www.dailypioneer.com NEW DELHI, INDIA, December 25, 2005: HPI Note: The following story appears in The Pioneer, which publishes from Delhi and Lucknow. Most of the article is, as indicated by the title, a personal attack upon Harvard Professor Michael Witzel and apparently based in part on the preceding article by Dr. Kalyanaraman. The article by Kanchan Gupta begins: “Boorish comments…
Prabha Prabhakar Bhardwaj, HPI correspondent DELHI, INDIA, December 20, 2005: (HPI note: Prabha Bhardwaj attended the last two days of the conference and files her notes on the several workshops and sessions she attended. Her report is not intended as a comprehensive overview of this complex event with dozens of worshops and sessions, but to give the flavor of individual…
www.newindpress.com BHOPAL, INDIA, December 21, 2005: (HPI note: Christian schools in India receive government funding for teacher’s salaries and textbooks. Most of the students are not Christians.) A Christian missionary school here is in the throes of a controversy after it sacked a Hindu teacher for wearing sandalwood paste on her forehead. Activists of the radical Hindu organization Bajrang Dal…
www.newkerala.com GUWAHATI, ASSAM, INDIA, December 22, 2005: Politics has taken a back seat in poll-bound Assam for the past seven days. Instead of scurrying for tickets for next year’s assembly polls politicians of all hues are making a beeline for Yoga guru Ramdeva. Reason: Swami Ramdeva has been conducting camps. And Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, leader of opposition Brindabon Goswami…
www.int.iol.co.za PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA, December 17, 2005: Phnom Penh – Tourists exploring Cambodia’s sprawling Angkor Hindu temple complex can now do so on battery-powered bicycles that have been introduced in a bid to cut down on pollution, officials have said. About 300 of the Chinese-made bikes have been put to use since early November, said Soeung Kong, deputy director general…
www.pib.nic.in DELHI, INDIA, December 14, 2005: The Government of India has nominated Majuli Island in Assam for consideration of inclusion in the World Heritage List in the year 2006. The Government also proposes to submit the nomination dossiers of Red Fort for consideration in the year 2007. There are 14 cultural sites in the tentative at the World Heritage Centre…
www.theglobeandmail.com ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND, December 19, 2005: Work on the world’s first human-made species is well under way at a research complex in Rockville, Md., and scientists in Canada have been quietly conducting experiments to help bring such a creature to life. Robert Holt, head of sequencing for the Genome Science Centre at the University of British Columbia, is leading efforts…
www.washingtonpost.com PENNSYLVANIA, USA, DECEMBER 20, 2005: A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled today that a public school district in the south-central part of the state cannot require the inclusion of “intelligent design” [advocated by conservative Christians] in biology classes as an alternative to evolution. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, issuing his decision in a case that was heard…
Express News Service MUMBAI, INDIA, December 13, 2005: The flowers you offer here could help a thousand others bloom. More than six months after the temple trust was first approached by a non-governmental organisation, which offered to turn their waste into a resource, Siddhivinayak temple’s attempts at converting nirmalya–offerings of marigold, hibiscus, betel nut flower and durva (blades of grass)…
www.hindustantimes.com GUWAHATI, INDIA, December 12, 2005: Animal rights activists in Assam are up in arms over the sacrifice of two buffaloes in the famous Kamakhya temple by members of Samajwadi Party for speedy recovery of ailing Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan. SP activists had on Saturday sacrificed two buffaloes inside the temple atop the Neelachal Hills to seek quick cure of…