As Lord Ram's temple is set for a grand opening, the banks of the river in Ayodhya erupted with celebration, reports Saisuresh Sivaswamy/Rediff.com
In a purported video which surfaced on social media, the accused man, reportedly a Tamil Nadu native, could be seen sitting on a platform atop the Ponnambalamedu Hills, located about four km from the Sabarimala temple, and chanting mantras and doing some rituals.
"I did not want to take the photograph of Lord Ram but etch his image in my heart instead," said Amit Pathak, a resident of Tulsinagar in Ayodhya, a day ahead of the 'pran pratishtha' ceremony at the Ram temple.
Temple priest Gaurav Goshwami said limited number of devotees should be allowed inside the shrine at a time and a barrier system should put in place outside it to manage crowd.
In Chamoli district, a flood-like situation has developed along the banks of a dozen rivers, including Alaknanda and its tributaries Pindar, Nandakini and Birhi.
While about 8,000 people are in the long list of invitees, the select list features 506 A-listers, including prominent politicians, leading industrialists, top film stars, sportspersons, diplomats, judges and high priests.
Over 6,000 loudspeakers were removed from religious places and the volume of another 30,000 was set to permissible limits across Uttar Pradesh following a government order, a senior police official said on Wednesday.
With the Karnataka government further easing restrictions under 'Unlock 3.0' effective from Monday, life seems to have returned to normalcy as shops, restaurants, malls, private offices and religious places began their operations in full swing.
The new Ram Lalla idol was consecrated at the Ayodhya temple on Monday, an event led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and watched by lakhs of people on television at their homes and in temples across the country.
Chief Minister-designate Mohan Yadav, an OBC leader and three-time Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, started his political career when he was a student and rose to become higher education minister of Madhya Pradesh where he announced to make Hindu epic Ramcharitmanas as an optional subject in colleges in 2021.
Kerala's election discourse operates surreptitiously. Its explicit face focuses on important national and local issues. At the same time, it seeks to secure apt communal equations to ensure votes, notes Shyam G Menon.
The much-awaited Ram temple consecration will be held in Ayodhya on Monday in a grand ceremony with Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending the rituals, following which the shrine will be opened for the public a day later.
Saina, who was accompanied by her father Harvir Singh, first offered prayers at Kedarnath on Sunday morning before she left for Badrinath.
They all seem to forget that the Music Academy is as much an independent institution as T M Krishna is an individual musician. In drawing those red lines for the Academy management, they do not even seem to recognise that they too have crossed a red line themselves, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Amarnath Yatra has been suspended from Jammu due to inclement weather conditions and no fresh batch was allowed to proceed from Jammu to the base camps of the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas, officials said.
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha flagged off the first batch of 4,890 pilgrims from the Jammu base camp.
After making a bold statement at the Big Impact Awards over the weekend, Shilpa Shetty Kundra and her family visited the Golden Temple in Amritsar on February 27.
The BJP enters challenging times where it has been given a task to hold onto the values of Ram in running the country as defined by Narendra Modi in Ayodhya, notes Sheela Bhatt.
Therefore, his entry into politics will prove to be mangal (auspicious) for everyone in Budhni, Mastal claimed, adding that he will ensure development of the constituency.
However, the usual rush of the devotees was missing due to the recent targeted killings in the valley.
If you have never seen Sriram Raghavan fly, you would hardly realise that this time, he is happy in his cage, this time he isn't reaching for the skies, notes Sreehari Nair.
The annual Amarnath Yatra began on Thursday as a batch of about 2,750 pilgrims left the base camp in Nunwan, Jammu-Kashmir, for the cave shrine housing the naturally formed ice-lingam in the south Kashmir Himalayas.
If Mr Modi is to be blamed for the post-Godhra riots, he should also be given credit for maintaining peace after the Akshardham and Ahmedabad terror attacks. The BBC will never tell you that, points out Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi to Kedarnath crashed on Tuesday amid poor visibility and seven people on board are feared dead.
The NIA on Tuesday summoned the caretaker of a shrine in Punjab which a superintendent of police rank officer had claimed to have visited before being kidnapped by terrorists who attacked the Pathankot Air Force base hours later.
It said that the opportunities presented by an open and competitive South Asian market may also be grasped and consolidated from both security and economic perspectives.
The Travancore Devaswom Board, the apex temple body which manages the shrine, on Tuesday said a portion of the gold-plated roof would be opened on August 3 to take stock of the leak.
Jacqueline starts the New Year by visiting the Vaishnodevi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir.
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Thursday said the rescue operations launched following a flash flood near the Amarnath cave shrine -- that left 15 people dead -- has been called off and there was no report of any person missing.
Talking to PTI, he said the development works should be implemented by protecting the lives of the people.
At least 15,000 pilgrims, who were stranded near the Amarnath holy cave in Jammu and Kashmir due to a flash flood triggered by a cloudburst, have been shifted to the lower base camp of Panjtarni, an Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) spokesperson said on Saturday.
The Amarnath pilgrimage resumed on Monday after remaining suspended for three days following flash floods that claimed 15 lives, while the Jammu and Kashmir administration said it would get a clear picture by Tuesday about the damage.
The government will review the weather conditions in the coming days and accordingly take a decision in the interest of the pilgrims, he said.
What should be made out of the Madras high court order involving non-Hindus' entry into Hindu temples, when many non-Hindus are among the hundreds of thousands that have been worshipping at these temples for generations, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
This enterprising duo sell tea from the boot of an Audi.
The registration at Mata Vaishno Devi Bhawan in Katra resumed hours after the stampede incident, in which 12 people were killed and several others were left injured.
'I believe that Baba Budha Amarnath saved me.'
18 years ago, an angry sea wreaked havoc across coastal Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Ram, Laxmi, stories from the Hindu epics are seen in carvings, paintings and murals, as well as recognisable figures from mythology, like Garuda, Sheshnag, Nandi and Apsaras, notes Deepa Gahlot, savouring the beauty of Cambodia.
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