www.newindpress.com NEW DELHI, INDIA, January 22, 2008: What about going to a dealer who along with freebies, offers a free puja for the car with a priest in attendance? As Indian priests hop from household to household performing pujas in the capital, they now have a new job opening, performing quick puja for the customers at showrooms before they drive…
www.religionnews.com EPPING, NEW HAMPSHIRE, USA, January 23, 2008: (HPI note: This article refers to the foreclosure on a New Hampshire Hindu temple reported by HPI here on January 4, 2008) Six Hindu men and a woman huddled together on a 20 degrees Fahrenheit January morning along a dirt road beside a series of posted “NO TRESPASSING” signs. They had come…
www.hindu.com MADURAI, INDIA, January 22, 2008: Renovation work on the towers of Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, part of the ongoing works for kumbabishekam conducted every 12 years, began on Sunday. In this phase, the four Rajagopurams (north, east, west and south towers), thanga vimanam and Ainthunilai Mukuruni Vinayakar Gopuram would be completely renovated. While the works on east tower alone would…
arisebharat.wordpress.com HYDERABAD, INDIA, January 21, 2008: (HPI Note: This is a summary of an opinion piece written by Swami Dayananda Saraswati.) Dr Hans Ucko is the Head of the Committee on Inter-religious Dialogue and Cooperation of the World Council of Churches. Dr Ucko, as I know him, is an upright, outspoken gentleman. He made this seemingly innocuous, but profoundly theological,…
www.bernama.com.my KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, January 23, 2008: Over a million Hindu devotees thronged temples across the country in celebrating Thaipusam today. In Kuala Lumpur, 500,000 devotees and tourists made a beeline to the Sri Mariaman temple in Batu Caves in celebrating the three-day festival, which began yesterday. Up to noon, traffic heading towards Batu Caves was mostly at a crawl…
www.newsweek.com NEW YORK, USA, January 24, 2008: (HPI note: this is an article from the latest issue of NEWSWEEK, January 28, 2008.) Reincarnation is an increasingly mainstream belief. Madonna has said she’s a believer. So has Kate Hudson. According to a 2003 Harris poll, 40 percent of people aged 25 to 29 believed they would return to earth in a…
arisebharat.wordpress.com HYDERABAD, INDIA, January 21, 2008: (HPI Note: This is a summary of an opinion piece written by Swami Dayananda Saraswati.) Dr Hans Ucko is the Head of the Committee on Inter-religious Dialogue and Cooperation of the World Council of Churches. Dr Ucko, as I know him, is an upright, outspoken gentleman. He made this seemingly innocuous, but profoundly theological,…
www.todayonline.com KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, January 21, 2008: Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi declared a popular Hindu festival a public holiday on Sunday, in an olive branch to the ethnic Indian community following months of dissent. The Thaipusam festival, during which devotees pierce their bodies with hooks and skewers, attracts more than a million people each year at Kuala Lumpur’s…
timesofindia.indiatimes.com GUJARAT, INDIA, January 19, 2008: Addressing students in the Gujarat Vidyapith, the Dalai Lama said “It is a great honour for me to be in the institute which was founded by Matama Gandhi himself. I am a follower of Gandhi and a great admirer of his. Though I have never had the chance to meet Gandhi, in my dreams,…
indiatoday.digitaltoday.in NEW DELHI, INDIA, January 17, 2008: In December last year, All India Khwaja Gharib Nawaz Council, a Sufi organisation, led a peace march to Parliament, holding placards that read: “Islam says killing of one innocent is killing of humanity. Sufi Corridor can play an important role in establishing peace and unity.” Despite the overly idealistic veneer, it marks an…