Source ALLAHABAD, INDIA, January 12, 2013 (India Times): For the beleaguered Kumbh Mela authorities drawing flak from virtually every quarter for mismanagement and insensitivity towards stakeholders, here’s some more bad news. Samajwadi Party national general secretary and member of Parliament from Allahabad Rewati Raman Singh has come down heavily on mela authorities for failing to keep participants in good humour…
Source PRAYAG, INDIA, January 10, 2013 (BBC, by Mark Tully): The Kumbha Mela is expected to be the biggest religious gathering of humanity in the world. In my long years in India I have seen many spectacles but none so remarkable as the two Maha or Great Kumbha Melas which I attended. I have seen vast crowds assemble but none…
Source For seven lives in seven bodies the grateful will remember friends who relieved their anguish and affliction.— Saint Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural, verse 107
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 LUCKNOW, INDIA, January 11, 2013 (Outlook India): Airlines, hotels, tour operators and Uttar Pradesh in general are likely to reap a windfall during the Maha Kumbha Mela in the state with the government likely to see its coffers swelling by US$2.2 billion, according to an industry body. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India’s paper — “Maha…
Source KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, January 13, 2013 (The Star): Malaysia’s Tamil Hindu community celebrates on Monday its best-loved festival, Pongal, the only festival which follows a solar calendar to mark the beginning of Uttarayana, the Sun’s movement northward for a six-month period. To usher in the harvest festival, the community is buying an assortment of colorfully-decorated clay pots, wooden ladles…
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 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 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