World's largest election concludes: results

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez reporting on the Largest Democracy in the World, DemocracyNow.org, May 16, 2014

The chakravartin's thousand-spoked wheel of Dharma at the center of the Indian flag

"Tibet" lives on in Himalayan Indian

Early results from the largest election in the world show that India’s opposition leader Narendra Modi has won a landslide victory to become the country’s new prime minister. 

Modi is the leader of the BJP, a Hindu nationalist party (unfriendly to minority Muslims, of which there are more than 100 million in India).

 

I live in India

"This is the result that the corporations in India wanted," says Siddhartha Deb, Indian author and journalist, noting that Modi "is very a pro-development politician, which basically means pro-business." 

 

Deb adds that Modi served as the chief minister of Gujarat state, where anti-Muslim riots in 2002 left at least 1,000 people dead. After the bloodshed, the U.S. State Department revoked Modi’s visa.

Modi has never apologized for or explained his actions at the time of the riots. Deb’s recent article in The Guardian is "India’s Dynasty-Dominated Politics Has No Space for Dissent" and his nonfiction book is The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India. More 

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Buddhists chart course, create world body

The Telegraph of India

NEW DELHI, India - Buddhism is set to get more organized with its various traditions resolving to form an international confederation, an umbrella body that would represent Buddhist values.

The Global Buddhist Congregation, a four-day event that ended here today, promulgated a declaration creating the International Buddhist Confederation, which would be based in India.

The meet saw delegates from 46 countries -- from the Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana [a Himalayan, largely Tibetan, subset of Mahayana] traditions -- discuss Buddhism’s relevance in dealing with contemporary issues, including women’s rights.

A 40-member working committee will be formed, including a sub-committee that would draft a constitution for the new body. Australia-based Vietnamese Buddhist leader Thich Quang Ba said it would take about a year to draft the constitution, after which a leader would be elected.

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama asked the gathering to bridge the gap between the different traditions. “There are many traditions -- Hinayana [a pejorative term no longer in use except to insult Theravada, the oldest extant Buddhist tradition; Hina-yana, or "lesser vehicle" refers to schools or sects like Sarvastivada that no longer exist], Mahayana, Vajrayana. People get the impression these are different. That is totally a mistake,” he said.

The meeting, to mark the 2600th anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment, also had a subtle political subtext. More

Students seek guidance from Dalai Lama

Los Angeles: "Secular Ethics and Meditation"

Hosted by Gaden Shartse Thubten Dhargye Ling

• Long Beach Convention Center, Terrace Theatre
• Sunday, May 1, 2011 (2:30 PM)
• Tickets: $46.20-$104.65
• On sale to public: 2/22/11 (10:00 AM)
• (257) 229-4435 or gstdl.org

"Ethics for the new Millennium" at the D.D. Kosambi Festival of Ideas in Panaji, Goa, India, Feb. 7, 2011

BOMBAY, India (Feb. 20, 2011) - Emerging from their last lecture on Thursday, Shamal Warlikar and her friends couldn’t stop talking about their appointment on Friday.

They are among a group of 60 students from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies who will get an opportunity to hear Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama speak at Mumbai University’s Fort campus on Friday and possibly ask him some questions as well.

“We’re very excited, it’s the first time we will get to hear someone of that stature speak,” said Warlikar, a first year student of Masters of management studies. “We plan to ask him some questions on how we can bring spirituality into management education and how India’s problems can be approached from the bottom of the pyramid. We thought it would be better to ask philosophical instead of political questions.” More>>

Seeing science through a spiritual lens

Amy Yee (Special to The Washington Post, Dec. 18, 2010)

MEETING OF MINDS: The Dalai Lama at the opening of "The World of Your Senses," part of an ongoing effort to teach science to Tibetan monks with Smithsonian help (Bryce Johnson).

NEW DELHI - The northern Indian town of Bir was greeted with an unusual sight when Scott Schmidt carried six-foot-long plywood sheets on his head through the streets. Schmidt, who develops exhibits for the Smithsonian, had retrieved the wood from the village carpenter and toted it on his head to the Buddhist institute he was visiting.

"I got impatient," said Schmidt. "I probably broke every rule of how a Westerner is supposed to act in a village in India." Schmidt was helping a group of 30 Tibetan monks plan "The World of Your Senses," a bilingual science exhibition displayed last month in New Delhi at the India Habitat Center, an arts and culture venue in India's capital. More>>

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Dalai Lama defies Beijing on A.P. visit

Mark Magnier (theage.com.au)

ARUNACHAL PRADESH, India -- Ignoring Chinese protests, the Dalai Lama travelled to a disputed part of India near China's Tibetan border delighting thousands of pilgrims who braved cold weather to catch a glimpse of their spiritual leader.

• VIDEO: Media kept from Dalai Lama

Thousands of Buddhists gave the Dalai Lama a rousing welcome as he arrived at the Tawang monastery, 3500 meters high in Arunachal Pradesh state. The Dalai Lama, who was sharply criticized by Beijing before the visit, was to spend five days praying and instructing Buddhist followers. His last visit there was in 2003.

''We are very pleased and blessed to have His Holiness here,'' said Sarwang Lama, a monk attired in a new maroon robe, as Tibetan prayer flags fluttered in the air and posters of the Dalai Lama adorned streets and rooftops. China has accused the spiritual leader of making the trip to further the movement for an independent Tibet, which accounts for about one-sixth of Chinese territory. More>>

Dalai Lama arrives in India

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is helped up a flight of stairs as he arrives to attend a conclave of leaders in New Delhi, India, Friday, March 6, 2009 (AP/Saurabh Das).

• Dalai Lama says violence and terror have no room in globalized world (New Kerala)

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A security guard carries an umbrella for the Dalai Lama, in red robe, as he walks into the Kangra Airport, 14 miles from Dharmsala, India, Monday, March 2, 2009 (AP/Ashwini Bhatia).

• Tibet Communist Chief Says Dalai Lama Unable to Reignite Unrest (Bloomberg) 3/4/09