India
Why the Indian farmers’ protest victory is good for us all
By Simran Jeet Singh — November 23, 2021
(RNS) — The tiny difference between impossibility and implausibility can make all the difference in the world for us.
Bowing to protests, India’s Modi agrees to repeal farm laws
By Sheikh Saaliq — November 19, 2021
(AP) — “At last, all of our hard work paid off. ... I salute the farmer brothers who were martyred in this battle,” said Rakesh Tikait, a prominent farmers’ leader.
What Americans can learn from other cultures about the language of gratitude
By Jeremy David Engels and Elaine Hsieh — November 18, 2021
(The Conversation) — Cultures around the world say ‘thank yous’ in many different ways. Two communication scholars explain what these expressions can reveal to us.
‘What fear?’: Hindus bathe in frothy, polluted Indian river
By Shonal Ganguly and Altaf Qadri — November 11, 2021
Hundreds of Hindu devotees entered the Yamuna river for a holy dip to mark the festival of Chhath Puja, despite it being covered in a layer of toxic foam.
How one atheist laid the foundation of contemporary Hindu nationalism
By Saba Sattar — November 8, 2021
(The Conversation) — A scholar on South Asian affairs traces the growth of Hindu nationalism, started by an atheist anti-colonial revolutionary, to the one adopted under Modi’s government.
Indian Catholics hope a papal visit will halt anti-Christian persecution
By Claire Giangravé — November 8, 2021
VATICAN CITY (RNS) — The Catholic minority in India hopes that a papal visit will mend relations between Christians and Hindus and promote gender equality in the local church.
Indians celebrate festival of light amid COVID-19 fears
By Krutika Pathi — November 4, 2021
NEW DELHI (AP) — Indians across the country began celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, on Thursday amid concerns over the coronavirus pandemic and rising air pollution. Diwali is typically celebrated by socializing and exchanging gifts with family and friends. Many light oil lamps or candles to symbolize a victory of light over darkness, […]
In remote Himalayan India, Buddhist monks and Indigenous tribe fight government hydropower projects
By Priyadarshini Sen — October 14, 2021
(RNS) — The Buddhist monks have united with the nomadic Monpa to protest projects that could destroy the monasteries, hot springs and temples that dot the snow-capped Himalayan region.
An American Jew turned Hindu holy woman tells her story
By Yonat Shimron — September 9, 2021
(RNS) — Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati quit her Ph.D. program, divorced her husband, moved to India and became a Hindu renunciate. In her new memoir she reveals a past life of sex abuse and bulimia.
In a Maoist-impacted region of India, an Indigenous activist continues to fight in memory of the children she couldn’t save
By Priyadarshini Sen — August 12, 2021
DELHI, India (RNS) — ‘In this land of fire and gunshots we have to keep fighting this ideological war against state repression and Maoist violence,’ said Indigenous activist Soni Sori.
Ex-Muslims in India find solidarity online as they face social and familial rejection
By Bhavya Dore — August 10, 2021
MUMBAI, India (RNS) — ‘We needed a place to belong, a safe space to be ourselves.’ Ex-Muslims are driven by a particular need to articulate their disentanglement from their religion and not simply turn atheist.
Pakistan police arrest 50 suspected of Hindu temple attack
By Associated Press — August 9, 2021
MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) —Police arrested 50 people suspected of ransacking a Hindu temple in a remote town in eastern Pakistan.
Human rights is on Blinken’s agenda in India. Can he make it stick?
By Simran Jeet Singh — July 30, 2021
(RNS) — If we are going to be partners, we have to hold India to the standards we expect from ourselves.
Like many hajj traditions in a pandemic year, Zamzam water gets a reboot
By Joseph Hammond — July 21, 2021
(RNS) — In an effort to keep COVID-19 transmission to a minimum, Saudi authorities have deployed 20 robots to serve bottles of Islam's holiest water to often bemused pilgrims.
Sikhs, finding religious freedom on the road, take outsize role in American trucking
By Joseph Hammond — July 16, 2021
(RNS) — The trucking industry has attracted generations of Americans by offering good salaries for work that allows drivers to essentially be their own bosses. That workplace freedom has drawn many Sikhs in the Sikh American community to pursue trucking.
