The annual federal budget of India’s pro-Hindu government has disappointed religious minorities as much of it was mere juggling of words, according to civil society groups and opposition  political parties.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the US$719 million allocated to the Ministry of Minority Affairs is a 62% increase, but critics say funding for minority development schemes has come down.

“The fact is that the allocation for minority development schemes has been sharply reduced” to one fourth from US$634 million to US$158 million, said Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal State who leads the Trinamool (grassroots) Congress, an opposition party.

“It is a budget which is neither here nor there. There is nothing new.” However, Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters that the major chunk of the funding will go toward the education of Muslim women and their empowerment.

Rights activist Bezwada Wilson told that the budget carries no hope for marginalized groups such as the Dalits, ethnic minority groups and indigenous people.

“From that perspective, it is a big disappointment for the country’s poor people,” he said.

Wilson said government claims of increasing funding do not mean anything for the people.

“The issue is how the government will implement the schemes that it says are meant for minorities. It is well apprehended that tomorrow it [money] will be used to build a park, and it will be said that minorities can also can jog in it. This is the way things are going in this country,” he said.

Renowned Christian artist, Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate Sister Claire died on February 11 in Bengaluru. She was 82. The Hindu convert to Catholicism was unwell for the last few days.

The sister, who always wanted to be known as Sr Claire SMMI, had created more than 2,000 Christian paintings using water colour, enamel paints, posture colours and colour pens. She also drew more than 1,000 Christian and Easter greeting cards. The main focus of her paintings was Christian imagery rooted in the Indian soil. She drew inspiration to paint from the day-to-day life of the common people in India, she said in an interview last year.

The artist nun was born in a high caste Hindu family in Tirupati, a Hindu pilgrim centre in the southern Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. Her parents named her Meera, a Hindu mystic poet and a devotee of Lord Krishna. As a young girl, Meera sought spirituality.

The Manipur High Court has struck down a village law of Sharkaphung/Leingangching that prevented inhabitants from any activity construed as ‘detrimental’ to Baptist Christianity.

Delivering a judgment on a plea by four residents expelled in 2009 for adopting Roman Catholicism, the high court ruled that the village authority’s action was illegal and unconstitutional. The village authority did not have power to order banishment/expulsion of any villager, ruled acting Chief Justice N.Kotiswar Singh.

“The villagers of Leingangching have every right to follow the Baptist Christianity and accordingly, also manage their affairs in tune with the Baptist principles and practices. However, it cannot come in the way of the petitioners professing a different religious denomination of Catholic faith as they have also similar Fundamental Right to profess and practise Catholic Christianity as guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution of India,” the High Court ruled.

It is time the Church in India had a cardinal from the Dalit community, says a Jesuit scholar. It will be a great recognition for Dalits who form more than 60% of Christians in the country,  says Father A.Maria Arul Raja, a professor of Religious Studies at the Jesuit Theology Centre in Chennai.

The priest spoke to Matters India after addressing more than 200 bishops who represent 174 dioceses in the country at the biennial plenary in Bengaluru, southern India. He spoke about the Church and Dalits.

According to him, a Dalit a cardinal would elevate one of the most socially suppressed communities. It would be a symbolic gesture to affirm the dignity and rights of the community that has lived in “the sub-human condition imposed by the caste system on the community for centuries,” said Father Raja.

India has 13 cardinals so far starting with Cardinal Valerian Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, in 1953. They have represented various communities in the Indian Church: Goan, East Indian, Eurasian, Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, Eurasian, Tamil and Tribal.

Fr Raja says a Dalit cardinal will give visibility to the community and highlight injustice done to them in society as well in the Church. “It will be powerful witness to Jesus who took a strong choice for the poor, outcasts, socially excluded, the priest said.

A prominent Muslim political leader in Telangana has demanded stern action against those involved in a series of attacks on Christians in the southern Indian State.

The demand was made by Akbaruddin Owaisi, a legislator belonging to the Majlis-e- Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (Council of the Union of Muslims) at press conference on January 5 in Hyderabad, the state capital. The legislator also released a letter he wrote to the state’s Director General of Police Mahender Reddy to draw his attention to the attacks.

The letter noted that on January 23 in Singotam village of Nagarkurnool district, a mob attacked a small group of Christians who were distributing Bibles. “They forcefully snatched the Bibles from them, opened the boxes with Bibles inside their car, piled them up in heap and burnt hundreds of Bibles in broad daylight,” the Muslim leader’s letter noted.The attack has “severely bruised the sentiments of all Christians in India,” he added.

Owaisi also cited an incident on January 29 when another mob of radical Hindus attacked a church in Togota Mandal, Siddipet District and caused severe damage to the property.