A prominent radical Hindu group has told followers to reject the celebration of the New Year on January 1, which signals an acceptance of Jesus, urging them to move the feast to April instead.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published a report Tuesday accusing South East Asian nations of systematically failing to protect their populations’ religious rights, noting that “state officials” in Pakistan often shield criminals forcing Christian or Hindu women into a Muslim marriage.
The New Delhi-based federal government ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) recently took direct control of the Indian-held region of Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority territory in the country, following the collapse of a fragile coalition with a local political group.
ABC television has apologized for a recent episode of the crime drama Quantico, which featured a plot about Indian terrorists.
Internet services in Bali, Indonesia, will be switched off for 24 hours on Saturday to mark Nyepi, an annual “sacred day of reflection,” according to the Guardian.
A Bollywood film rumored to contain a romantic fantasy scene between a legendary Hindu queen and a Muslim conqueror opened to angry protests and vandalism on Thursday, even though the scene was not actually in the movie.
Thousands of residents of a largely Hindu area of Leicester have objected to a proposed Muslim prayer room and education centre.
Members of America’s Hindu community are demanding that the CEO of cereal maker Kellogg Co. resign for failing to disclose the inclusion of beef in its products.
Lovers in India can bring a little sadism into their romance without shelling out for tickets to the Fifty Shades of Grey movies: just walk through the street holding hands, and wait for Bajrang Dal thugs to assault them.
A Hindu man says he “escaped death” during the July 2016 attack by five armed jihadists on a restaurant in Dhaka by “reciting the Quran,” reports BBC, noting that had the Islamist militants found out his religion, he would have shared the fate of the 29 people who lost their lives.
A Senate panel in Muslim-majority Pakistan has unanimously approved a piece of legislation this week that brings an anticipated Hindu Marriage bill inches closer to enactment.
A Florida man has been arrested after he threatened McDonald’s staff because they were playing Christmas music and he demanded they play Muslim music instead.
A leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a right-wing Hindu nationalist party that is linked to the Indian Prime Minister and has been accused of forcing Muslims and Christians in India to become Hindu, was apprehended dressed in a burqa and molesting a female Islam adherent during a religious event in India’s most populous state.
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Last month, two Christian pastors and a member of their church were beaten with cricket bats by a mob of up to 60 Hindus, then forcibly dragged to a police station, where the mob filed charges against the trio for allegedly proselytizing.
70-year-old Hindu priest Anando Gopal Ganguly was riding his bicycle to a temple on Tuesday morning in the Jhenaidah district of Bangladesh when three men on motorbikes shot him then slashed him with bladed weapons, nearly decapitating him. His body was found in a field near the temple.
A Hindu nationalist group in India has asked the gods to bless Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, citing Trump’s stand against Islamist terrorism.
Donald Trump won over roughly a dozen Indians who are asking the Hindu gods to make Trump the President of the United States.
The National Investigative Agency (NIA) in India is warning police in Delhi, Punjab, and Assam to be on the lookout for a Pakistani soldier-turned-terrorist on the loose in India.
Brothers in India burned their sister alive after she married a man in a different caste (social class) in the nation’s most recent honor killing.
Indian lawyer Chandan Kumar Singh has attempted to file a lawsuit against the Hindu God Ram over mistreatment of the god’s wife, Sita.
A mob of 35 people attacked Father Jose Kannumkuzhy and three lay people in southern India as they sat in a car to speak with police. The priest remains in critical condition.
In Pune, India, 17-year-old Savan Rathod was able to tell his father that a mob burned him alive after he admitted he was Hindu.
The Times of India reports on a group known as Hindu Swabhiman, a militia that claims it has 15,000 fighters ready to take on the Islamic State. The group says it fears ISIS will occupy Indian territory by 2020 if it does not fight now.
In early December, a Hindu leader in India named Kamlesh Tiwari referred to Mohammed as “the world’s first homosexual.” This did not sit well with the local Muslim community, which called for the government to prosecute Tiwari for everything from “blasphemy” to making “anti-social” statements “designed to incite a riot.”
In Nepal, Hindus dedicate one day during the five-day festival of Tihar to dogs, known as Kukur Tihar. Other days are devoted to other animals, such as cows or crows.
Religious intolerance in secular India continues to grow as hardline Hindus target those they believe are butchering cows, which are sacred to them.
A villager in India reportedly beheaded a four-year-old boy to appease the Goddess Kali. He hoped she would bestow “divine powers” on him.
Those who survived recent deadly attacks on Christians in India are demanding the president do more to bring the people responsible to justice. Despite the violence, though, Christianity is growing in India.
The first International Day of Yoga has sparked a race row in India, with some Muslims accusing the government of pushing a Hindu agenda. They have also claimed that practising yoga flies in the face of Islamic teaching. The day
The Times of India relates an awkward mistake in Pakistan’s much-needed, and generally much-appreciated, relief assistance to survivors of the earthquake in Nepal: “According to media reports, the food items in relief aid sent by Pakistan to Nepal included beef content (beef masala) in the food packets. Eating beef is prohibited in Hindu religion. Nepal is a majority-Hindu nation.”
