1. Tirupati Temple To Air Condition Huge Waiting Area for Pilgrims
Source

TIRUPATI, INDIA, May 20, 2005: In a move that would bring relief to thousands of common devotees who wait for hours together to worship Lord Venkateswara at the famous hill shrine in nearby Tirumala, the temple administration today decided to air-condition the entire giant second queue complex. The decision to install air conditioners on a large scale in all the 23 compartments of the crescent-shaped massive complex close to the temple was taken at the meeting of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams Board for the benefit of the devotees thronging the temple from across the country and abroad, its chairman, T. Subbirami Reddy, told reporters. Each compartment had the capacity of providing shelter for at least 600 devotees and the air-conditioning work at all compartments would be completed in six months, he said. The board also decided the install plasma TVs or LCD screens in the complex to show uninterrupted Hindu mythological stories and also devotional programs connected to the temple for the benefit of waiting devotees.

2. "Conversions Are a Part of Hinduism, Too"
Source

UK, May 20, 2005: Sooraj Ratnakumar of the UK writes in Express India: "Many Hindus pride themselves on account of their secular ideal of non-proselytism. They believe that Hinduism has never indulged in converting people of other religions to its own, and some go further to demonstrate the unwillingness of many of today's saints to accept followers of other religions into their fold. Amongst adherents of the non-proselytising history of Hinduism, there exist, on the one hand, those who wish it to remain so owing to the secularist principle of the ideal. On the other hand, there are also those who sincerely believe that Hinduism should transform into at least a passively proselytizing religion to survive the onslaught of the, not only actively, but aggressively, proselytizing Abrahamic religions. On reading many accounts in Indian history of conversions from Hinduism to other religions and re-conversions as well as original conversions from other religions to Hinduism, I find it hard to believe that Hinduism has been a non-proselytizing religion. While I agree with the self-evident fact that Hinduism is not militant in its evangelistic zeal as contrasted with the forced and threatened conversions by Islam or the deceitful and bribed conversions by Christianity, Hinduism, on many instances in the past, has indulged in active proselytizing mainly by means of dialectics."

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