A Catholic leader has sought Indian Prime Mini-ster Narendra Modi’s inter-vention to stop harassment of Christians after Jharkhand State ordered a probe into the funding of more than 80 Christian organizations.

The eastern state on July 19 asked police to probe foreign donations received by non-governmental organizations managed by dioceses and religious congregations such as Jesuits, Salesians and several groups of nuns, accusing them of diverting the money for religious conversion. “This is another sign of how the Jharkhand government is harassing Christian institutions,” Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, told ucanews.com.

“We appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep the state government under control. We hope that the prime minister will intervene and stop this harassment.”

Modi’s pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, which has run Jharkhand’s government since 2014, has been accused of moving against the Christian community, with police arresting nuns, priests and lay Christians on trumped-up charges.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen is known worldwide of making sense in his arguments. Taking this further about his previous argument on ‘India taking a quan-tum leap in the wrong direction after 2014’, he stood by his point and added that ‘Dalits and minorities have become victims of organised killing’ at a televised face-off with NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar on a television channel recently.

In the face-off, televised on NDTV, Sen said, “Dalits and minorities have become victims of organised killing” and the government has to take responsi-bility. Mobocracy and despotism make people live in fear. It is a terrible thing to happen, whether or not it affects the economy. The central issue is that of liberty and democracy.”

However, Sen’s comments were not welcomed by Kumar and he responded back saying that the Nobel laureate has not done any good by ‘spreading this talk of living in fear, because you are the one who is quoted’. To which Sen replied, “India is a great country. There are people in India who feel that government action is not adequate, that the government has not done enough to make minorities and Dalits to feel comfortable, then India will cease to be a great country.” But, with impeccable knowledge on economics, Sen reverted back saying that demonetisation was a despotic decision.

“The ecumenical movement needs renewed interfaith orientations when conflicting theological assumptions and presuppositions are posing challenges to authentic gospel values and Christian witness,” said internationally renowned ecumenical theologian Dr S. Wesley Ariarajah at the Asian Ecumenical Institute (AEI) of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) being held at the Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Delivering a series of lectures on topics related to the theme of the AEI-2018, ‘Wider Ecumenism in a Pluralistic Asia’ at the month-long ecumenical formation and leadership development training, Ariarajah, an emeritus professor of Drew University in the U.S.A. enthused the prospective ecclesiastical and ecumenical leaders.

“Inter-religious dialogue is an attempt to understand people of other faith, not as people opposed to us or competing with us, but as partners within a pilgrimage. It is in the course of the pilgrimage and in the spirit of partnership that we share the message of Christ with copilgrims,” Ariarajah said.

“Dialogue challenges us to change and renew. It beckons us to a whole new world of relationships. It urges us to re-examine our theology. It calls us not to give up our faith but to grow in our faith by living it with humility,” he reminded the participants.

Theodore Kiro held 13-month-old Navya on her return to his family after they were separated for a week. The crying baby happily clung to Kiro, whom she knows as her grandfather.

Navya is one of the four babies whose fate became entangled in the recent child trafficking scandal broke at Rachi’s Nirmal Hriday (Tender Heart) home, run by the Missionaries of Charity. A five-member district child welfare committee decided it was not fair for the foster mother and the child to be separated for long and ruled they should be united conditiona-lly. The welfare committee asked the foster parents to take the child before the committee every week and keep it informed of the child’s schedule.

“The child and the mother were in trauma after separation, so the committee members decided compassionately to unite them. But this status has been fixed for the next two months only,” said Kiro, a local political leader using his clout to prepare legal papers for adoption of the toddler. Navya was brought to their home in Ranchi just after her birth and was reclaimed by the child welfare committee as one of the babies who allegedly was sold illegally by an employee of the Missionaries of Charity home.

Though the parents confess that there was no exchange of money yet, the officers are investigating the process of adoption without proper paperwork. This makes Anuka Tigga, another adoptive mother of a 4-year-old, jittery.