'Thanthris (chief priests of temples) have no right to determine who is a believer'.
The country has its own triangular flag with an emblem of Paramashiva and Nandi and is called the 'Rishabha Dhvaja'.
A Bharatiya Janata Party leader in West Bengal has gone a step ahead of controversial party MP Sakshi Maharaj, asking Hindu women to bear five children "to protect Hinduism".
Against the backdrop of denial of permission for his rally in Varanasi, Narendra Modi on Thursday said that he and the Bharatiya Janata Party were being "troubled" by the Election Commission and wanted the poll body to "answer".
'I have understood one thing very clearly -- 99 per cent of Muslims love Hindustan, their ancestral roots belong to Hinduism.' 'Even his language and dialect belongs to Hindustan. His culture is also Hindustani. Due to some historic reasons he changed his religion. Changing one's religion is not akin to changing one's ancestors, castes and sub-castes, language and dialects or his loyalty.' 'Divide and rule has not helped India progress and led to backwardness of people of this great country.' RSS leader Indresh Kumar, the patron of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, an RSS-backed organisation that actively works with Muslims, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com how the RSS is reaching out to Muslims.
Khan said Islamabad has taken the first step on a new path to peace and progress.
While the Trump campaign promises that re-electing President Donald Trump will "reduce obstacles to religious freedoms" for Hindus in America, the rival Biden campaign on Tuesday said former vice president Joe Biden has made outreach to the Hindu faith community a priority.
'Modi cannot drag India back into a primitive epoch resembling the religious wars in medieval Europe and at the same time claim to represent the aspirations of modernity among Indians,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'If Mr Modi continues growing as a Hindu Hriday Samrat, better that it is done by restoring ancient temples than demolishing medieval mosques,' says Shekhar Gupta.
India witnessed religiously motivated killings, arrests, riots and coerced religious conversions and the police in some cases failed to respond effectively to communal violence, according to the US State Department report on International Religious Freedom.
What is there in Wendy Doniger's book that has raised the hackles of the Hindu right wing? A K Bhattacharya explains
Here are some interesting images of the BJP president visiting the popular Lalbaugcha Raja.
'Second-class citizenship would have been meaningless to a Hindu in the Mughal empire.'
'This is what Hindu Rashtra looks like, which has been enabled by conditions of democracy.'
At an online book release event, former vice president Hamid Ansari lays to rest the controversies surrounding his tenure.
Tulsi Gabbard's stand on gays, her dress sense, irks Hindu group, reports Aziz Haniffa.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to appoint Hindutva hardliner Yogi Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh chief minister has drawn an avalanche of reactions from opposition parties.
A significant ritual is to consume neem leaves, a custom that marks the beginning of the festival. Neem also helps in boosting the immune system.
'I don't believe that it beholds democracies like us who claim to be the largest democracy in the world, to have such a thin skin about the possibility of foreign commentary.'
Majority of the population in Mizoram is Christian.
'The message from those in power is clear. Either agree with us or suffer the consequences'
The Mahakumbh to me has always evoked memories of what an older era of Hinduism must have been, its strength in its diversity and acceptance, its spirit resting not in priests but in individual bhakti, a faith totally alien to intolerance and bigotry, says Sagarika Ghose.
'India may well be a religious country, but that is precisely why we need to avoid criminalising blasphemy,' argues Mihir S Sharma.
It's a sad fact that non-Muslim minorities, who are represented by the white portion in the Pakistani national flag, have been reduced to abnormally low numbers. If the situation remains as bad as it is and Hindus keep on migrating to other countries, this ratio may further reduce, notes Shiraz Hassan.
'You don't win elections on the basis of borrowed players.' 'There is a great crisis of leadership for the BJP in Bengal'
BJP's Dalit leader Udit Raj had said the Hindu religion is in 'danger' not because of conversion but because of its 'so-called protectors'.
Kapil Mishra had been invited because he was an "anti-corruption crusader", one 'IIT B for Bharat' organiser said. But in his half hour-long speech, Mishra didn't mention corruption. His entire focus was on the long "battle" Hindus had fought for their identity.
When NaMo became Pradhan Sevak, little did we know he would usher in words and phrases that would become such an important part of our lives. As he enters his fifth year in office, a look at Modi-lingo :)))
Adityanath will be the 21st UP chief minister and the fourth from the BJP.
Devdutt Pattanaik, who has simplified the ancient Indian scriptures for millions of readers, highlights what our scriptures have to say about homosexuals and transgenders.
Prof Khyati Joshi, advisor to the survey -- Asian Americans: A Mosaic of Faiths -- conducted by Pew Research Center's forum on religion and public life lends perspective on Asian Americans and their faith, particularly on Hinduism.
The vision of a 'New India' would talk about constructing a nation where the so-called appeasement of religious minorities would stop, Hinduism would be accorded "due status" and there will be one law for all citizens, including for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, reports Archis Mohan.
Count among The Light of Asia's many, many admirers over 132 years: Gandhi, Tagore, Vivekananda, Nehru and Ambedkar, Tolstoy and Kipling, Yeats and Eliot, Alfred Nobel, Dmitri Mendeleev and C V Raman. Jairam Ramesh reveals why he decided to write a book on Edwin Arnold, who wrote The Light of Asia.
The 114 veterans wrote that issues like vigilantism and "targeting of Muslims and Dalits" have "compelled" them to pen the letter
India is the birthplace of four major world religions -- Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is home to the world's third largest Muslim population, a diverse community of sects that includes Sufis, Shia, and Bohra. Roughly three per cent of India's citizens are Christian, and notably, Christians are the religious majority in three of India's 29 states, she said.
In a sign of the growing political prominence of Hindus in America, the Trump and Biden campaigns are wooing this religious minority community like never before. Hinduism is the fourth largest faith in the US, representing approximately one per cent of the US population in 2016.
Police said the FIR was filed at a police station in Dakshina Kannada district based on a complaint against the writer whose utterances on Hinduism and Hindu Gods have come under vicious attacks from fringe rightwing outfit.
Pilgrims belonging to faiths other than Hinduism will have to submit a declaration form from August 13 before entering the Tirumala shrine near Tirupati stating that they have faith in the presiding deity, Lord Venkateswara
