Is it a bird? An animal? No, it's mock meat - Food Reviews - Food - Life - The Times of India

• Is it a bird? An animal? No, it's mock meat - Food Reviews - Food - Life - The Times of India

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  • MAHAFREED IRANI
•  

Hundred per cent vegetarian chicken, duck, pork and fish

• • It's a dream come true for those who love meat but don't want blood on their hands. Adventurous vegetarians, bored with run-of-the-mill greens, and health maniacs - who love the protein-rich, cholesterol-free simulation food - are freaking on it too. Little wonder then that faux meat or mock meat is gradually but certainly making its presence felt in restaurants and supermarts in the country's metros.
    
    Edward Wang's upmarket China Garden in Mumbai has an entire menu of mock meat - vegchick, vegduck, vegprawn and veglamb - that made its debut last year and has stayed on, spurred by loyalists such as Avanti Birla, Babita Kapoor and Mana Shetty. It was in China at a Buddhist restaurant that Wang first tasted vegetarian meat made from soya protein, yam, potatoes, seaweed and corn. Today, he imports kilos of canned mock meat from China that is sliced and made to look, smell and taste like the real thing in India. "The dishes are 15 per cent more expensive than vegetarian food but the health benefits are many," he says. Delhi's meat-loving population too seems more than happy to savour the new flavour. At the oriental restaurant The Yum Yum Tree, the faux Peking duck in hoisin sauce comes very close to what the real thing looks, feels and tastes like. Owner Varun Tuli says the demand for mock meat always surpasses the supply. "About 10 per cent of the vegetarian food sales belong to mock meat," he says giving the credit to "Delhi's changing gastronomy and evolved culinary knowledge".
  • One of these is Mumbai's Godrej Nature's Basket. The popularity of specific mock meat products is steadily growing at this food chain, the choices directly reflecting the popularity of certain meats in India. "Mock chicken is the most popular," says Mohit Khattar, MD, Godrej Nature's Basket, who points out that vegetarian chicken sausages and hot dogs are the fastest selling products in that range.
  • With inputs from Kanika Dhawan

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President’s husband part of our save cow campaign: RSS chief

• President’s husband part of our save cow campaign: RSS chief

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  • Kolkata
  • In a statement that could embarrass the Congress, RSS chief Mohanrao Bhagwat today claimed it was President Pratibha Patil’s husband Devi Singh Shekhawat who first signed the consent letter for the protection of cow at the beginning of the Gow Gram Yatra undertaken by various Hindu organisations including the Viswa Hindu Parishad last year.
  • Bhagwat in Kolkata on Friday. Subham Dutta
  • “It is known to everybody that Shekawatji signed it at Bidarbha when the jatha reached there,” the RSS chief, who will address a rally here tomorrow, said at a media conference at Keshav Bhavan, the RSS state headquarters.

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जहरीला चारा खाने से 150 गायों की मौत, जांच के आदेश :: सहारा समय

• जहरीला चारा खाने से 150 गायों की मौत, जांच के आदेश :: सहारा समय

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  • राजस्थान के माउंट आबू के पास विश्वनाथ गौशाला में जहरीला चारा खाने से 150 से ज्यादा गायों की मौत हो गयी। प्रशासन ने पूरे मामले की जांच के आदेश दिए हैं और गायों के चारे के नमूने को जांच के लिए भेजा गया है।
    बताया जा रहा है कि गायों के लिए चारा गुजरात के आणंद से आया था। अब प्रशासन इस बात की भी जांच कर रहा है कि आखिर चारे में ऐसा क्या था, जिसकी वजह से इतनी गायों की मौत हुयी। प्रशासन ने कुछ गायों का पोस्टमार्टम भी कराया है।
  • माउंट आबू।
  • माउंट आबू

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संयम से सफलता सिखाती है भीष्म अष्टमी

• संयम से सफलता सिखाती है भीष्म अष्टमी

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  • सुनील चौबे
  • जीवन में सफलता के लिए सबसे ज्यादा आवश्यक है मानसिक और शारीरिक शक्ति। शक्ति का संचय बहुत आवश्यक है और ब्रह्मचर्य शक्ति संचय का ही एक जरिया है।
  • उज्जैन(माघ शुक्ल अष्टमी-23 जनवरी)

• • हिन्दू धर्मग्रंथों में भी ब्रम्हचर्य का अर्थ स्पष्ट किया गया है। महाभारत के रचयिता महर्षि वेद व्यास ने कहा - इन्द्रियों द्वारा प्राप्त होने वाला सुख का त्याग करना ब्रम्हचर्य है। इसी प्रकार याज्ञवल्क्स संहिता में लिखा गया है - जिस अवस्था में मन, वचन और कर्म तीनों के द्वारा सदा मैथुन का त्याग हो, उसे ब्रम्हचर्य कहते हैं।

    
    
    

    इसी ब्रम्हचर्य व्रत का आजीवन पालन करने वाले हिन्दू धर्म के महाग्रंथ महाभारत के महानायक भीष्म पितामह ने युद्ध में अजरुन के तीरों से घायल होने के बाद माघ शुक्ल अष्टमी को अपनी इच्छा से सूर्य के उत्तरायण में आने पर प्राण त्याग दिए थे। इस दिन को भीष्म अष्टमी के रूप में बनाया जाता है, जो सद्चरित्र और संयम का संदेश देती है। भीष्म दृढ़, गंभीर, शांत, वीर, परमज्ञानी, चरित्रवान, कर्तव्य परायण, दूरदर्शी, नीति-दर्शन के ज्ञाता, राजधर्म के ज्ञाता थे। इस वर्ष यह अष्टमी तारीख 23 जनवरी को मनाई जाएगी।

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Aarti after azaan - India - The Times of India

• Aarti after azaan - India - The Times of India

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• • Akhilesh Kumar Singh
  • For Chand Bhai and other members of the Cheeta-Meharat community, who come mostly from the Marwar region of Rajasthan, this is how it has been since ages.
  • Interestingly, no one knows how this came to be, or when. These practices, they say, have been followed by their ancestors down the ages and they intend to keep them alive. There are just three rituals of Islam that the Cheeta-Meharats have to compulsorily follow - sunnat (circumcision), dafan (burial) and eating halal meat. "These practices are a must for all members of the community, the rest is left to individual discretion," says Rustam Cheeta, a representative of the Cheeta-Meharat Mahasabha.
  • But the Cheeta-Meharats have their set of problems too. Members of the community, which stands at close to 15 lakh, and are mostly settled in Ajmer, Pali, Raj Samand, Bhilwara and Udaipur, complain that the government is apathetic towards them. Moreover, with only about 40 per cent of the community literate and over 70 per cent living below the poverty line, finding employment is a major hurdle.
    
  • Of late they've been beset with another anxiety. In times of religious fundamentalism, living peacefully with their secular philosophy is not easy. While the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) often holds shudhhi (purification ) and ghar-wapasi (homecoming) camps urging the community to return to the fold, Muslim organisations have been asking them to discard Hindu ways. "We've even had Hindu NRIs and West Asian Muslims sending us money to entice us to follow one religion or the other," says Chand Bhai, who has resisted such initiatives in the past and vows to uphold the community's peculiar tradition. "I am both Hindu and Muslim, and I will remain so till my death.''

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Swamy threatens to launch stir on Madurai airport naming issue - dnaindia.com

• Swamy threatens to launch stir on Madurai airport naming issue - dnaindia.com

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  • Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy has threatened to launch an agitation if the Tamil Nadu Government further delayed its consent to name the city airport after freedom fighter Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar.
  • "We follow the same policy of Thevar -- that nationalism and spiritualism are two eyes of a man. Thevar had national
    outlook,and broke the back of the British in Tamil Nadu when the so called Dravidian parties were backing the Raj. Now it is for the congress Government to decide whether to name the airport after a freedom fighter or not, " he said.

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