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BHOPAL, INDIA, January 28, 2012 (news bharati): The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking to include summaries of sacred books of all other religions in the academic curriculum along with the Gita. It ruled the scripture Bhagwad Gita was a book on Indian philosophy.

When the Catholic Bishop's Council filed the PIL in August last year, the court gave the petitioner's counsel two months to read the holy book in entirety and make up his mind. Filed through council's spokesman Fr. Anand Muttungal, the PIL had not per se opposed the Gita but wanted the MP government to teach a summary of all religions, instead of one particular religion.

The PIL had also argued that most government schemes drew their names from Hindu mythology and that the state had failed to project a secular image. The petition also noted that during inauguration and foundation laying ceremonies of government programmes, only Hindu religious prayers were recited. This practice, the petition said, went against the secular and democratic spirit of the nation and hence, all religious prayers should be introduced.

When the matter came up for hearing before the Division Bench of Justices Ajit Singh and Sanjay Yadav on Friday, the court held that the Gita was essentially Indian philosophy and not a religion. Father Anand Muttungal said he would appeal against the order.

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UNITED STATES, December 28, 2011 (Scientific American): Our meat consumption habits take a serious toll on the environment. According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the production, processing and distribution of meat requires huge outlays of pesticides, fertilizer, fuel, feed and water while releasing greenhouse gases, manure and a range of toxic chemicals into our air and water.

Livestock are typically fed corn, soybean meal and other grains which have to first be grown using large amounts of fertilizer, fuel, pesticides, water and land. EWG estimates that growing livestock feed in the U.S. alone requires 167 million pounds of pesticides and 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer each year across some 149 million acres of cropland. The process generates copious amounts of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, while the output of methane--another potent greenhouse gas--from cattle is estimated to generate some 20 percent of overall U.S. methane emissions.

"If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," reports ecologist David Pimentel of Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He adds that the seven billion livestock in the U.S. consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire U.S. population.

Our meat consumption habits also cause other environmental problems. Four-fifths of the deforestation across the Amazon rainforest can be linked to cattle ranching. And the water pollution from factory farms can produce as much sewage waste as a small city, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Further, the widespread use of antibiotics to keep livestock healthy on those overcrowded CAFOs has led to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that threaten human health and the environment in their own right.

Eating too much meat is no good for our health, with overindulgence linked to increasing rates of heart disease, cancer and obesity. Worldwide, between 1971 and 2010, production of meat tripled to around 600 billion pounds while global population grew by 81 percent, meaning that we are eating a lot more meat than our grandparents. Researchers extrapolate that global meat production will double by 2050 to about 1.2 trillion pounds a year, putting further pressure on the environment and human health.

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Consistency is the key to the conquest of karma.
-- Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927-2001), founder of Hinduism Today

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SRI LANKA, February 2, 2012 (babajiskriyayoga.net): Babaji's Kriya Yoga is a synthesis of Yoga Siddhantham, the teaching of the Yoga Siddhas. This synthesis was created by Babaji Nagaraj, beginning with what he learned from his first Siddha guru, Boganathar, at Katirgama, Sri Lanka. Recently, Babaji's Kriya Yoga Order of Acharyas Trust has translated, published and distributed in Lanka several of its publications in Tamil and Sinhalese.

The holiest shrine to both Hindus and Buddhists in Sri Lanka is the Muruga temple complex at Katirgama, 40 km north of the southernmost town in Sri Lanka, Hambatota, deep in the forest, next to the Manickaganga River. A small shrine has been erected on the very spot where Babaji sat, under a banyan tree, with the Siddhar Boganathar to attain enlightenment. It is located just inside the gate to the Theivani Amman Kovil.

Uniquely, its Hindu and Buddhist priests share responsibilities for all of the activities conducted there. The Babaji shrine in Katirgama has recently been renovated with a new ceramic tile surface. A granite monument, with an inscription in Sinhala, Tamil and English now commemorates this sacred site. A mandapam portico will soon be constructed at its entrance to provide shade. Plans for a meditation hall to its rear have been prepared.

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SINGAPORE, January 2, 2012 (by George Martin Jacobs): Singapore has more than 500 vegetarian outlets, and many non-veggie eateries offer a growing variety of veggie options. Unfortunately, stereotypes discourage people from enjoying veggie food.

Two of these stereotypes: Only people of certain religions eat veggie food and being vegetarian is an either/or situation.

One idea gaining favour worldwide, arising from the understanding that people of any religion can eat vegetarian, is to eat plant-based food one day a week. In Singapore, we call it Veggie Thursday.

This addresses the second stereotype that vegetarianism is an either/or situation. Indeed, maybe it is better not to think of people as vegetarian or not vegetarian but instead to think of meals as vegetarian or not vegetarian. Maybe vegetarianism is better seen as a continuum, with people choosing to be anywhere along that continuum or to change where they are as they make choices about what to eat.

Three secular reasons for eating veggie are to boost our health, protect the environment and show kindness to animals. Health seems to have been the first secular reason to reach public consciousness.

In the past year, three students from the local universities have interned with the Vegetarian Society (Singapore) (VSS). For each, even the intern who was not (and still is not) a vegetarian, the kindness reason was paramount.