News

www.samachar.com BANGLADESH, INDIA, December 12, 2006: The Hindu minority community in Bangladesh has asked the Election Commission to reschedule the January 23rd election as it coincides with Saraswati Puja celebrations. Election Commission secretariat Abdur Rashid Sarkar adds, “We rescheduled the polls on Jan 23 from Jan 21 after consultation with political parties. Now we are considering it once again as…

www.ndtv.com PARIS, FRANCE, December 11, 2006: The city of Lille in northern France will be focusing on Indian contemporary and traditional culture for the next three months. A French organizer of the festival says, ” We have been working with hundreds of Indian artists from Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras who have been coming and going. At the end of…

Hinduism Today KAUAI, HAWAII, December 17, 2006: (HPI note: In the late 1980s, Hinduism Today’s founder, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, created the festival of “Pancha Ganapati” in response to requests from his devotees living in the West for an alternative celebration to Christmas. It was especially meant for children. Following is his explanation of the festival.) Pancha Ganapati is a modern…

www.dailytimes.com.pk LAHORE, PAKISTAN, December 16, 2006: The Hindu community on Thursday demanded the reconstruction of more than 1,000 temples across Pakistan which had been demolished by Muslims who rioted in December 1992 as protest against the demolition of the Babri Masjid in India. While Muslims in India commemorated December 6, the day Babri Masjid was demolished by Hindus, as a…

epaper.timesofindia.com NEW DELHI, INDIA, December 15, 2006: (HPI note: This dispute does not involve the BAPS branch of the Lord Swaminarayan sampradaya.) Thanks to television, religious leaders have taken their discourses on spiritual life to the living rooms of people. But recently it was their turn to get a discourse from the Supreme Court. The case before the court was…

english.aljazeera.net WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, UNITED NATIONS, December 16, 2006: Experts say Asia is too slow to enact regional pacts limiting harmful emissions and reducing pollution. Air quality researchers at a regional conference this week called on Asian nations to formulate a pollution control mechanism after studies showed an increasing number of cross-border environmental problems. Japan says soot from Chinese power…

Religion News Service LONDON, ENGLAND, December 14, 2006: The production of frankincense — used in Catholic, Orthodox and many Anglican service — is threatened by extracting too much of the precious substance from the trees that produce it, according to a study by Dutch and Eritrean scientists and published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. Frankincense is a resin produced…

www.nytimes.com SOUTH NAKNEK, ALASKA, December 9, 2006: “The National Geographic Society, IBM, geneticist Spencer Wells, and the Waitt Family Foundation have launched the Genographic Project, a five-year effort to understand the human journey–where we came from and how we got to where we live today. This unprecedented effort will map humanity’s genetic journey through the ages. The fossil record fixes…

www.ibnlive.com KENDRAPADA, ORISSA, December 15, 2006: Following the court ruling declaring their rights to enter the Jagannath temple regardless of the upper caste ban, Dalits on Thursday, with police protection, entered the temple in Keradagarh village and worshipped. A day after the 200 Dalits worshipped, the Jagannath temple’s priests said they would perform purification rituals before the temple reopened. The…

www.ibnlive.com KENDRAPADA, INDIA, December 11, 2006: Overruling caste-bound tradition and years of discrimination, hundreds of Dalits will enter a Jagannath temple in Kendrapada on December 20 after the high court last week gave a ruling in their favor. The upper caste community had barred Dalits from entering the 18th century shrine dedicated to Lord Jagannath in Keradagarh village, 28 miles…