Britain is once again in a state of high security following the failed car bombings in the West End and the attack on Glasgow Airport. Eight people have been arrested in the UK and Australia over the bomb plots so far. Seven are believed to have links with the NHS – as either doctors or medical students and two being arrested by police at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. Three of the suspects are thought to be from India…
What were once India’s life-giving sources of fresh water have now become a breeding ground for deadly diseases. There are millions of tonnes of sewage dumped into India’s rivers daily, putting at risk the lives of countless number of people, said activist who were deeply concerned at the current state of the river Yamuna…
After a year long goodbye period and over ten years in office, Tony Blair finally stepped down as Prime Minister and also as a member of parliament on Wednesday 28 June 2007. His final act before handing in his resignation to the Queen being one last session of Prime Minister’s Questions which, for obvious reasons, was much less gladiatorial than usual and involved mostly a whole bunch of back-patting from both political allies and foes. Predictably there were several references to the Iraq war and any talk of Tony Blair’s legacy can’t avoid this issue.
As I hit young adulthood, many of my friends were Sikhs. Most of them were much more into politics than the Hindus I knew, and it was hanging around with them that I was first made aware of the deep tensions that existed between the various religious communities of the world. While most Sikhs I knew generally talked of Hindus and Sikhs as having a close historical kinship, there were many bones of contention which were often brought up – about events that occurred before I was even born. The most common of these gripes was the treatment of Sikhs by the Indian government (which they wrongly blamed on Hindus at large) in the year 1984. Coupled with this was…
Recently the Indian state of Rajasthan, supposedly the “Land of Kings”, was host to one of the worst bouts of “caste riots” that India has seen in recent years, leaving at least 9 dead and many more injured. Eventually the Indian armed forces had to be brought in to quell the situation. What is particularly bizarre about this incident is…
In our last issue, Hindu Voice UK provided coverage of the issue surrounding the execution of Shambo, the Friesian temple bull whose slaughter was announced by Welsh authorities after having tested positive for exposure to bovine Tuberculosis. The Welsh authorities granted a temporary reprieve to Shambo, due to concerns raised by the community at Skanda Vale where Shambo has lived since birth, as well as several other Hindu and animal rights organisations who demanded that medical alternatives should be sought rather than outright slaughter, especially seeing that Shambo was born and raised by the temple community, who would themselves be willing to pay any costs involved. However last week it was announced…
Revathi Massosai, a self-declared Hindu woman, was recently released from a six month period of detention at an Islamic rehabilitation centre in Malaysia, in an attempt to ‘bring her back into the fold of Islam’. She accused the authorities of mental and physical torture during her 6 month ordeal and says that she will never return to Islam now. She has only been released on the condition that she will live with her (Muslim) parents, failing which she could be detained once again…
There are numerous hymns in the Vedas that deal with the social customs then prevalent, and from them one can form a broad idea as to how girls and women were looked upon, treated, and the status accorded upon them by contemporary society…
Just as all the rivers in the world eventually lead to the limitless ocean; similarly all the various Hindu groups and sects should aim to lead to some kind of realisation of the existence of this ocean. There are many such groups ranging from sectarian bodies promoting devotion to a specific deity, groups under guidance of a Guru, as well as Hindu social groups aiming to serve wider Hindu society. On the other hand…
Legend says that this scorched land, this desert once used to be the most sacred of sacred rivers…Ganga they called it. Mother Ganga! She descended from the snowy peaks of the highest mountains of the Himalayas flowing the plain of India, nourishing the land, making it fertile. She was home to life found nowhere else on Earth, both plant and animal. She was the bloodstream of the land itself. It is said…
