www.wavesinternational.net

ORLANDO, FLORIDA, June 19, 2008: Over three hundred scholars, students, professors, and other participants are expected to gather in Orlando, Florida, to sort out clues from ancient Indian wisdom for the coming generations in the modern context of social, economic, environmental, and political upheavals throughout the world. This gathering (click URL above) will be at the Seventh International Conference on Vedic Heritage for the Global Welfare of the Next Generation, organized by the World Association of Vedic Studies (WAVES), a non-profit organization registered in the United States. Numerous papers have been received for discussing and deriving values from Vedic traditions for modern societal ills, such as water and air pollution, breakdown of social structure, and educational stagnancy. To highlight a direct role of youth in the deliberations, a Youth Plenary session is being organized where youth representatives from various groups are working to hold academic debate on the role of youth in promoting and developing Vedic ideas for current society.

www.hinduonnet.com

MADURAI, INDIA: The famed Meenakshi temple has taken up a project to digitally document the thousands of magnificent sculptures adorning the nine towers of the shrine. Renovation of the various towers was underway now and the documentation would also help in preserving the originality of the sculptures, temple officials said. The digital pictures would give details about the position of the sculpture and the dress, ornaments etc. The albums could be used for research in future by students of history and architecture.

“Each sculpture of the nine towers is being documented… that is a picture is taken and a number given. Even the minute details are not left out so that the renovation work does not affect the originality of the sculpture in anyway,” temple Executive Officer and Joint Commissioner B Raja said.

The sculptures in the five main towers of North, East, West and South and the “Rajagopuram” have already been covered. The West and South towers together have 2,600 sculptures.

www.hinduismtoday.com

TRINIDAD, June 20, 2008: Anil Mahabir, long-time correspondent for Hinduism Today in Trinidad and the Carribean, passed away May 23, 2008. He was a graduate of the University of the West Indies, a teacher, journalism, radio host and, in his youth, a rather good cricket player. He provided some twenty stories to Hinduism Today since 1996.

www.hindu.com

TIRUCHI, TAMIL NADU, INDIA: A group of 20 secondary-level school students of Tamil origin from Singapore is in Tiruchi as part of their “Immersion Program” to gain a first-hand understanding of the way Tamil is spoken in Tamil Nadu, and have an exposure to literary and cultural contexts.

Being third or fourth generation residents of Singapore, most of the students could visualise about Tamil Nadu only through books and cinemas.

Fifteen of the 20 students belong to the Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre (UPTLC) attached to the National Tamil Language Resource Centre of the Ministry of Education, Singapore, and the rest are from Bowen Secondary School.

Tapping educational resources in Tamil Nadu and exploring how the teaching and learning practices for Tamil language in Tamil Nadu could be adapted to engage the students in their country opting for study of Tamil, one of the official languages there, to learn it effectively encompass their main objectives. The school students would return to Singapore on June 19.

www.hinduismtoday.com

If you want to know how much you have progressed in your spiritual life, just look back and reflect on the changes.
   Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927-2001)