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I conducted a griha-pravesh ceremony yesterday, the ritual of entering a new home, and the householders very kindly presented me with a good quantity of fresh, sweet smelling jasmine flowers and a large pink lotus bud, just about to bloom. I was happy to have some exotic flowers to use in my daily puja, and I combined the ivory-coloured jasmine this morning with some bright orange calendula.

Vicitravirya Das (front) leads a kirtan down a street in London

The Royal Opera House in London with the arched glass frame of the Paul Hamlyn Hall to the left

Maybe this is why I always feel so light-hearted when I’m in south India?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8767763.stm

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson – ‘The Rebbe’

Today is the 16th anniversary of the death in 1994 of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the spiritual leader of the Lubavitch Jewish community. Back in the 60s and 70s, when the Hare Krishna movement was just finding its feet, he inaugurated a ten-point campaign for Jewish people.

Those were the words of British Prime Minister David Cameron in the House of Commons yesterday as he gave an official apology on behalf of the government to the families of those involved in the 1972 Bloody Sunday shootings.

After the longest trial in British legal history – 12 years – involving 922 witnesses, and at a cost of £195 million, the findings of the Saville Inquiry were finally made public.

Last week 86 worshipping Muslims were massacred in two mosques in Lahore, Pakistan. It was the bloodiest event in this country for many years.

England football team captain Bobby Moore borne aloft with triple goal-scorer Geoff Hurst flanking him on our left. It was 1966 and we had won.