India, July 3 -- Would you let your children eat food cooked by the Hare Krishna movement? (Or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON, to give it the full title.) It may sound like a strange question, but the answer touches on a current political controversy. The new government in West Bengal has involved the Hare Krishnas in providing meals to school children in Kolkata, and there has been an uproar about that decision.

But my answer is clear. Not only would I let my kids eat food from the Hare Krishnas, but I would eat it too. For several decades, the Hare Krishnas have run the Govinda restaurant in London, which serves very good vegetarian Indian food, and I have also eaten well at their complex in Mumbai.

So, wh...