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UNITED STATES, April 2013 (The Atlantic): Jai Subedi still doesn't know why Mitra Mishra killed himself. Subedi, a case manager for Bhutanese refugees at Interfaith Works Center for New Americans in Syracuse, NY, was with the 20-year-old Mishra at Schiller Park the evening of July 3, 2010. "We played soccer just the previous day until 6 p.m. and he was totally fine," Subedi said. On Independence Day, early morning walkers found Mishra's body hanging from a tree at the soccer field.

Mishra's death is part of a troubling pattern among Bhutanese refugees resettled in the U.S. The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) began to notice a pattern. Ultimately, 16 suicides were confirmed among U.S. resident Bhutanese refugees as of February 2012. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) had noticed a similar trend among the Bhutanese in the camps in Nepal. IOM documented 67 suicides and 64 attempts between 2004 and 2010. The numbers were high, but without a statistical comparison, it was hard to know how bad the problem was.

ORR tasked the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Refugee Health Technical Assistance Center of the Massachusetts Public Health Department with investigating. By interviewing close contacts of the deceased (typically family members), the study team performed "psychological autopsies" on 14 of the 16 U.S. suicide victims. They also did a broader survey of the general Bhutanese refugee population to determine the rates of suicidal thinking and mental health conditions.

The study team confirmed the government's suspicions; the problem was endemic. The global suicide rate per 100,000 people--how suicide rates are calculated--is 16, and the rate for the general U.S. population is 12.4. The Bhutanese rate is much higher: 20.3 among U.S. resettled refugees and 20.7 among the refugee camp population. A handful of suicides were reported among other refugee groups during the same period as the CDC study, but nothing like the number among the Bhutanese.

The rate of depression among the Bhutanese surveyed was 21 percent, nearly three times that of the general U.S. population (6.7 percent). In addition to depression, risk factors for suicide included not being the family's provider, feelings of limited social support, and having family conflict after resettlement. Most of the suicides were within a year of resettlement to the U.S. and, in all cases, the victims hanged themselves.

Post-migration difficulties that the victims faced offer clues about their possible motivations. Most are unable to communicate with their host communities. Many were also plagued by worries about family back home and over the difficulty of maintaining cultural and religious traditions. Most of the victims were unemployed. While few had previous mental health diagnoses, mental health conditions were probably significantly under-diagnosed in the camps where medical care was basic at best.

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WALES, April 15, 2013 (BBC): An organisation to promote Hindu culture, religion and values in Wales has been officially launched. The Hindu Council of Wales (HCW) was established to give Hindu communities "one voice" and to promote better understanding of the culture. The council will also aim to work with other faiths to promote "mutual understanding."

There are more than 10,400 Hindus living in Wales, according to latest figures. The HCW chair Vimla Patel, secretary of the Sanatan Dharma Temple in Splott, Cardiff said the organisation was much needed. She added: "There are other temples and groups all across Wales, but there was no one voice to speak on our behalf."

Radhika Kadaba, secretary of the HCW, said eight organisations currently made up its membership and two people from each group could sit on the council. "The members are not elected and have been selected initially because we wanted a working committee to set up the council," she said. "Over the coming months we will have proper elections according to our constitution."

Mrs. Kadaba said the council was made up of temples, Hindu charities and community centres. Cardiff's Shree Swaminarayan and Sanatan Dharma Mandal temples are also members of the HCW.

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Respect, don't suspect.
-- Swami Tejomayananda, head of Chinmaya Mission

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BOLIVIA, March 23, 2013 (La Patria): The Grand National Festival of Indian Dance will be held today, displaying the best of that culture, in terms of dance and dress, which will be shown by dance groups coming from La Paz, Cochabamba, Potosi, and Oruro.

The Hamesha Hindu Cultural Center, celebrating its fifth anniversary, has coordinated the event which will to be held in the Oruro Municipal House of Culture from 15:00 hours.

One of the organizers, Esdra Lafuente, owner of the Indi Dil Shop, said that in promoting this activity they've seen that the Bolivian youth really enjoy Indian culture, and that through the Bollywood movies from India, they learn a lot about family and community values, patriotism, relations with neighbors, and more.

Indian dance has influenced several East Asian cultures through the course of history as well as dances like flamenco, jazz and contemporary dance. It has acquired world wide recognition as one of the finest folk dances.

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CANADA, April 6, 2013 (The Globe And Mail): Mr. Benisasia runs a South Asian-focused funeral home on Derry Road in Malton and wants to open a crematorium beside it. The land, money and demand is there, he says.

For more than three years, he's waited for his rezoning application to be approved by the City of Mississauga. But a new Mississauga bylaw passed in March says new crematoriums must be a minimum of 300 metres from residential properties, due to concerns over the health effects from their emissions. Since Mr. Benisasia's business is less than 300 metres from several nearby houses, he won't be opening that crematorium any time soon.

But the battle isn't over. He plans to take his case to the Ontario Municipal Board. As part of religious practice, many South Asians cremate their dead - namely Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. For him, this goes beyond business owner versus city: This is a cultural and religious issue.

"If we have a funeral home that is catering to the needs of that community, but does not have access to their own crematorium services, then it limits their ability to serve the community," said Pandit Roopnauth Sharma, the priest at Mississauga's Ram Mandir, the city's largest Hindu temple.

As Mississauga's ethnic and religious minority population grows, so too do calls for services that cater to their needs. In keeping with the shift, more Ontarians are choosing cremations over burials. In 2006, 48 per cent of people who died in the province were buried and 52 per cent were cremated, according to Ontario's ministry of consumer affairs, which oversees the province's crematoriums. By 2011, it had shifted to 41 per cent burials and 59 per cent cremations.

More at source.

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THRISSUR, INDIA, April 14, 2013 (Times of India): A Sanskrit grammar written by German born grammarian, lexicographer and philologist Jesuit missionary Fr. Johann Ernst Hanxleden, popularly known as Arnos Padre, was released in Belgium. The over 300-year-old work, considered one of the earliest missionary grammars in Sanskrit, was released on April 10, Fr. Roy Thottathil SJ, Director of Arnos Padre Academy here, said.

He told PTI that he received an official communication in this regard from Prof Christphe Vielle and Prof. Toon Van Hal of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium., editors and publisher of the book. The 88-page manuscript of "Grammatica Grandonica" was found missing for over three centuries and it was recovered last year by Hal from a Carmelite monastery's library in Montecompatri (Rome), Thottathil said.

Born at Ostercappeln near Osnabruck in Hanover, Germany, Hanxleden arrived in India on December 13, 1700, as a Jesuit missionary. Proficient in German, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Latin, Syriac, Portuguese and Tamil, Hanxleden compiled Malayalam-Portuguese and Sanskrit-Portuguese dictionaries. He mastered Sanskrit even when learning it was taboo for non-brahmins and wrote several essays in Latin based on Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

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I have heard that man can acquire superhuman powers through it and perform miracles. What shall I do with superhuman powers? Can one realize God through them? If God is not realized then everything becomes false.
-- Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836-1886)

Hindu American Foundation

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 12, 2013 (HAF): "We want justice, we want justice," was the chant heard from a crowd of over 300 demonstrators, mostly of Bengali origin, on Wednesday in front of the White House. The rally, organized by the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC) and the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), urged the United States government to use its influence to stop the rampant persecution of Hindus and other religious minorities in Bangladesh.

"The recent tragedies faced by the Hindu community of Bangladesh are reflective of the violent attacks that we faced in 1971 and again in 2001," said Sitanghsu Guha, an advisor to BHBCUC. "In a report presented to Congress, Senator Ted Kennedy shed invaluable light on the targeting of Bangladesh's Hindu community during the country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. There are details of the tremendous loss of life, hundreds of thousands of women raped, and the nearly ten million people displaced. It is in that spirit that we urge the U.S. government to offer its support to Bangladesh in this critical time. If the U.S. fails to act now, there may be no Hindus left in Bangladesh."

Protesters arrived in chartered buses from New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and as far as California to join local DC area residents. Recent months have seen a sharp rise in violence perpetrated against Hindus, Buddhists, Ahmadi Muslims, Christians, and atheists in Bangladesh by Islamist groups after the first of three Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) leaders was convicted for committing war crimes during the country's 1971 War of Independence from Pakistan. JeI and other groups are widely believed to have instigated the current spate of violence.

"The situation in Bangladesh is getting worse by the day. The demands of the protesters to President Obama and American lawmakers to stop the violence in Bangladesh are urgent for not only the safety of Bangladeshis, but U.S. security interests in the region." said Jay Kansara, HAF Associate Director. "Bangladesh has witnessed increasing religious fundamentalism for decades to the demise of all its minority communities who have bore the brunt of violent attacks and killings."

Earlier in the day, a small delegation of leaders from BHBCUC and HAF met with Congressional offices to request a hearing on the persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh in the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. The delegation also requested groups perpetrating violence against religious minorities in Bangladesh, like the Jamaat-e-Islami and its affiliates, be put on U.S. designated terrorist lists.

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NEPAL, April 11, 2013 (BBC): The police force in Nepal has introduced yoga lessons in an effort to slim down some of its heavier members. Officers at the Kathmandu HQ said they were concerned some staff were becoming too fat to carry out their duties.

Obesity is an issue for many of Nepal's male and female officers who, once qualified, often forego the daily physical exercise they had to take to qualify for the force. Many get almost no exercise while working, as their jobs are desk-based. Added to this is the popularity of eating large servings of white rice with every meal, as well as sweets loaded with sugar and milk.

Police spokesman Keshav Adhikari said almost all police stations in Nepal would start offering yoga to their staff. "The police have become inactive because of unnecessary development of their body," he said.

Yoga classes have already begun in both Kathmandu and the east of the country. In the eastern district of Jhapa, more than 70 police officers and constables have been enrolled in a three-week yoga camp. "I have ordered the officers and the constables who have large bellies to join this camp," Senior Superintendent Keshari Raj Ghimire told the BBC.

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UNITED STATES, April 4, 2013 (Harvard): The Maha Kumbh Mela, an eight-week Hindu festival held every 12 years in India and the largest human gathering on the planet, ended three weeks ago. Already, the tent city that had sprung up to accommodate millions of pilgrims is beginning to disappear from the sandy banks of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, where the faithful had gathered.

But back in Cambridge, the real work of understanding the vast temporary city has just begun. Through January and February, nearly 50 Harvard professors, students, doctors, and researchers made a pilgrimage of their own to the festival, which housed roughly 3 million people for its 55-day duration and drew as many as 20 million visitors on peak river-bathing days. Now, those researchers are beginning to analyze the data they collected there, from thousands of patient records at clinics and hospitals to water samples from the Ganges to measurements of the pop-up city's grid and elevation.

"For the pilgrims, bathing is the climax of the journey," said Rahul Mehrotra, who has been spearheading the months-long interdisciplinary project since last summer. "For many who participate in the melas, however, these huge human gatherings are opportunities for the practice of commerce, politics, services of many kinds, or public health" -- exactly the sort of interactions that bear fruit for academics across Harvard's Schools.

That said, there was much to report. Presenters from the GSD, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard School of Public Health, and the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights described their findings -- from archival research into melas as far back as the mid-1800s to epidemiological data on disease outbreaks at this year's festival -- all of which the project's coordinators hope to make available online with the help of the Harvard libraries.
More at source.

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SINGAPORE, April 8, 2013 (Straits Times): About 10,000 worshippers thronged the Sri Vairavimada Kaliamman Temple on Sunday to bear witness to the consecration ceremony and receive blessings.

The temple with a 150-year-old history has undergone a $2.5 million refurbishment and is now equipped with a new glass panel roof to shelter devotees plus other improvements to the entrance and main sanctum.

The consecration ceremony is a Hindu religious rite that infuses divinity to a temple once every 12 years, or when it has been relocated or renovated. This is the culmination of a year of prayers by priests and the faithful, and follows a procedure laid out by age-old scriptures.

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CALAIS, FRANCE, April 8, 2013 (La Voix du Nord): In agreement with the City of Calais, the Opal Coast Trail organization will launch a new race called Holi Run on May 19 in Calais. The concept is quite simple: as the runners reach every succeeding kilometer mark, they'll pass through coloring areas where colored starch powder color is projected on to them. Green, red, yellow, orange, they will see all the colors during their run.

To participate in this race, some conditions must be met: "The participants need to be in good mood, able to walk or run, be dressed in white at the beginning, wear eye protection and especially be the most colorful possible at the finish line! The goal is to have fun with family or friends!"

Like many celebrations in India, Holi originated in Hindu mythology that celebrates spring, hope and fruitful harvest of fertile land. Indians, dressed in white, throw colored powder or colored water at this event. These pigments have a specific meaning: green for harmony, orange for optimism, blue for vitality and red for joy and love. For a while now the Holi festival of colors has been emulated in Europe and is now turned into a race. Thus the Holi Run arrives for the first time in our country, a national first!

Holi Run is open to all athletes, competitors or non runners, hikers and walkers who want to experience a unique and colorful event! Participants can choose between the 10 km or 5 km or a timed 5 km free style by hiking and enjoying the journey! At all kilometers, participants will cross areas where the organizers will throw colored starch powder on the competitors! (The colored powder is 100% natural).

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INDIA, April 4, 2013 (Times of India): Tirupati's Lord Balaji continues to command a premium. Even the banks oblige the Lord of Seven Hills, said to be among the richest in the world, with higher returns for deposits. The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, the trust that manages the money of the Venkateswara Temple, secured 130 basis points more returns than ordinary citizens for funds it keeps with banks. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point

Banks have agreed to pay 9.8% to the temple trust for one year, said two people familiar with the recent bids. In return, they get Rs 3,000 crore (US$550 million) of deposits that remains stable, irrespective of the financial conditions. Bankers said several banks participated in the auction, but only a few were allotted funds. Banks pay 8.50% to 8.75% to retail customers for one-year deposits

Bankers said TTD received a good rate due to the timing of the auction. It called for bids from banks just before the close of the fiscal year, when banks fall over each other to mobilise deposits. The aggressive bidding was despite a directive from the government barring PSU banks from raising bulk deposits. Last year, the finance ministry limited bulk deposits at 15% of total deposits.

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LEICESTER, ENGLAND, March 30, 2013 (This Is Leicestershire): Up to 7,000 people are expected at the opening of a temple in the city centre today. The Shri Shirdi Sai Baba temple, at the grade II-listed Guild of Disabled building, in Colton Street, Leicester, is the second of its kind in the UK and follows the teachings of Sai Baba of Shirdi, a Hindu guru who lived from 1835 to 1914.

Worshippers from the organisation's temple in Wembley, London, have been preparing for the big day and expect many people from other Hindu temples around the Midlands to attend.

A temple management spokesman said: "Our organisation began in London in 2010 and this is our first venture in spreading Baba's message around the UK. "The message is about treating everyone politely and humbly, helping the needy and having trust and patience.

"Part of our work will be sharing food with the poor and the hungry in Leicester. We have a kitchen here and people coming to the temple will also bring food to share. "Word will spread fast."

The Guild of Disabled building, completed in 1909, is believed to have been the first building in Britain, and possibly the world, to be designed to be wheelchair-friendly.

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INDIA, September 2012, (Daily Mail): Hindu Worshippers take to roads of India clad in Saffron robes as they carry holy water from the Ganges to their home temple. The Kawarias, as we call them, carry metal canisters filled with holy Ganges water and take a ritual journey of the roads of India which can be hundreds of miles back to their town.They fetch water as a gesture of thanksgiving to Lord Shiva and walk for days, some braving Indian roads and highways barefoot. Kawarias are named after the pole, Kanwar which they sling over their shoulders to carry their metal pots. This annual pilgrimage is known as Kanwar Yatra or Kavad Yatra and sees them visit Haridwar, Gaumukh and Gangotri in Uttarakhand to fetch holy water of Ganges river.The pilgrimage always takes during the sacred month of Sravan and has grown in popularity in recent years.