GO TO SOURCE NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, JULY 5, 2002: Lutheran pastor, Rev. David Benke, has been suspended from his duties and ordered to apologize to all Christians for participating with New York’s Cardinal Edward M. Egan, other Christian ministers, Sikh and Hindu holy men, imams, rabbis and civic leaders in an interfaith prayer service hosted by Oprah Winfrey…
GO TO SOURCE BIHAR, INDIA, JULY 4, 2002: Last month a group of Hindu activists from Bihar launched a campaign against animal sacrifice at the famous Lord Baidyanath temple at Deogarh in Jharkhand. It is estimated that about 100 animals are slaughtered at the Deogarh temple each month and the temple management spends about US$2,000 procuring goats for the sacrifices.…
GO TO SOURCE LONDON, ENGLAND, JULY 5, 2002: Thousands of officially British, ethnically Indian and technically stateless people are finally to achieve closure on a painful part of their past as the British government announces it will set right a “historical wrong” from 30 years ago. In the 1960s and 70s, thousands of Indians fleeing persecution in East Africa were…
GO TO SOURCE SPAIN, BARCELONA, July 5, 2002: The United Nations warned that at least 68 million people will die by 2020 unless there are “drastically expanded” efforts to prevent and treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Their portrait of human misery on a gigantic scale was released in anticipation of the 14th International AIDS Conference, set to open…
GO TO SOURCE PURI, ORISSA, INDIA, July 6, 2002: Priests of the Jagannath temple in Puri will be taught lessons in etiquette, so that they learn how to deal with visitors to the temple. A Puri-based cultural outfit, Yuva Chetana Sangathana, has decided to launch the orientation program to put an end to the complaints against the priests, known as…
GO TO SOURCE PURI, ORISSA, INDIA, July 7, 2002: The biggest temple kitchen in the world has suffered a huge loss because one cook didn’t observe the proper rituals. Authorities of the Jagannath temple of Puri in Orissa destroyed US$50,000 worth of cooked offerings for the presiding Deity, stating it had not been prepared according to prescribed rituals. The offering,…
GO TO SOURCE KATMANDU, NEPAL, July 5, 2002: After a year of mourning, Nepal’s King Gyanendra has moved into the palace where his elder brother was assassinated in a royal family massacre in June, 2001. Gyanendra assumed the throne after his brother and eight members of the royal family were killed by Crown Prince Dipendra, who also shot himself and…
GO TO SOURCE BHUBANESWAR, INDIA, July 7, 2002: As a boy, he helped his father loot goods trains. When he grew up, he started looting gods! Prakash Patnaik, 24, who hit headlines as the brain behind the thefts in Lingaraj and Puri Jagannath temples of Orissa, has had police groping in the dark for years. Hailing from Kantapara village of…
GO TO SOURCE INDIA, June 29,2002: This report on the life of India’s devadasis, which may not be a subject everyone wants to read about, begins: “Lakshmi must have been stunning once — her high, prominent cheek bones and hazel eyes hint at beauty. But that was before she was ravaged by AIDS. Now her body is emaciated — her…
GO TO SOURCE DALLAS, TEXAS, June 15, 2002: Windle Turley, a Dallas attorney, is known for two of the nation’s most notorious lawsuits over priestly molestation. In 1997, Turley won what is still the largest jury verdict ever levied in the Catholic Church’s 20-year-old sex abuse scandal, US$119,603.500. Three years later, he followed up with a $400 million lawsuit against…