Source INDIA, January 9, 2013 (boldsky.com): Hindu Festivals are an exuberant celebration of peace and harmony and Makar Sankranti (Thai Pongal) is no exception. It is an amalgamation of spirituality and science with great pageantry. Makar Sankranti is a major harvest festival celebrated in various parts of India. According to science, the winter solstice comes to an end where the…
Source There is nothing amazing in the world. Your ignorance shows when you find it so. It all happened long, long ago. What can be amazing? I am you and you are me. I am eternal, birthless, deathless, changeless, secondless.— Satguru Yogaswami, (1862-1964) Sri Lankan mystic
Source BENGALURU, INDIA, January 14, 2013 (Deccan Herald): Balagangadharanatha Swami, pontiff of Adichunchanagiri mutt, was born as Gangadharayya on January 25, 1945, in a Subedar family at Banandur in Bidadi hobli of Ramanagar district. One of the six children of Chikkalingegowda and Boramma, Gangadharayya completed his primary education at his birthplace. After completing SSLC with a first class in 1963,…
Source BENGALURU, INDIA, January 13, 2013 (Deccan Herald): Balagangadharanatha Swamiji, the pontiff of the Adichunchanagiri Mutt in Nagamangala of Mandya district, died on Sunday evening at BGS Global Hospital, Kengeri. Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar and Dr K N Venkataramana, vice-chairman of the hospital, announced his sad demise on the hospital premises on behalf of the mutt on Sunday night. The…
Source It is Divinity that shapes, not only your ends, but also your acts, your words and thoughts. Your duty is to treat everybody, including yourself, as a manifestation of the Lord.— Swami Sivananda (1887-1963), founder of Divine Life Society, Rishikesh
Source MELAKA, MALAYSIA, January 5, 2013 (The Hindu): In a cottage near Melaka, Hugh and Colleen Gantzer learn about a 230-year-old community of exiles — the Chettis of Malaysia, hailing not from Chettinad but Chennai, and distinguished by their richly merged bloodlines. When we spotted the entrance arch and the board, while driving around Melaka, we stopped. An inscription said…
Source ALLAHABAD, INDIA, January 4, 2013 (dawn.com): The Naga sadhus have arrived in religious procession towards at the Sangam, the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati, as part of the Maha Kumbha Mela festival in Allahabad, India, Friday January 4th. Millions of Hindu pilgrims are expected to take part in the large religious congregation on the banks…
Source He who befriends a man whose conduct is vicious, whose vision impure, and who is notoriously crooked, is rapidly ruined.— Chanakya (350-275 bce), Indian politician, strategist and writer
Source UNITED KINGDOM, January 3, 2013 (BBC): A product of the British Empire, with a mixture of Western and Indian names, customs and complexions, 2,000 Anglo-Indians are to attend a reunion in Calcutta. But their communities in both the UK and the subcontinent are disappearing, writes Anglo-Indian Kris Griffiths. Journalist Kris Griffiths was born to a Welsh father and Anglo-Indian…
Source INDIA, January 4, 2013 (Live Mint): Rakhigarhi is a cluster of two sprawling villages –Rakhikhas and Rakhi Shahpur–in Haryana, around 106 miles from Delhi. That Rakhigarhi was a large Harappan town was known in 1963, when the area was first surveyed. What archaeologists are finding out now is that it is the biggest ever Harappan city, larger and more…