India, May 30 -- We often hear of animal and bird species being declared endangered by governments and international organisations, leading to campaigns for their protection and conservation. Yet, very little attention is paid to another endangered species emerging in our times: the morally upright human being. In today's disturbed moral ecology, marked by corruption, crime, mental pollution and growing insensitivity, the ethically sound elite and morally strong middle class are slowly becoming a vanishing tribe. The drought in human compassion and the steady erosion of values have created a crisis far more dangerous than the extinction of wildlife.

This decline has not happened overnight. It has entered society quietly under attractive ...