GO TO SOURCE SINGAPORE, November 6, 2001: About 3,500 Hindu devotees walked barefoot across a 6-meter-long pit of red-hot coals yesterday to celebrate the annual Hindu festival of Thimithi. They gathered at the Sri Mariamman temple in South Bridge Road to offer prayers hours before performing the fire walk, which is a form of penance or thanksgiving in honor of…
GO TO SOURCE ATLANTA, GEORGIA, November 1, 2001: The book business boomed during the ’90s. The New Economy has suffered some setbacks, and general book sales are down. But in one part of the book business, business is still good: Sales of religious books are up more than four percent. “People are extremely hungry for experiences of God, experiences of…
GO TO SOURCE SUBANG JAYA, MALAYSIA, November 5, 2001: The Christ Community Center Church here was destroyed by arson on October 27, according to a report from the Barnabas Fund. Police had been called out to the building in the early hours of Saturday morning after the burglar alarm went off. Finding nothing suspicious, they left. Three hours later, flames…
GO TO SOURCE USA, November 3, 2001: Mihir Patel is working with a team of Indian people trying to get a national conference for Indians of all walks of life together in Washington D.C. or New York for the year 2005. Students, professional, parents, religious leaders and political leaders would have a chance to network and discuss different issues facing…
GO TO SOURCE NEW DELHI, INDIA, November 4, 2001: Twenty thousand Dalits assembled at the Ambedkar Bhawan in Delhi today and took a verbal oath converting to Buddhism. The Dalits, Hinduism’s lowest caste, were told they are Buddhists just by attending the rally and having wanted to convert to Buddhism. The ceremony was held despite being banned by the Delhi…
GO TO SOURCE AHMEDABAD, INDIA, November 1, 2001: Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s international general secretary, Dr. Pravin Togadia, was arrested by the Maharashtra government at Bhusaval town in Khandesh in the backdrop of communal riots in Malegaon and anti-national rhetoric of some Muslim groups in the country. Togadia was arrested on Wednesday morning when he arrived in Bhusaval to grace a…
GO TO SOURCE TRINIDAD, November 1, 2001: When asked about whether he was surprised by Osama bin Laden’s support in Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Iran, V.S. Naipaul, Nobel-prize winning author commented, “No, because these are the converted peoples of Islam, these are the people who are not Arabs. Part of the neurosis of the convert is that he always has…
GO TO SOURCE NEW DELHI, INDIA, November 1, 2001: More than half the genetically modified “bt cotton” grown illegally over thousands of acres in Gujarat is suspected to have entered the market. The company which sold the seeds to Gujarat farmers has also sold the same seed to farmers in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. If Indian farmers completely adopt…
GO TO SOURCE USA, October 27, 2001: A little-known weapon in the U.S. Army’s arsenal is a mobile house of worship that could be called “The Stealth Sanctuary,” according to a report by smh.com of Australia. The “containerized chapel” can be dropped from a cargo plane and within six hours be transformed into a multi-denominational religious center serving Christians, Jews…
GO TO SOURCE WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND, October 30, 2001: Danish toy maker Lego has agreed to halt production of a range of toys based on ethnic cultures after protests about its use of indigenous Maori names for some toys. Lego senior executive Brian Soerensen has just returned to Denmark after meeting Maori lawyers in Auckland where he acknowledged that Lego…