GO TO SOURCE LYNDHURST, CALIFORNIA, July 24, 2001: Four months after a bouncer turned him away at the door, a 15-year-old Sikh youth has won the right to wear his religious headdress inside the Groove Lounge dance club in Lyndhurst. Sarab Singh Thapar, an American citizen born and raised in West Orange, was denied entry because the club’s policy prohibited…
GO TO SOURCE NEPAL, JULY 28, 2001: BBC south Asia correspondent Adam Mynott is one of the first Western journalists to travel to the mountainous Rolpa district of west Nepal, a stronghold of the Maoist rebels. They told him of their ambitions for Nepal, the only Hindu nation, and the rest of the world. The village of Holari, in the…
GO TO SOURCE JAMMU AND KASHMIR,INDIA, July 26,2001: Twelve years of armed conflict in Jammu and Kashmir has left over 54,000 women without husbands, many of them under the age of 40. In an effort to give these bereaved souls a new status, India’s National Human Rights Commission issued a proposal that the word “widow” be replaced with a more…
GO TO SOURCE KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, July 29, 2001: The Malaysian Buddhist Association (MBA) has called on the authorities to clamp down on a widespread deviant religious cult which it says uses a Buddhist name but practices black magic, which is contrary to the teachings of Buddhism. The call followed the reported torture of a nine-year-old boy at a Chinese…
Source: Aaj Tak Hindi News Channel UJJAIN, INDIA, July 27, 2001: A one hundred kilograms golden kalasam has been installed on top of the famed Mahakaleshwar Temple in Ujjain recently. Before installation, the pitcher-shaped spire was taken in a procession in the streets of Indore. It is reported that a business man based in Calcutta donated a sum of US$217,000…
Source: Aaj Tak Hindi News Channel MUMBAI, INDIA, July 28, 2001: Massive preparations are now underway for the annual Ganasha festival in this city. A big change for this year is the use of environmentally sound materials for the huge temporary Ganesha statues which are placed in the ocean at the festival’s end. The use of non-biodegradable building materials and…
GO TO SOURCE LONDON, ENGLAND, July 26, 2001: A condemning Amnesty International report on racism around the world has attacked India for its “hidden apartheid” against 160 million Dalits. “Despite the abolition by law of untouchability, Dalits continue to be discriminated against on the basis of their descent,” Amnesty said in its report, released the day Phoolan Devi was shot…
GO TO SOURCE DODA, INDIA, July 22, 2001: Police in Indian-administered Kashmir say that at least 15 Hindus have been killed by suspected Islamic militants in the remote district of Doda. The massacre on Sunday came a day after at least 13 people were killed when militants attacked Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir. The pilgrimage – which sees up to 100,000…
GO TO SOURCE ETA, UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA, July 25, 2001: Snakes are worshiped and offered milk on one day in the month of Shravan known as Nagpanchami. In this whole district of Eta, people carefully coaxed snakes from their hiding places and offered them milk. More cautious souls drew figures of snakes for worship. On this day a large number…
GO TO SOURCE ARIZONA, USA, July 25, 2001: Scientists Joshua Tewksbury and Gary Nabhan from the University of Montana and the Northern Arizona University have discovered why chilies are so hot, a question anyone first sampling a South Indian dish might ponder. They say the burning taste is an evolutionary ploy to stop mammals eating the pods and destroying the…