.
"In secularism you respect all religions, you have a broad mindset," he goes on. "You see everyone as equal; this is the basic principle of secularism. And everyone has their faith. And India is an example of this. Even Hinduism per se is very secular in the sense it allows everybody to practise whatever they wish to worship. So secularism and spirituality go hand in hand. If you are spiritual then you will definitely be secular. You cannot be fanatic. You cannot be theocratic. Religion divides people whereas spirituality unites them all as one human family. The world is one human family with differences. Whereas religion does not seem to promote differences, spirituality promotes differences - allow the freedom."
How does he relax?
"Do I look stressed?" he laughs.
As I leave, his next visitor comes in - Matthew Offord, the Tory MP for Hendon, a north London constituency with a big Indian population.
Partition story
In her first public outing since the death of her husband, Lord Gulam Noon, in October last year, Lady Mohini Kent Noon came to the Nehru Centre in London last week to launch her novel, Black Taj (HopeRoad Publishing; £12.99).
Simi, a strong-willed young woman, is the central character in the tale which is set in 1993 but all the others are also affected by the Partition of India in 1947.
"Simi's grandmother, old Mrs Bhandari, can't get over the trauma of Partition - in India the past is always present," said Mohini. "It is very hard to break free... So when Simi falls in love with a young Muslim doctor, then stark choices are thrust upon her."
Mohini did a question-and-answer session on stage with Anita Raghavan, herself the author of The Billionaire's Apprentice: The Rise of the Indian-American Elite and the Fall of the Galleon Hedge Fund.
Chairing the meeting was the academic and philosopher, Prof. Lord Bhikhu Parekh, who debunked the notion that "India was partitioned along religious lines".
"Absolute nonsense," he said. "India was not partitioned along religious lines - then you would have a Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan. What you had was large parts of Muslim India were sliced off from it because Muslims for some reason felt unsafe. The rest of India was not Hindu - the rest of India was what it had always been: secular, multi-ethnic, multi-religious."
Total design
The Victoria and Albert Museum is holding a series of exhibitions on engineering design. Last week saw the start of an exhibition on "the 20th century's greatest engineer, Ove Arup (1895-1988)".
Arup, who was born in England and grew up in Denmark, established his engineering firm in 1946. His "pioneering philosophy of Total Design" decreed that architects, designers and engineers should work together on any project right from the start.
"Ove founded the firm of which I am now the deputy chairman," Tristram Carfrae told me.
The firm, which currently employs 13,000 staff all over the world, has been responsible for the Sydney Opera House, with its distinctive curved arches, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Lloyds Building in London, and Kansai airport in Osaka on a man-made island.
"We have a very modest profile in India at the moment - we have an office in Mumbai but we don't do that much work at the moment but we would like to," said Carfrae. "We understand the Indian prime minister has plans for new cities in India - we would love to help with the policy, establishment, strategy and planning of those cities."
The model cross-sections of the Sydney Opera House brought back warm memories of my "moral tutor" at college, the late Prof. W.D. Biggs.
He was a metallurgist who helped make the specially toughened bolts that were used in the Sydney Opera House. He claimed he had achieved the result by "quenching the hot metal in the pee of a red-headed boy".
Cliff cleared
Fans of Sir Cliff Richard all over the world - and especially in India where he was born into the Anglo-Indian community - will be relieved to hear that police have now dropped all allegations of historical sexual abuse that had been levelled against the 75-year-old singer.
"I am obviously thrilled that the vile accusations and the resulting investigation have finally been brought to a close," said Sir Cliff. "I have never molested anyone in my life."
Personally, I never thought that Cliff Richard - known for such songs as The Young Ones, Living Doll, Summer Holiday and Congratulations - was anything other than innocent.
UK's Mallya
In many ways, Sir Philip Green is the Vijay Mallya of Britain.
Sir Philip, at 64, four years older than India's "king of good times", is having a singularly bad time.
He was grilled for six hours last week by two Commons select committees over his ownership of the BHS department store, which has gone bust.
Sir Philip, who took money out of BHS before selling it on for £1, has been called "the unacceptable face of capitalism", and is facing calls for his knighthood to be taken away from him.
But unlike Mallya, who appears to have settled in Britain, Sir Philip lives in Monaco for tax reasons.
Tittle tattle
Will the Brexit side win the referendum on Thursday as some polls now suggest?
The Daily Mail, among the papers which have campaigned for a British pullout from the European Union, reports that the "Queen's officials have been quizzed about her whereabouts on June 24, in case David Cameron decides to resign.
"Who might replace the Prime Minister?" the paper asks. "I suspect home secretary Theresa May fancies her chances as a unity candidate. She has had a new hairdo, if that is any guide."