SourceUSA, September 17, 2003: This year, for the first time ever, Hallmark will sell cards for the Hindu celebration of Deepavali or Diwali, as well as for the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Fitr. “With the increase in the number of Hindus and Muslims, we realized there was an ongoing need that we were not satisfying,” said Deidre Parkes, spokeswoman for…
SourceNORFOLK, NEBRASKA, September 14, 2003: When Reena Patel, daughter of Dr. N.P. and Sudha Patel, recently got married in Norfolk, the family had to bring in a priest from Chicago to perform the traditional Hindu wedding ceremony. The three-day wedding celebration attracted the attention of the local press who wrote this respectful, concise and clear article about the wedding. Traditionally,…
SourceSAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, July 8, 2003: An exhibition of about 120 vintage photographs of India in the 19th century is on display at the San Francisco Legion of Honor from September 14, 2003 to February 15, 2004. The “Reverie and Reality, Nineteenth-Century Photographs of India from the Ehrenfeld Collection,” includes the works of Linnaeus Tripe, Samuel Bourne, John Murray, and…
SourceDURBIN, SOUTH AFRICA, September 6, 2003: The President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, spoke at the opening of the Hindu convention in Durban. In his address he said, “The process we are beginning today constitutes a significant development in the evolution of our society. There was a time when it was unthinkable that a religion which, according to the Apartheid…
SourceISRAEL, September 14, 2003: This report, thought apparently five years old, from “We Hold These Truths,” a Christian evangelical website, is especially informative in light of reactions to India’s adopted and proposed laws regulating Christian conversion. The report reads, in part: “Some leaders of the Christian evangelical movement here have agreed to give up spreading the Gospel of Christ in…
SourceNEW DELHI, INDIA, September 15, 2003: Swami Gyan Prakash, through his lawyer Amit Khemka, accused the Maharashtra Government of falsely charging him and other innocent saints as the main culprits behind the deadly stampede at Nashik on August 27, 2003 during the Kumbha Mela. Speaking at a Press conference at Press Club of India on Friday, Mr Khemka said that…
SourceMALAYSIA, September 15, 2003: In Malaysia, Muslims come under the Syariah judicial system while non-Muslims come under the civil judicial system. But which system has overriding jurisdiction when a civil marriage breaks up and a spouse converts to Islam? Women’s groups and lawyers recently got together for a discussion hosted by the All Women’s Action Society. Shamala Satiyaseelan got married…
SourceOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA, September 11, 2003: In his speech here today, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President, The Interfaith Alliance, said, in part, “The religious press in this land (USA) has an unusually crucial role to play in truth telling by the media. Unfortunately for the most part, religion is involved in most of the big stories in today’s news.…
HPISeptember 17, 2003: Swami Saradananda points out that the correct travel time from Lhasa to Mt. Kailas area is seven days each way by jeep, not three or four as the report in the September 14 HPI stated.
SourceJAKARTA, INDONESIA, September 15, 2003: In the Indian Ocean, between the Cocos and Seychelles islands, an odd-looking outrigger vessel is retracing the ancient “cinnamon route” from Indonesia to East Africa, first navigated by Indonesian seafarers more than a millennium ago. The Borobudur Ship — a 72-foot-long wooden ship modeled after wall reliefs found on the 8th century Borobudur temple in…