Braja News Digest, June 10, 2010.

Govardhan Parikrama

A group of 80 marketing students from Girami MBA College in Bangalore spent Purushottam month in Govardhan doing a survey and came up with some interesting finding about the economic impact of pilgrimage there.

The students not only spread over every inch of the Parikrama Marga, but also did the parikrama themselves at least twice each.

They counted vehicles coming with pilgrims, surveyed all the products that they purchased, like toys, deity clothing,

• 21,544,000 people did parikrama
  
• 832,867 in four-wheeled vehicles
  
• 285,000 three-wheelers
  
• 35,000 in tourist buses (UP and Rajasthan Roadways buses were not counted).

Parking income for two wheelers earned 17 million rupees. Over the course of the month,

• 96 million rupees income for guest houses or dharmashalas,
  
• 176 million in food business.
  
• 4 million by shoe checkers in temples, etc.
  
• 19 million rupees were earned by beggars alone!

Another interesting statistic: 50,600 liters of milk were poured on Govardhan at Jatipura and Danaghati, bringing in more than a million rupees to milk sellers.

At any rate, it will be a long time before curious tourists from Germany bring that much money into Govardhan! What is interesting is the number of pilgrims doing the Govardhan Parikrama in vehicles of some sort. I would be curious to know how that works. Presumably, they stop at the various temples and darshan sites like Govinda Kund, Puchari Lota, Jatipura, Radha Kund, etc. Are these vehicles all sharing the same road with the millions who are walking?

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Mohanananda Lal Baba to start another sitdown strike

Mohanlal Baba seems to get in the papers a lot. He is complaining that no one is serious about cleaning the Yamuna. Last time he went on a hunger strike the ADM himself came to see him and promised action, but nothing happened. So he will start again, this time at Shringar Bat. Hope he does not fall into a new ditch.

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A survey of Bengali widows in Vrindavan and Radha Kund

The district government will do a survey of the widows in Vrindavan and Radhakund in order to follow an order given by the Indian Supreme Court and Human Rights Commission. has given the order that the way of life of the Bengali widows in Vrindavan should be investigated. Taking the order seriously, they have decided to look into the situation at Radha Kund also, where they are supposedly even more neglected. In Vrindavan there are several women’s shelters run by NGOs and the state government (Mira Sahabhagini), which are absent in Radha Kund.

Volunteer organizations there do not have a strong income base and are not in a position to do very much for them. District officers are aware that many of these widows beg by the Parikrama Marg, whereas in Vrindavan they at least seem to have somewhere to stay. There are also a fair number of widows in Govardhan. The ADM Avadhesh Tiwari and some other district officers were in Vrindavan recently to inspect the programs for widows. The UP government has budgeted for 320 widows to stay at the Mira Ashram. Mr. Tiwari said that the survey was meant to get a proper idea of the situation on the ground.

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