Amarnath shrine board reconstituted

Jammu, Jan 7 (IANS) Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a prominent spiritual guru, was Wednesday appointed as a member of the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB), a temple trust which was at the centre of communal tension in Jammu and Kashmir last year.

Governor N.N. Vohra Wednesday re-constituted the Himalayan temple trust and appointed six new members to the board.

The governor, in his capacity as the board chairman, also appointed Rajya Sabha member Kapila Vatsyayan, Sunita Narain, director Centre for Science and Environment, Justice (retd) G.D. Sharma, Pandit Bhajan Sopori, a santoor maestro, and renowned Sanskrit scholar Ved Kumari Ghai as the trust members.

Sri Sri is the founder of the Art of Living Movement and is an eminent scholar on spirituality.

SASB manages the annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath cave shrine in the Kashmir Himalayas, visited by hundreds of thousands of Hindus every year.

The new members have been appointed for a period of three years.

Vohra had also accepted the resignations of the erstwhile SASB members.

An SASB spokesman described the new members as people of 'eminence, who have distinguished themselves in the service of the religion and culture, social work, administration, legal affairs, financial matters and environmental management'.