{"id":17577,"date":"2016-08-23T10:34:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T05:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=17574&amp;preview_id=17574"},"modified":"2016-08-23T10:34:45","modified_gmt":"2016-08-23T05:04:45","slug":"government-should-not-interfere-in-rituals-of-temples-says-former-kerala-cm-oommen-chandy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=17577","title":{"rendered":"Government should not interfere in rituals of temples, says former Kerala CM Oommen Chandy | The Indian Express"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>With the ruling LDF supporting the entry of women of all ages in the Sabarimala hill shrine, former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday\u00a0said the government should not interfere on issues relating to customs and rituals of temples.\u00a0\u201cDecisions on such issues should be taken by eligible persons after holding discussions at appropriate platforms. The ministries have been created and ministers appointed for the convenience of governance and not to take decisions on rituals and customs,\u201d he told reporters in Kozhikode.<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"full-details\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The freedom provided to other religions to follow their customs and rituals should also be given to Hindus and a controversy should not be created on the rituals of the hill shrine of Sabarimala. \u201cAs the government is not interfering in the beliefs of other religions, it should not interfere in Hindu beliefs also,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had on August 18, during a review meeting of various facilities at the hill shrine of Sabarimala, suggested that the practice of providing special darshan for VIPs at the temple should be done away with and that the Tirupati temple model queue system for pilgrims needs to be introduced.<\/p>\n<p>He also wanted the shrine be kept open on all the days in a year. However, his suggestions were turned by Prayar Gopalakrishnan, President of Travancore Devaswom Board which manages the world famous shrine, and heated exchange followed between them.<\/p>\n<p>Responding to queries on the LDF government\u2019s reported plan to formulate a media policy, the <a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/tag\/congress\/\">Congress<\/a> leader said it was not right to put restrictions on media in a democratic system.\u00a0\u201cFreedom of the press is an important aspect of the democratic system. In a democracy, it is not right to put restrictions on media,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the ruling LDF supporting the entry of women of all ages in the Sabarimala hill shrine, former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday\u00a0said the government should not interfere on issues relating to customs and rituals of temples.\u00a0\u201cDecisions on such issues should be taken by eligible persons after holding discussions at appropriate platforms. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1134],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}