Author: Matthew Coutts

Source: National Post

http://www.canada.com/cityguides/toronto/story.html?id=c6590c00-b4cc-44f0-a7ee-f2813cdee93e&k=95728

TORONTO — An estimated crowd of 8,000 helped celebrate the opening of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, a grand Hindu temple in Toronto Sunday.

A marching band played and children danced their way down the aisle behind a delegation of Canadian...

Author: Neela Banerjee

Source: International Herald Tribune

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/22/news/camp.php

ANNANDALE, Virginia: The first hour at the Chinmaya Mission day camp unfolds as at any other camp. Children shriek through tag, while a few others play Uno.

But by 9 a.m., the grammar-school-age campers are sitting down, their attention focused on a long-haired Indian man in the front of the room, Swami Dheerananda, the mission'...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Sky News

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1276292,00.html

A river on Tyneside could become Britain's answer to the Ganges as the place for people to scatter the ashes of their loved ones.

Gateshead Council has designated part of the River Derwent for Sikhs and Hindus to carry out the ceremony, believing that by immersing ashes into flowing water they will be sent to heaven.

A...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6907007.stm

A 10-year-old girl who is worshipped as a living goddess in Nepal has had her title reinstated after defying tradition and visiting the US.

Temple authorities at her home town say that she will not be stripped of her title because she is willing shortly to undergo a "cleansing" ceremony.

Sajani Shakya was one of the three most-revered Kumaris,...

Source: Hindu American Foundation

http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/media_press_release_hhr_congress_hearing.htm

Washington, D.C. (July 18, 2007) -- In a first of its kind, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) was invited by the House of Representatives Congressional Human Rights Caucus to testify at a briefing on human rights in South Asia yesterday. The briefing, held at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, was co-sponsored...

Source: CNN

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/07/12/vo.senate.prayer.arrests.cnn

(Video)

Source: Hindu American Foundation

http://www.hafsite.org/media_press_release_nevada_prayer.htm

The Hindu American Foundation joins all Hindu Americans in celebrating yesterday's epochal events in our community's history in the United States. Yesterday, the faith of 2 million American Hindus and nearly 1 billion of the world's population was represented in the chambers of the U.S. Senate for the first time. Shri Rajan Zed's prayer recitation shared with our fellow...

Source: American Jewish Committee

http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=1531911&ct=4137375

July 17, 2007 – New York – The American Jewish Committee is deeply troubled by the verbal assault on Rajan Zed, a Hindu religious leader who delivered the opening prayer on the Senate floor last week.

“Senate Majority leader Harry Reid's invitation to Rajan Zed to become the first Hindu to deliver an opening...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/6898460.stm

The "sacred" bullock due to be slaughtered after it tested positive for TB, has been saved after a High Court judge quashed a government order.

Monks from the multi-faith Skanda Vale community in Carmarthenshire appealed against an assembly government ruling that the animal must be put down.

Their lawyers argued it would breach the Human...

Author: Jennifer Green

Source: The Ottawa Citizen

Author: Lisa Mascaro

Source: Las Vegas Sun

http://politics.lasvegassun.com/2007/07/a-prayer-and-a-.html

WASHINGTON — A couple of days ago, when it became known that a Hindu chaplain from Reno would be giving his religion’s first-ever opening prayer for the U.S. Senate, offices of a Christian values organization in Mississippi didn’t think twice about bad karma.

The American Family Association tapped its 3 million-...

Source: The Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indians_Overseas/Sikhs_in_California_want_textbook_changed/articleshow/2200861.cms

NEW YORK: Sikh leaders in California are unhappy that a seventh grade history book has been published without a photo of Guru Nanak, the founder of their religion.

The California State Board of Education declined to act on Thursday on new complaints from the...

Source: Common Dreams News Center Press Release

http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0712-05.htm

WASHINGTON - JULY 12 - Religious Right Activists Want Government To Reflect Only Their Faith, Says AU’s Lynn

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today deplored the disruption by Religious Right activists of a Hindu chaplain’s prayer to open the U.S. Senate.

“This shows the intolerance of many Religious Right activists,”...

Author: Aziz Haniffa

Source: Rediff India Abroad

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jul/12zed.htm

History was created in the United States Senate at 9.30 am on Thursday, when Rajan Zed, the Hindu chaplain of the Indian Association of Northern Nevada, opened the Senate with a Hindu prayer.

This is the first such instance since the formation of the powerful Upper House in 1789.

A few Christian fundamentalists protested and began screaming,...

Source: MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19729245/

WASHINGTON - A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate's morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors' gallery.

Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day's Senate session. As he stood at the chamber's podium in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting...