Login      Register  
Subscription

Fr Gabriel Chiramel CMI, Padma Bhushan Award winner dies 

Gabriel Chiramel CMI, an Indian priest, and the award winner of  Padma Bhushan in 2007 by the Government of India for his contribution to education and literature dies, at the age of 102, on 11 May 2017 at Amala Institute of Medical Sciences campus where he was staying towards the later part of his life. The President, Dr. A.P.J. […]

Father Uzhunnalil’s new video appears, pleads to get him released

Father Thomas Uzhunnalil, a Catholic priest abducted from an old people’s home in Yemen by the Islamic State last year, has made an emotional appeal to the Indian government to step up efforts for his release in a video posted by a Yemeni news website. The video, lasting less than two minutes, shows a frail-looking […]

London Dalit Conference: discrimination is a “disgrace” for society

“Discrimination against any human being is a disgrace for society everywhere,” Fr Z Devasagayaraj, secretary of the Office for Dalits and backward classes of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), told AsiaNews. The clergyman spoke on the sidelines of “‘Christian Responsibility to Dalits and Caste Discrimination’, a conference held in St George’s Cathedral, Southwark […]

Kerala nun directs a full-length Malayalam feature film

Sister Jiya, a member of the Medical Sisters of St Joseph (MSJ) order in Kerala, has become the first nun in India to direct a feature film. Cinema was not exactly Sr Jiya’s field of expertise. She never learnt the craft of filmmaking, didn’t plan to be associated with the industry or even bothered to […]

Assam creates ‘silent zones’ around religious venues

The north-eastern Indian city of Guwahati city India has proclaimed “silence zones” around all religious paces in what many say is a bid to stop mosques using loudspeakers to call Muslims to prayer. The district administration of Guwahati, the business capital of Assam state, following state government directions, issued an official notification declaring a radius […]

Historic “plague cross” destroyed by officials in India

City officials in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, have destroyed a century-old roadside cross, despite the strong opposition of the local Catholic community. The cross was built on or around 1895 in the western Bandra neighborhood of the city. “The religious structure is constructed on a private property,” said  Godfrey Pimenta, of the Watchdog Foundation. “The owner of […]

Manual scavenging a sin: Christian bodies 

Manuel scavenging is the worst surviving symbol of caste-based discrimination and a sin against God and God’s people, asserts a joint meeting of top Christian bodies in Asia. The participants of April 24-26 meeting urged Churches to take the lead to ensure the effective implementation of a law passed by the Indian parliament in 2013 […]

Jakarta’s Christian governor found guilty of blasphemy against Islam

Jakarta’s Christian governor was sentenced to two years in jail for blasphemy against Islam on May 9, a harsher than expected ruling that is being seen as a blow to religious tolerance in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. The guilty verdict comes amid concern about the growing influence of Islamist groups, who organized mass […]