nknaidu@connect.com.fj LAUTOKA, FIJI, August 22, 2005: A new museum made entirely of mud blocks – with corrugated roofing – has been built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the first South Indians to Fiji. Run by the Then India Sanmarga Ikya (TISI) Sangam, the museum is located at the Sangam Village at Lovu in Lautoka. While the…
in.rediff.com CHENNAI, INDIA, 25 August, 2005: Twenty-two-year-old Chong Chiu Sen is a young Chinese lad from Kuala Lumpur. His parents being staunch devotees of Satya Sai Baba, Chong’s association with music started at a young age. Though familiar with Chinese religious songs, he was drawn towards Sanskrit bhajanas. With the intention of improving his diction in Sanskrit, he came to…
Assist News Service USA, August 28, 2005: (HPI note: This article appeared on a Christian News Service. The issue is that Hindus Dalits or “Untouchables” who convert to Christianity are then denied the special rights given to Hindu Dalits called “reservations” in India, which is a kind of affirmative action program giving preferential treatment in education and jobs.) India’s Supreme…
www.nytimes.com U.S., August 23, 2005: One Saturday in July, a few weeks after he finished his medical residency at Brown University, Ronak Shah married Kunal Patel, another doctor, in a union that embraced every ritual of the Hindu nuptial script. However, the venerable South Asian tradition of arranged marriages has taken on an American reinvention. Dr. Patel’s mother and father…
www.nytimes.com LONDON, U.K., August 21, 2005: In 2001, President Bush restricted federal financing for stem cell research. The decision, which was shaped at least partly by the Republican Party’s evangelical Christian base, provoked joy in India. The weekly newsmagazine India Today spoke of a “new pot of gold” for Indian science and business. “If Indians are smart,” the magazine said,…
www.newsobserver.com NORTH CAROLINA, U.S.A., May 30, 2005: The North Carolina Hindu community recently held the official ground-breaking ceremony for their Sri Venkateswara Temple that will be modelled after the temple in Tirupati, India. With US$500,000 in pledges, the community is planning to build a 4,000-square foot structure that is expected to cost $1.5 million when it is finished two years…
www.pib.nic.in INDIA, July 5, 2005: When the General Conference of UNESCO met in Paris in 2003, the 32th session adopted an International Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The convention defined intangible cultural heritage as follows, “The practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – of…
www.sfgate.com CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., August 1, 2005: David Ian Miller conducts an interview with Marilyn Schlitz, vice president for research and education at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and senior scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center, on the controversial subject of prayer and healing. Researchers at Duke University have recently published research that indicates that cardiac patients showed no improvement…
www.vrg.org USA, August 25, 2005: Being an airline passenger has never been more challenging than it is now. This is even truer for vegetarians as many airlines have eliminated some or all meal options to cut costs in this extremely budget-focused environment. Thus, we called major airlines to determine which offer vegetarian meals. The results were highly variable. In some…
edition.cnn.com DENVER, COLORADO, August 18, 2005: After publishing his team’s proposal in a recent issue of Nature, Cornell University ecologist, Josh Donlan, has had to stand his ground. Donlan has proposed that certain African species, including elephants, that are close to extinction as a result of diminishing habitats could be relocated to North America. CNN founder, Ted Turner, who owns…