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LONDON, U.K., February 5, 2004: A major controversy has erupted after UNICEF’s UK branch printed a diary ignoring Hindu and Sikh religious festivals while listing religious festivals from Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. Swami Nathan from the World Hindu Mahasangam explained, “I wrote to them three years in a row. …. They have not responded to any of my letters.” “The irony is that the very first message in the UNICEF diary requests people to donate money to help education in India,” said Venilal Vaghela, Chair of the Hindu Council of Brent. “India is the land where Hinduism originated, and yet they choose to ignore our feelings completely.” “Besides Christmas and Easter, the diary lists over 20 days related directly to Christian saints of different denominations. Surely they ought to afford at least three or four days for Hinduism,” commented Swami Nirliptananda, Chair of HINCOM. “Their refusal to even reply to Swami Nathan’s letters only highlights the Judeo-Christian bias of some of our world organizations.”



When contacted by Ramesh Kallidai, General Secretary of the Hindu Centre for Communications, UNICEF’s Press Officer Joanna Robert told him, “I spoke to the person responsible for the diaries yesterday and she was very apologetic. It seems that she recently took over the project, and copied the important religious days from the previous edition and she was unaware that the Hindu dates had not been included. This has been a breakdown in communications, for which we apologize. We would like to point out that all other UNICEF diaries and calendars contain Hindu dates.”

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