The blasts occurred near Kandawgyi Lake in the military-ruled country’s commercial hub where crowds had gathered to celebrate the Buddhist new year.

“Nine people were killed — five men and four women — and so far 62 people were injured,” an official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

A fourth bomb was found and defused, the official said.

The blasts came as the country prepares for elections planned for this year that critics have dismissed as a sham for effectively barring opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi because she is a serving prisoner.

Hundreds of people gathered around the area, which was cordoned off by police after the explosions. Witnesses said people fled and ambulances rushed away casualties.

“I saw blood on many people,” said a Red Cross official.

Myanmar has been hit by a series of bomb blasts in recent years, with the junta blaming attacks on armed exile groups or ethnic rebels.

The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, partly justifying its grip on power by claiming the need to fend off ethnic rebellions that have plagued remote border areas for decades.

The regime has stepped up its decades-long campaign against minority insurgent groups in an apparent attempt to crush them before the polls planned for this year.

Democracy icon Suu Kyi has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years.

Rights group Amnesty International in February called on the governing generals to end repression of ethnic minority groups ahead of the vote, accusing the regime of arresting, jailing, torturing and killing minority activists in a bid to crush dissent.

The government has signed peace pacts with some ethnic groups previously opposing the regime.

Myanmar is home to several ethnic groups, with some waging decades-long armed uprisings along the country’s eastern border alleging they are subject to neglect and mistreatment.

The authorities said in August last year that they had foiled a plot by a man sent by exiled pro-democracy groups to bomb Yangon during a visit by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon the previous month.

Ban had been in Myanmar to seek the release of Suu Kyi, whose house arrest was extended by 18 months in August after she was convicted over an incident in which an American man swam to her house.

Myanmar has also seen clashes between government troops and rebels in Kokang, a mainly ethnic Chinese region of Myanmar’s Shan state.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but the junta never allowed it to take office. The Nobel peace laureate has been under house arrest almost constantly since.

SOURCE: Makoob Business Letter

The accident took place when the procession of Joona Akhara was approaching Har-Ki-Pauri and crowds of people had lined up to witness it. Nine persons were injured in the incident. The health office at the Mahakumbh Mela said seven persons had died on Wednesday. It was not clear whether this figure included those who died in the accident.

After the accident, Sadhus belonging to Joona and Niranjani Akharas did not proceed towards Har-Ki-Pauri, the main bathing ghat. They returned to their camps for bathing at private ghats.

Sadhus of Mahanirvani, Nirmohi Ani, Digambar Ani and Nirwani Ani akharas reached Har-Ki-Pauri in procession and bathed at the ghat.

Source: THE HINDU

Beijing has a growing number of, and an increasingly open attitude toward, “house churches,” according to members of these churches and experts on religion.

“House churches” refers to Christian churches other than those government-sanctioned, officially registered ones, which include the Three Self Patriot Movement, the China Christian Council and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

The increase in house churches is partly due to lack of space at official churches, according to Jacob Sun, a 38-year-old house churchgoer. Sun spoke on condition of being identified only by his surname and English first name, instead of his full Chinese name.

“Many of our practical needs, which are not satisfied at official churches, are well catered to at house churches,” said Sun, who is also a philosophy professor at a university in Beijing.

He said he went to Three Self churches for five years after he was baptized in 1999, but then shifted to house churches for several reasons, the main one of which was overcrowding at the Three Self churches.

“Thousands of people gathered in the Three Self churches for Sunday service and sometimes you could barely hear anything,” said Sun. “The congregation could hardly be considered intimate at that size.”

There are more than 50,000 Christians and 17 Three Self churches in Beijing, roughly one church for every 3,000 Christian, according to a study on Chinese Christianity in 2008 by Duan Qi and Tang Xiaofeng, from the Institute of World Religions at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

When the congregation size is smaller, as it is at most house churches, it is easier to develop a close rapport with fellow churchgoers, said Abel Li, a manager with a technology company in Zhongguancun. Li also spoke on condition of being identified only by his surname and English first name.

“My church’s congregation of 300 members is ideal for me,” said Li. “In a small congregation like this, I have more opportunities to communicate and build relationships with other churchgoers before and after services. We have also fellowships for people who have things such as occupations in common.”

The other reason for the growing number of house churches could be a more tolerant approach by authorities, according to an academic who studies religion.

“The authorities have a much more open attitude toward discussion and debate on house churches,” said Cao Zhongjian, an expert on religion in China at the China Academy of Social Sciences, in an annual report on China’s religions in 2009.

This more open attitude has allowed some house churches to establish permanent venues. In the past many often had to continually shift location, jumping from office buildings to canteens to small apartments.

Li’s house church will soon have a permanent location in a large apartment in an office building in Zhongguancun, Haidian district. The congregation raised 22 million yuan to buy it.

“We don’t have to wander from one place to another, or crowd in a small apartment,” Li said.

Many house churches do small things to foster a sense of community among congregation members and attract potential new members.

Lily Zhou, a 25-year-old fine arts student in Haidian district, said her house church’s publication was a major factor that drew her to the church, which has a congregation of just 50, more than five years ago. Zhou also spoke on condition of being identified only by her surname and English first name.

The 120-page quarterly, which is available online, gives Zhou “a sense of belonging”, she said.

“As a fine arts student I have to leave Beijing for painting and miss Sunday services from time to time, but I can always follow what is happening at the church and feel connected to other churchgoers through the publication,” said Zhou.

Despite their growth house churches in Beijing continue to operate in a gray area.

“There is currently no law legitimizing house churches in China, but China’s constitution and international convention allows freedom of religious belief” said Yang Fenggang, the director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University in the US.

And although house churches may continue to increase in number in the capital and establish more permanent venues, they likely have a long way to go before receiving any kind of official approval, according to a worker at a Beijing Three Self church who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Some house churches have already attempted to officially register with the authorities, but their applications were denied because their clergyman had not trained under Three Self system,” said the worker.

SOURCE: China Daily For related reading, visit “A Beijing Christian Shares His Testimony”

Officials in southern Laos in the next 48 hours plan to burn temporary shelters built by expelled Christians unless they recant their faith, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).

Authorities including a religious affairs official, the district head, district police and the chief of Katin village in Ta-Oyl district, Saravan province, expelled the 48 Christians at gunpoint on Jan. 18.

Prior to the expulsion, officials raided a worship service, destroyed homes and belongings and demanded that the Christians renounce their faith. (See www.compassdirect.org, “Lao Officials Force Christians from Worship at Gunpoint,” Feb. 8.)

Left to survive in the open, the Christians began to build temporary shelters, and then more permanent homes, on the edge of the jungle, according to HRWLRF. They continued to do so even after deputy district head Khammun, identified only by his surname, arrived at the site on Feb. 9 and ordered them to cease construction.

More officials arrived on Feb. 18 and ordered the Christians to cease building and either renounce their faith or relocate to another area. When the group insisted on retaining their Christian identity, the officials left in frustration.

On Monday (March 15), district head Bounma, identified only by his surname, summoned seven of the believers to his office, HRWLRF reported.

Bounma declared that although the republic’s law and constitution allowed for freedom of religious belief, he would not allow Christian beliefs and practices in areas under his control. If the Katin believers would not give up their faith, he said, they must relocate to a district where Christianity was tolerated.

When the seven Christians asked Bounma to supply them with a written eviction order, he refused.

The Christians later heard through local sources that the chiefs of Katin and neighboring Ta Loong village planned to burn down their temporary shelters and 11 partially-constructed homes erected on land owned by Ta Loong, according to HRWLRF.

These threats have left the Christians in a dilemma, as permission is required to move into another district.

Both adults and children in the group are also suffering from a lack of adequate food and shelter, according to HRWLRF.

“They are without light, food and clean water, except for a small stream nearby,” a spokesman said. Officials also forced them to leave the village with minimal clothing and other items necessary for basic survival.

Village officials have said they will only allow spirit worship in the area. A communist country, Laos is 1.5 percent Christian and 67 percent Buddhist, with the remainder unspecified. Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution guarantee the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty.

Decree 92, promulgated in July 2002 by the prime minister to “manage and protect” religious activities in Laos, also declares the central government’s intent to “ensure the exercise of the right of Lao people to believe or not to believe.”

MIAN CHANNU, Pakistan, March 22 (CDN) — Six Muslims in Khanewal district, southern Punjab Province, killed a Christian with multiple axe blows for refusing to convert to Islam this month, according to family and police sources.

The six men had threatened to kill 36-year-old Rasheed Masih unless he converted to Islam when they grew resentful of his potato business succeeding beyond their own, according to Masih’s younger brother Munir Asi and a local clergyman. The rival merchants allegedly killed him after luring him to their farmhouse on March 9, leaving him on a roadside near Kothi Nand Singh village in the wee hours of the next day.

The Rev. Iqbal Masih of the Mian Channu Parish of the Church of Pakistan said Rasheed Masih was a devoted Christian, and that both he and his brother Asi had refused the Muslims’ pressure to convert to Islam.

“As the Christian family strengthened in business and earned more, the Muslim men began to harbor business resentment, as Muslims are not used to seeing Christians more respected and richer than them,” the pastor said. “That business rivalry gradually changed into a faith rivalry.”

Mian Channu police have registered a case against the six men and an investigation is underway, but the suspects are still at large, police officers told Compass. Police said the suspects were Ghulam Rasool, Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Amjad, one identified only as Kashif and two other unidentified Muslims; they were charged with torture and murder.

Masih’s family lives in Babo John Colony, Mian Channu of Khanewal district. Masih’s brother Asi is a representative of the Council of Mian Channu.

“Our continuous denial to recant our faith and convert gradually turned into enmity,” Asi told Compass. The FIR further states, “Both the Muslim men [Rasool and Asif] were not only inviting them to Islam but hurling threats of dire consequences and death on them for the last six months in case they refused to convert.”

Police said Rasool – a radical Muslim who along with Asif had threatened to kill the brothers if they did not convert, according to Asi – called Rasheed Masih to his farmhouse ostensibly to purchase potatoes on March 9, and that Rasheed went to it by motorbike at about 5:30 p.m. Waiting for Masih there, police said, were Rasool and Asif with an axe, Amjad and Kashif with iron rods and the two unknown Muslims with clubs.

They began striking him as soon as he arrived, police said.

An autopsy under the supervision of Dr. Muhammad Khalid of Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Mian Channu revealed 24 wounds all over the body of Masih, according to a copy of the report obtained by Compass.

“In my opinion, cause of death in this case is due to the shock caused by all the above-mentioned injuries collectively and torture,” Khalid states in the report. “All the injuries are ante-mortem and sufficient to cause death in an ordinary course of nature.”

According to the FIR, when Asi and two Christian friends went to the farmhouse when Masih failed to return after a few hours, they were stunned to hear Masih shrieking as they witnessed him being beaten and struck with an axe.

“As Ghulam Rasool and his accomplices saw me at the farmhouse,” Asi told police, according to the FIR, “the Muslim men put my fatally injured brother on a motorcycle and then threw him off the road near village Kothi Nand Singh.”

Asi and his Christian friends found Masih by the roadside after he had succumbed to his injuries. The Muslims had absconded with Masih’s motorcycle and 350,000 rupees (US$4,088), as well as his cell phone, according to the FIR.

As Asi and his Christian friends were on their way to the hospital with the body of Masih, a city police station patrol met them and transferred the body to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital Mian Channu.

At press time the Muslim suspects were at large even though police have filed a case strong enough to apprehend and prosecute them, Asi said. He appealed for assistance from Christian rights groups and politicians, as his family is still receiving death threats in a bid to intimidate them into withdrawing the case, he said, and they feel powerless in comparison with the influence and wealth of the Muslim suspects.

The Nagas are men and woman Sahdus who have taken a next step of commitment and give up all clothes and haircuts – the men with piles of snakelike hair like Rastafarian Bob Marley. The Nagas also put ashes on themselves. Later as we watched the Sadhus parade back away after bathing these striking looking Nagas walked in-between the “chariots” of the wealthier Sadhus to the adulation of the crowds, some waving, holding their arms up in some in-explicable emotion, others walking with the heads down. Always as the Sadhus passed there would be those who ran out on the rubbish-strewn street to kiss the ground the saints walked on and to gather up the flowers that the wealthier ones tossed (anything that touches the hand of a saint..).

We were among only a 100 or so that wove through the stockade that morning. Many of both the young and old wiggled through the fence to shorten the wait to the benevolent calls from the guards in Hindi, “be careful, don’t get hurt.” At the end there were guards holding back what was about 500 people. The Indians were impatient but subdued. An older British lady was demanding loudly to be let through immediately in advance of the crowd.  As she ducked under the ropes anyway, her worried guide kept glancing the soldiers and trying to get her to be patient. Finally, the commanding officer told the crowd in Hindi and English that he was doing this for our own good so we did not get hurt. So be patient…. In the next moment the rope was dropped and we surged together down an incline of smooth stones. I felt the push and shove of the men, women and children as we all hurried to the next security bar. The last time I saw the British lady was as she trailed behind the crowd…

At the next stopping point, we waited in lines to cross one of the several new utilitarian looking bridges.  Much of this area is older and the bridges and buildings have architectural features like the Hindi temples one sees throughout India. All the new bridges are orange metal and narrow. In this case the soldiers were funneling us and another group into two lines and conducting security checks. It was interesting that they were most concerned with matches!

I was shooting some pictures in line and a man waved from across the way to get my attention. He had his son in his arms and smilingly invited me to take some shots of them. About that time, a soldier came by to say it was against the rules to take pictures and to put my camera away. My Indian friend JG said this had been an announced rule but by the number of cameras and picture cell phones it was generally un-enforceable.  Later I heard that the number one camera company in India is the Nokia cell phone company as evidenced by the number of Indians using their phones to commemorate the sacred event. As we walked across the bridge and through a convoluted series of alleyways, it became clear that there were just as many pilgrims coming to bathe as leaving. JG  found a small Nescafe shop with tables and we sat to have coffee and a breakfast of bread and butter. Apparently, the attraction of an American suddenly filled the shop but soon it was empty except for ourselves and Joseph, an American from New York.

As we chatted we learned that he had been traveling for a month in India and after visiting Varanasi for a week, he had heard of the Kumbh Mela and decided to spend a few days in Haridwar. He asked me if I was there to take a bath – I was taken back – who would have thought that this festival was for anyone but Indians? As I interviewed him it was clear that he was playing religion, be believes that  there is no specific way to heaven and maybe a bath in the Ganga would help. So I asked him if he considered himself a Hindu. He said he did visit a Hindu Temple in New York from time to time but he “…didn’t identify with only one religion…I don’t believe there is only one way – I believe that in everyway there is a way.”

It seems to me that Joseph is like a lot of people there at Haridwar, many searching and believing that this act of bathing will really do something, but many, like Joseph and a Sikh security man I’ll tell you about next time, just going through the motions – just in case.  As a Christian I stopped to evaluate myself – what are the things I do just to go thru the motions, just in case, as opposed to the motivation of spending time with the living Christ?

Pray for those like Joseph who will return home and that they will encounter the living God and find salvation through Jesus Christ.

We started in the cold darkness to take a taxi from Dehra Dun in the northern state Uttarakhand to Haridwar, 35 miles away. The taxi delivered us to a staging area 5 miles from the actual bathing area. I never thought I’d be so cold in India. We took a man-powered rickshaw for the first segment. I could see the puffs of his labored breaths as he took us a couple of miles.  I was amazed by the number of people who had already been to the Ganga (Ganges) River for the ritual bath that is supposed to take away their sins at the Kumbh Mela. Most were shivering in the early morning air as we were!

The Kumbh Mela was last held at Haridwar 12 years ago when an estimated 50 million Hindus made the pilgrimage over three months to bath in the supposed sacred River. Actually, the river near Haridwar is sacred because Hindu mythology  says that the gods fought over the nectar of life and four drops spilled out, one in Haridwar. An educated Hindu told be that it is the superstitions of the uneducated that make people believe the bathing washes away sin.

In previous Melas the local infrastructure was inadequate as well as security. In preparation for the 2010 Kumbh Mela, the Indian government announced with fanfare that they were spending 300 Crores ($70 million) to develop safety and infrastructure as 70 million people were expected.

We next got into a shared auto rickshaw for a mile or two. The others seemed somewhat subdued but there was an air of excitement especially as we neared the place where we had to walk and there were more and more “sin-free” pilgrims on the road back. They were dressed warmly with colorful head scarves, most carrying a small bundle with the wet clothes the bathed in.

The security was intense on this most auspicious day of Mahashivratri – Pratham Shahi Snan. There are 4 auspicious days of bathing during the Kumbh and Feb 12^th is the 2^nd one. We started to see armed guards, both with the Sikh headdress and regular army forces. As the road reached the river the guards motioned us to the right and we walked down to the concrete steps that lead to the river itself and the chains the pilgrims could hold onto to so the powerful currents would not wash them away. These steps are called “ghats” and not many know that the supposed sacred  area was constructed by the British. Indeed, the British Raj re-routed the Ganga River itself and put in the concrete and bridges outside the nearby town of Haridwar to save the lives of the Hindu population!

By this time is was light and there were larger numbers of pilgrims had followed us up the 8 mile road and surged past us to get to the area of the gnats that is considered more auspicious. The police had erected a barrier to slow down the 1000s of anxious bathers and sort of meter them out. We now found ourselves in the midst of one of these impatient crowds as they surged against the police cordons, many shouting out in a myriad of languages demanding passage. We worked our way to the front and my friend JG asked the guard for a way through just as the rope was dropped and we found ourselves on the “crest” of this wave of impatient humanity as it headed towards the bridge.

If you have ever rode the ocean waves you have a little idea how I felt as I was unable to resist and could not control my direction. I thought, “what would happen if I tripped? Before anyone could react I could be trampled by thousands of single minded folk.” Later we learned that 17 pilgrims had been trampled that day trying to get to that place for a holy bath that would remove sins and ensure that the next time they are re-incarnated it will be as a human.

The Hindu religion is very works and merit related. The more works, the less cycles of life. As a man, the Hindu’s worst fear is to be re-incarnated as a dog or worse, a woman!  The highest plane a man or woman can attain is to give up everything and become a Sadhu or saint. These Sadhus are for the most part poor and beg for their foot but there are a number why are very wealthy and have a western following. Others keep prostitutes or child beggars. The small number of more unscrupulous Holy men have so far been ignored by Indian media but now with camera cell phones, blogs and citizen journalism they are coming to light.

I could not help think how different Christianity is from Hinduism. Christianity is about a relationship with the living God through His son Jesus Chris. Hinduism is about worshipping idols and for the most part living without hope.

As I end this first part of the series on Kumbh Mela I am asking you to pray with me for workers to both come to Haridwar and prayer walk but also spend time befriending the pilgrims and if possible sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Please look at my Flickr site at http://tinyurl.com/y8akdqn.  JDH

So, the actors, all of whom spoke Hindi and English, had to literally be fed lines in Tamil so the Tamil re-recording would be accurate. This slowed things down and it was difficult for even the most experienced – Film star Johnny Lever said, “you have dropped a pile of bricks on my head telling me this!”

So, the creative people met together with script consultant JDH and a day and one-half was cut from the shoot schedule. As the team  struck the set at the end of the 4th day at 2am after shooting from 9am to relocate to a conference center 90 KM away it was with optimism.

Moving all the equipment took longer as besides a generator truck the grip and lighting van took longer to make the distance. Because the conference center has all the remaining sets, it was felt it would be easy. “But we never considered how difficult it would be to move from building to building. The lights and dolly tracks muse be loaded onto the van and the unloaded a a hundred yards away. This is quite time consuming,” Sanjay commented.

The belief has not only been sustained over millennia but has grown, as the rest of the world — from Huang Tsang in the seventh century to Mark Twain in the 19th to many more in the 20th — has looked on amazed. The BBC described the 2001 Maha Kumbh Mela at Allahabad the biggest religious gathering in the world — with 60 million people. Hardwar is set to surpass that figure this year, with 70 million expected.

What draws the layman among the Hindu faithful is a drop of immortality. In Hindu mythology, the Kumbh Mela traces its origin to the Samudra Manthana — the churning of the primordial ocean — described in the Bhagavata Purana, Vishnu Purana, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

When the churning brought up the kumbh (pot) of amrit, the nectar of immortality, the gods had to safeguard it from the demons. Lord Vishnu’s carrier Garuda the king of eagles flew away with the elixir. Four drops spilled on four places — Hardwar, Prayag, Ujjain and Nashik — where the Kumbh Mela is held to this day.

The symbology is of the triumph of good over evil and the beginning of a prosperous cycle in the world. To be a part of it, there is no better time than to bathe in the holy Ganga during a Maha Kumbh Mela. While it is a religious fair (mela) in every sense of the term for the laiety, it is a very important theological gathering for the priesthood. The Kumbh Mela is when the numerous sects of Hindu priests come together to discuss and debate scriptures, to meet their lay devotees, to formally initiate recruits into their akharas (sects) and of course for the holy dip in the river.

It was such a gathering that Chinese traveller and historian Huang Tsang chronicled during his travels in India 629-645 AD during the reign of king Harshavardhana. The tradition was already many hundreds of years old, he was told.

It came from the time of the Vedas, when religious gatherings were held on the banks of rivers.  For many sadhus — especially those from the Naga (naked) sects — the Kumbh Mela may be the only time they interact with other people. Little wonder that the sight of hundreds of dreadlocked and ash-smeared naked sadhus — many armed with spears, tridents, swords and sticks — marching down to the river in their hundreds evokes an equal mixture of fear, reverence and curiosity among the thousands who gather to watch.

Mark Twain wrote after visiting a Kumbh Mela in 1895: “Kumbh Mela is the most sacred of all pilgrimages. Thousands of holy men and women attend the fair and the auspiciousness of the festival is attributed to this. The sadhus are clad in saffron and some of them are called Naga Sanyasis. They are seen without clothes even in winter and generally lead an extreme lifestyle.”

Kumbh Mela, the largest religious gathering in the world, will begin in Hardwar Jan 14 and go on till April 28. Here are the important bathing dates of the Kumbh Mela:

Jan 14: Makar Sankranti
Jan 15: Mauni Amavasya-Suryagrahan Snan (Solar Eclipse and New Moon bathing)
Jan 20: Basant Panchami (Saraswati Puja)
Jan 30: Maagh Purnima
Feb 12: Shree Mahashivratri-Shahi Snan
March 15: Somawati Aamavasya-Shahi Snan
March 16: Shree Ramnavami Snan
March 30: Chaitra Purnima-Vaishnav Akahara Snan
April 14: Mesha Sankranti-Shahi Snan
April 28: Visakh AadhiMaas Purnima Snan

SOURCE: http://www.deccanherald.com