The worldwide activities of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)

World News

North America

A committee of the American Psychiatric Association has apologized for insensitive remarks about Hinduism and the Hare Krsna movement. When a report by the APA's Committee on Religion and Psychiatry portrayed the Hare Krsna movement as a new religion or cult, several Indian psychiatrists objected. And the American Association of Psychiatrists from India lodged a formal complaint.

In response, the committee invited psychiatrist Prakash Desai and Harvard professor Diana Eck to speak to its members about Hindu religious and medical traditions.

"The Committee is now better informed," wrote its president, "… that the ancient and honorable traditions of the Hare Krishna sect of Hinduism are not 'cultic.' "

A further step toward understanding: At this year's annual APA convention, six psychiatrists and scholars spoke at a workshop to drive home the point, "Indian Religions Are Not Cults."

Europe

People in Greece are reading the Srimad-Bhagavatam in their native language, thanks to a donation by a wealthy Greek businessman who paid for printing the First Canto.

Soviet Union

The Vedic scripture Isopanisad is appearing in Tatar, a Turkic language spoken mainly in the Soviet Union. Publisher: the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.

Who are the first official advertisers in the history of the Moscow subway system?

The Soviet Hare Krsna devotees.

Not Coke, not McDonalds, not IBM, not Smirnoff. Hare Krsna. The 3,500 cars of the Moscow "metro" carry seven million people a day. And for years the car walls offered nothing more for people to read than the metro schematics.

But that all changed in May. Since then, Moscow subway riders have been seeing three-square-foot posters of Krsna, in full color, advertising the Bhagavad-gita and other Vedic scriptures. The books are published in Russian and other Soviet languages by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.

When people leave the cars, fifteen Krsna conscious book-selling tables await them in strategic underground stations.

Comrades, Hare Krsna!

India

The World Wildlife Fund has approved a grant to help restore the sacred forests of Vrndavana. ISKCON devotee Ranchor Dasa, from England, and Sewak Saranji, his counterpart in Vrndavana, will use the grant $30,000 a year for three years to plant trees along the pilgrimage path encircling Vrndavana, to build a tree nursery and information center, and to teach pilgrims and local people about the care of Vrndavana's natural resources.

Padayatra News

Padayatra India

Padayatra is now in Nasik, the site of this year's Kumbha Mela, in the northwest of the state of Maharashtra. From Nasik the party moves further north into the state of Gujarat.

From October 23 through November 21, a separate Padayatra party will travel on pilgrimage throughout the land of Vrndavana, where Lord Krsna performed the transcendental pastimes of His childhood and youth.

Padayatra Europe

After taking part in a large annual fair in Lille, the largest city in northern France, Padayatra Europe is walking on to Paris.

There, at the end of September, the Padayatra will begin the world's longest Rathayatra, or Festival of the Chariots. The festival will be on the road for a month, traveling from Paris to New Mayapur, the Hare Krsna farm near Chateauroux, six hundred kilometers south. The theme of the festival: "Marche Pour la Paix" ("Walk for Peace").

Padayatra America

From the latest we've heard, Padayatra America has been planning to travel in the Caribbean islands, starting with Trinidad.

For more information about Padayatra, write to:

International Padayatra
M-119 Greater Kailash 1, New Delhi 100 048, India
Phone: 641-3249 or 641-2058

Padayatra America
4969 Mills St., Apt. 10, La Mesa, CA 91941
Phone: (619) 461-2594,
Fax: (619) 463-0168

Padayatra Europe
Bhaktivedanta Manor, Letchmore Heath, Watford, Hertfordshire WD2 8EP, England
Phone: (09) 2385-7244