INDIA, January 16, 2026 (India Today): The Uttarakhand government may soon take a decision that could significantly alter access to one of Haridwar’s most-prominent religious sites. The demand, raised by the Ganga Sabha and sections of the saint community, is for a complete ban on the entry of non-Hindus in and around Har ki Pauri and other Ganga ghats falling…
INDIA, January 18, 2026 (Indian Express): As the sun rose over the sprawling grounds of the Virat Ramayan Mandir in East Champaran district’s Motihari Saturday, workers and engineers prepared for a long-awaited moment. Two cranes, each with a capacity of around 750 tons, carefully lifted a colossal black-granite monolith weighing about 231 tons and inched it towards a nearby pedestal.…
SINGAPORE, December 23, 2025 (Mothership): A Singapore national was arrested by the police in India for allegedly filming videos inside a Hindu temple using camera-embedded smart glasses. The man, a 49-year-old of Sri Lankan ethnicity, was visiting the state of Kerala as a tourist, The Hindu reported. Around 9:25am on Dec. 20, he went into Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple wearing smart…
INDIA, January 15, 2026, (Telegraph India): A sharp rise in the water level of the world-famous Lonar Lake in Maharashtra’s Buldhana district has submerged several ancient temples, raising serious concerns over conservation and preservation at the heritage site. The phenomenon, observed over the past few years, has prompted the district administration to seek expert inputs from the Indian Institute of…
INDIA, January 9, 2026 (Indian Express): The probe into the alleged theft of gold from the Sabarimala temple artifacts took a curious turn on Friday after the special investigation team arrested temple tantri (chief priest), Kandararu Rajeevaru. The SIT, which has registered two cases in the scandal, has so far arrested nine persons, all of senior employees of the Travancore…
INDIA, January 9, 2026 (India Today): In this wide-ranging essay, senior journalist T. R. Jawahar examines why Tamil Nadu remains uniquely resistant to national political parties and argues that the answer lies deep in the state’s cultural memory rather than electoral arithmetic. As the 2026 assembly election approaches, Jawahar frames Tamil Nadu as India’s strongest citadel of regionalism, shaped by…
SOMALILAND, December 21, 2025 (BBC): The world’s supply of frankincense is under serious threat as rising global demand collides with ecological stress and economic inequity. Harvested from wild Boswellia trees in the Horn of Africa, especially Somaliland, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, frankincense has been used for millennia in religious ritual and traditional medicine and is now booming in the global…
INDIA, January 8, 2026 (Religion News Service): The Bnei Menashe are a small community from India’s northeastern states of Mizoram and Manipur who believe they are descendants of the biblical lost tribe of Manasseh and see their migration to Israel as the fulfillment of prophecy. For decades, members of the community have sought to immigrate despite not qualifying under Israel’s…
PENANG, Malaysia, January 1, 2026 (The Star): Thousands of Hindu devotees gathered at the Vinayagar kovil, the Ganesha temple on Waterfall Road in Penang, for a Maha Kumbabishegam consecration ceremony marking the completion of a major restoration. Long regarded as the first point of prayer for pilgrims before ascending to the hilltop Murugan temple, the shrine has for decades been…
KARNALI REGION, Nepal, December 21, 2025 (Nepali Times): An in-depth report warns that the Karnali, Nepal’s last great free-flowing Himalayan river, faces growing threats from proposed hydropower development despite sustaining vast ecosystems and livelihoods from Tibet to India. Flowing from near Manasarovar on the Tibetan Plateau to its confluence with the Ganga, the Karnali still follows natural seasonal rhythms that…
