A government-funded institute for tribal advance-ment in the eastern Indian State of Odisha has become the nation’s first tribal university, however Christian leaders have expressed doubts as to how much it will achieve. The central criticism is that the focus will continue to be on teaching the Hindu religion and culture rather than on preserving tribal traditions. The Federal Ministry of Human Resource Development on August 25 awarded “deemed university” status to the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, a facility for indigenous children from kindergarten to postgraduate level.

The institute, based in Odisha’s capital, Bhubaneswar, was established in 1992. It offers residential education to some 25,000 “poorest of the poor” indigenous children and plans to educate some 200,000 children in the next decade, its website states. Among those who believe the new status will not help tribal people is Father Nicholas Barla, Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India Commission for Tribal Affairs. He says in the past 25 years of existence the institute had “done more harm that good.”

Heads of more than 40 minority schools in the national capital met on September 2 to seek ways to remain alert to attempts to erode constitutional freedoms and protections provided to such institutions.

They belonged to the Forum for Minority Schools in Delhi and Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), brought them together. The meeting at the CBCI Centre “was a step towards creating a joint platform for exchange of ideas and concerns relating to minority education institutions,” says a press release issued by Bishop Mascarenhas, who is also the conference’s spokesperson.

The meeting, the prelate noted, came as these institutions have gone to the court challenging orders of the Delhi government’s Directorate of Education regarding refund of fees. The minority schools also face statements and policy matters regulating admission and staff administration and other concerns. These moves affect the constitutional freedoms and protections provided to such institutions, it added.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) is to soon release a set of guidelines to prevent and deal with sexual harassment, esp-ecially of women, in Church-run institutions. The document titled “CBCI Guidelines to Deal with Sexual Harassment at Workplace” will be released on Sept 14 at a press conference at the CBCI Centre in New Delhi.

“The Church, while wanting to ensure the protection and respect for women at workplace and without in any way under-estimating the seriousness of sexual harassment of women at workplace, wants to address all forms of sexual harassment at work place,” said the Council for Women of the CBCI, in a statement on Sept 11. The statement signed by council chairperson, Bishop Jacob Mar Barnabas of Gurgaon and secretary, Sr Talisha Nadu-kudiyil SD, explained that document will be “gender in-clusive and has been formula-ted to create a safe, healthy and loving environment that enables its employees to work without the fear of prejudice, bias and sexual harassment and creates a mechanism for pre-vention of any form of harass-ment.”

An acute lack of space has forced Christian ceme-teries in New Delhi to reuse graves after five years, with a Catholic priest advocating that Christians opt for crema-tion. The Indian Christian Cemetery Committee that manages two cemeteries for various Christian deno-minations in New Delhi, announced that from Sept. 1 burial plots to families of the deceased will be given only for five years.

Reverend Samson R. Nath, the committee chairman said this was because “very soon we will have no space to bury our dead.”

He said requests to the Delhi government for more land for use as cemeteries have not been successful.

“Asking people to opt for cremation will be the last resort when we will have no other choice. It is a very sensitive issue,” said Reve-rend Nath, a Methodist. The lack of space for Christian and Muslim graveyards has been a growing concern in Delhi and other Indian cities, the Delhi high court in July observed. As the population increased, the death rate also increased but cemetery land remained the same.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision on September 3 to induct former bureaucrat K.J. Alphons into his council of ministers has left the BJP’s long-standing leaders out in the cold. Not surprisingly, the state head office of the Bharatiya Janata Party here looked deserted when Alphons took oath even though Kerala was getting its first representation in the three-year-old Modi government.

But there was celebration in Alphons’ hometown Manimala in Kottayam district.

Newly inducted Union minister Alphons Kannanthanam said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is doing what a good Christian is supposed to do. Addressing a public rece-ption on Sept 10 at Muvattupuzha near Kochi, the Minister of State for Tourism said, “People ask why I, a Christian, joined BJP. My answer to them is that Modi is doing what a good Christian is supposed to do. I would do whatever possible to realise the PM’s dream of creating a new India where all Indians can live with dignity.”

The Church of South India (CSI) has decided to pull out from the Kerala Council of Churches (KCC), an ecumenical forum of non-Catholic Protestant Churches in Kerala, in protest against the KCC decision to provide membership to the Believers Church. The second largest Christian denomination after the Catholic Church, CSI is the largest Protestant denomination in India. The CSI Moderator, Bishop Thomas K. Oommen, said the CSI could never accept inclusion of the Believers Church in the KCC strictly on moral and ethical grounds.

Believer’s Church is the country’s top foreign-funded NGO. Its head K.P. Yohannan, who is also founder of Gospel for Asia, is facing a lawsuit in the US for fraud and misuse of charitable donations.

Bishop Oommen told The Hindu that the regional forum of the CSI Synod members had unanimously decided to disassociate with the KCC and its programmes. The latest development has to be viewed in the backdrop of the controversy over the episcopacy claims of the Believers Church that its head, K.P. Yohannan, was consecrated by then CSI Moderator Bishop K.J. Samuel in 2003.

The CSI has outright rejected this claim of the Believers Church, saying that the former has never done such a thing at any point of time.

According to Bishop Oommen, the CSI had never consecrated Yohannan and whatever news spread in this regard were baseless.

“The CSI never considers the Believers Church as an episcopal church or accept its leader, K.P. Yohannan, a bishop. As per the CSI view, K.P. Yohannan is a layman and the KCC decision, overlooking the CSI objection, was unfortunate,” he said. He said the bishop was the constitutional head of CSI. As per the constitution of the Church, the Synod executive has to authorise the Moderator to consecrate a clergy as a bishop. The CSI Synod executive never authorised the Moderator to consecrate K.P. Yohannan as a bishop, he said.

Christians in India are pro-testing the “inhuman behavi-our” of some villa-gers from north-eastern Manipur State for refusing the burial of a woman who left the Baptist Church to become a Catholic.

More than 200 Christians from various denominations gathered in front of the Catholic Sacred Heart Cathedral in New Delhi Aug. 17, holding candles, singing hymns and praying. They condemned the incident in a statement and sought help from the government to bury the woman who died Aug. 7. Leingangching villagers in Manipur state denied permission to bury the woman because the village council had excommunicated her family about seven years ago for leaving the Baptist Church and becoming Catholic.

Rita Haorei, the deceased is still not buried, according to Father Vialo Francis of Imphal Archdiocese, based in Manipur.

Fr Francis told ucanews. com that the predominantly Baptist village refused permission to five families, including that of Haorei, to become Catholic saying the village constitution holds that it “shall be a Baptist village.”

Manipur is a Christian strong-hold State. More than 40 percent of its 2.73 million people are Christians, mostly Baptists. Some pockets are almost entirely Christian. The Ukhrul district where Haorei hails from is 95% Christian.

The Governor of the State of Jharkhand in India has a big decision to make regarding the thousands of Christians and other religious minorities residing in her state.

Jharkhand Governor Drau-padi Murmu must decide on an anti-conversion Bill passed by the State Assembly earlier.

If Murmu allows the Bill to become law, she risks putting in harm’s way Christians and other religious minorities living in Jharkhand.

Only five states in India now have such laws. But of those five states, two are among the top three states in India where violence against Christians is highest.

Anti-conversion laws are supposed to stop people con-verting from Hinduism to Christianity. But, what they really do is infringe on the right of an Indian citizen to practise their religion as they see fit…and, to a right to privacy – both of which are guaranteed by India’s federal Constitution.

And, India’s federal Penal Code, Section 295(A), already deals with the issue of sectarian harmony, and the use of coercion and, or, “allurements” to entice people to convert from Hinduism to Christianity. These laws command stiff penalties, ranging from fines to imprison-ment.

The Supreme Court on August 29 set aside the Gujarat High Court’s 2012 verdict asking the state government to grant compensation for restoration of religious places damaged during the 2002 post-Godhra riots.

The court accepted the scheme formulated by the state government to provide “ex gratia assistance” of up to Rs 50,000 to all religious places, including mosques and temples, which were damaged or destroyed during the communal riots, on par with the relief granted for destruction of houses.