Under Cuomo Modi bettors Hindus Find Hope for opening holy temple of Nassau OTB Temple on any sunday Disputed Speck of ancient Land calendars
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Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
For decades, Hindus and Muslims have sparred over this speck of land in Ayodhya, India’s most disputed religious site, a few barren acres near the country’s northern farmlands.
PAK.
CHINA
NEPAL
New Delhi
UTTAR
PRADESH
Ayodhya
INDIA
200 MILES
Ghaghara R.
9
Disputed temple
CHOWK AYODHYA RD.
AYODHYA-FAIZABAD RD.
Ayodhya
27
27
1 MILE
Now, many Hindus are confident the land will remain in their hands.
A 16th-century mosque, the Babri Masjid, once stood here, a reminder of India’s history under Mughal rule. In 1992, Hindu activists demolished the stone structure, spurred by the belief that Ram, a widely revered deity, was born thousands of years ago on the same spot.
Monthslong religious riots followed, killing around 2,000 people. The question of what to do dragged in India’s courts. Hindu litigants pushed to erect a temple. Muslims vowed to rebuild the mosque. India’s identity as an inclusive and secular nation hung in the balance.
Judges feared more bloodshed if they hinted at partiality, though a de facto solution has persisted: Men who destroyed the mosque erected a makeshift tent that approximated a Hindu temple. It still stands, drawing thousands of visitors every day.
With the recent commanding election victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., many expect that the arrangement will be made permanent.
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Ashok Baba Saheb Bhosle, 55, a sweat-slicked farmer plopped near the site’s exit, said a ruling from India’s Supreme Court, which could come this year, seemed a mere formality.
“It is 100 percent going to be a temple,” Mr. Bhosle said as a cheer went up among his friends, who had traveled hundreds of miles from central India to pray in Ayodhya. “Modi is in the temple!” he cried out. “It’s Modi’s house!”
He may be right.
Mr. Modi’s party, with its ties to far-right groups that believe in Hindu supremacy, has doggedly supported building the temple. During a recent speech, Amit Shah, India’s new home minister and a close adviser to Mr. Modi, promised pilgrims that his party would not budge “even by an inch” from its position. Some of the men who destroyed the mosque were members of the party.
Preparations to build the temple have already started. At a yard run by the Ram Birthplace Trust, an organization overseeing construction, men pounded chisels into slabs of stone, carving swirls of flowers.
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