Montfort Brother Varghese Theckanath is on a journey to make the voice of the voice-less heard in the main stream socie-ty. “Many interest-ing things happen among them, but only when a misfortune happens, their stories are reported,” bemoans Brother Theckanath, a grassroots activist promoting the rights of the urban poor. As a solution, the 67-year-old Brother has set up a sound and visual studio at Montfort Social Institute (MSI) at Ramanathapuram, Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad. The institute, affiliated to the Earth Charter Initiative, is a resource and training centre for the promotion of Human Rights Edu-cation and Sustainable Development Education. “I want to train about 100 youth from the families of migrants, domestic workers, street dwellers so that they can express their achieve-ments and grievances first hand,” Brother Theckanath, who had served as the Central India provincial of the Montfort Brothers of St Gabriel for six years, told.

In what is billed as a first in history, India’s Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal seeking to end discrimination against socially poor Dalit Catholics in a parish in southern India. The case came to the nation’s top court after the High Court of the Tamil Nadu state dismissed a petition of some Catholics of Kottapalayam parish in Kumbakonam diocese seeking its intervention to end the alleged caste-based discrimination in the parish. The Madurai bench of the state High Court dismissed the petition, saying the appeal was “not only superfluous” but also the court had no “jurisdiction” over the issue. The petition wanted the court to order to end discriminatory practices in the parish, which included maintaining two cemeteries in the parish – one for the upper caste people and the other for Dalit people – among several other such practices. The petitioners challenged the state court’s dismissal in the Supreme Court, which, following a preliminary hearing on Feb. 21, accepted the case for hearing and ordered to seek responses from the respondents. The respondents include 17 individuals and offices, which include heads of regional and national bishops’ forums, the local bishop, the archbishop, and district and state officials of departments meant to protect the interests of people of lower caste origin. Lawyer Franklin Caesar Thomas, who appeared for petitioners, said the Supreme Court’s accepting a petition of Dalit Catholics against discrimination within the Church “is first in the history of India.” Thomas said Dalit Catholics in Kumbakonam diocese face inhuman caste-based discrimination, including “untouchability and aggression” from the high caste community. The petitioners in the appeal said they had sought the help of district and state authorities to end the practice but “no proper or complete action was taken by any of the authorities.” Thomas told that the parish has 150 Dalit Catholic families, but the parish does not take their contributions nor involve them in church activities and celebrations. Thomas said the upper caste believe Dalit Catholics’ contributions could “pollute them and their entire celebrations.”

Police have arrested nine Christians in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for holding Sunday prayer meetings, which Hindu groups alleged were meant to convert local Hindus. The arrests were made in identical cases reported from two places on Feb. 23. Five people, including a pastor and three women, were arrested in Sitapur district while four others including a pastor were arrested in Raebareli district, said local media reports. The arrested Christians had gathered for regular Sunday prayers insides houses when Hindu mobs barged in and alleged they were defaming the Hindu religion and its deities and offering inducements to convert people.
The police seized religious materials including copies of the Holy Bible as evidence of conversion activities, media reports said. “They were later remanded in judicial custody,” said a Church leader who is assisting the arrested Christians. The leader who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals said the police action was based on “mere allegations from right-wing Hindu activists and without any evidence.” “It has now become very dangerous for Christians to hold prayer gatherings in their homes,” he told on Feb. 24. The arrested Christians were charged under the strict provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act 2021.

Several schools in central India, some of them Church-managed, averted a crisis when students began to pay tuition fees, which they had stopped on allegations that these schools collected excessive fees in the past.
“We have been struggling to pay the salary to our teachers as many parents refused to pay the fees of their children this year,” said Father Thankachan Jose, who is dealing with the court cases of his Jabalpur diocese in Madhya Pradesh state.
The parents had stopped paying school fees to their children in 11 schools, most of them Christian-run, accusing them of collecting excess fees in the previous six academic years. The parents also filed 20 petitions seeking the inter-vention of the High Court, the top court in the state, to get the alleged excess money collected refunded to them.
Christian leaders say the allegation stems from an anti-Christian atmosphere in the state, where the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party runs the government. “We are relieved now after parents began to pay the tuition fees after court, through its interim order, took a clear stand, Jose told.
He told on Feb. 20 that the differing parents began to pay fees following a Feb. 13 High Court order that asked parents to clear all fee dues to the respective schools within one month.
The court said if the parents fail to pay fees, schools are allowed to withhold the annual results of the students.

Christians in a northeastern Indian state staged a day-long hunger strike on Feb. 17 against the government’s move to impose an anti-conversion law, which they say is unconstitu-tional and anti-Christian.
The Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act (APFRA) was introduced in 1978 to protect the traditional religious practices of indigenous communities from external influence or coercion. But it remained dormant for over 45 years as successive governments failed to frame the rules.
On Sept. 30 last year, the Gauhati High Court’s perma-nent bench in Arunachal Pra-desh’s capital Itanagar asked the state government to finalize the rules within six months. The directive came after a public interest litigation by a citizen against the government’s failure to enforce the law. Chief Mini-ster Pema Khandu on Feb. 15 said the rules being framed as per the court directive were not against any religion, but “to give some more protection to indigenous faiths.”
The Arunachal Christian Forum (ACF) said that “the draconian law is against the secular constitution of our country and is anti-Christian.” “It violates the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion,” ACF President Tara Miri told on Feb. 18.The ACF, a multi-denominational body that organized the hunger strike in Itanagar, said Christians also held protests, across the state’s 29 districts throughout the week. “There are 46 Christian denominations in the state and their members organized their own protest marches, prayers and fasting programs at their respective places,” Miri said.

A two-day meeting in Goa has reaffirmed the Church’s commitment to migrant care and advocacy, urging dioceses and religious congregations to become protagonists of change in fostering a more inclusive and compassionate society. “The members of the Church must become signs of hope for migrants, the elderly, the sick, and all those in need, especially those in vulnerable situations and on the peri-pheries,” said Cardinal Philip Neri Ferrao, Archbishop of Goa and Daman and presi-dent of both the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences and the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI).The cardinal was speaking at the February 20-21 gathering of diocesan secretaries of the Commission for Migrants from Tamil Nadu and Kerala, organized by the CCBI Commission for Migrants at Shanti Sadan Pastoral Centre, Old Goa. He reminded the Church of its mission, especially in this Jubilee Year, to be a source of hope. He referenced Pope Francis’ Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee Year, emphasizing the Church’s call to accompany and uplift those in distress. Highlighting the lives of Saints Francis Xavier and Joseph Vaz, Cardinal Ferrao described them as models of relationship-building, which he called the foundation of pastoral care for migrants and other vulnerable groups. “Caring and empowerment happen through relation-ships,” he stressed.

Christian leaders in strife-torn Manipur state in northeastern India have welcomed the resignation of its chief minister, close to two years after the state witnessed unprecedented violence that claimed over 250 lives, mostly Christians.
Chief Minister Biren Singh submitted his resignation letter to Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla who is the constitutional head of state, on Feb. 9 in the state capital amid continuing unrest between Kuki tribal Christians and Hindu-majority Meitei people. The resignation is “definitely a welcome move for the betterment of the violence-ravaged state,” said a Christian leader who did not want to be named, fearing retribution. “Now there is a scope for restoration of peace and reviving the shattered lives of the people of Manipur,” the Church leader told.
The tiny, hilly state with 3.2 million people has been in turmoil since May 3, 2023, after unprecedented violence broke out between the Meitei and indigenous Kuki people, who are a minority in the state but mostly Christians. The violence erupted after the Meitei people attacked Indigenous Christians, who were rallying to protest the Singh government’s decision to extend tribal status to the Meiteis. Kuki people say the extension of the status will help Hindu Meitei people eat up tribal benefits meant for weaker sections. Meitiei people are considered comparatively wealthy and politically influential, they say.
The violence persisted, and at least 11,000 houses and 360 Churches were burned down, and scores of Church institutions, including schools, presbyteries, and other offices, were destroyed. Kuki leaders accused Singh, a Meitei, of orchestrating and supporting the violence and demanded his resignation. But Singh refused, asserting that his government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made all possible efforts to restore peace.
“The presence of Singh as the leader of the government was a major stumbling block for peace in the state as the indigenous Kuki-Zo people never trusted him,” another Church leader said. Singh, a state leader of BJP, “was outright a partisan leader who only represented the interests of his [Meitei] community.
Therefore, the state could not move forward with any peace talk until now,” the Church leader said. He expressed hope that the federal government under Modi “will now take appropriate steps to restore peace in the state.”

Canossian Sister Grasy Luisa Rodrigues received the Common Good Award at the Sisters’ Anti-Trafficking Awards May 23, 2024, in Rome for saving trafficking victims for the past 13 years.
She also educates youth about the Indian Juvenile Justice Act, cyber safety and online exploitation, child labour, health and hygiene, and children’s rights and protection.
The 45-year-old nun organizes human trafficking awareness campaigns in hotels, colleges, villages, schools and slums with the support of law enforcement agencies. She helps rehabilitate the rescued and works with networks such as the International Justice Mission and Justice and Care.
In 2022, Rodrigues became a founding member of Mukti Kiran (Ray of Liberation), an organization that works with Goa police to prevent human trafficking.
Rodrigues, who lives in Goa’s Arambol village, shared with Global Sisters Report how she entered social work and contributed to society.

The top court in India’s northeastern Meghalaya state has issued contempt of court notices against five Salesian priests for demolishing a build-ing, ignoring a petition that sought the court’s intervention to protect it. Meghalaya High Court on Jan. 28 issued notices to the priests – Saji Stephen, Arcadius Puwein, Edmund Gomes, Dianetius Fernandez and Cyril Tirkey – asking them to explain “why they should not be punished for criminal contempt” of the court.
The bench Chief Justice I P Mukerji and Justice W Dieng-doh issued the notice and scheduled Feb. 24 for the next hearing. The priests are ma-nagement officials of the Salesian-run Don Bosco Tech-nical School in Shillong, the state capital. The fiasco centres on demolishing the building of St. Anthony’s Lower Primary School, which is on the Don Bosco Technical School cam-pus. Last December, a public interest litigation (PIL) challe-nged the plans to demolish the school building and sought court intervention to help protect it as a heritage building. The school’s director, Saji Stephen, told that they demolished the building after obtaining permission from the state government. He said the school, with some 1,200 students, continues functioning in other buildings on the same campus. During the previous hearing on Dec. 9, the court “neither imposed any order to maintain the status quo, nor any stay on dismantling the dilapidated building.

Cardinal Felipe Neri Ferrao, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), has congratulated the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar for producing 35 martyrs of faith. The cardinal’s message was read by Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore, newly elected CCBI vice president, at a function to mark the golden jubilee of the only archdiocese in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. The February 6 function at Our Lady of Holy Rosary Parish, Daringbadi, in Kandhamal district was attended by 23 bishops, 145 priests, 150 nuns and 20,000 Catholics. “We the bishops of India are delighted to congratulate you on the beatification and canonization of 35 Servants of God. You have unwavering faith in Christ,” said the cardinal’s message. “We cannot forget the sacrifice of the people of your diocese for faith in the anti-Christian violence of 2007-2008. We appreciate you [Divine Word Archbishop] John Barwa [of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar] and your people. Kandhamal has become the land of martyrs now, added the message offering solidarity, affection and closeness to the faithful of the archdiocese.