HINDUS CELEBRATE KRISHNA JANMASHTAMI

JANMASHTAMI: A DAY SOAKED IN
DEVOTION, RITUALS AND CELEBRATIONS
http://www.hindustantimes.com - While hundreds of Govinda groups will build pyramids and break dahi handis on Monday, families celebrated Janmashtami, the occasion of Lord Krishna’s birth, with their own festive rituals at homes and in temples at midnight on Sunday.  Sri Krishna Janmashtami, also known as Sri Krishna Jayanti, Gokulashtami and Krishnashtami, marks the birthday of Lord Krishna.  Krishna’s arrival in the world is celebrated as with enthusiasm and fervour by his devotees.  In Ghatkopar, the six-member Shah family had hidden an idol of Baal Gopal (baby Krishna), which they brought out at midnight, bathed in milk and honey, and dressed in new clothes.  “In keeping with tradition, each of us rocked the cradle in which baby Krishna was kept,” said Khushali Shah, 24, a freelance interior designer. “My nephews also enacted the scene of the Lord’s childhood attempts to steal butter and curd from earthen pots.”

Nita Kotak, 40, prepared for Janmashtami for a week. “We made prasad from coriander seeds, sugar and dry coconut, to give to our neighbours and friends at the temple at midnight,” said Kotak who recited hymns on Krishna at her local Panvel temple on Sunday night, and will observe a fast on Monday. “The fast is traditionally observed to mark the Lord’s birth.”  
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the festival celebrates teachings of Lord Krishna - discipline, knowledge and selfless action - which are timeless.  “May the festival inspire us towards a work ethic based on right conduct and bring success and prosperity to all,” he said.  
Vice President Hamid Ansari greeted the people on Janmashtami and hoped that the auspicious occasion brought amity, harmony, prosperity and happiness in the people’s lives.  “I extend my heartiest greetings and good wishes to the people of our country on the auspicious occasion of Janmashtami”, he said in a message.

With elaborately decorated cradles to mark the birth of Lord Krishna, Janmashtami celebrations began in all India with much gaiety.  The birth of Krishna is celebrated with gusto in many Hindu households.  But temples have their own special rituals for the day.  There is joy and celebrations amongst the devotees of Lord Krishna, for whom no effort seems enough when it comes to serving the Lord.  The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, Hari in His original form, appeared as Visnu so that His father and mother could understand that their son was the Supreme Personality of Godhead.


WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?
Thereafter, at the auspicious time for the appearance of the Lord, the entire universe was surcharged with all the qualities of goodness, beauty and peace. The constellation Rohinī appeared, as did stars like Aśvinī. The sun, the moon and the other stars and planets were very peaceful. All directions appeared extremely pleasing, and the beautiful stars twinkled in the cloudless sky. Decorated with towns, villages, mines and pasturing grounds, the earth seemed all-auspicious. ... Vasudeva then saw the newborn child, who had very wonderful lotuslike eyes and who bore in His four hands the four weapons śańkha, cakra, gadā and padma. On His chest was the mark of Śrīvatsa and on His neck the brilliant Kaustubha gem. Dressed in yellow, His body blackish like a dense cloud, His scattered hair fully grown, and His helmet and earrings sparkling uncommonly with the valuable gem Vaidūrya, the child, decorated with a brilliant belt, armlets, bangles and other ornaments, appeared very wonderful.


Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam - Canto 10: “The Summum Bonum”
Chapter 3: “The Birth of Lord Krishna”
Verses 1-2, 9-10 - Bhaktivedanta VedaBase

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ADOPTING A BABY FROM INDIA

ADOPTIONS BABIES FROM INDIA
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW
India (http://www.lassiwithlavina.com) - One of the ironies of life is that there are millions of children without homes, and without families, while there are millions of adults who wish to be parents but cannot. Adoption is the process which can unite them, and yet it is still a loaded word for many Indian families. For years there was a stigma attached to adoption, especially in Indian society. In a country like India where so much value is placed on marriage, family values and fertility, it can be particularly difficult for a couple to be ‘barren’. In India it can be feast or famine, where children are concerned. The orphanages are full of abandoned children waiting to be adopted. And on the other side you have thousands of couples, both in India and the Diaspora, who can’t conceive and yearn to have a child to nurture and love. Add to that thousands more who, in spite of having their own biological children, want to adopt children and have the time and resources to do so.

So shouldn’t this be the simplest thing in the world - placing abandoned children and prospective parents together to create new loving homes and giving children a future? Most people who have been through the adoption process talk as if they’ve been through the wringer - emotionally and financially - for adopting a child from India is like running a marathon through hoops and mazes. How can one make sense of the procedures and bring about a quick happy ending? The US State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs statistics shows that between 1999 -2010, 224,615 children were adopted from several countries. The total amount of children from India in this time frame was 4753, and of this the number of girls was 3383 and boys were 1370. To know more about it, go to India‘s Adoption Authority,  Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) http://www.adoptionindia.nic.in/




Until recently, adopting a child in India was reserved only for couples who could not conceive a child of their own, often a secret undertaking and managed with a great deal of family resistance, and certainly little support.  In the glorious Vedic times many personalities were adopted by another family, among the most important are undoubtedly the Queen Kuntī, Baladeva and Lord Krishna himself.  Nanda Mahārāja was the foster father of Lord Krishna and Lord Baladeva, whereas Yaśodā Mātā was Krishna's foster mother and Rohini Mātā was Baladeva's foster mother. 



WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?
Vasudeva: Son of King Śūrasena, husband of Devakī and father of Lord Śrī Krishna. He is the brother of Kuntī and father of Subhadrā. ... When Krishna appeared within the bars of Kamsa’s prison house, He was transferred by Vasudeva to the house of Nanda Mahārāja, the foster father of Krishna, at Gokula. ... Baladeva: He is the divine son of Vasudeva by his wife Rohinī. He is also known as Rohinī-nandana, the beloved son of Rohinī. He was also entrusted to Nanda Mahārāja along with His mother, Rohinī, when Vasudeva embraced imprisonment by mutual agreement with Kamsa. So Nanda Mahārāja is also the foster father of Baladeva along with Lord Krishna.  ... Originally named Prithā, Kuntī was the daughter of Śūrasena, the chief of the glorious Yadu dynasty.  When she was a child, her father Śūrasena had given her in adoption to his childless cousin and close friend Kuntibhoja (hence the name “Kuntī”).





Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam - Canto 1: “Creation”
Chapter 11: “Lord Krishna’s Entrance into Dvārakā” Verses 16-17
“Teachings of Queen Kuntī, Introduction” - Bhaktivedanta VedaBase

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LONDON VIOLENCE EXTENDS INTO THIRD NIGHT

LOOTING, ARSON SPREAD WIDELY IN
LONDON, AS CIVIL UNREST ESCALATES
http://www.washingtonpost.com - Rampant looting and raging fires engulfed swaths of London on Monday as the wave of civil unrest that has gripped this sprawling capital escalated sharply, including riots in a neighborhood not far from that of the athletes’ village and shiny stadiums built for the 2012 Olympic Games.  The images of violence - with hundreds of youths looting shops, setting businesses ablaze and clashing with police in more than a half-dozen neighborhoods - deeply shocked Londoners, dealing this legendary city an enormously damaging blow less than a year before the start of the Olympics.  In the worst bout of urban violence to hit Britain in more than two decades, parts of the city morphed into lawless no-man lands. Gangs of youths attacked double-decker buses and started a fire burning across a street side in south London. Most of a block in the southern neighborhood of Croydon raged in flames. Shopping malls were attacked and set on fire.

The violence also spread to Britain’s second city of Birmingham, where hundreds of youths attacked and looted shops.  Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a vacation trip to Italy and was returning to London overnight to chair an emergency cabinet meeting to handle the mounting crisis. The embattled Metropolitan Police called in reinforcements from law enforcement forces outside London to help cope.  The violence first erupted Saturday night in Tottenham, a gritty north London neighborhood, after the fatal shooting of a black resident by police investigating gun crimes. Those riots triggered a ripple effect among disenfranchised youths in other parts of the city Sunday, and the unrest increased in size and intensity Monday.



Riots have spread to new areas of London while looting erupted in the cities of Birmingham and Leeds, as Britain's worst clashes in decades extended into the third night.  Some rioters broke into shops.  Police arrested more than 160 people.  Dozens of officers were injured.  The violence, which began in London's northern Tottenham district on Saturday, has now spread to the south of the city.  Materialistic science has tried to give answers to all social problems, but we are still not satisfied and need to find the ultimate source of all in order to be truly at peace.  


WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Human society, at the present moment, is not in the darkness of oblivion. It has made rapid progress in the field of material comforts, education and economic development throughout the entire world. But there is a pinprick somewhere in the social body at large, and therefore there are large-scale quarrels, even over less important issues. There is need of a clue as to how humanity can become one in peace, friendship and prosperity with a common cause.  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam will fill this need, for it is a cultural presentation for the respiritualization of the entire human society.  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam should be introduced also in the schools and colleges, for it is recommended by the great student-devotee Prahlāda Mahārāja in order to change the demoniac face of society.   
kaumāra ācaret prājñodharmān bhāgavatān ihadurlabham mānusham janmatad apy adhruvam arthadam (Bhāg. 7.6.1).




Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam - Preface
Bhaktivedanta VedaBase

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JUNO IS ON THE WAY TO JUPITER

NASA’S JUNO SPACECRAFT
HEADED TO JUPITER FRIDAY
‎http://www.accuweather.com - NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 12:25 p.m. EDT Friday to begin a five-year journey to Jupiter.  Juno’s detailed study of the largest planet in our solar system will help reveal Jupiter’s origin and evolution. As the archetype of giant gas planets, Jupiter can help scientists understand the origin of our solar system and learn more about planetary systems around other stars.  “Today, with the launch of the Juno spacecraft, NASA began a journey to yet another new frontier,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “The future of exploration includes cutting-edge science like this to help us better understand our solar system and an ever-increasing array of challenging destinations.”

After Juno’s launch aboard an Atlas V rocket, mission controllers now await telemetry from the spacecraft indicating it has achieved its proper orientation, and that its massive solar arrays, the biggest on any NASA deep-space probe, have deployed and are generating power.  Juno will cover the distance from Earth to the Moon (about 250,000 miles) in less than one day’s time. It will take another five years and 1,740 million miles to complete the journey to Jupiter. The spacecraft will orbit the planet’s poles 33 times and use its collection of eight science instruments to probe beneath the gas giant’s obscuring cloud cover to learn more about its origins, structure, atmosphere, and magnetosphere, and look for a potential solid planetary core.  With four large moons and many smaller moons, Jupiter forms its own miniature solar system.


A sun-powered robotic explorer named Juno is rocketing toward Jupiter on a fresh quest to discover the secret “recipe” for making planets.  It will take five years to reach Jupiter, the solar system’s most massive and ancient planet.  With Juno, scientists hope to answer some of the most fundamental questions of our solar system: “How Jupiter formed. How it evolved. What really happened early in the solar system that eventually led to all of us?”  As the modern scientists are conditioned souls liable to so many errors and mistakes, the safe side as regards the creation of the universe is to accept the version of Vedic literatures.  


WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

In the creation of the Lord there are many wonderful things we can see with our own eyes every day and night, but we are unable to reach them equipped by modern materialistic science. We should not, therefore, depend on the fragmentary authority of materialistic science for knowing things beyond the range of scientific purview. For a common man, both modern science and Vedic wisdom are simply to be accepted because none of the statements either of modern science or of Vedic literature can be verified by him. The alternative for a common man is to believe either of them or both of them. The Vedic way of understanding, however, is more authentic because it has been accepted by the ācāryas, who are not only faithful and learned men, but are also liberated souls without any of the flaws of conditioned souls.




Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam - Canto 2: “The Cosmic Manifestation”
Chapter 2: “The Lord in the Heart”- Verse 26
Bhaktivedanta VedaBase

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GANGES RECEDING DESPITE RAINFALL

GANGES WATER HAS DROPPED  
TO ALARMINGLY LOW LEVELS 
India (The Australian) - The Ganges River, India’s heavily polluted spiritual artery, has dropped to alarmingly low levels and begun receding from the historic Varanasi Ghats, which attract millions of pilgrims and tourists each year. The water has receded as much as 3m in some areas from the holy ghats.  Environmentalists say levels in the upper reaches of the river below the Himalayas, as well as downstream, are several metres lower than they should be at a time when heavy rains and spring melt from Himalayan glaciers normally increase flows.  At Varanasi, the water has receded as much as 3m in some areas from the holy ghats, considered one of the most sacred Hindu spots India.  The blame is being laid at the feet of the country’s major hydroelectric projects in the upper reaches of the river, which hoard massive volumes of river flow in dams and barrages.  

But unregulated water extraction at all points along the 2500km river, for farming, cities, industry and hydroelectricity, has also reached unsustainable levels.  At the Bim Goda barrage alone, outside the Himalayan tourist town of Haridwar, 9 per cent of the river’s total flow is believed to be diverted.  The effects of climate change on Himalayan glaciers - a controversial topic in India - are also suspected of contributing to the river’s reduced flows.  
The federal government has established a National Ganga River Basin Authority to oversee the river’s management and rehabilitation. In November, it blocked plans for three new hydro projects.



At Varanasi, the water has receded as much as 3m in some areas from the holy ghats, considered one of the most sacred Hindu spots India.  River campaigner M.C. Mehta, says he is alarmed by the plight of the river.  “The water has receded very dramatically when the water should be increasing because of snow melt and heavy rains,” he said yesterday. “In the downstream reaches now there is no flow in the river at all. It’s not a good thing. The river has a right to live and a right to sufficient water flows. India is not India without the Ganges,” he added.  Every Vedic literature nicely explains Ganga-devi's greatness, mercy and pastimes. 


WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?  
The Lord is so kind that He has spread the River Ganges throughout the universe so that by taking bath in that holy river everyone can get release from the reactions of sins, which occur at every step. There are many rivers in the world which are able to evoke one’s sense of God consciousness simply by one’s bathing in them, and the River Ganges is chief amongst them. In India there are five sacred rivers, but the Ganges is the most sacred. The River Ganges and Bhagavad-gītā are chief sources of transcendental happiness for mankind, and intelligent persons can take shelter of them to go back home, back to Godhead. Even Śrīpāda Śańkarācārya recommends that a little knowledge in Bhagavad-gītā and the drinking of a little quantity of Ganges water can save one from the punishment of Yamarāja.


Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam - Canto 3: “The Status Quo”
Chapter 5: “Vidura’s Talks with Maitreya”
Verse 41.  Bhaktivedanta VedaBase

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INDIAN CONG REQUESTS RAMDEV TO GO SLOW ON FAST

INDIAN GOVERNMENT TRIES BABA RAMDEV
SUSPEND PROTEST AGAINST CORRUPTION
New Delhi (Reuters) - The government suffered a fresh blow on Thursday in containing growing anger over corruption from million of voters as leading civil activist Anna Hazare joined forces with influential yoga guru Swami Ramdev in a “fast-until-death” against graft.  The saffron-robed Ramdev, India’s most famous yoga guru, has pledged a hunger strike from Saturday to protest against corruption in Asia’s third-largest economy and called on his legions of followers to join him.   Ramdev will begin his fast on Saturday in New Delhi and has predicted that 10 million people will join his protest until the government agrees to pass an anti-corruption law and set up a task force for repatriating illegal funds held in foreign bank accounts by Indians.  Anna Hazare, whose highly-publicised fast in April, pledged his support on Thursday for Ramdev’s strike.

Ramdev, who turned an ancient spiritual tradition into a mass healing movement, runs a $40 million-a-year global yoga and health empire, has a daily TV show which attracts 30 million viewers, owns a Scottish island and says he can cure cancer.  Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh personally appealed to Ramdev to call off the protest.  Such is Ramdev’s popularity that some of India’s most powerful government ministers turned up at Delhi airport to greet him on Wednesday and persuade him to call off the strike. They failed and were forced to carry out a second day of talks.  Singh’s party has struggled to shake off a slew of corruption scandals, including the telecoms kickback scam that may have cost the government $39 billion, which have sparked public anger, hurt foreign investment and stymied economic reforms.


As India’s famous yoga guru, Swami Ramdev, has pledged a hunger strike starting Saturday to protest against corruption, the government is trying to convince him otherwise.  Ramdev will begin his fast in New Delhi and reports say 10 million people will join his protest until the government agrees to pass an anti-corruption law.  Vedic injunctions do not recommend fasting for some political purpose.  The Laws of Manu allow “prayopavesha” (fasting until death), but for spiritual purposes, in order to attain liberation, not for political or social purposes. 


WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?  
There are persons who manufacture modes of austerity and penance which are not mentioned in the scriptural injunctions. For instance, fasting for some ulterior purpose, such as to promote a purely political end, is not mentioned in the scriptural directions. The scriptures recommend fasting for spiritual advancement, not for some political end or social purpose. ... Actually, they act out of pride, false ego, lust and attachment for material enjoyment. By such activities, not only is the combination of material elements of which the body is constructed disturbed, but also the Supreme Personality of Godhead Himself living within the body. Such unauthorized fasting or austerities for some political end are certainly very disturbing to others. They are not mentioned in the Vedic literature.


Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
“The Bhagavad-gītā As It Is”
Chapter 17: “The Divisions of Faith”
Verses 5-6.  -  Bhaktivedanta VedaBase

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