Ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in Myanmar has strong parallels with the genocide of ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda, one of the worst atrocities of modern times.

From April-July 1994, Hutu militias backed by the Hutu-majority government and military, massacred up to one million minority Tutsis. The genocide was the culmi-nation of long-time ethnic conflict in Rwanda, a small equatorial republic straddling central and eastern Africa.

It was triggered by the killing of then Rwandan Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana in an April 6 rocket attack on his aircraft. Hutus blamed the Tutsi rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) for the attack.

Then RPF leader Paul Kagame, who is now the nation’s president, alleged it was Hutu extremists who staged the assassination as a pretext for genocide. The International community stood aside as mass killings took place before the U.N. belatedly intervened to overthrow the murderous regime.

Lighter-skinned and taller than Hutus, Tutsis are widely considered to originally have been immigrants from Ethiopia. Belgian colonists (1916-61) treated Tutsis as superior to Hutus. Better employment and educational opportunities for Tutsis frustrated Hutus.

India’s tribal dominated Jharkhand state has banned people who have more than two children from contesting local body elections, which the local cardinal sees as a way to politically side-line indigenous people who traditionally have large families. The pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party state government has decided to disqualify people with more than two children in local body elections.

“It is a human rights violation,” said Cardinal Telesphore Toppo of Ranchi who is based in the state capital. He said it was ironic that Jharkhand was created 17 years ago to ensure the advancement of indigenous people but now works against their interest. “Restricting our people, who generally have more than two children, to contest the election is blocking our people from coming up in life,” said the local cardinal from Oraon tribe. “The government wants to demoralise and suppress tribal people and crush any emerging leadership,” said the first tribal cardinal from Asia. Anabel Benjamin Bara, who teaches at the Jesuit-run Xavier School of Management, Tribal people, including church groups and Cardinal Toppo, had campaigned against the amendments ever since the state legislature passed them in November.

Mineral-rich Jharkhand has some 9 million tribal people, who form 26 percent of the state’s 33 million population. About 1.5 million people in the state are Christians, at least half of them Catholics.

Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Christian leaders joined together to symbolically usher in peace by ringing a church bell in Srinagar, the main city in the violence-torn Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The bell at the 120-year-old Holy Family Catholic Church, the largest in the city, rang Oct. 29 for the first time in 50 years after it stopped working. The bell and belfry was damaged in a fire 1967 and the economically poor parishioners had no resources to install a new one until one of the 30 odd Catholic families in the parish donated a 105 kilogram bell this year, Father Roy Mathews said.

“We wanted to share this occasion with well-wishers of other faiths who joined and prayed for peace and normalcy, brotherhood and mutual respect for values and beliefs,” said Father Mathews the parish priest. Religious tolerance in Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state is “grossly misunderstood outside Kashmir. Our message to the world is clear that we are all one here and accept each other,” the priest said.

Manzoor Ahmad Malik, a Muslim at the church function, told that he was happy to see people from other faiths. “We want to give a message of peace to the world.”

Church leaders at an ecumenical symposium in Kolkata, have stressed the need for Christian unification as they studied Protestant Reformation, which challenged the 16th century Catholic Church to amend its ways.

Father John Romus, former dean of the Morning Star College major seminary in Barrackpore highlighted how the Reformation helped the Catholic Church re-examine itself.

Reverend Sunil Michael Caleb, Principal of Bishop’s College in Kol-kata, taking the Protestant perspective, said the Reformation was “a necessary tragedy.” It was necessary to protest against rampant corruption in the Church but the resulting split was a tragedy, he said.

Tamil actor Vijay thanked his fans and supporters in the film industry for defending his film Mersal, which was criticised by BJP leaders. BJP accused that Vijay, “a practising Christian,” was running a “hatred campaign” against the Narendra Modi government.

Vijay’s thank you message broke almost a week’s silence by the actor after the film was attacked. In his message, for the first time, the actor also used his full Christian name, C.Joseph Vijay.

While the controversy first began over ‘Mersal’ discussing the Centre’s pet projects like Goods and Service Tax and Digital India, BJP national secretary H. Raja turned it into a communal issue citing Vijay’s religion.

Raja shared a copy of the actor’s voter ID card showing his full name, Joseph Vijay, captioning it “Truth is bitter.”

In a fitting reply to those who targeted his Christian roots, Vijay issued the thanks note on a letter pad with his name in red and bold, wrote “Jesus Saves.”

Sources close to him said it was for the first time he introduced himself as C. Joseph Vijay before his fans.

“He was always Vijay to everyone. Who bothers about the surname of an actor? He has rarely issued similar public statements for his fans as most such communications were video messages. I do not remember him using his official name in a public statement addressing fans. When politicians try to put him in bad light for having a Christian identity, this is a strong reply,” said a source.

S A Chandrasekhar, Vijay’s father and noted Tamil director-producer, had earlier reacted to BJP’s accusations. Chandra-sekhar said that he left the columns of religion and caste vacant when he admitted his son to school.

“Why is a national leader worrying about my son’s Christian surname? Why is that significant in the life of an artiste? What is the problem even if he is a practising Christian? We see cinema as a medium, but they see it as a weapon and get scared of dialogues,” he said.