A thousand years ago the "Tower of silence" would have been as good a funeral system as any other system. It seems to be in-sync with nature too. I mean, we perform so many rituals after somebody dies.... to what end? Nobody knows. What happens to so many wild creatures dying in the Jungle....they get eaten by vultures. I think no system is better than the other. Any system which does not pollute the environment and does not cause discomfort to other people should be allowed.

In Recent times diclofenac poisoning has caused the vulture population to dip in India. This will have very serious impact on the ecological balance of the region. Diclofenac which is sometimes injected into cattles as a pain releiver is poisonous to vultures. As a result we may soon loose the most valueable scavenging bird forever.
This decline in vulture population has rendered the system of putting Dead bodies in the "Tower of silence", in-effective. This still remains a serious contentious issue in India.