Sabarimala Women Devotees

Ending an over 12-hour-long standoff with devotees opposing the entry of women of menstrual age into Sabarimala temple, a team of gender rights activists led by Trupti Desai on Tuesday night called off their decision to visit the hill shrine.

The Lord Ayyappa temple here received over Rs 3.30 crore as revenue on the first day when it opened on Saturday as compared to the Rs 2.04 crore last season which was marred by protests by a section of devotees and right-wing outfits over the women's entry issue.

The Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala witnessed heavy rush of devotees on Sunday on the second day of the annual two-month-long Mandala-Makaravilakku puja pilgrimage season which began on November 16.

Days after submitting in the Supreme Court a list of "over 50 women who entered the Sabarimala temple" since its September order allowing all women of menstrual age into the shrine, the Kerala government has not only withdrawn the list, but also told the state assembly that only two women managed to do so.

Sabarimala temple custodian, the Travancore Devasom Board (TDB), today extended time to Tantri Kantararu Rajeeveru to explain why a "purification" ritual was conducted following the visit of two women devotees to the Lord Ayyappa shrine.

The Kerala government on Tuesday told the high court there was no "hidden agenda" of the state or police in the "pilgrimage of two women devotees" to Sabarimala on January 2 and alleged that a prominent political party and its supporters were implementing their "political agenda of denying right to women of all age groups to enter" the Lord Ayyappa...

Bindu and Kanakadurga, the two women in their 40s, who created history by defying threats from right-wing organisations and offered prayers at Keralas Sabarimala temple, on Thursday dismissed the allegations that they were playing into the hands of police and the government.

This is a planned conspiracy by Maoists in league with Kerala government, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPM against the devotees of Lord Ayyappa, said BJP leader V Muraleedharan.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said today that the two women who entered the Sabarimala temple yesterday defying a traditional ban on women of menstrual age faced no opposition from devotees. The women's entry has led to massive protests across Kerala and a shutdown call by rightwing groups.

Protests have erupted across Kerala after two women below 50 walked into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala before daybreak on Wednesday, becoming the first to do so since the Supreme Court ordered the end of a decades-old ban on women of menstrual age entering the shrine.

Eleven women, part of a fifty-member group, from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal decided to undertake the Sabarimala pilgrimage as a large group, after more than a dozen women, between 10 and 50 age groups could not enter the temple since the Supreme Court's September 28 verdict, allowing all women to enter Sabarimala.

As tension gripped Pamba at the foothills of the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala, the women's group waiting to enter the shrine told NDTV that protesting devotees "snatched" their 'irumudi' or offerings kit that devotees carry on their heads.

A group of four transgender devotees on their way to Kerala's Lord Ayyappa temple were allegedly stopped at Erumeli, about 50 km from Sabarimala, this morning by the Kerala police, who said "there was no clarity on the issue".

A four-member BJP team handpicked by party chief Amit Shah will visit Kerala on Sunday, to meet party workers in connection with the Sabarimala row. In Kochi they will meet the devotees and party workers today, to get a "firsthand account" of what the BJP called "atrocities being committed against the satyagrahis".

A day after the hilltop temple of Sabarimala was re-opened for devotees on November 16, the state president of Hindu Aikya Vedi, KP Sasikala, was taken into "preventive custody" by women police officials for trying to create a law and order problem. Today, the women cops were rewarded for their efforts -- a sum of up to Rs 1,000.

Ending an over 12-hour-long standoff with devotees opposing the entry of women of menstrual age into Sabarimala temple, a team of gender rights activists led by Trupti Desai on Tuesday night called off their decision to visit the hill shrine.

The Lord Ayyappa temple here received over Rs 3.30 crore as revenue on the first day when it opened on Saturday as compared to the Rs 2.04 crore last season which was marred by protests by a section of devotees and right-wing outfits over the women's entry issue.

The Lord Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala witnessed heavy rush of devotees on Sunday on the second day of the annual two-month-long Mandala-Makaravilakku puja pilgrimage season which began on November 16.

Days after submitting in the Supreme Court a list of "over 50 women who entered the Sabarimala temple" since its September order allowing all women of menstrual age into the shrine, the Kerala government has not only withdrawn the list, but also told the state assembly that only two women managed to do so.

Sabarimala temple custodian, the Travancore Devasom Board (TDB), today extended time to Tantri Kantararu Rajeeveru to explain why a "purification" ritual was conducted following the visit of two women devotees to the Lord Ayyappa shrine.

The Kerala government on Tuesday told the high court there was no "hidden agenda" of the state or police in the "pilgrimage of two women devotees" to Sabarimala on January 2 and alleged that a prominent political party and its supporters were implementing their "political agenda of denying right to women of all age groups to enter" the Lord Ayyappa...

Bindu and Kanakadurga, the two women in their 40s, who created history by defying threats from right-wing organisations and offered prayers at Keralas Sabarimala temple, on Thursday dismissed the allegations that they were playing into the hands of police and the government.

This is a planned conspiracy by Maoists in league with Kerala government, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and CPM against the devotees of Lord Ayyappa, said BJP leader V Muraleedharan.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said today that the two women who entered the Sabarimala temple yesterday defying a traditional ban on women of menstrual age faced no opposition from devotees. The women's entry has led to massive protests across Kerala and a shutdown call by rightwing groups.

Protests have erupted across Kerala after two women below 50 walked into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala before daybreak on Wednesday, becoming the first to do so since the Supreme Court ordered the end of a decades-old ban on women of menstrual age entering the shrine.

Eleven women, part of a fifty-member group, from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal decided to undertake the Sabarimala pilgrimage as a large group, after more than a dozen women, between 10 and 50 age groups could not enter the temple since the Supreme Court's September 28 verdict, allowing all women to enter Sabarimala.

As tension gripped Pamba at the foothills of the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala, the women's group waiting to enter the shrine told NDTV that protesting devotees "snatched" their 'irumudi' or offerings kit that devotees carry on their heads.

A group of four transgender devotees on their way to Kerala's Lord Ayyappa temple were allegedly stopped at Erumeli, about 50 km from Sabarimala, this morning by the Kerala police, who said "there was no clarity on the issue".

A four-member BJP team handpicked by party chief Amit Shah will visit Kerala on Sunday, to meet party workers in connection with the Sabarimala row. In Kochi they will meet the devotees and party workers today, to get a "firsthand account" of what the BJP called "atrocities being committed against the satyagrahis".

A day after the hilltop temple of Sabarimala was re-opened for devotees on November 16, the state president of Hindu Aikya Vedi, KP Sasikala, was taken into "preventive custody" by women police officials for trying to create a law and order problem. Today, the women cops were rewarded for their efforts -- a sum of up to Rs 1,000.