{"id":303665,"date":"2018-10-02T11:51:22","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T11:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=303665"},"modified":"2018-10-02T11:51:22","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T11:51:22","slug":"kerala-govt-says-separate-queues-for-female-devotees-in-sabarimala-temple-impractical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/kerala-govt-says-separate-queues-for-female-devotees-in-sabarimala-temple-impractical\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerala Govt says separate queues for female devotees in Sabarimala Temple &#8220;impractical&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/supreme-court-allows-women-of-all-ages-to-enter-keralas-sabarimala-temple\/sabarimala\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-303361\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-303361 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/sabarimala-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/sabarimala-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/sabarimala-768x483.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/sabarimala-696x438.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/sabarimala-667x420.jpg 667w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/sabarimala.jpg 974w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The Kerala government on October 2 said that having separate queues for female devotees flocking to the Sabarimala Temple was &#8220;impractical&#8221;. In a recent judgment the Supreme Court has cleared the way for women to visit the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, but the state government seems to have stopped short of rolling out the red carpet for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">A high level committee led by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan&#8217;s administration to discuss various arrangements to be made for women entering the temple came to this conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Following the meeting Devaswom Minister Kadakampally Surendran said, &#8220;Worshippers have to wait for eight-ten hours in long queues for darshan, and women devotees should also be prepared for the same. We cannot do anything. Only those who are prepared to wait for hours in long queues should come here.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Surendran claimed that separate queues for women could result in women being separated from their families, which was not advisable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Nevertheless the government is planning to set up enhanced facilities for women devotees, including separate washrooms and bathing areas to ensure that women devotees are not inconvenienced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Given the expected rise in the number of devotee count, the government plans to stretch darshan timings and increase days of worship. Digital booking facilities are also likely to be introduced this year for more efficient crowd controlling.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Following the verdict which removes the age old ban on women between ages 10 and 50 entering the temple to worship Lord Ayyappa, several Hindu groups, the royal family of Pandalam and state BJP decided to launch public protests.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Kerala government on October 2 said that having separate queues for female devotees flocking to the Sabarimala Temple was &#8220;impractical&#8221;. In a recent judgment the Supreme Court has cleared the way for women to visit the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, but the state government seems to have stopped short of rolling out the red [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":303361,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2196,2072,2014],"tags":[5394,466,4688,5395,1891,3926],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303666,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303665\/revisions\/303666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/303361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}