{"id":2885,"date":"2003-02-27T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-02-27T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2003\/02\/27\/2003-02-27-uk-hindus-substitute-river-thames-for-holy-ganga\/"},"modified":"2003-02-27T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-02-27T12:00:00","slug":"2003-02-27-uk-hindus-substitute-river-thames-for-holy-ganga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2003\/02\/27\/2003-02-27-uk-hindus-substitute-river-thames-for-holy-ganga\/","title":{"rendered":"U.K. Hindus Substitute River Thames for Holy Ganga"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: NewsQuest Media Group Limited<\/P><br \/>\n<P><\/p>\n<p>LONDON, ENGLAND, February 18, 2003: Hindus in the U.K. are using a service offered by a ferry company which will send a boat out onto the Thames to perform the ritual of scattering of ashes of the deceased for US$80. City Cruises takes up to 50 friends and relatives on the half-hour trip. Sales manager Ian Faris says, &#8220;This is a popular service where predominantly Asian families are taken to a quiet spot on the river to perform the final rites of passage on their loved ones.&#8221; Strictly speaking, disposing of any waste into rivers is illegal, but the Environment Agency, which is responsible for waterways in Britain, is turning a blind eye to the practice. Environment Agency officer Tessa van den Burghe comments that, &#8220;Strictly speaking, it is not allowed as it is considered waste. But it is not a huge amount and we do not consider it a problem.&#8221; Greenwich Hindu Temple secretary Vidya Misru says, &#8220;Ideally the deceased are sent back to their spiritual home in India where their ashes can be cast with a prayer into the holy Ganges. But sometimes this is not possible and in these circumstances the Thames is used as an alternative.&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: NewsQuest Media Group Limited LONDON, ENGLAND, February 18, 2003: Hindus in the U.K. are using a service offered by,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}