Dipavali at Houston, USA Houston, Texas, USA: ISKCON Houston participated in the worldwide celebrations of Dipavali and Govardhana-puja. More than 1,000 guests visited the temple here to celebrate Lord Rama’s arrival after conquering the demon Ravana.
ISKCON Exempted from Land Increment Laws Baroda, Gujarat: The Honorable Mayor of Baroda, Bharat Shah, Standing Committee Chairman, Dr. Hitendra Patel, and a number of Baroda (Vadodara) Municipal Corporation elected representatives unanimously passed a resolution “varying” TP scheme 14, granting ISKCON exemption from land increment laws. Without this exemption, ISKCON would have had to surrender more than an acre of its present property.
ISKCON Bolivia Gets New Start, New Govinda Restaurant Santa Cruz, Bolivia: On December 18, 2012, after decades of being down trodden and harassed during the country’s military regime changes and political upheaval, ISKCON was finally given legal recognition by the Bolivian government. Deva Deva Dasa, a Bolivian native who joined ISKCON in Peru in 1977, tried to get legal recognition for ISKCON for thirty years, and spent all of 2012 focused on the problem until he succeeded. Deva Deva is also behind a new Govinda’s restaurant, opened this April in Santa Cruz. This is the second Govinda’s in Bolivia after La Paz.
Sannyasa Initiations at ISKCON Vrindavan Vrindavan, UP: His Holiness Gopal Krishna Goswami Maharaja awarded the renounced order of life to his two disciples of ISKCON Vrindavan. Janardana Prabhu and Vaishnava Prabhu became His Holiness Bhakti Anugraha Janardana Swami and His Holiness Bhakti Asraya Vaishnava Swami.