The Latin Church in Kerala has lashed out at the state government over the scrapped deal with US-based EMCC International for deep sea fishing and research, stating that the Fisheries and Industries Departments made serious mistakes and that they would have to take responsibility for the issue, instead of blaming bureaucrats.
Bishop Joseph Kariyil of the Cochin Diocese said that he didn’t believe that the Chief Minister was kept in the loop and that the actions of departments concerned were condemnable. The bishop was speaking to the media after a meeting of the Kerala Regional Catholic Council (KRLCC) in Kochi on March 7.
“The CM might have relied on the departments to act responsibly. However it was not for them to sign the pact without studying the issues properly,” the bishop said, the Times of India reported.
The controversy relates to two Memorandum of Understandings signed with EMCC International India, one by the Kerala Shipping Inland Navigation Corporation Limited (KSINC) and one by the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation Limited (KSIDC). The one by KSIDC was signed in February 2020 while the one with KSINC was signed in February 2021.
The EMCC International, according to the MoUs, will invest Rs 5,324 crore in fisheries research and development for upgrading and promoting the deep sea fishing industry in Kerala.
The government cancelled the MoUs signed with KSINC after the opposition raised allegations of corruption in the deals and also highlighted the concerns of the fishing community, who have warned that foreign trawlers would impact fishermen and lead to unscientific deep fishing that could adversely affect the environment.
“The evidence in my possession or in the hands of opposition leader (Ramesh Chennithala) is a private matter and it’s up to us to decide on when to bring it out. The deal was something that affects everyone, so why didn’t (the government) furnish proof and clear their names, instead of kicking the ball to the opposition’s court, demanding evidence from them,” media reports quoted the bishop as saying.

Dalit groups such as the National Council of Dalit Christians have been demanding human dignity and equality within the Church. On March 10, the council urged Pope Francis to create a separate ritual Church for Dalit Catholics to end their centuries-old discrimination.
Council coordinator Franklin Caesar Thomas spoke to Matters India about their new demands. Excerpts
“Thus the human dignity and the wealth of the Dalit Catholic marginalized Christian people were ruined for many centuries by the non-Dalit clergies’ caste hegemony and the caste/untouchability linked prejudice.
If the Holy See approves the Dalit Catholic rite, it has nothing to do with segregation, the recognizing and even creating Dalit institutions, in India especially, is not segregation. Segregation is there when the dominant Caste Catholic people and some dominant caste clergies exclude Dalit Catholics. Indian Dalit Catholics are creating things rite for themselves. It is not segregation.
The Pope ought to approve a new separate Dalit Catholic rite, it is the proof that each people can pray to the God of Jesus Christ from its cultural riches and expressions without altering the unity of the Catholic faith, precisely to propose norms for adaptation to the character and traditions of various Dalit Catholic Christian people.
Surely, Dalit rite could surely resolve and remove the caste discrimination forthwith very speedily. Since the control would be in the hands of the committed independent Dalit Catholic Dalit Bishops and all the devotees would be exclusively from the Dalit community, surely there would not be any problem regarding double Cemetery as per the Caste, double hearse human dead body carrying Vehicle as per the Caste, segregation in the Church festivals and worshipping, and so on, because the Dalit Catholic people only be there as devotees like Syro- Malankara Catholic Church and the Syro- Malabar Catholic Church people, non- Dalit people and Clergies’ aggression would not be there.”

Hemant Soren, chief minister of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, has urged the prime minister to include a separate Sarna tribal religion code in the forthcoming cen-sus. He reiterated the state government’s demand to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wake of ongoing protests by tribal groups in Jharkhand.
Speaking at a webinar meeting of government think tank NITI Aayog headed by Modi, Soren said Jharkhand is committed to the resolution that his government passed last November. The meeting on Feb. 20 was attended by chief ministers of states and union territories in the country.
“We sent a proposal related to the demand for a separate Sarna code after we passed the resolution last year and believe that the federal government will consider it sympathetically,” Soren said.
Tribal people in the state have been demanding the Sarna code ever since the state was created in 2000.
“Tribal civilization, culture and systems are completely different. The Sarna code demand has been in existence for years to establish a place for tribal people in the census,” Soren added.
The state government convened a special assembly session and passed a resolution on Nov. 11 to send the federal government a letter recommending it recognize the Sarna religion and include a separate code for it in the 2021 census.
For many years protests and meetings have been held by tribal groups in Jharkhand and elsewhere pushing the same demand.

Pope Francis on March 13 appointed Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, an Italian prelate, as the new apostolic nuncio to India.
Archbishop Girelli was the nuncio to Israel and Cyprus and apostolic delegate to Jerusalem and Palestine until now, according to Archbishop Felix Anthony Machado of Vasai, the secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. He succeeds Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro, another Italian who was transferred to Brazil, South America, in August 2020.
Archbishop Girelli was born in Predore (Bergamo), Italy, on March 13, 1953. He was ordained a priest on June 17, 1978. He speaks Italian, English and French.
With a doctorate in Theology, he entered the Vatican Diplomatic Service on July 13, 1987. To prepare for the diplomatic service, he completed the course of study at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1984.
He served nunciatures in Cameroon and in New Zealand, in the Section for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, and in the nunciature in the United States of America.

India’s Supreme Court has ended the long-running litigation of a congregation of nuns against the Kerala government by ruling that Catholic nuns should not pay tax for their residential buildings. The March 1 ruling that favoured the Sisters of the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (SABS) applies to the convent buildings of more than 35,000 nuns living in Kerala, officials said.
“The order benefits not only us but also other religious congregations in the state,” said Sister Grace Kochupaliyathil, the congregation’s Kothamangalam provincial superior. The dispute began after a revenue officer refused to grant tax exemption to a newly built convent in Thodupuzha town in Idduki district.

Jesuit Archbishop William D’Souza, who retired recently as the head of Patna archdiocese, on March 1 became an assistant parish priest.
Archbishop D’Souza, who on March 5 turns 75, the mandatory retirement age of bishops, is the new assistant pastor of St Stephen’s church, in Danapur Cantonment area, outside Patna, capital of Bihar state.

Catholic laity groups in India have welcomed the news that the Vatican has initiated a probe into allegations against Bishop Kannikadass Antony William of Mysore. The Vatican has finally set up an enquiry commission to look into all the allegations against Bishop William, says a press note from the Association of Concerned Catholics, a pan-Indian group that raised the allegations initially.

Dalit Catholics in the Archdiocese of Pondicherry-Cuddalore, southern India, and Catholics in the dioceses of Tamil Nadu are calling for the appointment of a Dalit bishop.
Dalit Catholics raised the issue of caste discrimination in a protest on 29 December 2020. Last Saturday they organised another protest in Villupuram, Tamil Nadu, calling for the appointment of a Dalit archbishop to the Archdiocese of Pondicherry-Cuddalore.