SourceMUMBAI, INDIA, July 24, 2003: (Note: this report appeared four days earlier than the above report) Preparations for pilgrimage on a grand scale are being made in Maharashtra for the Grand Pitcher festival or Kumbh Mela. Expecting hundreds of thousands to millions of Hindus in the twin towns of Nasik and Trimbakeshwar, 125 miles from Mumbai, the high point of…
SourceSOUTH AFRICA, July 24, 2003: The National council for Eastern Languages claimed a major victory when national education minister Kader Asmal overturned his decision to remove Eastern languages from the school syllabus. The council, officials of the South African qualifications authority, South African Hindu Maha Sabha and the SA Tamil Federation met Asmal in Pretoria this week to discuss the…
SourceBANGALORE, INDIA, July 27, 2003: The age-old tradition of arranged marriages is surviving in India, while technology strives to keep up. After using newspaper advertisements and web-sites to find a suitable partner for their son or daughter, parents can now subscribe to a text messaging service on their cell phone. Arun Sikka, vice-president for sales and marketing at RPG Cellular…
SourceKUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, July 27, 2003: Getting a quick divorce has taken on a whole new meaning in Malaysia after it was decided that a man can divorce his wife with a text message. The government’s adviser on religious affairs, the man who counsels Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, said as long as the message was clear and unambiguous it…
SourceJAMMU, KASHMIR, INDIA, JULY 27, 2003: Authorities on Saturday decided to upgrade the security cover for the pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Mata Vaishnodevi, set atop 3,500-feet-high Trikuta Hills, in the wake of the July 21 terrorist strike at Banganga that left six pilgrims killed and 48 injured. A high-level meeting, which reviewed the security for the pilgrimage, decided…
SourceNEW DELHI, INDIA, July 25, 2003: Following the hue and cry over presence of pesticides in bottled water, the Centre has finally come out with a changed rule set on packaged water, which the manufacturers have to follow from January 2004. As per the new prevention of food adulteration (PFA) guideline issued on July 18, the individual pesticide residue should…
SourceTHE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS, July 24, 2003: MTV Networks Belgium apologized and has removed from circulation a piece entitled “Festival Report,” which included a six-armed Ganesha. In His hands are a guitar, bag of french fries, microphone, cigarette and beer cup, with the sixth hand in the traditional position of blessing. The Dutch watchdog group, AGNI, objected to the producers…
SourceVATICAN CITY, July 17, 2003: The famed temple of Tirupati in India, and others around the world, have instituted dress codes for devotees, and encountered protests in the process. This news report in the Detroit Times shows other religions, too, face the same problem of casually dressed people in their sacred places and have imposed strict dress codes as a…
SourceNASHIK, INDIA, July 20, 2003: Over the coming months, seven million pilgrims will re-live the ancient ritual of traveling to the Maharashtra town of Nashik for the Kumbh Mela. At exactly 11.51 AM on July 30, 2003, as the Sun and Jupiter enter the constellation of Leo, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims will plunge into the Godavari, just as their…
SourceTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM, KERALA, July 24, 2003: Taking a serious note of growing cruelty towards captive elephants and their violent reaction to human captors, the Kerala Government has issued norms for their upkeep which, among other things, insists that the tamed elephants should be retired from working at the age of 65. The set of rules issued recently had clear-cut norms for…