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She Said She Married for Love. Her Parents Called It Coercion.
After a woman, who was born a Sikh, married a Muslim man, her parents accused him of kidnapping. Now, new laws across India are seeking to ban all interfaith marriages.

By Sameer Yasir, Emily Schmall and Iqbal Kirmani
July 20, 2021

SRINAGAR, Kashmir — Manmeet Kour Bali had to defend her marriage in court.

A Sikh by birth, Ms. Bali converted to Islam to marry a Muslim man. Her parents objected to a marriage outside their community and filed a police complaint against her new husband.

In court last month, she testified that she had married for love, not because she was coerced, according to a copy of her statement reviewed by The New York Times. Days later, she ended up in India’s capital of New Delhi, married to a Sikh man.

Religious diversity has defined India for centuries, recognized and protected in the country’s Constitution. But interfaith unions remain rare, taboo and increasingly illegal.

A spate of new laws across India, in states ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., are seeking to banish such unions altogether.



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/worl ... riage.html
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Article had eyes on UK suppliers but I guess it holds for other fashion companies worldwide
‘Worst fashion wage theft’: workers go hungry as Indian suppliers to top UK brands refuse to pay minimum wage
Shortfall of 16p a day leaves children living on just rice as suppliers to Nike, Zara and H&M in Karnataka underpay by estimated £41m

Annie Kelly
Thu 16 Dec 2021 07.15 GMT

Garment workers making clothes for international brands in Karnataka, a major clothing production hub in India, say their children are going hungry as factories refuse to pay the legal minimum wage in what is claimed to be the biggest wage theft to ever hit the fashion industry.

More than 400,000 garment workers in Karnataka have not been paid the state’s legal minimum wage since April 2020, according to an international labour rights organisation that monitors working conditions in factories.

The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) estimates the total amount of unpaid wages so far to be more than £41m.

One worker said she only earned about half of what she needed to cover basic living costs, such as food and rent.



https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... nimum-wage
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India bans Mother Teresa charity from receiving funds from abroad
Licence application of Missionaries of Charity is rejected on Christmas day amid a wave of anti-Christian sentiment

Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi
Tue 28 Dec 2021 07.01 GMT

The Indian government has blocked Mother Teresa’s charity from receiving funds from abroad, just days after it faced a police investigation for “hurting religious sentiments of Hindus” amid rising intolerance towards Christians in India.

The Missionaries of Charity, which was started by Mother Teresa in 1950 and runs a network of shelters across India led by nuns to help the poor, was denied the licence to continue to receive funds from abroad, cutting the charity off from vital resources.

The home ministry, which made the decision on Christmas Day, said it had come across “adverse inputs” when considering the application.

The rejection of the application comes less than two weeks after Hindu hardliners accused the charity of carrying out forced conversions of Hindus to Christianity in a home for girls it runs in Vadodara in the state of Gujarat.

The accusations, which the charity fiercely denies, were that the charity was “luring” poor young Hindu women into becoming Christian by forcing them to read Christian texts and take part in Christian prayer.

“The institution has been involved in activities to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus intentionally and with bitterness,” a report filed to the police alleged.

“The girls inside the Home for Girls are being lured to adopt Christianity by making them wear the cross around their neck and also placing the Bible on the table of the storeroom used by the girls, in order to compel them to read the Bible … It is an attempted crime to force religious conversion upon the girls.”



https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/d ... rom-abroad
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Post by raison de arizona »


Much more at thread.
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Modi employs new tool in India’s war against the English language: Hindi medical degrees
Ever since it came to power, the BJP has have taken intermittent pot shots at English, branding it a ‘colonial relic’ surrounded by a ‘slavish mentality

Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi
Sat 22 Oct 2022 05.00 BST

Narendra Modi’s government is intensifying its efforts to relegate English to the margins of Indian life where it believes it belongs as a “colonial relic” by offering medical degrees in Hindi for the first time.

Ever since he came to power eight years ago, Modi, along with home minister Amit Shah and other Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, have taken intermittent pot shots at the English language and talked up Hindi, the language of north India.

Modi has spoken frequently of freeing Indians of the “colonial mindset” left by the British empire and of removing the relics of that rule. Just this week, Modi spoke of the “slavish mentality” surrounding English.

In October, government officials in BJP-ruled Maharashtra were banned from saying “hello” when greeting members of the public. Instead, they have to say “vande mataram” or “I bow to thee, oh motherland”. Abide with Me has been kicked out of India’s annual Republic Day celebrations and replaced with a Hindi patriotic song, while the English names of some army regiments are to be changed.

In 2020 the government said practitioners of ayurveda, the traditional system of medicine, should be allowed to perform surgery, to the horror of the medical establishment.

Now, once again, doctors are aghast after a decision by the Madhya Pradesh state government to offer a medical degree in Hindi. Until now, medicine has been taught throughout India in English.

For the past nine months, an army of 97 translators have been ransacking Hindi lexicons to find words for terms such as biopsy, neuroblastoma, and haemorrhoids.

Now that the Hindi textbooks for anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry are ready, first year students in 13 government medical colleges in Madhya Pradesh will be taught in Hindi from November, though the option of learning in English remains.


The aim of the new Hindi medical degree, said Modi, was to allow Indians from poorer families who are not fluent in English to pursue their dream of becoming doctors.

“We aim to ensure that the children of poor parents become doctors and engineers even if they are not educated in English …” Modi said on Wednesday in Gujarat while speaking about India’s New Education Policy, announced in 2020.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... al-degrees
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Strange taxation rulings, read full article
India GST: The ‘cheesy’ row over pizza toppings tax in India
A GST court has ruled pizza toppings attract a higher tax than the pizza itself

By Soutik Biswas India correspondent

It can be a challenge to get the right mix of toppings that makes a pizza delicious. An overload of toppings could make the dough soggy and a wrong mix can affect the flavour.

But in August, an Indian firm making pizza toppings mounted a different challenge in a court.

It was not about the taste of the toppings. It was a dispute over the rate of Goods and Services Tax (GST) that they attracted.

Since it was introduced five years ago, the nationwide uniform levy has helped boost India's taxes: the GST is now generating more than $17bn (£15bn) a month for the world's fifth largest economy.

In court, the Khera Trading Company argued that their mozzarella topping should be classified as cheese, which attracts a lower GST of 12%. After all, cheese and milk solids made up more than a third of the toppings, it said.

But a court in Haryana state disagreed. It said the cheese in the topping could not be truly classified as cheese alone.

The toppings, it said, contained vegetable oil - 22% of the ingredients, to be precise. The firm said the oil helped with the texture, added flavour to the pizza and was cheap as well.




https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63281037
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Post by raison de arizona »

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had once described the GST as a "good and simple tax".
Wow, it sounds like anything BUT that. What a mess. And I thought our patchwork of city taxes at varying rates on different goods and services around PHX was bad. It can't hold a candle to that mess.
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Cochin India 2011.png
Cochin India 2011.png (261.52 KiB) Viewed 1427 times
India is an incredibly beautiful place; we were there for Christmas 2011. OMG the food and all the wonderful smells! :daydreaming:
Warning if you ever do get there, be very careful of street food, the “curry hurry” is awful and can last for days.

The Ajanta caves were amazing
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ajanta-Caves
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Post by raison de arizona »

A co-worker is currently doing a three-week backpacking trip through, uh, NE India? I think. Definitely East-ish. Anyway, looking forward to hearing about it once he returns.
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At Least 140 Killed in India as Suspension Bridge Collapses
The bridge, in the state of Gujarat, was reopened recently after renovation.

Published Oct. 30, 2022 Updated Oct. 31, 2022, 1:30 a.m. ET

NEW DELHI — At least 140 people were killed after a century-old pedestrian bridge collapsed in the western Indian state of Gujarat on Sunday evening, sending hundreds plunging into the Machchhu River, officials said.

About 350 people were on and around the bridge, a major tourist attraction, at the time of the collapse, said Brijesh Merja, a minister in the Gujarat government. A large number of those who died were children, women and older people, according to officials.

The bridge collapsed four days after it was reopened to the public and about seven months after the start of renovation work. Built in 1880, during the Victorian era, it is about 755 feet long.




https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/30/worl ... lapse.html
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#11

Post by Foggy »

I have a Gujarati buddy in my cardio-kickboxing class on Wednesdays. :cry: I shall have to give her my condolences.
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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Foggy wrote: Mon Oct 31, 2022 6:56 am I have a Gujarati buddy in my cardio-kickboxing class on Wednesdays. :cry: I shall have to give her my condolences.
She wasn't there today. I suspect she went home to deal with it. We had a discussion before class, none of the ladies knew about the bridge.

I hope we haven't lost her from the class. :cry:
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India invokes emergency laws to ban BBC Modi documentary
Government accused of ‘censorship’ over ban on film about PM’s role in violence during 2002 Gujarat riots

Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi
Mon 23 Jan 2023 07.59 GMT

The Indian government has invoked emergency laws to block a BBC documentary examining the role of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, during riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.

Controversy has erupted in India over the first episode of the two-part programme, India: The Modi Question, which tracked his rise through the ranks of the Bharatiya Janata party and his appointment as chief minister of Gujarat.

The BBC also uncovered memos showing that Modi’s conduct was criticised at the time by western diplomats and the British government, including in a government report which found that the riots had “all the hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing”.

Modi has been haunted for decades by allegations of complicity in the violence that took place during the Gujarat riots, which broke out after 59 Hindu pilgrims died on a train that had been set on fire. The fire was blamed on the state’s Muslim population.

Almost 1,000 Muslims died in violence across the state. Police were accused of standing by and Modi of not doing enough to protect the minority community from the Hindu mobs and even tacitly supporting the Hindu extremists. He has denied accusations he failed to stop the rioting and in 2013 a supreme court panel said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ocumentary
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India trying to prevent declassification of ‘sensitive’ 1947 Kashmir papers
Government documents fear letters about special status known as Bucher papers could affect foreign relations

Anisha Dutta
Tue 14 Feb 2023 05.00 GMT

India may prevent the declassification of papers from 1947 related to Kashmir as it fears the “sensitive” letters could affect foreign relations, according to internal government documents seen by the Guardian.

The letters, known as the Bucher papers, are believed to include political and military arguments for why India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called for a ceasefire with Pakistan and provided special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

For decades the region in the foothills of the Himalayas was given a separate constitution, a flag, and autonomy over all matters except for foreign affairs and defence. Those measures were seen by Kashmiris as crucial to protecting their rights in the Muslim-majority state.

But in 2019, under the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, the government in Delhi formally revoked the disputed state’s constitutional autonomy, in an attempt to integrate it fully into India.

The decision tightened the government’s grip over the region and stoked anger and resentment as a three-decade armed revolt continued to rage.

The Bucher papers refer to communications between Gen Sir Francis Robert Roy Bucher, who served as second commander-in-chief of the Indian army between 1948 and 1949, and government officials, including Nehru.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... mir-papers
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opinion piece
Modi’s model is at last revealed for what it is: violent Hindu nationalism underwritten by big business

Arundhati Roy
Sat 18 Feb 2023 06.00 GMT

India is under attack by foreign powers. Specifically the United Kingdom and the United States. Or so our government would have us believe. Why? Because former colonialists and neo-imperialists cannot tolerate our prosperity and good fortune. The attack, we are told, is aimed at the political and economic foundations of our young nation.

The covert operatives are the BBC, which in January broadcast a two-part documentary called India: The Modi Question, and a small US firm called Hindenburg Research, owned by 38-year-old Nathan Anderson, which specialises in what is known as activist short-selling.

The BBC-Hindenburg moment has been portrayed by the Indian media as nothing short of an attack on India’s twin towers – Narendra Modi, the prime minister, and India’s biggest industrialist, Gautam Adani, who was, until recently, the world’s third richest man. The charges laid against them aren’t subtle. The BBC film implicates Modi in the abetment of mass murder. The Hindenburg report, published on 24 January, accuses Adani of pulling “the largest con in corporate history” (an allegation that the Adani Group strongly denies).

Modi and Adani have known each other for decades. Things began to look up for them after the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom, which raged through Gujarat after Muslims were held responsible for the burning of a railway coach in which 59 Hindu pilgrims were burned alive. Modi had been appointed chief minister of the state only a few months before the massacre.

At the time, much of India recoiled in horror at the open slaughter and mass rape of Muslims that was staged on the streets of Gujarat’s towns and villages by vigilante Hindu mobs seeking “revenge”. Some old-fashioned members of the Confederation of Indian Industry even made their displeasure with Modi public. Enter Gautam Adani. With a small group of Gujarati industrialists he set up a new platform of businessmen known as the Resurgent Group of Gujarat. They denounced Modi’s critics and supported him as he launched a new political career as Hindu Hriday Samrat, the Emperor of Hindu Hearts, or, more accurately, the consolidator of the Hindu vote-bank.




https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... utam-adani
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India says situation with China fragile, dangerous in the Himalayan front

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/ind ... 023-03-18/
The situation between India and China in the western Himalayan region of Ladakh is fragile and dangerous, with military forces deployed very close to each other in some parts, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.

At least 24 soldiers were killed when the two sides clashed in the region in mid-2020, but the situation has been calmed through rounds of diplomatic and military talks.

Violence erupted in the eastern sector of the undemarcated border between the nuclear-armed Asia giants in December but did not result in any deaths.

"The situation to my mind still remains very fragile because there are places where our deployments are very close up and in military assessment therefore quite dangerous," Jaishankar said at an India Today conclave.

India-China relations cannot go back to normal, he said, until the border row is resolved in line with the September 2020 in-principle agreement he reached with his Chinese counterpart.
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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Indian opposition leader expelled from parliament after defamation conviction
Rahul Gandhi of Congress party had asked why ‘all thieves have Modi as [their] common surname’

Amrit Dhillon in Delhi
Fri 24 Mar 2023 12.45 GMT

The Indian opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, has been expelled from parliament 24 hours after he was convicted of defamation for a remark implying the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was a criminal.

Senior members of Gandhi’s Congress party met on Friday morning to discuss the conviction and his two-year jail sentence when they received news of his expulsion.

Gandhi will not go to jail immediately because the court granted him bail for 30 days to file an appeal against the verdict. If an appeals court sets aside Gandhi’s conviction, he can regain his seat.

The party knew that under Indian law anyone who receives a two-year sentence is automatically disqualified to serve as a legislator. But it assumed that Gandhi, 52, would have time to appeal to a higher court first. Instead, the office of the speaker of the house informed Gandhi that he was disqualified from the date of his conviction.

“I’m stunned by this action and by its rapidity, within 24 hours of the court verdict and while an appeal was known to be in process,” Shashi Tharoor, a senior Congress figure, tweeted. “This is politics with the gloves off and it bodes ill for our democracy.”

The case stemmed from a remark made during the 2019 election campaign in which Gandhi, the leading face of the Congress party, had asked why “all thieves have Modi as [their] common surname”. Modi’s BJP government has been widely accused of using the law to target and silence critics.

Gaurav Gogoi, another prominent Congress figure, told NDTV: “With this action, the BJP has ended up proving Rahul’s point that democracy is sinking under Narendra Modi and this is the final nail in the coffin.”

BJP leaders have denied that the process against Gandhi is politicised. “What’s the problem? The law has taken its course. There is nothing political about it,” Alok Vats, a prominent BJP politician, told local media.

The disqualification means that a byelection will have to be held in Gandhi’s constituency of Wayanad in Kerala, south India. His future political career remains somewhat unclear. Much will hang on the appeal process, which is expected to go all the way to the supreme court.

Knowing that the appeal process will take time, Congress has mobilised its members to come out on to the streets in protest.

Asim Ali, a political researcher, said he was puzzled by the BJP’s focus on Gandhi. “I can’t work out what the strategy is because this may benefit Rahul and the Congress,” Ali said. “They [Congress] will say it shows the BJP is insecure about Rahul and that it merely validates what he has been saying about how this government will not allow any criticism of Modi or itself.”

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a Delhi-based writer and analyst, told Agence France-Presse that the verdict showed the BJP “does not want Rahul Gandhi in parliament”.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ction-modi
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#18

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Modi is a fascist (and a criminal)
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Indian government labels same sex-marriage ‘elitist’ as supreme court hearing begins
Rights of LGBTQ people to be married under the law will be heard in India’s highest court

Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi
Tue 18 Apr 2023 07.21 BST

The Indian government has expressed its vehement opposition to the legalisation of same-sex marriage, calling it an “urban elitist concept” that undermines religious and social values, as the supreme court begins hearings on the rights of LGBTQ people to be married under the law.

On Tuesday, dozens of petitions from LGBTQ activists were brought before the country’s highest court as part of a collective lawsuit that is battling for the right of LGBTQ people to be married and have equality under the law.

It is the most significant challenge to the gay rights status-quo since 2018 when, in a landmark judgment, the supreme court struck down a colonial era law criminalising homosexuality.

The hearings on same-sex marriage come amid a gradual societal shift in India where LGBTQ people are becoming more visible, particularly in popular culture and in pride marches held in major cities, while there is a growing awareness around the right to equality. However, most accept there is still a long way to go in terms of full social acceptance and safety from stigma and harassment, as the country remains deeply traditional and patriarchal.

The chief justice has called the marriage issue one of “seminal importance” and a five-judge panel will hear the case, which is expected to go for at least two weeks.

On Monday the Hindu nationalist government, led by prime minister Narendra Modi, submitted a strongly worded affidavit to the supreme court expressing its opposition to same-sex marriage and seeking to get the case thrown out of the court.

“A valid marriage is only between a biological male and a biological woman,” said the government’s submission, stating that any equality offered to same-sex couples went against religious values and would “seriously affects the interests of every citizen”, arguing that such a decision should be made by parliament not the courts.

The Modi government also recently opposed the promotion of a gay lawyer to the supreme court on the basis of his sexuality.

The lawyers and petitioners who brought the lawsuit were optimistic about the case, emphasising that the supreme court had made several significant rulings on LGBTQ rights even in the face of government opposition, including a 2014 case which recognised transgender people as a “third gender”.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ing-begins
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Post by raison de arizona »

https://twitter.com/whca/status/1673787672282669056
She asked Modi a question about human rights.
WHCA @whca wrote: Statement from WHCA president @tamarakeithNPR on the online harassment of White House journalist.
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Indian rocket blasts into space on historic moon mission
Chandrayaan-3 launches from island in southern India in follow-up to failed effort four years ago

Associated Press
Fri 14 Jul 2023 11.42 BST

An Indian spacecraft has blazed its way towards the far side of the moon in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, India’s space agency said.

Chandrayaan-3, the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit, took off from a launch pad in Sriharikota, an island in southern India, with an orbiter, a lander and a rover, in a demonstration of India’s emerging space technology. The spacecraft will embark on a journey lasting slightly over a month before landing on the moon’s surface later in August.

Applause and cheers swept through mission control at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, where engineers and scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) celebrated as they monitored the launch of the spacecraft. Thousands of Indians cheered outside the mission control centre and waved the national flag as they watched the spacecraft rise into the sky.

“Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey towards the moon,” said the ISRO director, Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, shortly after the launch.

A successful landing would make India the fourth country – after the United States, the Soviet Union and China – to achieve the feat.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... on-mission
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#22

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India or Bharat? G20 dinner invitation triggers name change row

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/India- ... change-row
A Group of 20 dinner invitation referring to India as "Bharat" has sparked a row in New Delhi, with opposition parties accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of attempting to unilaterally rename the nation.

The invitation for the dinner this Saturday, sent to dignitaries attending the weekend's G20 summit, was in the name of the "President of Bharat" rather than the customary "President of India." Without divulging the reason for the change, an Indian government source told Nikkei Asia that this was "the first time" the country's Hindi name had been used in such a context.

Now speculation is swirling that a bill to formally rename the country could be submitted at a special parliamentary session the government has scheduled for Sept. 18 to 22. So far, the government has not clarified the session's agenda.

The name "Bharat" comes from Sanskrit and is not itself unusual. Article 1 of the Constitution of India says, "India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States," mentioning both the English and Hindi names of the country, which gained independence in 1947 after almost 200 years of British rule.

India would be far from the first country to seek a name change, as well. Turkey, for example, has recently pushed to be internationally recognized as "Turkiye."

But in India, critics see the abrupt break with convention as part of a pattern of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party government advancing its Hindu nationalist agenda while attempting to rid the country of the last traces of colonial rule, such as by renaming roads and remodeling old buildings. The move also comes as a coalition of over two dozen opposition parties prepares for the 2024 elections under the banner INDIA -- an acronym for Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.

"While there is no constitutional objection to calling India 'Bharat', which is one of the country's two official names, I hope the government will not be so foolish as to completely dispense with 'India', which has incalculable brand value built up over centuries," Shashi Tharoor, a senior leader of main opposition Indian National Congress party, posted Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter, sharing a copy of the dinner invitation.

"We should continue to use both words rather than relinquish our claim to a name redolent of history, a name that is recognized around the world," wrote Tharoor, whose party belongs to the INDIA coalition.
“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” ― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
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#23

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after 17 days of waiting:


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#24

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Modi inaugurates Hindu temple on site of razed mosque in India
Narendra Modi hails controversial opening as fulfilment of ‘dream that many have cherished for years’

Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Aakash Hassan in Ayodhya
Mon 22 Jan 2024 09.17 CET

More than three decades after a mob of militant Hindu radicals razed a mosque to the ground in the Indian town of Ayodhya, the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has inaugurated the new Hindu temple that will stand in its place.

For some, the inauguration marks a hugely significant religious moment. Many Hindus believe Ayodhya to be the birthplace of the popular deity Lord Ram and the building of the temple, after over a century of disputes, has been heralded as Ram returning to his rightful place, and India freeing itself from the chains of past religious occupation.

Modi himself called it the fulfilment of “the dream that many have cherished for years”. At the Prana Pratishtha, Monday’s rituals to consecrate the temple and give offerings and blessings to the idol of the young Lord Ram placed in the inner sanctum, Modi took on a starring role, having spent the past 11 days observing a special purification ritual to prepare.

The consecration of the Ram temple became a national event, with 8,000 official guests including politicians, diplomats, Bollywood stars and holy figures, while hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flocked to Ayodhya from across the country to show their devotion to the new temple and Lord Ram. The town also underwent a $3bn government-funded transformation and was garlanded with flowers, saffron flags, images of Ram and billboards of Modi.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... e-in-india
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