MYSORE, INDIA, September 3, 2004: As Ganesha Chaturthi approaches this year, environmentalists are encouraging devotees and icon-makers to use biodegradable materials to make the icons and to paint them with natural dyes and vegetable oils. So far this call to protect the rivers, lakes and the sea from the onslaught of harmful substances during the celebration has been voluntary. However, the article points out, “A memorandum was submitted to the Union Minister for Environment and Forests last year to take up the matter at the national level as the festival is celebrated all over India and icons are immersed in various water bodies, including the sea. But the Ministry has not taken any action in this regard.” In Mysore, the Kukkarahalli Lake Protection Committee has publicly appealed to icon-makers to use natural substances that will not harm the lake as it is a popular spot for the immersion of Ganesha icons. The article says, “Icon-makers use plaster of Paris, metallic powders, adhesives, varnishes, oil and plastic paints. The insoluble plaster of Paris will choke natural water sources and aquifers in the lakes and wells. The chemicals used to decorate the icons will harm the eyes, the skin and the respiratory system. Likewise, the pigments used for painting the icons are poisonous and contain carcinogenic elements.” Local residents are concerned about Kukkarahalli Lake as it was recently revived with the construction of bunds that, according to the article, augment fresh water inflow through a rainwater harvesting system.

MONTGOMERY, PENNSYLVANIA, August 27, 2004: Hindu families in Montgomery County in Pennsylvania are now seeing the fruits of their labor after over a decade of planning and construction. On October 22 of this year, the Bharatiya Temple and Cultural Center will celebrate its grand opening. Nandi Todi, president of the temple, says, “It was a very, very tough road, trying to bring the people together; one of the main challenges was to bring the community together, to get them to start believing the project was a reality. It has been very encouraging, and everybody’s very happy about it, everybody is looking forward to it.” In 1998, the Bharatiya Temple Inc. was established as a tax-exempt religious organization. Over 1,500 Indian families from diverse ethnic groups will frequent the temple. Mohindar Sardana, secretary of the temple, says, “Now we will have a temple for kids so that they can have the same learning experience we had. We are all aging, and our time is almost gone, so we want to leave a legacy so our children can follow.” The article says, “The temple will include a multipurpose room and classrooms to teach children about the language, religion and culture of the Hindu religion.”

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, September 6, 2004: Grace Kendall knew back in seventh grade that she did not want to cut open a preserved frog. Her teacher allowed her to use a computer alternative. Now a junior at Stafford High School, Grace has declined to dissect ever since. “I thought there was something really wrong with dissecting a dead animal when I knew there were other options,” she said. “Dissecting something that was killed so we could learn about it was unsettling.” Grace said she was glad that Virginia had joined a handful of states that have enacted laws allowing students to opt out of dissecting fetal pigs, cats, earthworms or other animals. Starting this academic year, all Virginia students must be told they can decline to dissect without penalty, and instructors must provide them with alternative learning tools, including computer programs, Internet tutorials and plastic models.



The law has surprised some teachers, including Rebecca Ross, who teaches senior anatomy and physiology and 10th-grade biology at Cave Spring High School in Roanoke County. “I don’t think there was anybody speaking for biology teachers” when the legislation was being written, said Ms. Ross, president-elect of the National Association of Biology Teachers. But she agreed that students with “moral, philosophical, religious or ethical” objections to dissection should be able to use alternatives.



Virginia is among nine states that require school districts to provide dissection alternatives. Florida was the first to pass such a law, in 1985, followed by California in 1988. New Jersey is also considering similar legislation. Argentina, India and Israel are among nations that have banned dissection in schools. The trend is driven in large part by animal-welfare groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Humane Society of the United States, which encourage students to oppose dissection. The groups contend that many animals used for dissection often suffer during their capture, handling and killing, and say the practice devalues animal life. “We believe that dissection in the classroom is an antiquated method of dissection and promotes the widespread abuse of animals,” said Jacqueline Domac of PETA. The Humane Society estimates that six million animals - mostly frogs, fetal pigs and cats - are dissected annually in American high schools. The society distributes anti-dissection videos and loans alternative software to schools.

USA, June 17, 2004: (HPI note: This article appeared in the prestigious magazine, the Economist, several months ago.) The term yoga has become mainstream in America. Americans have been trying bikram yoga and ashtanga yoga in popular classes across the land. When Patanjali, a yoga master, wrote his great works in second century BC, he probably never envisioned that the sacred practise would assume a commercial flavor several hundred years later. This is precisely what has happened to Bikram yoga as taught by Bikram Choudhury. The article says, “Just as McDonald’s franchises its branches, Bikram wants to franchise his style of yoga to the more than 900 studios around the world that were started by his former students. To this end, he has trademarked phrases such as ‘Bikram Yoga,’ ‘Bikram’s Basic Yoga System’.” In 2002, Bikram “ordered his lawyers to start sending out ‘cease-and-desist’ letters to Bikram studios, demanding that the owners stop infringing on his alleged property and start paying him money. Last year, Bikram made an example and sued one studio south of Los Angeles.” As most of the yoga studios teaching bikram yoga are small businesses, the owners felt that the only way that they could defend themselves was to form an alliance called Open Source Yoga Unity. The article explains, “In April, OSYU scored an initial victory against Bikram in a federal court in California, establishing its right to represent studio owners and preventing Bikram from going after them one by one before the legal concepts are clarified. Bikram says that he is not, in fact, trying to franchise or copyright yoga as such, only his specific sequence of postures and way of teaching it. Thus he would admit that all the constituent parts of Bikram Yoga — the ‘asanas’ (postures) and ‘pranayama’ (breathing techniques) — have been in the public domain for about 5,000 years, since they were first painted on to caves and temple walls in India. But he argues that these asanas and pranayama are like musical notes or dance steps — public property to begin with, but private property once they form part of a song or ballet. Just as “Swan Lake” is no longer “Swan Lake” if you change its notes and steps, Bikram Yoga no longer delivers its health benefits, he claims, if you mess with his precise formula.



The article goes, “His problem now becomes one of legal logic. If Bikram Yoga is indeed, for legal purposes, akin to ‘Swan Lake,’ Bikram might actually have a case. But Bikram himself does not claim that his classes are performances with inherent artistic or expressive value; instead, he boasts that their purpose is health. In legal jargon, that may make Bikram Yoga a ‘functional’ process, which is an area covered by patent law, not copyright. Bikram has no patents and, even allowing for the eccentricities of America’s Patent Office, no hope of getting any.



The article concludes, it is “like Bikram writing a new recipe for hamburgers and then showing up at barbecues to charge the people flipping the burgers. Intellectual-property law is crucial to economic success. But extending it to yoga will — The Economist’s spiritually enlightened, physically limber journalists hope — prove too much of a stretch.”

NEW DELHI, September 7, 2004: “In terms of growth of different religious communities, Hindus showed a decline over the previous decade, their population growing by 20.3% during 1991 and 2001 as compared to 25.1% during 1981-91. The Muslim population on the other hand, grew by 36.0% during 1991-2001, compared to 34.5% during 1981-91.” These statistics were revealed in a report entitled “2001 Census Data On Religion” released at a crowded press conference held in New Delhi’s prestigious Vigyan Bhawan Annexe on the afternoon of September 6th, 2004. The report containing data on religion as collected during the 2001 Census for the country as a whole and for each state and union territory by districts was released by Census Commissioner J. K. Banthia who presented a copy to Chairman of Minorities Commission Shri Tarlochan Singh. Noted social scientist and demographer Prof. Ashish Bose was also present at the event.



The report has create a political controversy in India over this high Muslim growth rate, so much so that it has been withdrawn temporarily. In the next few days additional stories will appear in HPI on the issue.



Following are some of the excerpts from the report-



Out of the total population of 102.8 crore (or 1.028 billion) in the country as at the 2001 Census, the Hindus were 82.7 crore (or 827 million) in number and constituted 80.5% of the population of the country. The Muslim population stood at 13.8 crore (or 138 million) comprising of 13.4% of the population. The next in size are the Christians (2.4 crore or 24 million), followed by Sikhs (1.9 crore or 19 million), Buddhists (79 lakh or 7.9 million), Jains (42 lakh or 4.2 million) and those following “Other” religions and persuasions including the tribal religions, etc. (66 lakh or 6.6 million).



Among Buddhists also there has been a sizeable decline in the growth rate from 35.3% during 1981-91 to only 24.5% during 1991-2001. Also though there is slight increase in the growth rate of the Christians (from 21.5% to 22.6%), there is noticeable decline of Sikh growth rate from 24.3% in 1981-91 to only 18.2% during 1991-2001. Most prominent in the 2001 Census data released is the growth rate of Jains (26.0%) during 1991-2001 as compared to their growth of only 4.6% during the previous decade 1981-91.



As regards the disparity of the absolute and relative number of male and female population in the society, expressed in terms of sex ratio or number of females per thousand males, the Hindus (931) were slightly below the national average of 933, whereas Muslims returned 936. The sex ratio among the Christian population grew from 994 in 1991 to 1009 in 2001. Among Sikhs, as was also noted earlier while releasing data on total population in Punjab, the sex ratio was the lowest (893). For the Buddhists and the Jains the sex ratio remained almost the same at 953 and 950.



Literacy rate for all the religious groups, as revealed again for the first time in 2001 Census, were very encouraging, shattering many myths in circulation earlier when such a dataset was not available for the country as a whole. The literacy rate among Hindus (65.1%) was slightly better than the national average (64.8%) for all religious groups combined. Among Muslims the literacy rate is 59.1%, below the national average. The highest literacy rate is recorded among the Jains (94.1%), followed by Christians (80.3%), Buddhists (72.7%) and Sikhs (69.4%).



Against the existing popular perceptions, the female literacy rate among different religious groups does not show wide variation. Among the Muslims, for instance, the literacy rate among the females was returned as 50.1%, below the national average of 53.7%. Slightly better is the female literacy rate among the Hindus (53.2%), again below the national average. The highest literacy rate among the females was recorded among the Jains (90.6%), like their male counterparts. Female literacy rate among Christians was 76.2%, followed by Sikhs (63.1%) and Buddhists (61.7%).



For more details please visit the Census Commissioner, India’s website here.