Fund-starved temple places donation box in Bhubaneswar
Devotees of Lord Jagannath in Bhubaneswar have started contributing generously to the temple fund than ever before. The “donation box” of Jagannath Temple of Puri, also called “Jagannath Hundi” and placed in front of the state secretariat at Bhubaneswar, has received about Rs one crore in just one month.
“This is the highest ever collection since the Hundi was set up in 2007,” expressed Ashok Kumar Meena, chief administrator of the Shree Jagannath Temple. A temple official, who monitors the counting of donations, said we collected about Rs 96, 61,045 in November. “Earlier we used to collect Rs one lakh or less on an average per month. But now it has hugely gone up. We received about Rs 1.70 lakh on the very first day.”
These donation boxes, set up in different places of the state, have now emerged as major sources of income for this 12th century shrine. The very idea of donation boxes was first initiated by the Jagannath Temple administration after it faced financial crisis. At that time, the temple was getting an annual allocation of Rs eight crore from the Orissa government. But that was not enough. Its expenditure runs into nearly Rs 20 crore every year. On an average, priests perform 108 rituals for Lord Jagannath every day and the temple itself pays for the various rituals. Unlike other temples, there is no entry fee. For centuries, donations have been the only source of income for Jagannath temple, but when it started drying up, the administration started looking for innovative ideas. In 1983, a Hundi in the temple premises was placed. Initial collection from this donation box was not encouraging; only Rs eight lakh came in 23 years. But now things have changed. Lakhs are raised every day. A senior priest of the temple told TSI, “We received a sum of Rs 32, 45153.00 from the Hundi in the temple on November, 11, 2009. This was the highest ever collection since the Hundi was established in 1983.” And the amount is increasing day by day. It is all Lord’s mercy.
Devotees of Lord Jagannath in Bhubaneswar have started contributing generously to the temple fund than ever before. The “donation box” of Jagannath Temple of Puri, also called “Jagannath Hundi” and placed in front of the state secretariat at Bhubaneswar, has received about Rs one crore in just one month.
“This is the highest ever collection since the Hundi was set up in 2007,” expressed Ashok Kumar Meena, chief administrator of the Shree Jagannath Temple. A temple official, who monitors the counting of donations, said we collected about Rs 96, 61,045 in November. “Earlier we used to collect Rs one lakh or less on an average per month. But now it has hugely gone up. We received about Rs 1.70 lakh on the very first day.”
These donation boxes, set up in different places of the state, have now emerged as major sources of income for this 12th century shrine. The very idea of donation boxes was first initiated by the Jagannath Temple administration after it faced financial crisis. At that time, the temple was getting an annual allocation of Rs eight crore from the Orissa government. But that was not enough. Its expenditure runs into nearly Rs 20 crore every year. On an average, priests perform 108 rituals for Lord Jagannath every day and the temple itself pays for the various rituals. Unlike other temples, there is no entry fee. For centuries, donations have been the only source of income for Jagannath temple, but when it started drying up, the administration started looking for innovative ideas. In 1983, a Hundi in the temple premises was placed. Initial collection from this donation box was not encouraging; only Rs eight lakh came in 23 years. But now things have changed. Lakhs are raised every day. A senior priest of the temple told TSI, “We received a sum of Rs 32, 45153.00 from the Hundi in the temple on November, 11, 2009. This was the highest ever collection since the Hundi was established in 1983.” And the amount is increasing day by day. It is all Lord’s mercy.
Centre to allot eight officers every year. But till date, the Union ministry of home affairs has allotted only four IPS officers from the 2009 cadre. Due to this, the police force is facing an acute manpower crisis. The administration is facing difficulties in filling up vacancies at the SP level.
May, where Manchester United lost to Barcelona, Cristiano has been busy, becoming the world’s most expensive, most in-the-news, most beleaguered, most loved, most hated, and most paradoxical player. The current holder of the Ballon d’Or (European Footballer of the Year Award) looks back on a season that made him the world’s most expensive player as he left Manchester United for a new beginning at Real Madrid
can charm the birds out of the trees. An average student in school, he worked hard for four years to get through the UPSC examination. He scored 59 per cent marks in his Intermediate, but went on to script a remarkable turnaround.
The Arsenal” published in The New Yorker magazine had a chilling effect in Pakistan, especially in the military establishment that denied its contents. It also prompted the academia and the media to enter into a debate arguing to what extent Pakistan’s nuclear assets are in safe hands.
and inappropriate to judge India’s economic recovery in the following manner, but it certainly shows a difference. Just look for the news pieces that talk about companies bagging orders and you will find while there were almost none during the early part of this year, there is a flurry of such news over last couple of months. This clearly indicates that whether technically right or wrong, recovery has already made inroads into the minds of many. Erstwhile, Chairman of the Reserve Bank of India, Bimal Jalan, tells The Sunday Indian, “I do not see any big problem in India’s recovery. Investments are picking up, IPOs are once again visible and the signs are absolutely positive. Whether it is 5.5 per cent or 6.5 per cent, we are showing one of the highest growth rates in the world. So the recovery is also coming faster.”
Meera Colony in Jodhpur, Jeelani owns 300 acres of land. But his quest for justice has made him come to Jantar Mantar. An ICWA by profession, Jeelani alleges that his in-laws killed his wife and usurped his properties worth crores. His in-laws, in cohort with the police, allegedly implicated him in his wife’s murder and threw him in jail in 1996. But he kept on writing petitions after petitions to the President asking for justice. He was lucky enough that his voice was heard and on the President’s insistence, his case was transferred to a special court. The court later found him not guilty. He is now waging a battle to bring his wife’s killers to book.
Thanks to the fire that broke out at the Indian Oil fuel depot. This massive fire at IOC’s Sitapura unit killed more than eleven people (the death toll is expected to rise, as search for the bodies are still on!) and led to a direct loss of Rs 500 crore. Not only the factory but the nearby areas also felt the heat. The fire was so intense that even the fire-fighters were unable to reach the ground zero and limit the loss. So much so, that the temperature of the site and its vicinity rose by staggering 7 degree celcius. Horrifyingly, neither the IOC’s fire fighting system nor the state’s fire-fighters were able to minimise the blaze.
the ministry he is concerned with. More often than not, they reflect the real situation in the ministry. Therefore, it is not surprising that last week during a Cabinet meeting on security, he admitted that in the last three years, Naxalism has made its presence felt in as many as 20 states and 223 districts. Their spread runs through the jurisdiction of nearly 2,000 police stations. Calling it “a matter of grave concern”, the Union home minister also added that it will take anything between 11 and 30 months to considerably lessen their influence. In good measure, while complaining about non-cooperation from certain state governments, he also confirmed the finalisation of a new strategy to deal with this problem. It has been curiously named “Tri-junction”. The strategy includes planned deployment of Central forces in the affected region.
armed cadres of CPI(M) clashed with villagers in their bid to seize lost political control, scores of houses have been torched and at least 22 persons grievously injured. On November 4, while this magazine was going to the press, there were reports of fresh violence from Arambagh area of Hoogly. This culture of violence that has engulfed the state is unfortunately the contribution of the largest constituent of the Left Front state government, the CPI(M). Used to overarching hegemony for close to 32 years, during which the CPI(M) penetrated nearly every professional class and every sphere of people’s lives, the party simply can’t come to terms with the electoral reverses in this year’s polls. And like in the case of Singur and Nandigram, armed cadres are busy doling out retributive ‘justice’ to people who did not vote for the party. If the bullets of Nandigram had their effect on the Lok Sabha ballot boxes, the forecast for the 2011 Assembly elections is abundantly clear. The party, for the first time, is afraid of political disappearance from the state. The irony is that by sticking to desperate use of brute force, it is making a reappearance bid all the more difficult. The party satraps at AK Gopalan Bhavan may dabble in dialectics to substantiate the Marxist-Leninist character of the party but the cadres have taken to Mao. In the villages of West Bengal, CPI(M)’s ‘power comes from the barrel of the gun’.