Hindus

• Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 30, 2023) - In a partial win for Canadian Hindu groups, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) recognized that current legislation and protections already address issues related to caste-based discrimination.
• However, the OHRC's policy position echoes data that is generally touted by anti-Hindu organizations and activists and can lead to serious discrimination and profiling of Canadian Hindus and people of Indian origin.
• To view the full announcement, including downloadable images, bios, and more, click here .
• Click image above to view full announcement.

• BOSTON, Oct. 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The expert team of country specialists at Audley Travel has released their top 3 layover locations where to enjoy lots of cultural experiences during a very short stay.
• London, Singapore, and Dubai are the most popular choices for US travelers looking to break up a long-distance journey and explore different cultures.
• London offers more than just convenience when it comes to layovers.
• Hannah Guest, Dubai specialist at Audley Travel, says: "Dubai features on many flight paths, and makes a worthwhile addition to a wider trip.

• The word “India” is, after all, an exonym – a placename given by outsiders.
• Alongside English, Hindi is one of two languages used in the Indian Constitution, with versions written in each language.
• But the use of “Bharat” has elicited outcry from the political opposition, some Muslims, and Hindu conservatives in the south, reflecting ongoing tensions in India between language, religion and politics.

Two different language families

• My book with fellow linguist Julie Tetel Andresen, “Languages in the World: How History, Culture, and Politics Shape Language,” covers the language history and politics of India.
• Hindi is the most-spoken language in India, but its use is largely relegated to a part of the country that linguists refer to as “the Hindi belt,” a massive region in northern, central and eastern India where Hindi is the official or primary language.
• Around 1500 B.C.E., a group of outsiders from Central Asia – known now as the Indo-Aryans – began migrating and settling in what is now northern India.
• They spoke a language that would eventually become Sanskrit.

Dravidians spurn Hindi

• But after independence, opposition to Hindi grew in the Dravidian-speaking south, where English was the favored lingua franca.
• For Tamils and other Dravidian groups, Hindi was associated with the Brahmin caste, whom many felt marginalized Dravidian languages and culture.
• For many people in the south, Hindi came to be seen as a language as foreign as English.

Nationalists push for one official language

• In India, Hindus make up about 80% of the population, while Muslims make up about 14% – more than 200 million people.
• One such policy is the promotion of Hindi as the sole official language of India.
• Speaking in 2022 at a Parliamentary Official Language Committee meeting, BJP Home Minister Amit Shah said, “When citizens of states speak other languages, communicate with each other, it should be in the language of India.” To Shah, the “language of India” and Hindi were one and the same.

Suppressing Urdu

• Although Urdu and Hindi are remarkably similar, their differences take on outsized religious and national significance.
• Whereas Hindi draws on Sanskrit for new words, Urdu draws on Persian and Arabic, again emphasizing associations to Islam.
• And whereas Hindi predominates in India, Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, along with English.

• He reflects on the creation of this ancient art across generations, and the recovery of its remnants by new generations.
• It is well written, nuanced and light in style, spinning a series of historical narratives in an erudite and engaging way.
• It begins with Queen Nefertiti (c.1370-c.1330 BCE), and ends with Nigeria declaring its independence from Great Britain in 1960.
• Read more:
  Friday essay: Simon During on the demoralisation of the humanities, and what can be done about it

Cultural interaction

• This, in turn, leads to a discussion of Nefertiti and her husband, the pharaoh Akhenaten, experimenting with monotheism.
• And there is the epic journey of the Chinese Buddhist explorer, Xuanzang (602-664 CE), author of the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, which Puchner describes as “a classic in cultural mobility”.
• Puchner is not naïve about the realities underpinning his stories of cultural interaction, replete as they are with colonialism, destruction, theft, and getting it wrong as much as getting it right.
• It entails educating the next generation, entrusting them with the preservation of “human inheritance”, so they may proceed with “humility”.

The necessity of education

• He discusses the necessity of education – written and spoken – as a mechanism of preserving culture.
• Puchner’s heroic tales of creative and intellectual interaction are chronicled in historical artefacts and documents, such as The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon (c. 966–c.1017).
• The Pillow Book is a hybrid text in the form of a diary, which includes stories, anecdotes, gossip, poems and character portraits.

Methods and paradigms

• The chapter on Plato, for example, shows Puchner to be out of his depth, with ideas not always meshing.
• His accounts of the Egyptian influence on Greek culture and Plato the young playwright falling under the spell of Socrates and turning to philosophy are messy and uncertain.
• Puchner nevertheless challenges us not to get caught up in the traditional Western paradigm of the ancient Greeks as the creators of culture.