Neon Tommy is hosting short stories on Indian culture, religion and politics by reporters in the Knight Program on Media and Religion, headed by Diane Winston at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The multi-media short stories are pieces of a larger reporting project and are windows into Southern California's diverse Indian communities. In March, the class will travel to Pune and Mumbai, where they will cover religion, economics and politics.

 

 

 

The stories:

USC film student Paisely Smith is telling her grandmother’s story—one of religious persecution, political conflict and immigration— in a new documentary portraying a broad history of the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, “Peace, Daal, and Partition.”

Check out her story

 

 

 

Followers of Jainism make up one of the fastest-growing religious communities in the United States, with 150,000 Jains spread across the country. In Southern California, the Jain Center of Southern California in Buena Park is the second largest in the world next to India. But followers are finding the rules difficult to follow in America, so groups are tweaking centuries-old rules to modernize the religion.

Learn more about Jainism and a few of its rules

 

 

 

Indian singer Anoop Jalota recently visited Los Angeles and is well known in India and among the Indian diaspora worldwide for his Hindu devotional music. Many of his songs include "call and response" sections where the audience joins him in singing. 

Watch a slideshow of his performance

 

 

 

From a predominately Jewish enclave neighborhood in Newport Beach, to the ethnically diverse campus of USC, Varun Soni was raised with a strong sense of spirituality. As the Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California, Soni manages over 100 religious groups on campus.

Read a Q&A with Dean Soni