GO TO SOURCE MONTREAL, CANADA, June 8, 2002: A colloquium was held on Saturday, June 8, 2002, at the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada to explore the possibility of employing indigenous dharma as an epistemic category to understand Indic religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism) following the lead provided by Dr. Ambedkar. The following persons participated: Mr.…
GO TO SOURCE BANGALORE, INDIA, July 9, 2002: A short stay in a temple or place of worship can actually improve your mental health, a study has shown. Researchers in India found that a six-week stay at a Hindu temple can produce the same improvement in people with severe psychiatric disorders as a month-long course of standard drugs. According to…
GO TO SOURCE NEW DELHI, INDIA, May 11, 2002: We missed this one the first time around, but just two months ago, India’s billionth citizen entered the world. The government decided that special baby was Ashtha (“faith”), born at Safdarjang Hospital in Delhi, May 11 to Anjana and Ashok Arora in Safdarjang Hospital in the Indian capital at 5:05 a.m.…
GO TO SOURCE KAUAI, HAWAII, July 11, 2002: Hinduism Today requests HPI readers to send to “source” above the names and contact information for foundations or other charitable institutions who might give grants to Hindu institutions for religious-oriented projects. The organizations don’t have to be Hindu in nature, but do need to include in their charitable purposes the ability to…
Source: CNS News PHILIPPINES, July 11, 2002: The Roman Catholic Church in Asia’s staunchest Catholic country, the Philippines, has apologized for cases of sexual abuse by priests over the past two decades. Following a weekend conference, Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference, said up to 200 priests – of a total of 7,000 – may have…
GO TO SOURCE NEW YORK, NEW YORK, July 15, 2002: Sporting the ubiquitous hamburger bun overflowing with vegetables, the July 15 issue of Time magazine carries a cover story on the merits of vegetarianism for everyone. For many, meat is an obscene cuisine. It’s not just the additives and ailments connected with the consumption of beef, though a dish of…
GO TO SOURCE TRINIDAD, July 8, 2002: HPI’s local contacts here sent in a note that a Japanese-language DVD had appeared entitled “RG Veda.” Our correspondent, Anil Mahabir, spoke with a distributor of the DVD who said, “The film is not about anything even remotely resembling Indian culture or Hinduism, although the name “RG Veda” might seem to suggest such.”…
GO TO SOURCE PUNE, INDIA, July 7, 2002: As the demand for priests to perform certain rituals has increased, the supply of male priests has dwindled. Often young men do not follow in their father’s footsteps and have taken up what they feel to be more lucrative careers. Hence in 1990, an organization call Jnana Prabodhini started training both women…
GO TO SOURCE PUNE, INDIA, July 7, 2002: Jnana Prabodhini, a Pune-based organization, has been training women to become priests since 1990. With very little opposition from the public, JP has found that women priests have filled a demand, that priests graduating from their program perform rituals for all classes of people, and that women should have an equal opportunity…
GO TO SOURCE HAMM, GERMANY, July 8, 2002: Around 3,000 Hindus on Sunday attended the inauguration of the largest Hindu temple in Europe, at Hamm in northwest Germany, police said. The 700-square-meter Sri Kamadchi Ampal temple took two years to build and cost US$990,000, most of it from donations. The building is built in an architectural style typical of southern…