Source: The Record, Northern New Jersey, October 30, 2000 CRANBURY, NEW JERSEY: Local farmers oppose construction of a Chinmaya Mission center in this rural community. The Mission wants to build on a seven-acre tract in an area of permanently preserved farmland. The temple would be in a barn-like structure designed to fit in the area, and attract 100 people on…
Source: Pioneer, November 8, 2000 NEW DELHI, INDIA: The audacious request by the RSS nationalist Hindu organization that Christians in India form their own “Swadeshi Churches,” i.e., churches based in India and run by Indians, has received support from an unexpected quarter. The President of the Poor Christian Liberation Movement, R.L. Francis, complained that Christian leaders discriminated against backward Christians…
Source: Hindustan Times, November 8, 2000 MUMBAI, INDIA: Rights for the popular 208-episode TV series on the stories of Lord Siva has been bought for US$2.2 million for one time telecast by Hindustan Lever company, India’s largest supplier of consumer goods. According to a spokesperson, the series cuts across urban and rural markets and is of perennial interest to target…
GO TO SOURCE NEW DELHI, INDIA: K. Suresh Kurup, a Marxist Member of the Indian Parliament, has urged Prime Minister A. B.. Vajpayee to instruct the Indian representative in the UN to object to the entry of Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) into the UN Economic and Social Council. He also appealed to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that VHP should…
Source: Hinduism Today, Pundit Ramesh Tiwari EDINBURGH, TRINIDAD: A recent newscast on state-owned television in Trinidad showed a 15-year-old Muslim girl with a spinal deformity, together with her parents, making a desperate appeal for financial assistance to have surgery done in Canada to allow their daughter Saadia to live a normal life. The Edinburgh Hindu Temple of Trinidad, being an…
GO TO SOURCE PARIS, FRANCE: A sharp increase in the number of cases of “Mad Cow Disease” in French herds has led to a national outcry over the safety of the nation’s supply of beef. Some meat from these herds had reached supermarkets. Many schools have taken beef off the menu, and the government is considering restrictions on the sale…
Source: Dainik Hindustan, November 6, 2000 MUMBAI, INDIA: With the wild success of the Mahabharata and Ramayana series on Indian television, which brought whole sections of the country to a halt during their showings, Indian TV is proceeding with more series based on Hinduism. The latest is not one, but two competing series on Lord Ganesha, Shree Ganesh on Sony…
GO TO SOURCE BANGALORE, INDIA (AP): On remote heights of the Himalayas, awe-struck women from yak-herding tribes sit in front of computers for the very first time. In a farming region, poor village women step into video e-mail booths to send messages to their husbands working in faraway cities. State officials have set up 40 such information centers in remote…
GO TO SOURCE LAMPANG, THAILAND: An elephant sanctuary in Thailand has trained a group of five elephants to play percussion instruments, xylophones and an elephant-sized harmonica. They’ve released their first tune, “Chang, Chang, Chang,” which means “Elephant, Elephant, Elephant,” and is a child’s song in Thai. Each elephant holds an instrument and plays it when prodded by its mahut. The…
Source: Bahrain Tribune, October 27, 2000 SITRA, BAHRAIN: The Indian ambassador, Surinder Singh Gill, was guest of honor at a grand Diwali celebration at the Al Bander Hotel and Resort in the Muslim country. Five hundred Hindus attended. A temporary temple was built at the hotel, and the resort’s lagoon was filled with candles set afloat by the children. “The…