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NEW DELHI, INDIA, March 15, 2013 (Greater Kashmir): Government today ruled out granting refugee status to Pakistani Hindu immigrants who have crossed over to India to escape persecution there. "At the moment, we cannot grant them refugee status," Minister of State for Home Mullappally Ramachandran said replying to a discussion on a private members' resolution in the Lok Sabha. He, however, said no Pakistani national, whose application for long-term visa was under consideration of government, would be deported to Pakistan.

The Minister also listed a number of steps taken by the government since 1955 to address matters related to persons displaced from Pakistan. The resolution on "Formulation of an Action Plan to Rehabilitate Persons Displaced from Pakistan," moved by Arjun Ram Meghwal (BJP), was negatived after being put to voice vote. As per convention, a member withdraws the resolution after the reply by the Minister. Meghwal insisted that his conscience did not permit him to follow the convention as he was not satisfied with the Minister's reply.

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PATHANAMTHITTA, INDIA, March 17, 2013 (The Hindu): A two-day intensive cleaning drive launched by the Amala Bharatam volunteers of the Mata Amritanandamayi Math at Sabarimala came to a close on Sunday afternoon.

Math sources said 1,529 Amala Bharatam volunteers were deployed for the cleaning program at the Sannidhanam, while 1,219 volunteers, a majority of them women, took part in the sanitation drive at Pampa.

The volunteers cleaned the Valiya Nadappanthal, Bhasmakkulam, Gosala and surroundings, donor houses, pilgrim shelters, toilets, bathrooms, Devaswom mess and surroundings, Aravana plant, Paandithavalom, Marakkoottom and Saramkuthi on the trekking path.

A total of 10,000 bags of waste, besides seven truckloads of other solid waste such as rags collected from the riverbed and the riverbanks, were removed from Pampa on Sunday.

The Amala Bharatam volunteer force comprises devotees of spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi and students from various educational institutions attached to the Math.

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Hinduism does not see sins, but only mistakes.
-- Mother Sarada Devi, as quoted by Swami Gautamananda

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK, March 15, 2013 (New York Times, by Amy Karafin): My two-week trip here last June was my second visit to the Jaffna Peninsula, a 400-square-mile expanse of Technicolor temples and arid, surreally beautiful landscapes in northern Sri Lanka that have only recently opened to tourists after a 26-year civil war. I had traveled there in 2011 to research a guidebook, but that trip had been packed with activity; this time I wanted to explore the area at my own pace. So, basing myself in a guesthouse in the capital of Jaffna on the peninsula's southwest coast, I returned to linger in the region's temples and visit the tiny islands offshore.

One of the first things I did was hire a car and driver and travel 10 miles to the Maviddapuram Kandaswamy Temple, where I had received a warm welcome from the priest's family on my previous visit. Reminders of the war were all around. As we drove through the village of Maviddapuram, we passed abandoned houses; vegetation grew in former living rooms and banyan trees spilled over walls.

The temple itself had been hit hard during the war and is still being reconstructed. Much of the 17th-century structure that once stood there is gone, though its ornate 108-foot gopuram (tower), covered in sculptured Gods, has been rebuilt. Over and over again I would see evidence of the civil war, which began in 1983 and continued until 2009. During that time, militants seeking a separate Tamil state in the north and east (an area including the largely Tamil Jaffna peninsula) were pitted against the government, which had, since independence from the British in 1948, become dominated by pro-Sinhalese policies.

Two miles down the road, Maviddapuram's sister temple, the ancient Naguleswaram Shiva Temple, has also been renewed: its interior now gleams with a thousand colors, and its sacred Keerimalai Spring is full of bathers seeking the mineral water's healing powers. Guidebooks from 10 years ago mention that visitors may, if they are lucky, visit the spring after military searches and with an armed escort. But now travelers can go, as I did, escort-free, and, float in the pools (there is one just for women), thinking about the Tamil princess who discovered the sacred spring in the seventh century.

Elsewhere on the peninsula, damage from the war is also obvious, including in Jaffna, the largest city in the region, with a population of around 90,000. During the war, the capital, which is the spiritual and intellectual heart of Sri Lanka's Tamil people, was caught in the cross-fire between the separatists and the government, neither of which fully represented its aspirations. Many believe that even though the fighting has ended, the disenfranchisement of Tamils from the political process continues.

Much more of this interesting travelogue at source above.

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BANGLADESH, March 16,2 013 (bdnews24): Miscreants vandalized a Saraswati statue at a temple beside the residence of ruling-party Member of Parliament (MP) Mohammad Atiur Rahman Atique in Sherpur city's Madhabpur. The Madhabpur Puja Temple committee informed the police about the incident that took place on Friday night. Hindus have been offering prayers at this temple for the past 77 years, said the temple committee Chief Dilip Kumar Paul. "Vandalism was conducted to dent the communal harmony."

"Whoever is responsible... they will be identified and arrested," said Sherpur Sadar Police Station Officer in-Charge Mazharul Karim. Suspected Jamaat-e-Islami activists had been carrying out vandalism and attacks on the Hindus in several areas of Bangladesh over the issue of trial of war criminals.

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Anger is nothing but an attachment for an object, when expressed towards an obstacle between ourselves and the object of our attachment.
-- Swami Chinmayananda (1916-1993), founder of Chinmaya Mission

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MUMBAI, INDIA, March 16, 2013 (Times of India): (HPI Note: We are astounded as you are by this report. Perhaps one of our readers can explain what this is about. It appears that the Shiv Mandir trust itself made the claim that Shiva worship is not a religious act in order to receive a tax exemption, and that the Tax Tribunal agreed with them.)

Lord Shiva, Hanuman and Goddess Durga do not represent any particular religion but are regarded as supernatural powers of the universe, the Nagpur income tax appellate tribunal has said. The observation came when the tribunal was hearing an appeal by Nagpur-based Shiv Mandir Devstan Panch Committee Sanstan against an income tax commissioner's order denying it tax exemption on grounds that more than 5% of its expenditure was incurred on religious activities. The I-T act stipulates that for the purpose of tax exemption, an institution or trust must not be for the benefit of any particular religious community or caste. Differing with the I-T commissioner's order, the tribunal said, "Expenses on worshipping of Lord Shiva, Hanuman, Goddess Durga and on maintenance of the temple cannot be regarded as having been incurred for religious purposes."

The tribunal went on to say that Hinduism was neither a religion nor a community. It consisted of a number of communities having different Gods worshipped in different ways. Even the worship of God wasn't not essential for a person who had adopted the Hindu way of life, it said. "Hinduism holds within its fold men of divergent views and traditions who have very little in common except a vague faith in what may be called as the fundamentals of Hinduism," the tribunal observed.

According to it, the word "community: meant people living in the same place, under the same laws and regulations and who have common rights and privileges. This may apply to Christianity or Islam but not to Hinduism. "Technically, Hinduism is neither a religion nor a community," the tribunal said.

In 2008, the sanstan had spent US$1,535 on maintenance of its building, providing free food, festival prayers, training people in tailoring and yoga, and free distribution of spectacles. The I-T commissioner had said that expenses for building maintenance, providing free food, festival prayers and daily expenses related to "religious purposes." This added up to more than 5% of the organization's expenditure. Only $124 was spent on non-religious activities, the taxman said. The sanstan had countered this, saying its temple was open to everybody, irrespective of caste and creed. "The temple does not belong to a particular religion. Installing idols is not a religious activity," the counsel for the sanstan said.

The I-T tribunal's accountant member K Bansal and judicial member D. T. Garasia agreed. They said the word "religion" meant belief in, and worship of, a "superhuman controlling power," a particular system of faith and worship.

"It means the trust should not be for the benefit of any particular group of persons having common belief in worshipping of superhuman controlling power or having common system of faith and worship. If the trust is for the benefit of any particular religious community, it would include the advancement, support or propagation of a religion," they said, adding that no evidence or material had been placed on record to prove that the sanstan was promoting a particular religion.

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NEW YORK, U.S., January 17, 2013 (Washington Post): When Uma Mysorekar looks at the members of the new Congress, the Indian immigrant and practicing Hindu can see that, for the first time, there's someone who shares her ethnicity and someone who shares her faith. To her surprise, they are two different people.

Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is the first practicing Hindu elected to Congress. Rep. Ami Bera of California, also a Democrat, is the third Indian American to serve in the House. Gabbard, however, isn't from India, where Hinduism originated and to which the vast majority of its adherents have ethnic ties. Bera is a Unitarian.

His two Indian American predecessors in Congress, Dalip Singh Saund and Bobby Jindal, also were not practicing Hindus. The late Saund, a California Democrat elected in 1956, was Sikh. Jindal, a Republican elected to the House in 2004 who is now Louisiana's governor, is Catholic.

Gabbard's presence in Congress creates an interesting moment for Hindus in the United States, a chance to celebrate a barrier broken but also a topic of discussion as they ponder how closely religion and nationality are entwined, or whether they even should be.

Gabbard "is a Hindu representative. It doesn't matter where she came from," said Mysorekar, president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, a temple in the New York borough of Queens that is one of the country's oldest.

According to an analysis issued last month by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, there are about 1 billion Hindus in the world. Of those, 94 percent are in India, and 99 percent in the larger South Asia region. The analysis, based on data from 2010, the latest available, estimated the population of Hindus in the United States at 1.79 million. Most are of Indian descent.

More at source above.

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There is one thing God cannot do He cannot separate Himself from the soul.
-- Siva Yogaswami of Jaffna (1872-1964)

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KATHMANDU, NEPAL, March 10, 2013 (My Republica): Around one million Hindu pilgrims visited the Pashupatinath temple on the occasion of Mahashivaratri in the Capital on Sunday. The officials of Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) said that more Hindu devotees from several other Asian countries visited the temple this year as a result of the positive impression it created about the festival months in advance. Though most of the foreign Hindu devotees came from neighboring India, pilgrims from as far as Malaysia, Singapore, Maldives and Bangladesh also arrived in large numbers this time, said PADT member secretary Sushil Nahata.

However, the festival saw fewer yogis and sadhus compared to the past years. Nahata said that only around 3,000 to 5,000 sadhus and Naga babas visited the temple this year due to the ongoing Kumbha Mela in India. Some 7,000 babas had visited Pashupatinath last year. The PADT had created three entry points for the visitors from Tilganga, Gaushala and Mitrapark. The traffic police had been deployed in the area to restrict vehicles, which were diverted. The trust made special arrangements this year, adding a number of temporary toilets, health camps and tents especially for elderly and the people with disability.

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UNITED KINGDOM, March 10, 2013 (India Today): Hindu groups based in the UK have called on the government to enforce stricter disclosure norms after it emerged that many restaurants serving Indian food in Scotland were using the wrong kind of meat. In the wake of the Europe-wide horse meat scandal that is still under investigation, it emerged that more than a third of Scottish curry restaurants could be using cheaper meat such as beef in dishes that claimed to be lamb.

"The issue does raise religious concerns as some Hindus who may eat meat would prefer not to consume beef as cows are considered sacred in our religion," said Anil Bhanot, managing director of Hindu Council UK. "Hindus are predominantly vegetarian but our estimates are that two-thirds of Hindus based in the UK are meat eaters and it is important they know what is being served to them. "The government must require strict tests on the food industry so that there is proper disclosure of the source of the meat being sold and served to us. And, the results of these tests must be made public and transparent so we can make an informed choice," he added. A spokesperson for the Hindu Temple of Scotland in Glasgow also highlighted it as a nationwide "concern". "However, 90 per cent of Hindus who are part of this temple tend to be vegetarians," he added.

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ALLAHABAD, INDIA, March 9, 2013 (Raw Story): A record 120 million pilgrims washed away their sins with plunges in an Indian holy river during the world's biggest religious festival set to end Sunday, officials said. The two-month-long Kumbh Mela Hindu festival celebrated every 12 years at the conjunction of two sacred rivers on the outskirts of the northern Indian city of Allahabad drew massive crowds of Hindu devotees, ascetics and foreign tourists.

"Over 60 million people attended the festival in 2001 and this time we believe 120 million people have participated," festival chief Mani Prasad Mishra told AFP late on Saturday. He said the job of dismantling the infrastructure that sprawled over 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) to house the pilgrims had already begun. "We built a tent city to celebrate the Kumbh Mela and now we are tearing it down," he said.

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Of all the scriptures in the world, it is the Vedas alone that declare that even the study of the Vedas is secondary. The real study is "that by which we realize the Unchangeable." And that is neither reading, nor believing, nor reasoning, but superconscious perception, or samadhi.
-- Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902)

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KOCHI, INDIA, March 9, 2013 (India Times): The Kerala high court has ruled that the Arya Samaj cannot conduct marriages between people if they are not followers of the samaj, and it will not be legally valid if it takes place. Arya Samaj mandirs are found in all Indian cities and towns and solemnize love, arranged, inter-religion and inter-caste marriages. The ruling was given by a division bench of justices Pius C. Kuriakose and P. D. Rajan while considering the case of a Muslim woman and a Hindu man who married at an Arya Samaj mandir in Kozhikode on December 28 last year.

The court was considering a habeas corpus petition filed by father of the girl Raihana (name changed), alleging that his daughter was being illegally detained. Disagreeing to accept their marriage as valid, the court said, "We have carefully examined the certificate of marriage as well as pramanapathram. Neither claimed before us that they are Arya samajists. The man told us that he continues to be a Hindu while Raihana told us that she believes in both religions. Having regard to the Arya Marriage Validation Act, 1937, it is very clear to our mind that it is not a valid marriage." The couple were told to get married according to the Special Marriage Act. It is the statute for solemnization of marriage between people of different religions.

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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, December 21, 2011 (Smithsonian Magazine): Sanjay Patel, 36-year-old pop artist and Pixar veteran, arrives at the entrance of San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, breathless. His vahana, or vehicle, is a silver mountain bike; his white helmet is festooned with multicolored stickers of bugs and goddesses.

The name of the show--Deities, Demons and Dudes with 'Staches--is as quirky and upbeat as the 36-year-old artist himself. It's a lighthearted foil to the museum's exhibition, Maharaja: The Splendor of India's Royal Courts. Patel, who created the bold banners and graphics for Maharaja, was given this one-room fiefdom to showcase his own career: a varied thali (plate) of the animated arts.

"I've known of Sanjay's work for a while," says Qamar Adamjee, the museum's associate curator of South Asian Art. "[Hindu] stories are parts of a living tradition, and change with each retelling," Adamjee observes. "Sanjay tells these stories with a vibrant visual style--it's so sweet and so charming, yet very respectful. He's inspired by the past, but has reformulated it in the visual language of the present."

In Patel's show, and in his illustrated books--The Little Book of Hindu Deities (2006) and Ramayana: Divine Loophole (2010)--he distills the gods and goddesses down to their essentials. Now he wheels through the room, pointing to the cartoon-like images and offering clipped descriptions: There's Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, with his cherished stash of sweets; Saraswati, the goddess of learning and music, strumming on a vina; the fearsome Shiva, whose cosmic dance simultaneously creates and destroys the universe.

It was while Patel was at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) that representatives from Pixar, which has a close relationship with the prestigious school, saw Patel's animated student film, Cactus Cooler. "Pixar loved it, and they recruited me." Patel has been at Pixar since 1996.

Patel didn't grow up enthralled with Hindu imagery, but the seeds were there. Six years into his Pixar career, he opened an art book and came across paintings from India. "The more I read," he recalls, "the more I was drawn into a world of imagery that had always surrounded me. Before, it was just part of my family's daily routine. Now I saw it in the realm of art."