SourceLONDON, ENGLAND, May 4, 2005: Britain has sanctioned a grant of US$67,000 pounds to the Hindu Council, UK, part of which would be used for its cultural projects for children. Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Fiona Mactaggart, said the grant was for meeting the cost of the Hindu Council website and its pilot cultural projects for children, according to an…
SourceSANGRAMGARH (KUNDA), UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA, April 30, 2005: It is a dream come true for Jagannath Patel. And practically so for all the 2,500-plus villagers in this nondescript hamlet of Kashipur situated in Kunda tehsil of Pratapgarh. For it was Jagannath’s unusual dream in January led them to dig out icons of a Goddess coupled with the remains of a…
SourceKATHMANDU, NEPAL, May 7, 2005: Nepal’s Maoist guerrillas admitted responsibility for the gunning down of a prominent Hindu fund raiser, saying he was killed for trying to garner support for King Gyanendra and “committing other crimes in the name of religion.” Nepal was stunned on Friday by the murder of Narayan Prasad Pokhrel, a 47-year-old who had shot to prominence…
SourceBANGALORE, INDIA, May 9, 2005: Mamta was not allowed for darshan at the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangapatna by the temple authorities because she was in a wheelchair. Mamta, Deputy Superintendent in the Central Excise Department, saw them close the door of the sanctum sanctorum on her. Finally, she was carried inside and had darshan (sight of the Deity) from…
SourceKATHMANDU, NEPAL, May 6, 2005: Narayan Pokharel, president of the Nepal branch of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, died when six gunmen opened fire in the district of Rupandehi. No one has admitted carrying out the attack. However, police say the manner in which it was carried out hints at the involvement of Maoist rebels. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has its…
The Philadelphia InquirerPHILADELPHIA, USA, May 12, 2004: (HPI Note: Mother’s Day is May 8, Sunday.) On Saturday, Savita Patel got the usual Mother’s Day treatment from her three children: flowers, dinner and a gift certificate to a spa. Yesterday, Patel, a Langhorne resident who was born in India, was honored in a very different way. She, with 50 other mothers,…
SourceHO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM, May 4, 2005: Hundreds of ancient Oc Eo artefacts are being displayed for visitors at the capital’s National Museum of Vietnamese History. The museum has coordinated efforts with 11 southern museums to exhibit a small but representative collection of these treasures, all discovered in the last 60 years following Frenchman Louis Malleret’s 1944 excavation of…
SourcePRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA, May 4, 2005: Popular bhajan singer Anup Jalota has been performing to packed houses in South Africa, strengthening his belief that interest in Indian culture is growing among the diaspora here. Jalota, who Sunday evening led more than a thousand devout Gujarati Hindus here in reciting the last of 108 chants of the “Hanuman Chalisa,” said he…
SourceLONDON, ENGLAND, May 5, 2005: The Samakti Mission and Hindu Youth UK are presenting an 8-day “katha,” telling of traditional religious stories with song, in English, by Pujya Shree Bupendrabhai Pandya. It will be held at the Harrow Leisure Centre, London from July 24 to July 31. The focus on young people is particularly key to this event, as Pujya…
SourceKATMANDU, NEPAL, May 1, 2005: Forcible conversions to Christianity, Islam and any other non-Hindu religion is a punishable offence in Nepal, the only Hindu kingdom in the world. Babu Verghese, an Indian citizen, and his wife Savitri were running a school for orphans in Birgunj city in southern Nepal. The district administrative authorities received complaints that the couple had been…