This is what we hear about AUM:
The past, the present and the future are AUM,
And That beyond these three is also AUM.
(Mandukya Upanishad)

AUM is the most popular and universally recognised Hindu symbol and also the most popular word in Hindu chants and prayers.

It is the Divine Word and the originating sound of the universe. It was through meditation that the seers and sages of Vedic times arrived at the idea of a universal sound, eternally resounding in the universe, which they saw as the very origin of the created world.

There is a depth of philosophical meaning in AUM and reciting it correctly has a profound effect on the mind and body.

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In 1905 Einstein published a paper about the “Photoelectric Effect” which showed that electromagnetic radiation can behave as particles rather than waves in some experiments. It was for this work that he later won the Nobel prize for Physics even though he is more famous for his work on Relativity (with its famous equation E=mc2).Wave-Particle duality plays a big role in modern physics and Quantum Mechanics in particular. In basics terms it says that when we get to a really small scale, we can no longer picture the world as we humans perceive it. Small fundamental “particles” like electrons can be thought of as tiny bits of matter whizzing round at fast speeds BUT they can also be thought of as waves which have no fixed position but exist as disturbances in space. Similarly, something like light which we have always thought of as waves can behave like particles. The real problem in getting our heads around this that something can behave as both a wave and particle and the way we see it depends purely on the experiment we carry out.

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A scheme has been launched to improve the political representation of Hindus in Britain, by giving ten young Hindus the chance to shadow a leading Parliamentarian, over a period of six months.

The programme seeks to address the current lack of representation of Hindus in the decision-making process of Britain, by giving those who have the inclination and talent to enter into politics a chance to gain direct experience of how MPs work in their own constituency as well as in Westminister.

Currently, there are only two Hindu MPs out of 646, which is considerably lower than the proportion of Hindus in the population.

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Research into the lives of Hindu refugees at the Talwara Camp in the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir has revealed that poverty stricken parents are selling their children for as little as a few thousand rupees.Individuals staying in the camp say over 200 children from the camp have either been sold or mortgaged in this way.

Krishna Devi has sold her three daughters for Rs 20,000. The girls are now working as labourers and household maids. When asked what made her take the step, she replied it was poverty.

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Over recent years ‘Asian’ has been the term used in Britain to refer to all people from the Indian subcontinent. Of course, ideally, Asian should also refer to Chinese, Malaysian, Arabs, Japanese, Vietnamese and many other groups, but that is not so in Britain. Hence, if you notice, ‘British Asian’ newspapers, such as Asian Age, Eastern Eye, Asian Express, and Asian Voice deal almost exclusively with matters relating to communities originating within the subcontinent. The famous line from the radio station Sunrise radio proclaims itself as the ‘greatest Asian radio station in the world’, but it deals exclusively with people and cultures of the subcontinent. Of course, this is pretty poor use of the word ‘Asian’. But it is not too unreasonable or at least understandable because it is difficult to call a newspaper something like ‘People of the Indian Subcontinent Express,’ and since in Britain it has become accepted that ‘Asian’ means precisely this - we can understand the use of this short and convenient term.

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Pankuj Parashar’s, ‘Banaras - A Mystic Love Story’ explores several themes in contemporary Hindu life, knit together into an entertaining plot.The story is of two young Hindus Shwetambhari (Urmilla Matondkar) and Soham (Ashmit Patel), both born in Varanasi (Banaras), the holy city of Hindus. Shwetambhari is the only daughter of rich Brahmin parents (Dimple Kapadia and Raj Babbar) and studies physics at the local university. She is young, bright and admired by all.

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‘I am the lust (or Kama) in human beings that is in harmony with Dharma’
(Gita 7:11)

Classical Hindu thought recognises four basic aims of human life, called ‘purusharthas’. These are kama (sexual pleasure and other enjoyment), artha (material prosperity), dharma (duty and harmony) and moksha (liberation). Each is considered more important than the preceding one. Yet all four have to be balanced, none at the expense of the other. Sex is certainly not thought of as something intrinsically sinful in the integrated Hindu-world view, rather it is a natural human impulse that corresponds to the cosmic impulse of expansion.

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On 4th May 2006 local elections are to be held for 176 local authorities across England (including the 32 London Boroughs) each of which is divided into several wards.

Local elections have a notoriously low vote turnout, sometimes as low as 26%. Probably the majority of people can’t be motivated to vote in such elections, when they can’t really see that the outcome would make a huge difference them whichever of the three major parties wins.

But what if the racist British National Party (BNP), which still talks about repatriating non-whites to their country of origin, won a local election in your area by a matter of a couple of hundred (or even fewer) votes? Then you would probably kick yourself for not voting.

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Water from the Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Saryu and Gomati rivers will be brought to Thailand later this week as part of national celebrations to mark the anniversary of the coronation of King Bhumibol Adulvadej. The Thai King is the world’s longest ruling monarch, and this year will mark the 60th anniversary of his coronation.According to religious affairs department Director-General Preecha Kantiya, a priest from the Thai royal household bureau will travel to India on April 21 to collect the holy water from Hindu priests, the official said.

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Poverty is usually thought of as something that is associated with ‘developing countries’, not a country like Britain. Then again, anybody who has spent any appreciable amount of time in Central London will have seen the large number of homeless, and hence know that at least some poverty does exist in Britain.A recent report has painted grim statistics of child poverty in Britain. And ethnic minorities are the worst affected. The report, titled ‘Narrowing the Gap’, produced by the ‘Fabian Society’, showed that 21% of children in Britain lived below the poverty line. Indian children were worse off than the national average with 33% suffering poverty, while the figure for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis was a startling 61%.

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