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Prominent Hindu Leader Zed Invited to Duke University

Rajan Zed, prominent Hindu and Indo-American leader, will speak at prestigious Duke University in Durham (North Carolina, USA) on April six.

Zed read the groundbreaking historic first Hindu opening prayer in the United States (US) Senate on July 12 last during its 218 years history, which was protested from the Senate visitors' gallery. He has also recited historic first Hindu prayers in the State Senates of Nevada, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Arizona; Nevada Assembly; and Arizona House of Representatives during the last few months. He is one of the panelists for "On Faith", a prestigious interactive conversation on religion produced jointly by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, and writes for it. He is also very active in interfaith dialogue in the region.

Hindu Students Association (HSA) and Interfaith Dialogue Project at Duke University are organizing this event. According to Karan Mital, one the members of these organizations responsible for organizing this event, Zed will entertain questions after his talk. HSA is sponsoring Hinduism Awareness Week at Duke University starting April six.

Zed, who is from Nevada, will be leading a prayer on this occasion. Besides Hinduism, he will also cover the topics of religion in politics, his historic prayer experience in US Senate, religion in America, students and religion, religion in college/university campuses, pluralism, interfaith dialogue, etc.

Situated nearly in about 9,000 acres, Duke University, one of the world's top institutes of higher education which consistently ranks among the very best, has about 13,000 students, 31,000 employees, and where per student annual expenses are over $45,000.

Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world (after Christianity and Islam), has no datable beginning but some scholars put it around 3,000 BCE. Hinduism in North America was introduced in 1830s and there are currently about one billion Hindus in the world. Moksha (liberation) is the ultimate goal of Hinduism.

Rajan Zed

Founded in 1997, goals of HSA include facilitating spiritual development among members, increasing awareness of Hinduism in Duke campus, etc.

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com