TORONTO, CANADA, October 25, 2024 (Yahoo): Candles, fireworks and oil lamps will light up celebrations in the Greater Toronto Area as the biggest holiday season of the year for the South Asian community gets underway. Although the official celebrations start Nov. 1, according to the Hindu calendar, an array of events are already taking place this weekend, with thousands expected…
INDIA, October 26, 2024 (India Today): Two iconic Hindu shrines, over 745 miles apart, seem to have been brought closer by one controversy. Following the allegations of animal fat-laced adulterated ghee being used to prepare the popular laddoo prasad at the Sri Venkateswara Swamy Temple in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, the BJP government in Odisha has decided that ghee produced by…
INDIA, October 23, 2024 (USA Today): An Indian Forest Service employee this week shared an image showing a large snake pausing in a clearing with its head and neck raised in a classic cobra posture. Although rarely encountered, king cobras are revered in India, where they’re considered the national reptile, as associated with Lord Siva. Parveen Kaswan stated via X:…
GONDAL, GUJARAT, INDIA, October 25, 2024 (English Jagran): Today, on 25 October 2024, a Bhagwati Sant Diksha ceremony for the initiation of 37 educated youths took place at BAPS Akshar Mandir in Gondal, led by His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj. In line with BAPS’s tradition of initiation, these 37 youths had previously completed rigorous training as parshads at the Sant…
MYANMAR, October 27, 2024 (Global New Light of Myanmar): As the Diwali festival approached, preparations were made in every home of the Hindus before the festival. Diwali, a religious and national festival sacred to Hindus, will fall on 1 November, and the Hindu people are now busy buying new clothes, home decorations and temple renovations, according to the local Hindu…
TRINIDAD/TOBAGO, October 25, 2024 (South Asia Monitor, by Paras Ramoutar): Diwali continues to generate a national appeal from all sectors of the populace, whether at Divali Nagar or spread throughout the nation. Diwali promotes multiculturalism and secularism and it has become an institution in Trinidad and Tobago, and it is one such festival that continuously knits mankind with the Creator.…
UNITED STATES, October 21, 2024 (Quanta Magazine): One afternoon in January 2011, Hussein Mourtada leapt onto his desk and started dancing. He wasn’t alone: Some of the graduate students who shared his Paris office were there, too. But he didn’t care. The mathematician realized that he could finally confirm a sneaking suspicion he’d first had while writing his doctoral dissertation,…
CHINO HILLS, CALIFORNIA, October 22, 2024 (India West): To celebrate the festival of Diwali and foster international relations, the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir here hosted a first-ever “Diplomatic Diwali.” On October 17, diplomatic missions and organizations from over 15 countries including consuls joined BAPS for the evening. The event was inspired by Mahant Swami Maharaj’s vision, “In the spirit of…
ZAMORA, SPAIN, October 19, 2024 (La Razon, Google translated from Spanish): Mireia Fresno from Barcelona is wearing a silk dress of an intense yellow color, which distinguishes her from the rest of her companions. She slowly descends the gentle slope that gives access to the Kailash Ashram, the physical space that houses the Advaita Vidya community, on the outskirts of…
INDIA, October 15, 2024 (The Commune): After centuries of surviving persecution under mleccha rule by restricting their faith to the boundaries of their individuals homes and shrines, Hindus are reclaiming their sense of being a sociopolitical community. This collective sense of being, which had existed since the Vedic era, had been rendered dormant first as an adaptation to oppression under…
