Nevada, USA, November 2, 2010:

(From our Correspondent) Hindus have welcomed the election of Dilma Vana Rousseff, first female president of Brazil, and urged her to keep her reported promise of protecting freedom of worship and expression.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that her election had showed that democracy had matured in Brazil. He admired her reported goals of fighting poverty, gender inequality, and hunger.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, urged Rousseff to look deeply into the reported discrimination against practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé, Umbanda, etc., and come up with a plan to eradicate it.

Rajan Zed pointed out that all Brazilians should be allowed to freely practice their respective faiths and no one should be discriminated because of his/her religious beliefs. Religious intolerance was not okay.

World’s fifth largest country Brazil is known for Amazon, Carnaval, novelist Jorge Amado, beaches, football, music, etc. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the current President. Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about one billion adherents and moksh (liberation) is its ultimate goal.