Word: hindu
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...REPUBLIC IS BORN Nepal's newly elected assembly voted on May 28 to abolish the nation's 240-year-old monarchy, turning the world's last Hindu kingdom into its newest republic, as jubilant citizens flooded the streets of Kathmandu to celebrate. Former Maoist insurgents will make up the largest political party in the fledgling government, which now must grapple with building a stable society after a decade of civil war. Outgoing King Gyanendra has been given 15 days to abdicate his throne...
...Teenage entanglement was a feature of Suri's 2001 debut novel The Death of Vishnu, a tale of Muslim-Hindu elopement and mob violence that garnered much critical acclaim for the Bombay-born writer (who also happens to be a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland). This time there's no bloodletting, partly because Meera and Dev are both Hindu, meaning that a hasty marriage can be arranged. It's India, 1955, after all - still an ultraconservative country. Even Meera's bullying dad Rajinder, a hard-line atheist and ostensibly a progressive who quotes John Stuart Mill and owns...
...title suggests, though, the novel's intended allusion is to India's legendary past. In this case, it's the cosmic myth of Shiva, the Hindu god of annihilation. But the deity's link to Meera (and to India as she self-destructs and regenerates) is labored. If anything, Meera more closely resembles, even fantasizes about being, the goddess Parvati, Shiva's spurned consort and the mother of Ganesh, the elephant...
...monks are also on the move again. Buddhist temples and monasteries have always played a central role in helping the needy in Burma (as, in this religiously and ethnically diverse country, have churches, mosques and Hindu temples). After the cyclone, monks led small-scale relief efforts into the delta, the distinctive multicolored flags of their faith fluttering from cars and small trucks. Monks from well-known monasteries in Mandalay and elsewhere in Burma are either in the delta or heading there, while in Pakkoku - the Irrawaddy town near Mandalay where last year's protests originated - their brethren are reportedly soliciting...
...responsibility, even yesterday's bombing are likely to remain a mystery, he says. "We know that there are ... [terrorist] training camps in Bahawalpur in Pakistan across the border from Rajasthan. This looks like a pre-planned ISI [Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence unit] pattern: strike mosques on Fridays and Hindu temples on Tuesdays, Tuesday being the day when Lord Hanuman is worshiped. This attack was also well-designed and well-planned like the one on Benaras," he says. "But unless there are arrests, it is difficult to say who is behind it for sure...