A nationwide law to ban religious con-versions or interfaith marriages is not being planned since it falls under the dominion of states, the central government said in parliament on February 2.
The assurance came amid a renewed drive for such legislation in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that heads the federal coalition government.

Three Indian cardinals on January 19 met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and requested him to invite Pope Francis to the country.
Talking to reporters after the meeting in Delhi, the cardinals said the prime minister agreed to their request and promised to take a decision soon.
The cardinals are Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Confer-ence of India, George Alencherry, the head of the Syro-Malabar Church, and Syro-Malankara Church leader Baselios Cleemis.
The meeting was part of the prime minister’s interaction with heads of various church, initiated by Mizoram Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai, a native of Kerala where assembly elections are due this year.
Cardinals said they have been asking for an invite to the Pope for quite some time and expressed the hope that it would be realized soon. In 2018 there was a growing demand for the Pope to be invited to the country when he visited two Asian neighbors, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Pope Francis had expressed a desire to visit India during his flight back from a trip to Georgia and Azerbaijan on Oct 2, 2016. He said he would “almost certainly” visit India and Bangladesh in 2017.
On February 7, 2017, three Indian cardinals, including Cardinal Gracias, had met Modi in New Delhi, to discuss the possibility of a papal visit. A bishops’ press release following the meeting said, “The government holds a favorable attitude toward the Pope’s visit to India.”
However, despite efforts by the bishops, the 2017 visit never materialized because of foot-dragging by the federal government led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“It is overdue. We expect a decision from the PM soon,” said Cardinal Alencherry after the latest meeting with Modi.
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A Christian group in India’s Kerala state has called for promoting non-halal meat among community members rather than the halal meat popular among the Muslim community.
The Christian League is planning to create awareness among Christians about the meat they consume and wants shops to specify what sort of meat they are selling to ensure that Christians get non-halal meat.
“Christians should know what meat are they eating,” said Murphy Thomas, chairman of the inter-denominational league, which claims to address issues concerning the Christian community in the southern state.
“We know many Christians eat halal meat, which has religious importance to Muslims, and therefore we want Christians to avoid it and be aware of shops that sell non-halal meat,” Thomas told on Jan. 13.

The National Kamadhenu Commission (Rastriya Kamdhenu Aayog, RKA), which is responsible for the welfare of the sacred cow and its use for human benefit, issued a syllabus claiming that “Jesus Christ said that killing a cow is like killing a human being.”
The online syllabus is part of a plan the RKA to set up an online exam, to be launched on 25 February, centred on the cow with all sorts of information about the animal. The syllabus contains questions and answers, comments and explanations to help people prepare for the exam.
RKA chairman Vallabhbhai Kathiria explained that the exam is aimed mainly at students, and serves to spark curiosity about the importance of cattle, “raise awareness and educate” on the species’ traits, and learn about “cow science,” which can support the Indian economy, given the size of the stock: 194 million heads.
One section of the syllabus is titled “What famous people said about the cow.” One of the quotes, the one cited above, is attributed to Jesus Christ.
For Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) president Sajan K George, the quote is a “half truth” and “a propaganda operation to pola-rise society along ethno-religious lines.”
The Jesus quote is not only false (no source is mentioned in the syllabus), but dangerous. “Tribal Christians have been lynched for skinning dead cows,” he explained.
What is more, “cow vigilantes” have targeted Muslims, tribal people and Dalits. “Any-one who eats beef could be crushed by anti-slaughter laws.”

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, has joined calls for the government of India to release Father Stan Swamy. The 83-year-old Indian Jesuit priest and social activist has been imprisoned since October 9, 2020, on unfounded charges of sedition and terrorism.
In an open letter published on India’s Republic Day, January 26, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, and Father Damian Howard, provincial of the Jesuits in Britain, urge Indian authorities to grant bail to Father Stan Swamy, on humanitarian grounds.
They make this plea, “so that he can receive the medical attention he needs and challenge the manifestly unjust charges brought against him.”

An annual report by the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), a Protestant organization, recorded 327 violent attacks on Christians in 2020.
The report said the targeted attacks included five murders, 26 incidents of social boy-cotting and six incidents of churches being destroyed or burned.
“The incidents recorded are by no means an exhaustive list as many remain unreported and unrecorded even in normal years because of the fear of further atrocities,” Rev. Vijayesh Lal, EFI general secretary, said in the report published on Jan. 14.
“Christians, especially pastors in rural areas, were victims of violence and had their congregational prayers disturbed and places of worship attacked. Political excoriation, police impunity and vigilante groups on their trail marked the experience of many Christian communities in several parts of the country at the height of the Covid-19 spread.”

Christians in India face persecution “in all areas of public and private life,” according to a study by the Christian Aid group Open Doors. In majority Hindu India, “Christians are persecuted in all areas of public and private life, and anti-conversion laws (currently in nine states, with more considering adoption) are abused to harass and intimidate Christians,” according to the organization. Although few people are actually convicted under the anti-conversion laws, related cases “can drag on for years.” According to the U.S.-based Open Doors, “Hindu extremists” in India “believe that all Indians should be Hindus, and that the country should be rid of Christianity and Islam. They use extensive violence to achieve this goal, particularly targeting Christians from a Hindu background.”

In a distressing development for Andhra Pradesh, several Anglican schools, which did decades long yeoman service in taking free education to the most oppressed sections of the society, have shut down over the years. Even as these schools shut down one after the other, there was gross inaction and negligence from successive governments of the day and officials who let them suffer a silent death.

The Indian government on January 25 honoured a deceased Spanish Jesuit missionary with one of the nation´s highest civilian awards. Father Carlos Gonzalvez Valles, who died Nov. 9, 2020, in Madrid, capital of Spain, is among 102 chosen for Padma Shri (Lotus honored), the fourth highest in the awards. The posthumous award honours the Jesuit missionary’s contribution to literature and education.

St Charles Major Seminary that began in the central Indian city of Nagpur with one student and a teacher in a bullock cart 169 years ago has a new rector. Dominican Father Aquin Noronha, a former missionary to South Africa, has been elected to lead the seminary that currently trains priests for 42 dioceses in central and northern Indian dioceses. Father Noronha will assume office in June when the seminary begins its new academic year.