American Buddhist Net

Minorities in Madhya Pradesh have criticised plans to introduce the Bhagvad Gita in state-run schools, saying the scriptures of other religions should also be part of the syllabus, even as a section of Muslim leaders sees nothing wrong with it.

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GHAZIABAD, Uttar Pradesh - His silk robes, ornate turbans and high-end imported sedans belie his status as "god-man", a Hindu ascetic who guides people in their spiritual quest. In fact, the personalized carriage that chugs around a specially laid railway track in his ashram, as well as his sprawling farms, dairies, factories, bakeries, schools and floating, revolving restaurant, all point to a life of luxury.

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The Romani, referred to colloquially and often derogatorily as gypsies, number somewhere between 8 to 12 million living principally in Europe, but also in some areas of the Middle East and Asia. Census data is inexact due to many of the people’s stateless status. They have no discernible homeland although genetically and by culture it is speculated that their origins were somewhere in South Asia (India).

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Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising

IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters.

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New Tibetan Film available on DVD visit www.tibetanfilms.com

RICHARD GERE IS MY HERO is a film about four exile friends who lives in Mcleod Ganj, India, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, headed by the Dalai Lama. Nyima, one of the friends is a diehard fan of the Hollywood star, Richard Gere and wanted to become a great actor himself. He wishes to follow the footsteps of his icon to do something meaningful for his home country, Tibet and awaits Richard Gere's arrival in the town. The film is shot entirely in and around Dharamshala.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Suicides caused by failed love affairs are rising steadily in Kerala, which leads the country in the total number of suicides.

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A Good Samaritan from Delhi ended the concerns of a worried family of a South African teacher of Indian-origin, who had gone missing in India last month.

Shaun Gounden, 34, set out from his Johannesburg home on February 5 to spend three weeks at a Tibetan monastery in Delhi before volunteering to teach English at an orphanage in Afghanistan, Time TV reported.

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KATHMANDU: A 23-year-old Business Studies graduate from Pilani in Rajasthan has become Nepal's latest beauty queen and the first winner of the contest held for Indians and people of Indian origin in the Himalayan republic.

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With two sex scandals and a fatal stampede, it's been a bad week for India's "godmen", the self-styled Hindu ascetics whose followers range from farmers and housewives to politicians and rock stars.

On Thursday, 63 people -- all of them women and children -- were crushed to death in a stampede at an ashram run by a popular holy man in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

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CHENNAI: Even as speculation continues over the whereabouts of Swami Nithyananda, who is at the centre of a controversy now, his lawyer on Friday claimed that the godman had not absconded but was in Varanasi. “He is attending the Kumbh Mela, along with 4,000 devotees from world over, and is scheduled to return on March 18,” M Shreedhar, who is representing the godman in Madras High Court, told Express.

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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A Kerala Christian priest has been arrested for alleged sexual abuse of a minor girl inmate of a hostel run by Orthodox Church at Pothukal in Malappuram district in September last year. The victim is a student of Catholicate Higher Secondary School run by the church.

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MUMBAI, India: A desire to get married the traditional way attracts young non-resident Indian couples to tie the knot in India, but the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA) may not be applicable to them if they are domicile of a foreign country. The Bombay high court has said that the HMA cannot apply to an estranged couple who were domiciled in the US.

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India's first international Buddhist University is coming up near Sanchi, the world heritage site, 34 km southwest of Bhopal. Work on the Rs 300-crore Indo-Sri Lanka joint project is expected to start from June on 65 acre land provided by the MP Government.

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Nithyananda Paramahamsa, who preaches the virtues of yoga, mediation and enlightenment and has a number of "Life Bliss" centres in the United States, was filmed frolicking with a Tamil actress.

The guru's public exposure follows the revelation earlier this week that a Delhi-based Hindu "god-man" had been running a multi-million pound vice empire. Rajeev Ranjan Dwivedi has been accused of running an internet-based "flesh trade", police said.

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Spiritual guru in sex video scandal (video included)

"Love Stands Alone: Selections from Tamil Sangam Poetry" Edited by A.R. Venkatachalapathy, Viking, Rs 399

Sangam literature is a body of classical Tamil literature created between 600 BC and 300 AD, although the span and the exact dates have been debated for long. It has 2,381 poems by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous. The poems were composed by Dravidian Tamil poets from various professions and classes. They were edited and tagged with colophons only around 1,000 AD, before being collected into eight anthologies called Ettuthokai. Sangam literature fell out of collective memory soon thereafter, until it was rediscovered in the 19th century by scholars like C. W. Thamotharampillai and U. V. Swaminatha Iyer.

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Le Monde's Bruno Philip reports on how strategic Chinese construction projects are encircling India, raising fears that new facilities could be used by China for military purposes should a regional conflict erupt

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Angry villagers have ransacked the headquarters of one of India’s most famous "swamis" — or Hindu holy men — after local television stations broadcast footage that appeared to show him cavorting in bed with two women.

Paramhamsa Nityananda, who claims two million followers in 33 countries, was not present when the villagers stormed the sprawling retreat about 19 miles from the southern city of Bangalore on Wednesday, according to local police.

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MUMBAI, March 3 (AFP) - Bollywood actresses are slimming down, as an increasing vogue for showing bare flesh on screen and Western ideas about body size and beauty take hold in India's big cities.

Whereas former leading ladies like Mumtaz and Zeenat Aman once found their curvaceous figures no barrier to success, their modern-day counterparts are as famous for their diet and fitness regimes as their acting and dancing skills.

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Bhopal, Mar 3 : The Madhya Pradesh government has provided 65 acres for establishing a Buddhist University at that faith's world-renowned pilgrim spot Sanchi.

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Sixty three women and children were killed in a stampede at a small temple in northern India, as food and clothes were handed out to mark the death anniversary of the wife of a local religious leader.

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A SEX video involving Swami Nithyananda, one of India's most popular spiritual gurus, and a Tamil actress, is creating shockwaves in India and elsewhere in the world, including Malaysia, where he has a huge following.

The 32-year old guru, who is also known as Paramahamsa Nithyananda, was caught with his dhoti down in the video which has been aired by Tamil Nadu's Sun TV and Andhra Pradesh's TV9.

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ABN

Dharamshala, Mar. 2 (ANI): The Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamshala held special prayers to mark the anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupation, and their subsequent exile to India in 1959.

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An elephant hired for a Hindu wedding in India caused more than £200,000 damage after trying to reach an in-heat female.

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Journey to the West is “China’s most beloved novel of religious quest and picaresque adventure”, according to historian Jonathan Spence. Published in the 1590s during the waning years of the Ming dynasty, the novel’s hero is described by Spence as “a mischievous monkey with human traits [who] accompanies the monk-hero on his action-filled travels to India in search of Buddhist scripture.” The work represents an allegory of pilgrims journeying toward India as individuals journeying toward enlightenment.

The inspiration for Journey came from the travels of a seventh-century Chinese man named Xuanzang (a name that has been rendered in various ways over the centuries).

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A delegation of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha (VBS) will travel to India to receive a sari, said to be that of the Lord Buddha, to be brought back to Vietnam early next month.

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NEW DELHI — India's best-known painter M.F. Husain, who went into exile after receiving death threats from Hindu hardliners, has accepted Qatar's offer of citizenship, his son was quoted as saying Saturday.

Husain, 94, a Muslim artist known as the "Picasso of India," angered hardline Hindus by portraying Hindu deities in the nude or in a sexually suggestive manner.

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THONNAKKAL: All spiritual traditions in the world are, in their essential nature, the same. They only differ in their terminology, their presentation, the spiritual leader of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism Karmapa Lama has said.

He was inaugurating a seminar on ‘Tibetan culture and spirituality’ at Sai Gramam here on Friday. The differences between spiritual traditions are, however, valuable as they cater to the different spiritual appetite of people. Each being is capable of attaining ‘Buddhahood.’ The fundamental nature of all beings is peace and nirvana. This is veiled by “stains” that are secondary to our nature.

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A self-styled guru from Chirtakoot in Uttar Pradesh has taken the debate over sex and spiritualism to a new plane.

Shiv Murat Dwivedi or Ichchadhar Sant Swami Bhimanand Ji Maharaj Chitrakoot Wale, as he is known among his followers, was a spiritual teacher by day and a pimp by night. He amassed a fortune by peddling sex and spiritualism till his luck ran out recently.

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BANGALORE: Criticising Genetically Modified (GM) products could land you in jail — if the draconian draft Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill (BRAB) of 2009, which will be tabled in the current session of the parliament by the UPA government, is passed.

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