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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7250316.stm

BHUBANESWAR, INDIA, February 20, 2008: Indian archaeologists say they have found remains which point to the existence of a city which flourished 2,500 years ago in eastern India. Discovered at Sisupalgarh, near Bhubaneswar, capital of Orissa, the items found during point to a highly developed urban settlement. The population of the city could have been in the region of 20,000 to 25,000, the archaeologists claim.The excavations include 18 stone pillars, pottery, terracotta ornaments and bangles, finger rings, ear spools and pendants made of clay.

R.K. Mohanty of the department of archaeology, Deccan College, Pune, who is one of the two researchers involved in the excavations, said “The significance of this ancient city becomes clear when one bears in mind the fact that the population of classical Athens was barely 10,000.” Mr. Mohanty, along with Monica Smith of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, has been carrying out limited excavations at the site every year since 2005.

Theme: Identities: Reflections on Global Gujarati Communities

Date: 23rd - 24th May, 2008, Venue: University of Toronto (St. George Campus), Canada

Keynote Speakers: Professor Raymond B. Williams (Wabash College), Professor Ali Asani (Harvard University), Professor Radhika Desai (University of Manitoba)

From ancient times to the present people have sought to understand their identities both from an individual as well as collective perspective. In so doing, not only do they define who they are, but also who they are not. In the mass migrations of the last 200 years, millions of people have left their ancestral homelands and cultures to settle in new places.

This conference will explore the connections between ancestral homelands and new belongings, and focus on the complexities of shaping and reshaping linguistic, cultural and religious identities.

The preliminary programme is now available online at: http://www.gujaratstudies.org/index_files/page0012.htm

Further details and registration forms are available from www.gujaratstudies.org . Registration Deadline: 17 March 2008

http://www.ifpindia.org/ecrire/upload/press_ifp_website/tamil_brahmi_21nov07.jpg

Oxford researchers have received a £1.9 million grant for the development of the study of the cognitive science of religion – a scientific approach to why humans believe in God and other issues around the nature and origin of religious belief.

The award has been made by the John Templeton Foundation to the Oxford Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Centre for Anthropology and Mind. It will be used to draw together and promote the latest scientific ideas about the meaning of religion and its origin in the human mind.

The cognitive sciences include all aspects of the study of the mind and intelligence, ranging across fields as diverse as evolutionary biology, neuroscience, linguistics and computer sciences. They offer a complex set of tools for looking at the full range of human behaviour.

Dr Justin Barrett, a psychologist who has been at the forefront of the development of the cognitive science of religion, will be playing a lead role in the new study. He said: ‘Cognitive science can help to explain the origin and nature of human religion. For example, developmental psychology has been instrumental in determining that belief in religion seems to be an integral part of human nature – it is found across all cultures and is something that we grasp from a young age.

‘The cognitive science of religion allows us to take a subtler approach to questions such as the alleged divisiveness of religion – looking at whether the conflicts associated with religion are a product of human nature itself.’

‘The next step therefore is to look at some of the detailed questions – which religious beliefs are most common, and most natural for the human mind to grasp. The exciting questions in this field are in the details – how does the mind vary in its response to different forms of religion, such as polytheism and monotheism for example, and what is the relationships between religion and evolutionary biology – is religion a part of the selection process that has helped us survive or merely a by-product of evolution?’

Professor Roger Trigg, Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Theology Faculty and Co-Principal Investigator for the study, said: ‘Religion has played an important role in public life over the last few years and the debate about the origin of religion, and how it fits into the human mind has intensified. This study will not prove or disprove any aspect of religion, it will allow us to have a more intelligent and informed debate and to support this with a vastly expanded and improved supply of evidence – particularly the quantitative skills which tend to be less common amongst theologians.’

The grant will also provide training for scholars to build up scientific and quantitative skills and support a number of seminars and workshops. A large part of the award, £800,000, will be used to run a ‘small grant competition’ providing 41 grants to support work by a range of scholars carrying out diverse individual research projects that will be the building blocks of the further development of the field.

The Independent, Tuesday, 12 February 2008
As India’s economy grows, the middle class is hunting for the latest waysto flaunt its affluence. Andrew Buncombe reports from Delhi on the growing popularity of the grape in a nation more famous for its tea

A guest sips wine at the Chateau Indage Chantilli wine festival in Mumbai in 2005

By the flickering light of the restaurant’s candles, suspicious particles seemed to be floating in the wine the waiter had just poured. It was hardly an auspicious start to the evening.

But in an instant came the explanation. There was nothing wrong with the wine; these were pure flakes of 24-carat gold added to the Californian chardonnay by the manufacturer simply for additional “wow factor”. And it worked. The group of well-dressed men and women laughed and smiled and lifted their glasses towards the light, better to see the wine sparkle.

In India, wine is being drunk as never before. This year, as for the past half-dozen years, sales are expected to increase by at least 35 per cent and perhaps even more. Partly fuelled by India’s newly buoyant consumerism and partly by the increasing numbers of people travelling abroad for business or holidays, wine has rapidly become the latest symbol of affluence and supposed sophistication for the country’s newly wealthy middle-classes. Like carrying the right handbag or driving an elegant car, nothing says “I’ve arrived” better than to be seen swirling a glass of wine.

Of course, there are plenty of people who actually enjoy the stuff. Across the country, wine clubs are being set up, tastings are being organised by some of the world’s leading producers and India’s own wine industry is starting to make a handful of vintages that can compete with international competition. In the past decade, the number of Indian vineyards has grown from no more than half a dozen to about 50, concentrated mainly in the Nashik region of Maharastra, 120 miles from Mumbai.

“The wine market is booming,” said Kapil Grover, owner of Grover Vineyards, one India’s oldest and most respected producers, whose French-imported vines grow at elevation at Nandi Hills near Bangalore in southern India. “I’m 52 and think we’re going to see 30 to 35 per cent growth for the rest of my lifetime.”

In India, the history of wine can be traced to the culture’s oldest religious writings. The Yarjuveda – one of the four Indian Vedas or “knowledges” written in Sanskrit and believed to date from several centuries BC – tells how the Hindu gods Indra and Varuna drank a mixture of wine and herbs known as Somrasa. One line of the Yarjuveda reads: “Oh plants, it was Indra and Varuna who first drank the Somrasa. Having gratified him, now I partake of the oblational food with Somrasa.” Yet despite the support of the gods, those promoting the spread of a genuine wine culture in India today face many hurdles. In a country where an estimated 77 per cent of India’s population of 1.15 billion people survive on perhaps as little as 25p a day and where the gap between the rich and poor is increasing, the market for wine operates at the top of the economic pyramid.

High taxes mean the cheapest bottle of ordinary or indifferent Indian wine costs 400 rupees (£5). An imported bottle is considerably more. A poor labourer wishing for an instant anaesthetic to the rigours of his daily life can buy a small bottle of industrially made rum or whisky for a handful of coins. And he doesn’t have to worry about flakes of gold.

That well-heeled group enjoying the so-called “gold wine” on a recent evening at a peaceful restaurant in the south of Delhi were typical of the people behind the surge in the growth of wine sales and for whom importers are furiously stepping up efforts to market their products. Middle-aged professionals at the higher levels of their jobs, many had first tasted wine when travelling abroad. Returning to India they had joined the Delhi Wine Circle to learn more about this discovery.

“We like to travel,” said Shravani Dang, head of corporate communications for a leading Indian industrial conglomerate and a member of the circle for the past three years. “We were in Rome and we learnt a bit about wine. It’s good to learn things such as pairing food and wines,” “We had drunk wine before … a few years ago we had a case of South American wine and we had a cheese and wine party. Nobody knew anything about it. People would ask, ‘When are you bringing out the real drinks?’”

Another member, a woman who described herself as “mid-level management professional” in her 30s but declined to give her name, said she had been in the club for two years. She enjoyed trying the different wines and meeting people who furnished interesting conversation. “I joined because it seemed like the club had interesting events,” she said.

Anil and Reena Khana, said they had joined the club after their children sent them to France to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. They had found themselves touring the vineyards of Bordeaux and were instantly hooked. When they returned to India they signed up. “We wanted to learn more about wine and different wines. We just started to learn,” said Mr Khana, a friendly business manager for a large Indian group. “It’s really like a hobby.”

The evening’s dinner and tasting had started with the gold wines from the 100 Acres label in the Napa Valley, a chardonnay and viognier blend and a rosé, and rapidly progressed to several wines from the Australian producer Buller. There were two different chardonnays, a shiraz, a merlot and finally a 2005 cabernet merlot blend.

Members munched their way through mozzarella salad, a vegetable risotto, a series of main courses which included the rare delight – in Hindu-majority India – of seared beef tenderloin, and finished off with an apple tart. The evening concluded with a mulled red wine that did not appear to be the toast of the night.

Even among the country’s wealthy set, wine still encounters opposition from those who prefer India’s drink of choice - Scotch whisky. Tusha Gupta, an interior designer, said it was taking time to break down prejudice against wine. “You go to a party and people still don’t like to have wine,” she said. “People believe it’s women who will have a glass. They’ll have a cocktail or a whisky.”

Indeed, despite the headline figure of 35 per cent year on year growth, India’s wine consumption remains tiny. The country’s sales of about 1.2 million cases of wine equates to just a teaspoon per person. At the other end of the scale, the thirsty French drink 55 litres per person every year. But a more telling comparison may be with China, so often listed with India as a superpower of the future. There the annual per capita consumption of wine is a glass. In terms of sales, China may also be ahead of its rival and neighbour.

Robert Joseph, the British wine writer and founder of the International Wine Challenge, said to be the world’s biggest competition, said India was not progressing as quickly as some people might like to think. He said: “I’ve been running wine competitions in the emerging markets – Singapore, China, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Vietnam, etc – since 1997. Over that time, I’ve been watching India with great interest, and a certain degree of impatience. Compared to China, the development of a wine-drinking culture has been slow and India remains way behind in consumption.”

Mr Joseph said improvements in India’s wine production had also been made in the past five years, largely as a result of efforts by the Grover and Sula vineyards. But Indian wine producers retained a reverence to French labels when the new techniques they ought to be utilising were being developed by New World producers, in particular the Australians.

“Grover and Sula … have produced world-class wines,” he added. “But the best of these wineries’ efforts are the exceptions to the rule. No other Indian winery is yet making wine that would stand comparison with successful efforts from Europe or the New World, though many Indian examples are far better than plenty of unsuccessful efforts from Europe.”

But those in the trade in India are adamant that the tide is turning. Three years ago, publisher Reva Singh started a wine newsletter that was sent out to a small group of subscribers. Now Sommelier India, the country’s only magazine devoted to wine, is a grown-up, bi-monthly glossy on sale at selected stores. Subscriptions for the magazine, which contains news and features on both Indian and imported wine, she says, are up by 25 per cent on last year. “Things are changing. People are becoming increasingly sophisticated with wine and want to learn more about it. When we started, people perceived drinking wine as being trendy. Many men preferred to drink Scotch. Now it has got to where people are asking questions.”

Another optimist is Subhash Arora, the irrepressibly enthusiastic president of the Delhi Wine Circle and publisher of an online newsletter. He is responsible for the 20 or so wine dinners and tastings held by the club every year. Mr Arora is more than aware of the challenge he faces. He knows the sale of whisky and beer outstrip that of wine more than a hundred-fold; he knows too that wine is a product only a tiny fraction of Indians could ever hope to afford.

And yet he is convinced that the momentum is on his side. At the recent tasting in Delhi, as people began to wander away, Mr Arora lingered to explain more about his enthusiasm. Standing with a half-glass of ruby-coloured Australian wine, he said: “This is more than just my hobby, it’s my passion.”

http://www.nytimes.com/

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS, February 5, 2008: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop, a spokesman said. He was thought to be 91 years old. “He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.,” said Bob Roth, a spokesman for the Transcendental Meditation movement that the Maharishi founded. He said his death appeared to be due to “natural causes, his age.”

Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindu practice of mind control known as meditation gradually gained medical respectability. Maharishi Yogi began teaching TM in 1955 and brought the technique to the United States in 1959. But the movement really took off after the Beatles attended one of his lectures in 1967 and visited his ashram in India in 1968.

Donations and the $2,500 fee to learn TM financed the construction of Peace Palaces, or meditation centers, in dozens of cities around the world. It paid for hundreds of new schools in India. In 1971, Maharishi founded a university in Fairfield, Iowa, that taught meditation alongside the arts and sciences to 700 students and served organic vegetarian food in its cafeterias.

Maharishi was born Mahesh Srivastava in central India, reportedly on Jan. 12, 1917 — though he refused to confirm the date or discuss his early life. He studied physics at Allahabad University before becoming secretary to a well known Hindu holy man. After the death of his teacher, Maharishi went into a nomadic two-year retreat of silence in the Himalayan foothills of northern India.

With his background in physics, he brought his message to the West in a language mixing occult and science that became the buzz of college campuses. He described TM as “the unified field of all the laws of nature.” But aides say Maharishi became disillusioned that TM had become identified with the counterculture. In 1990 he moved onto the wooded grounds of a monastery in Vlodrop, about 125 miles southeast of Amsterdam. In fragile health, he secluded himself in two rooms of the wooden pavilion he built on the compound, studying sanskrit and scripture until his passing.

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14597806

NEW YORK, USA, January 31, 2008: An religious group in Los Angeles that has had an urn of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes for over 50 years and has set up a much-venerated memorial is hesitant to part with it — for now.Tushar Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s great grandson, had asked the Self Realization Fellowship (SRF) to immerse the ashes in water.

“In Hinduism, ashes from the funeral pyre must be immersed in water. It is sacrilege to keep them,” Tushar’s father Arun Gandhi told IANS in New York.

“This is the first time we are hearing about the matter. There is no way we can respond in an immediate way on something we have had in our possession all along,” SRF spokeswoman Lauren Landress told IANS on telephone from California.

The ashes are kept in an ancient Chinese stone sarcophagus, at the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial, which is part of the Lake Shrine seaside ashram established by Yogananda in 1950.

Gandhi’s ashes from the last surviving urn in India were immersed on Wednesday at Mumbai’s Chowpatty beach on the 60th anniversary of his martyrdom. The urn was handed over to Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya two months ago by the son of ex-Governor of Gujarat, Sriman Narayan, who had it since 1948.

A new MSc in Contemporary India has been launched by the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies in response to the growing interest in India and will be welcoming its first students in October 2008.

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