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Tuesday, 31st October 2006 (5185 views)

A Hindu temple in India has announced that it will be giving gold to poor families in order to stop them converting to other religions.

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) group maintains twelve temples and shrines in the Andhra Pradesh province but has noticed a recent increase of poorer Hindus being lured to convert through promises of financial help.

They have decided to give out one gram of gold to each family which lives over a lakh (100,000 rupees or £1,100) below the poverty line.

Karunakar Reddy, TTD chairman, said: "On February 22nd 2007, one lakh mass marriages will be performed between 08:00 and 08.30 (local time) all over the state and the TTD will provide free food to 20 family members and relatives of each couple.

"The basic idea is to prevent poor Hindus from converting to other religions."

Each gram of Indian gold will cost less than 900 rupees (£10) according to Mr Reddy and the sorts of recipients of the precious metal will be people "who have never ever worn gold ornaments".

 

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