India – Page 6

India: annual pilgrim season at Sabarimala temple

By Indo-Asian News Service, 17 November 2003

The famous Sabarimala temple of Lord Ayyappa in Kerala opens Monday for the annual pilgrim season.

Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), formerly India Abroad News Service, was conceived in 1986 to enhance the flow of news and information between India and North America. IANS today is India’s first multinational and multilingual wire service.

India: religious groups join hands to halt demolition of shrines in Mumbai

By Indo-Asian News Service, 2 November 2003

Cutting across religious lines, spiritual leaders of different faiths as well as politicians are joining hands to prevent the razing of roadside shrines in Mumbai.

India: Mumbai’s roadside shrines being knocked down

By Indo-Asian News Service, 30 October 2003

Civic authorities in India’s financial capital are demolishing dozens of illegal shrines belonging to various faiths as part of a judicial directive.

India: 70 Hindus convert to Buddhism in Bodh Gaya

By Indo-Asian News Service, 30 October 2003

Over 70 Hindus have embraced Buddhism at the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya, the birthplace of the global religion of peace in eastern India’s Bihar state.

India: 5,000 Dalits convert to Buddhism in Gujarat

By Indo-Asian News Service, 5 October 2003

About 5,000 Dalits, or members of socially underprivileged classes, converted from Hinduism to Buddhism in the cultural capital of Gujarat, Vadodara, defying the state’s anti-conversion law.

India: crematorium to offer webcast of last rites

By Indo-Asian News Service, 12 June 2003

Indians settled abroad who can’t rush back home on hearing of a loved one’s death can now bid a final goodbye from across the seven seas while watching live webcast of the cremation.

India: imbroglio over Sikh women’s religious rights continues

By Arup Chanda - Indo-Asian News Service , 22 May 2003

Sikh women seem to be no closer to performing religious rituals in gurdwaras, to go by depositions made before the body that controls the shrines across the country.

India: Hindu groups demand ban on conversions in Bihar

By Imran Khan - Indo-Asian News Service, 19 May 2003

Alarmed by missionary activities and the reported mass conversion of Dalits to Christianity in Bihar, some rightwing Hindu groups have demanded a ban on conversions. They have also warned the missionaries to stop their conversion programme or face the consequences.

India: Haryana’s Dalits converting to Buddhism

By Arup Chanda - Indo-Asian News Service , 13 May 2003

A large number of Dalits, who form the lowest rung of Hinduism’s social ladder, are embracing Buddhism across Haryana in protest against their “oppression” by upper caste Hindus.

Gujarat: minorities welcome withholding of governor’s nod to anti-conversion bill

By Pradeep Mallik - Indo-Asian News Service , 3 April 2003

Religious minorities in Gujarat have welcomed Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari’s decision to withhold assent to a bill banning forced religious conversions that the assembly had passed last week.