Rebirth: Indian Buddhism under Modi (video)

Crystal Quintero and Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; BuddhistChannel.tv (buddhistnews.tv); "India Jones and the Election of Doom" (Daily Show with Jon Stewart)

The Daily Show's Jason Jones chases down look-alikes of India's new PM Narendra Modi in an attempt to interview him about a bloody piece of his past. (thedailyshow.cc.com)

 

Rebirth of Indian Buddhism under PM Modi

Senaka Weeraratna, Lankaweb, May 21, 2014

Newly elected prime minister will promote India’s rich Buddhist heritage to attract tourists and scholars and enhance India’s standing in the world.
 
NEW DELHI, India - The world’s first global Buddhist missionary, Anagarika Dharmapala, and the most talked about man in India today and perhaps in the entire policy and decision making world, Prime Minister designate Narendra Modi, share something in common. More

Bangladesh makes amends after anti-Buddhist rampage

Nicholas Farrelly, Myanmar Times, May 22, 2014

In contrast to Burma, the government moved quickly to rebuild and restore Buddhist buildings.

DHAKA, Bangladesh - “Who did this?” I asked a monk [in formerly Buddhist now Muslim "Bangla" or "West Bengal"] on a recent afternoon in Ramu, southeastern Bangladesh. “It was the Islamists,” he replied. He pointed to the marks beneath the glistening new paint where a Buddha’s head had been cleaved off and rented asunder. When asked about the culprits -- “miscreants” in the local application of English – he gave me a glimpse of monastic resignation. “I don’t know. They are people who don’t understand.” More

Lonesome Japanese Buddhist temple comes alive with cute anime characters
Yusuke Kato, Asahi Shimbun, May 19, 2014
TOKYO, Japan - Shoeizan Ryohoji Temple, tucked away in a residential area in western Tokyo, has a 400+ year history. But until just a few years ago, many locals didn’t even know the Nichiren Shu [devotional] sect Buddhist building was there. More

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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 

• Is India on a totalitarian path? Arundhati Roy on corporatism, nationalism, and the world’s largest vote
• Read: Capitalism a Ghost Story by Arundhati Roy (excerpt) 
• Did CIA’s fake polio vaccination program in India-adjacent Pakistan help fuel a global health emergency?
• Glenn Greenwald on NSA coverage: U.S. corporate media is "neutered, impotent, and obsolete"