Stating that a mere conversion of a scheduled caste man from Hindu religion to Christian religion will not make him a Brahmin or a millionaire and hence it is unfair to deny him the reservation facility.

Telangana high court has appreciated the state of Telangana for creating 2 per cent reservations to such converts in social welfare Gurukul school admissions.

The bench of chief justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and justice A Abhishek Reddy was hearing a public interest plea filed by P Srinivas of Hyderabad who challenged the notification earmarking 2 per cent reservations for Dalit Christians issued by the social welfare department seeking applications for admissions into 5th Class.

The bench pointed out that the purpose of reservations was to uplift those who were weak and deprived. The petitioner’s counsel Harinath argued that once an SC person converts to Christianity, they cannot be granted a reservation.

Brushing aside this contention, the bench said that the state and the society should never try to keep a person backwards. By conversion, only the nomenclature of the person changes, but not his backwardness, poverty etc. The central philosophy of the reservations is to attend to the more oppressed and backwards, the bench said.

If the State of Telangana decides to be more liberal and provides some space for the converts, there is nothing wrong in it, the bench said. You have to look at the purpose. The state wants to uplift those who were suppressed for thousands of years whose conversion to Christianity will not make them forward, the CJ said. We cannot let these oppressed sections lag behind, he said and posted the case to four weeks. The state’s special counsel Sanjeev Kumar said that these reservations are provided in only social welfare Gurukul schools. The bench told the state counsel to file his counter on these issues.

The Catholic archbishop of Patna has finally broken his silence, and in a pastoral letter to Catholics in Patna Arch-diocese has made it clear that the Church stands for the fundamental principles of the Constitution and a non-discriminatory and humane policy towards refugees.

Preparations are underway for a stand – in and candlelight demonstration in support of Constitutional values at Patna. United Christian Forum, a collective of leading churches is organizing the campaign to express the concern of the Christian community over what is seen as the attempts to erode the fundamental values of the Indian Constitution. The demonstration is scheduled for the evening of March 14.

Earlier this week, a pastoral letter from Catholic Archbishop William D’Souza was read out in most Catholic parishes.

The Archbishop, in the letter expressed his ‘concern over the current situation in the country,’ while recalling the ‘sterling role of the Church in nation building, and affirming the plural culture, identities, and constitutional values.

As many as 366 incidents of hate and targeted violence against Christians occurred in India in 2019, according to the Religious Liberty Commission (RLC), an initiative of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI).

The report was released on March 13 in New Delhi.

A consummately organized hate campaign against India’s Muslim population, beginning mid-December 2019, and erupting in a pogrom in mid-February 2020 against them in their ghettos in the northeastern suburbs of the Indian capital city New Delhi, has not only delayed the analysis of the persecution of Christians in the year gone by but raised structural questions on the security of all religious minorities in the country, with questions for the Church and the Believers’ community, if they can ever think of a haven in their motherland where one group is so brutally targeted.

Anitha Vinod, the first person to recover from Covid-19 virus in Bihar, says her firm faith in Jesus and strict adherence to government guidelines has saved her from the deadly disease.

“I got scared when the first report came on March 22. But that did not shake my belief in God,” said the 45-year-old Protestant woman, who is now at her home in Digha, a western suburb in Patna, after being discharged on March 30 from a hospital in the state capital.

The native of Kerala, who married Vinod Venkatraman, a social worker from Tamil Nadu, said she read the Bible in the hospital to fight her loneliness and anxiety.

She and her husband, who is also a Bible teacher, had gone to Nepal on March 2 but had to return to Patna six days later to meet her elder son Vivin, who returned from Italy. “Vivin returned from Pisa via Rome and Delhi on March 5. He was kept under two-week home isolation until March 18. He also went through medical screening at Delhi and Rome airports,” Anitha told reporters.

A Catholic priest, Fr Jomon Chempakasseril of the Kannur diocese is making waves in Kerala with his ambulance service to help the poor during the nation wide lockdown to contain corona virus pandemic. “I decided to start the service since nobody was willing to take patients to hospitals out of fear…”