The Nirmukta Freethought Community

This thread will document current affairs issues that concern the freethought movement in India. Please post any article along with a short excerpt from the article, or a short summary of it.

This purpose of this thread is two fold:
1. To serve as a single location for all news relating to religion and freethought in India.
2. For reference purposes in the future.

Anyone wishing to discuss any of the articles may do so by starting another thread.

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Inside Story, Wife exposes sleaze guru: Headlines Today
Link: http://headlinestoday.intoday.in/site/he...Id=114&p=0

Quote:"Wife of Rishi Prabhakar says he lures women in the name of yoga and takes advantage of them."

Frog wedding in India to please Hindu rain gods

Link: http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.asp...8&catid=28

Quote:Varanasi, India (RTV) -- You may have heard of puppy love, but froggy love?

Two frogs tied the knot in northern India Thursday and a lot is riding on this marriage. The frogs were wed to please the Hindu rain gods.

Anxious locals attended the ceremony hoping their marriage would bring much needed rain.

On top of offering prayers for the happy couple, attendees also prayed that the weather gods would open up the skies and bless them with rainfall.

So far there's no sign that the ceremony actually worked. Forecasters are predicting dry, hot weather for the next couple of days.

Hindutva is being forced on the tribals in Gujarat

Link: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main44.asp?..._stone.asp

Quote:"PARMAR ALSO points to the second line of the Gujarat strategy: that the Modi government has been actively encouraging — with official support — the “Hinduisation” of tribal culture. “A Hindu ethos is being imposed on the tribals — whose civilisational culture is far different from that of Hindu culture,” Parmar adds. In 2007, the state government allowed the illegal felling of 600 trees on the Chamak Dongar hill and built on it a temple for Shabri, a devotee of Ram. A small pond in Subir village was renamed ‘Pampa Sarovar’, the place where Ram supposedly met Shabri. The site was later used by the VHP and RSS to establish a fifth Kumbh Mela (Shabri Kumbh). “An imaginary history is being created to strip Adivasis of their identity and rights to the forest,” Parmar says. Today, the entire Dangs’ hillocks are dotted with Hanuman temples.

The Dangis say the BJP, the RSS and the VHP have no history of speaking up for Adivasis and have instead created friction between them and Christian missionaries working in the area. “They [the government] did not even ask us before dismantling symbols of our deities here,” says Pawar, “The government is simultaneously creating a communal emergency in the state.”

Uproar over new law to ban beef in Indian state

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/.../1135/apps

Quote:Uproar over new law to ban beef in Indian state

Shaikh Azizur Rahman , Foreign Correspondent

* Last Updated: July 18. 2010 9:41PM UAE / July 18. 2010 5:41PM GMT

KOLKATA // A coalition of local Muslims, Christians, civil-rights activists and a Hindu-dominated organisation of farmers has warned that it will mount statewide protests if the state government enacts a law barring the slaughter of cows. Opponents say the legislation is “anti-poor, anti-farmer and anti-democratic”,

The controversial Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill was passed by the state assembly in March and by the state’s Legislative Council over fierce opposition last week. The Karnataka governor, HR Bhardwaj, has not said whether he will approve the bill.

Along with prohibiting the slaughter of cows in the state, the bill bans the sale, use and even possession of beef. It also places restrictions on the transportation of cattle and prohibits the sale, purchase or disposal of cattle for slaughter.

Under the proposed law, offenders could be punished with prison sentences ranging from one to seven years or fined between 25,000 rupees (Dh1,951) and 50,000 rupees, or both.
...

[Read the whole article at the link above.]

Why isn't this thread active ?
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/08/cos...sse-tyson/

(05-08-2011 09:02 PM)lalitmohanchawla Wrote:  Why isn't this thread active ?
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/08/cos...sse-tyson/

Probably because it is pretty redundant and doesn't really go anywhere. The proposed sequel to Cosmos, for instance, could do better as a separate thread under General Science or under the Freethought Arts section.