'Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History is back, and how. Without any cuts, barely 20 months after it was withdrawn - not banned - from the market by its original publishers Penguin India.
;Forget cuss words, now even the images of Indian goddesses have failed to make the cut in front of the Indian censor board. In the soon-to-be-released film Angry Indian Goddesses, amongst the 17 cuts that the Indian censor board wanted filmmakers to make, was the blurring of the images of two Indian goddesses -- a picture of Lakshmi in the credits, and later in the movie, a picture of Kali. Movie producer Gaurav Dhingra said that he had failed to make the cut in front of the revising committee.
'Madras High court on Tuesday directed Tamil Nadu Government and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department to implement dress code for devotees coming to offer worship in temples to enhance spiritual ambiance. Disposing a petition filed by one Rasu seeking police protection and permission for "Adal Paadal programme" (dance and music) at Sri Shenbaga Vinayagar temple in Tiruchirappalli district, Justice S Vaidyanathan said "we should dress for public worship in a way that is generally considered appropriate".
'The age old practice of shunning menstruating women from temples has been placed effectively under the scanner now by a 20 year old Facebook campaigner named Nikita Azad. Support for her is snowballing into a massive drive. Her campaign ‘#HappyToBleed’ was started in response to a priest of Sabarimala temple in Kerala who said that they will allow women to enter the temple, only after a machine is invented to detect which of them are menstruating. “There will be a day when a machine is invented to scan if it is the 'right time' (not menstruating) for a woman to enter the temple.”
'Sadhus in Ayodhya have forcefully condemned the brutal lynching of 50-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq by a strong mob that gathered in Bisada village reportedly after a loudspeaker announcement in Bada Mandir on Monday that said that Akhlaq and his family were storing and eating beef in their house. Acharya Satyendra Das, the chief priest of Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, said "It is a crime against humanity and it is very sad. Such an incident should not happen anywhere in the country.
"For someone topping the hit list of fundamentalist Hindu forces, Kannada writer K.S. Bhagavan is exceptionally calm and forthcoming. He doesn’t regret his statement on the sectarian nature of the Bhagavad Gita in February this year which invited threats from reactionary Hindu outfits such as the Bajrang Dal, but forcefully says he has no respect for the Gita for its exclusionism. “I brought up some stanzas of the Gita before people which clearly categorise all non-Brahmins as sinners. The Gita also says only Brahmins and Khastriyas are virtuous. I asked them if it was true.
"The Hindutva activists in Kozhikode who forced academic M.M. Basheer to stop writing on the Ramayana argued that there could be no criticism of Lord Ram (even by Valmiki) and that Basheer, being a non-Hindu, should not write on a “Hindu text”. They reveal a colossal ignorance of the Ramayana tradition in Malayalam. Their success in silencing a well-respected teacher and critic indicates the emergence of a new hate politics in Kerala. The Ramayana tradition in Malayalam, as in most Indian languages, includes numerous retellings and interpretations of the Rama katha across genres.
'I am the author of Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History (Columbia University Press, 2010, and Permanent Black, 2011), a work that was extensively plagiarised in Rajiv Malhotra’s Indra’s Net. I had planned to stay silent, as I usually avoid comment on heated, politicised issues such as this. However, when Rajiv Malhotra described me as an “ally” of his on his Twitter feed, I knew that the time had come to speak out to clarify the differences between his views and my own.
" After the much-hyped International Day of Yoga on June 21 that was packaged as a manifestation of India’s growing “soft power”, there are reports that the government plans official celebration of Raksha Bandhan on August 29, with RSS endorsement. A Ministerial committee, which includes Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani and Chemicals and Fertilizers Minister Ananth Kumar, will supervise the government-sponsored Raksha Bandhan celebrations, sources said. The annual festival, in which brothers vow to protect their sisters, is one that has always found favour with the RSS.
"In ’secular’ India politicians of all make and public officials regularly seek the divine blessings in advertised events such as the inaugural ceremonies of state sponsored buildings and public projects and use religious priests to supervise laying of the foundation stones and undertake bhoomi puja (Worship of Earth) for the approval of the supernatural powers with the chanting of prayer. Even Virgins, Cows and astrologers are deployed at these events and no one bats an eyelid. Was’nt the state supposed to steer clear from religion?
