Friends and associates of Sister Seli Thomas have congratulated her for winn-ing the inaugural Sisters Anti-Trafficking Awards (SATA).
“On behalf of the natio-nal Conference of Religious India we congratulate Sister Seli Thomas,” says Apostolic Carmel Sister M Nirmalini, head of India’s more than 130,000 Catholic religious.
Congregation of Jesus Sister Cyntha Anna Mathew, who now works in the United Nations, wrote on her Facebook page: “Congratulations to my friend Seli whose work was recognized and awarded. May you continue to bring hope and joy into the lives of many more women and children.”
Sisters Thomas, a member of Sisters of Mary Immaculate in Krishnagar, West Bengal, received the award at a function in Lo-ndon on October 31 along with Sisters Patricia Ebeg-bulem from Nigeria and Francoise Jiranonda from Thailand. The three have been rescuing women from networks that profit from sexual and labor trafficking.
Among those paying tribute to the them were former British prime minister Theresa May, and British champion athlete Sir Mo Farah.
The host of the award program said the three “have demonstrated courage, creativity, collabora-tion, and achievement in the protection of their communities from human trafficking.”
Priest who challenged Nazis my role model: Suresh Mathew
Capuchin Father Suresh Mathew, editor of Indian Currents, a leading Church publication in the country, has been transferred to Punjab as a manager of a school.
A November 5 message from Father Raphie Paliakara, the new leader of the Capuchin’s Krist Jyoti province, says Father Mathew will take charge as the guardian and manager of St Joseph’s School in Bhrariwal near Amritsar on November 30.
Father Suresh Mathew, the outgoing editor of Indian Currents weekly, says the Church should not identify with regre-ssive and repressive governments as its mission is to stand with the oppressed masses with little voice to raise their demands and grie-vances.
The 50-year-old Capuchin priest regrets that journalism is at peril as fascist tendencies gnaw at the fourth pillar of the largest democracy in the world. Journalists’ prophetic voices that once kept governments on tenterhooks have turned feeble.
He says his role model is Saint Titus Brandsma, a Dutch Carme-lite priest, who stood alone against the Nazi regime that exterminated people by poison gas or shooting. “Titus Brandsma would probably be the only journalist-saint in the family of the ‘holy persons,’” he says.
In an interview with Matters India, Father Mathew shares his days with Indian Currents and his expectations from media people, especially Catholic journalists:” Speaking truth to those in power is always risky. John the Baptist was beheaded for speaking truth to the king. Oscar Romero was killed for confronting the powerful establishment.
“Indian Currents was established to speak the Christian con-science to the secular society. Hence, I could not compromise on the vision of the founding fathers and my predecessors. Moreover, a follower of Christ can never align with fundamentalist, fascist regime nor keep silence over their policies. If anyone is supping with the devil, no doubt they are either too diplomatic or have skeletons in their cupboard. They must read the Bible, especially the book of Prophets and the Gospels through the eyes of a follower of Christ, rather than through the eyes of a ritualist. The Church had many daring personalities in its chequered history.”
India urged to stop ‘weaponizing’ laws to crush dissent
Three global rights groups have urged the Indian govern-ment to stop targeting rights acti-vists by abusing counterterrori-sm and financial laws and called on a major terror financing and money laundering watchdog to intervene.
The Indian government is “weaponizing” the laws to detain and punish rights activists, Hu-man Rights Watch (HRW), Am-nesty International, and the Cha-rity & Security Network said in a joint statement on Nov. 3.
The counterterrorism law has been used to level “unfounded charges” against activists, said Aakar Patel from Amnesty Inter-national India.
“Authorities are using bogus foreign funding and terrorism charges to target, intimidate, harass, and silence critics, in clear violation of Financial Action Task Force [FATF] standards,” Patel added.
The FATF, which India joined in 2010, is a 40-member country body mandated to tackle money laundering, terror finan-cing, and other threats to the inte-grity of the global financial sys-tem.
The rights groups’ statement came just days before the FATF’s fourth periodic review of India’s record on tackling illicit funding on Nov. 6.
Varanasi Christians, Hindus light lamps in Muslim areas
Christians and Muslims joined Hindus for an interreligious celebration of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, in the northern Indian city of Varanasi, Hinduism’s most sacred place.
“The lamp does not burn, but the wick does. Similarly, the external factors do not spread love, true love is unseen, and is ready to die for the other,” said Surendra Charan, a renowned Christian lawyer and co-founder of Kashi Qaumi Ekta Manch (United Forum of Communal Harmony in Kashi).
Kashi is another name of Varanasi and Diwali falls on November 12 this year.
The November 10 program at Hukulganj, a Varanasi slum where Muslims and Hindus live together was titled Chirag-e-Muhabbat (Lamp of Love) and it consisted of songs, drama and mushaira (poetry recitation) that conveyed the message of love, harmony and peaceful co-existence.
Taufiq Ansari, a peace activist working with Vishwa Jyoti Communications of the Indian Missionary Society, a Catholic congregation, said the best part of the program he liked was the lighting of earthen lamps in front of all the houses in the area.
Indian Christians refute Hindu group’s ‘mass conversion’ claim
Christian leaders have refuted a Hindu group’s claim that it converted more than 300 Christians to Hinduism in northern Uttar Pradesh state, where a sweeping anti-conversion law is in force.
According to Panchjanya, the mouthpiece of the pro-Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) helped 310 Christians from 36 families to reconvert to Hinduism in Sa-rsara village in Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh on Nov. 5.
Hindus who once came under pressure or greed to become Christians are now back to the Sanatan Dharma (Hindu religion), the weekly quoted the Hindu council as saying.
Uttar Pradesh-based Pastor Dinesh Kumar said they are “aware of the reconversion in Jaunpur but the number given by the group is not correct. They have exaggerated it to get the attention of the government.”
The actual number is less than 30, Kumar told on Nov. 9.
The Hindu groups’ claim that those who attended the ceremony converted to Christia-nity decades ago also is not correct because “there are no official documents to prove that,” the pastor observed.
According to the Panchjanya, the Chri-stians opted for the “homecoming” and went through the “purification” process before they recanted their faith.
Christian activist Minakshi Singh asked the Hindu groups to substantiate their claims with valid proof.
The Hindu council spearheads a nation wide re-conversion campaign under the ba-nner Ghar Vapsi (homecoming).
The Panchjanya said people who under-stood the “greatness and importance of the Sanatan Dharma” returned to Hinduism.
The Hindu groups justify converting people to Hinduism saying they do not violate the law on conversions because they are in-volved in “re-conversion” and not “conver-sion.”
Goa: protests against plans to build a resort at sites dear to Saint Francis Xavier
Last week more than 5,000 people signed a petition against the construction of a luxury eco-resort in Old Goa (Velha Goa), a city in the State of Goa, western India. Among the signatories there are also several political and religious leaders.
The project encroaches on areas around the Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount, one of the oldest Catholic churches in the region and an important religious site, which should be protected by the state.
Two-day inter college mega fest dedicated to global peace
In the face of wars, violence, death and destruction prevailing in the region and across the world, a college in north Bengal dedicated its two-day inter college mega music and cultural fest for global peace and harmony.
Salesian College Siliguri hosted the inter college cultural and music fest ‘Innovision’, for the first time as autonomous college, on November 8 – 9, 2023.
Kerala nun’s sainthood process enters second stage
A 19th century nun, considered the “mother of consecrated women in Kerala,” has reached the second stage of the four-phase canonization process in the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis on November 8 approved the heroic virtues of Eliswa of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founder of the first indigenous congregation for women in India.
Mass exodus of Afghans underway in Pakistan
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans living in Pakistan faced detention and deportation on November 2 , as a government deadline for them to leave sparked a mass exodus.
Thousands joined a snaking queue that stretched seven kilometers (four miles) at the busiest border point, with officials reporting at least 29,000 people crossed into Afghanistan the day before.
Hyderabad’s garbage collectors demand social security, dignity
Official recognition as essential workers, registra-tion, identity cards, and sett-ing up a helpline app to address workplace harass-ment were some demands from the garbage collectors of Hyderabad.
More than 500 garbage collectors met November 5 to highlight their pressing demands and the lack of their basic rights and entitlements as they keep the southern Indian city clean and healthy.
The meeting decided to present their de-mands as a memorandum to the Telangana chief mini-ster. The memorandum also demanded the garbage pi-ckers enumeration by the municipal and state labor department authorities.
The meeting was organi-zed by the Montfort Social Institute, India Network for Basic Income Foundation, and Work FREE, a research project based at the University of Bath, United Kingdom.
Brother Varghese Theckanath, director of the Montfort institute that hosted the convention.