India

Puducherry:  The  Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi and 22 others have been acquitted in Puducherry in the 2004 murder of a Kancheepuram temple employee. A Sankararaman, the manager of the Varadarajaperumal temple in Kancheepuram, Tamil Nadu, was allegedly murdered on September 3, 2004, in the temple premises.  Sankararaman had allegedly written several letters to publications claiming [...]

Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh on Sunday defended the Uttar Pradesh government’s notification providing for a compensation of Rs. 5 lakh only to Muslims affected in the recent Muzzaffarnagar communal riots. “Injustice cannot be done to those Muslim families who have lost not only their members but all possessions and did not want to return [...]

In a shocking incident, a video recorded during the counting of ‘hundi’ collection at a famous temple in the district allegedly revealed that an official pocketed over Rs.1 lakh. According to a reliable source in the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, the hundi collection at Sri Saduragiri Sundara Mahalingam Temple was counted by the [...]

The department of posts (India Post) will release a commemorative stamp on Sathya Sai Baba on the occasion of his 88th birth anniversary celebrations to be held at Puttaparthi of Anantapur district on November 23. Sathya Sai Baba had died at Puttaparthi on April 24, 2011 due to ill-health. As Sathya Sai’s devotees are spread [...]

Chennai: The Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal in Chennai on Thursday halted a move to construct an international cricket stadium at the foot of the Tirumala hills, for which  Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy had laid the foundation stone on Wednesday. The bench, comprising judicial member Justice M. Chockalingam and expert member R. Nagendran [...]

Tirupati: In a major development, Chittoor District Collector K Ramgopal has ordered demolition of unauthorised constructions by the controversial Heera International Islamic College, coming up near Chandragiri. The Collector in his order dated November 17 directed the Secretary of  Thondavada Grama Panchayat, under which the area where the multi-layer Islamic university is located, to immediately [...]

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall tonight took part in a solemn ceremony of thanks with Hindus on the banks of the River Ganga. In the holy Hindu city of Rishikesh, the prince led his wife by the hand to the banks of the sacred river where they joined Hindu worshippers conducting the Aarti [...]

  “Several Hindu organisations have taken up the issue and are protesting the setting up of this university. Interestingly, they have been receiving a lot of support from the local Muslims who say that this university is bad news. The Muslims who pray at the Tirupati temple feel that the town was peaceful and now [...]

One not uncommonly comes across the opinion today that India was never really a nation but that its nationhood was only recently invented by the British through their definition of the region as part of their empire. Similarly we are told that Hinduism was up to recently not a religion at all but merely various [...]

Christian missionaries have become increasingly visible and controversial in India. As I grew up as a Christian, I would like to share my observations from a personal angle. When it comes to religion, I noticed that Indians tread cautiously. Care is taken ‘not to offend the sensibilities’ of the followers of other religions. Well, I [...]