Bloomberg: India-Based Twitter Accounts Fanned UK Unrest, Researchers Say. “A network of fake accounts originating outside of the UK stoked violence between Muslims and Hindus in a British city earlier this year, according to research first provided to Bloomberg News.”
Youth Journalism International: Preserving memories of the 1947 partition that divided India and Pakistan into separate nations. “Memories of the August 14, 1947 partition of India and Pakistan ‘nearly disappeared into the abyss of time,’ said the founder of an online archive dedicated to preserving oral histories of the time so that ‘history will not be forgotten.’”
Reuters: India Partition: After 75 years, tech opens a window into the past. “The partition of colonial India into two states, mainly Hindu India and mostly Muslim Pakistan, at the end of British rule triggered one of the biggest mass migrations in history…. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since then, and relations remain tense. They rarely grant visas to each others’ citizens, making visits nearly impossible – but social media has helped people on either side of the border connect.”
IANS: Srirangam Vishnu temple’s palm leaf manuscripts to be digitized. “There are six sets of palm leaves kept at the Sri Ranganathananda Swami temple museum at Srirangam for public view. The Hindu Religious and Charitable endowment (HR&CE) department officials have commenced filming the palm manuscripts at the temple museum.”
Wall Street Journal: In India, Facebook Fears Crackdown on Hate Groups Could Backfire on Its Staff. “Adherents of Bajrang Dal, which has been deemed a militant religious organization by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, have been convicted of hate crimes and religiously motivated killings, and some Facebook communities devoted to it celebrate images of people beaten or killed for their alleged offenses against Hinduism. There were more than 5.5 million interactions this year from a handful of groups and pages devoted to Bajrang Dal, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned analytics tool.”
BBC: Coronavirus: Man, 90, goes online to offer funeral prayers. “A man who helps grieving Hindu families has been holding prayers and ceremonies over the internet during the coronavirus lockdown. Narandas Adatia, 90, is known as Bapuji or ‘father’ in Leicester, where he has been offering the rituals – spoken in Gujarati – for decades. When he was forced to shield during the coronavirus pandemic he learned how to hold them online instead.”
Times of India: Gujarat: World’s largest image bank of Ravi Varma goes online. “Amid nationwide lockdown, works of India’s celebrated artist Raja Ravi Varma, who gave face to Hindu gods and goddess, have gone virtual.”
BetaNews: Google launches secret Easter Egg for Indian Hindu Holi Festival. “Holi, the ‘festival of colors’, is a hugely popular event in India that signifies the triumph of good over evil and heralds the arrival of spring. It’s when Hindus throw colorful paint at each other. Today marks the start of the Holi Festival, and to celebrate it, Google has launched a new Easter Egg in its search. Accessing it is pretty easy too. Best of all, it is very fun.”
British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog: Discovering Sacred Texts launch. “This week the British Library has launched its latest online learning resource, Discovering Sacred Texts, which invites visitors to explore the world’s major faiths through the Library’s extensive collections. The new website includes over 250 digitised collection items, teachers’ resources, short films and articles. Nine faiths are featured: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, the Baha’i Faith and Zoroastrianism.”
The government of Tamil Nadu (India) will create a database of the movable and immovable assets of its temples. “Tamil Nadu government today proposed to create database of movable and immovable assets of the temples in the state as part of its series of initiatives in the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department. The Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said such assets of temples include metal and stone idols besides land and buildings.”
Either the government of India is getting a lot more efficient at creating databases of country resources, or Google News is getting a lot more efficient at indexing Indian news sources so I’m finding out about them. I’m not sure which one. Anyway, the government of India has created an online database of temples and temple properties in Tamil Nadu. There are almost 4500 temples in the database. “The Hindu religious and charitable endowments (HR&CE) department, acting on a Madras high court order, coordinated with the revenue department to create the database with extensive details of all temples in the state, the land they own, their tenants and encroachments on the properties.”
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