GO TO SOURCE LAUDIUM, JOHANNESBURG, May 30, 2001: Almost 400 Tamil children from all across the Gauteng province of South Africa attended an annual children’s eisteddfod, “cultural festival” in Afrikaans, hosted by the Gauteng Tamil Federation at the mainly Indian area of Laudium. Students were from various Tamil schools run as community service by the body. “This is a record,”…
GO TO SOURCE BEIJING, CHINA, May 24, 2001: The Shankaracharya of Kanchi Peetham in Tamil Nadu, India, received an official invitation from the Chinese government’s Association of International Friendly Contact to visit in October this year. The details of Jayendra Saraswati’s visit are being worked out. In his seven-day tour, the Paramacharya will meet President Li Peng and other top…
GO TO SOURCE UNITED KINGDOM, May 27, 2001: Schools are to be told to scrap Easter holidays and replace them with a non-religious “spring break.” Despite objections from Christian pressure groups, supporters of the proposals say a specific Easter holiday is incompatible with a modern school system because it is on a different date each year. Moving to a fixed…
GO TO SOURCE NEW DELHI, INDIA, MAY 27, 2001: According to a report on the state of children in India, almost 59 million children in India under the age of 14 years are not attending school. The report was prepared as a follow-up to the World Summit for Children 2000, and notes the progress made at the end of the…
GO TO SOURCE SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, MAY 29, 2001: Construction has begun on a new temple building for Australia’s first Hindu temple, Sri Mandir, located in the western suburb of Auburn. Approximately half of the estimated US$256,000 construction costs had been raised before the groundbreaking ceremony last Sunday. The temple will have Radha and Krishna as the presiding deities. Seven other…
GO TO SOURCE FAIZABAD, INDIA, 28 May, 2001: A prominent Hindu leader, Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, and four others were injured in a bomb attack in the northern Indian town of Faizabad. Das was attacked while on his way to bathe in a nearby river. His condition is not said to be serious. He is a member of the Vishwa…
GO TO SOURCE DUBAI, May 29, 2001: Iran has condemned the “discriminatory decision adopted by the Taliban” regarding Hindus in Afghanistan where Taliban militia recently issued an edict making it compulsory for all Hindus to wear a piece of yellow cloth as an identity label. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamidreza Assefi said that such moves are clear cases of religious…
GO TO SOURCE BHUTAN, May 30, 2001: Nestled in the Himalayan Mountains between Tibet, China and India, the tiny nation of Bhutan prides itself as being the only Buddhist kingdom in the world, where a tough stance is taken to keep Christian conversion tactics at bay. The native people, known as Drupka, make up a majority of Bhutan’s approximately 600,000…
GO TO SOURCE WASHINGTON,D.C., May 27, 2001: Over forty years ago, the first influx of Indian Asian immigrants arrived in America. As students and professionals, they paved the way for Indian immigrants to become one of the highest-paid immigrant groups. These hard-working and persevering forefathers also suffered cultural shock, from the unavailability of their favorite curries and spices to no…
GO TO SOURCE MOSCOW, RUSSIA, May 25, 2001: In a statement issued by the Russian foreign ministry, Russia strongly condemns the Taliban militia’s decree to impose a dress code on Afghanistan’s Hindu and Sikh minorities. The decree is forcing non-Muslim minorities, particularly Hindus and Sikhs, to wear identity labels and prohibits them from living in the same house occupied by…