Last week, a college in Mangalore in India banned a student wearing a burqa from attending class. The principal told local media the college had a policy of not allowing symbols of religion.

The media did not say if there were students on campus with a ‘bindi’ (dot) on their foreheads or crucifixes around their necks or turbans on their heads, other symbols of religion one commonly sees in India, besides the ubiquitous “Om” scarves and t-shirts.

Mangalore, a cosmopolitan city, is no stranger to controversy; it was recently in the news for attacks on bars and women by a fundamentalist Hindu outfit that declared they were against Indian culture.

Nor is the controversy over headscarves and burqas limited to India. UK’s Jack Straw sparked a heated debate when he asked Muslim women in his constituency to remove their veils to promote better relations between people.

Turkey last year lifted a ban on women wearing headscarves at universities, ruling it violated the country’s secular constitution.

More recently, French president Sarkozy said burqas have no place in the country because they are a symbol of the subjugation of women. The issue has divided France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim minority, over how to reconcile secular values with religious freedom.

A 2004 French law bans students from wearing “conspicuous” signs of their religion in state schools, prompting Sikhs to launch a protest to allow them to keep their turbans on.

Sikhs have also fought in some countries for the right to carry the “kirpan”, a dagger mandated by their religion and have called on the U.S. Army to end a ban on men with turbans.

How about India, a secular country which allows its citizens the right to follow any religion of their choosing? Can a college or a workplace impose its own rules about religious symbols? And who gets to determine what’s conspicuous or not?

If you want a break from a global financial meltdown, the launch of Bentley’s latest luxury car in India can be welcome relief - and show that the rich are still doing what they do best. Buying unnecessary things.

It means you can, in my case, leave behind an office full of tired journalists hunched over ever more depressing data, and ignore TV screens showing grimfaced politicians and weepy traders.

Out there somewhere, someone has the cash to buy the ‘New Continental Flying Spur Speed’ Bentley - even if that somebody isn’t you.

The car - which costs a cool Rs2.5crore (over half a million USD) - was on display at one of the capital’s high-end hotels on Friday.

Boasting a stylish black finish and a retro-style front grille, the car’s specs are, in the current climate, almost satirical.

To get to 100kmh needs just 4.8 seconds of pedal pressing; while your top speed - if you were ever tempted to try it out - is 322kmh.

Every car is also custom-made to fit the whims of those who can still afford to be whimsical; and is built with a decadent slowness that means that the cover for the steering wheel, for example, takes 5 1/2 hours to stitch together.

It makes for entertaining reading on the same day that the carmaker’s country of origin, the UK, is revving up to sue Iceland over withheld bank deposits - not an event many of us saw coming.

And as Bentley’s MD for India says, ‘there is always somebody making money’. While things are starting to look really bad in India, Bentley and many companies like it still see the country as a ‘key market’, and aren’t going anywhere.