For Maria Yuliana Farida keeping her faith alive and fighting for her rights is now part of her daily routine.
For Gabriella Minj, a tribal Catholic mother living on the outskirts of India’s capital New Delhi, survival is a daily bur-den and hope is a luxury afford-ed only by faith.
The 44-year lives with her two teenage children and husband in a two-room house in the densely populated Khora colony in the eastern part of the city. The rooms take different shapes as a bedroom, study, sitting room, and kitchen at different times of day and night.
“We are lucky to have this place,” she said alluding to the millions of people, many of them tribal people like her from central India, who live in Delhi’s slums.
Minj comes from Chhattisgarh, which has the ignominious distinction of being India’s poorest state where around 40 percent of people live below the poverty line.
“What you see or hear, you will forget. But what you experience can never be forgotten. It will remain with you forever,” says the slightly built woman while narrating how extreme poverty forced her to migrate from her village.
She arrived in the national capital two decades ago looking for a job to support herself and her large family back home comprising 10 members. Years of hard work and strong faith have helped her develop a steely resolve to ensure a better future for her children.

“I have great faith in Mother Mary. Whenever I feel sad and lonely I pray the rosary and every time my prayers are answered,” she says.

The Catholic churches in Mangaluru have organized special prayers for communal harmony as sectarian tension prevails in the southern Indian coastal city.
Two Muslim and one Hindu youth were killed in separate incidents of targeted violence by extremist groups from both the communities in the last week of July in Mangaluru suburbs forcing police to impose 144 section in the region until August 5.

Cardinal-elect Filipe Neri Ferrao, Archbishop of Goa and Daman, has urged Jesuits and their collaborators to listen, discern and respond to God’s call and become true followers of Christ. The cardinal-elect was speaking during a solemn Mass July 31 at Bom Jesu Basilica in Old Goa that concluded the Ignatian Year celebrations of the Jesuits of the Goa province.

The unusually heavy rains and flash floods that hit Pakistan’s Balochistan province in July have left a trail of devastation for Christians and Church-run institutions.
“At first we didn’t think much of the rain. However, after a week of continuous downpour, the white paint started to come off the old walls. Then the cement started crumbling and the ceiling started to swell,” recalled Father Samson Shakir as he narrated the damage sustained by a free tuition center attached to St. John Vianney Church in the provincial capital city of Quetta.

Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh’s only Nobel laureate, renowned economist, and microfinance pioneer is hailed globally for his efforts to eradicate poverty.
But at home, he is battling to save his reputation from a host of challenges stemming from a politically connected conflict with the ruling Awami League regime.

Hypocrisy has been the name of the game when it comes to alcohol in India, particularly in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the father of the Indian nation, Mahatma Gandhi.
Any number of human deaths will not stop politicians and even the state’s denizens from swearing by the Gandhian way of being teetotalers and continuing to keep Gujarat a dry state, where the law bans storing, selling and transporting alcohol. And yet, 42 people died and 50 others remain in hospital in critical condition after consuming spurious liquor in Gujarat earlier this week.
The terrible human tragedy reported in Botad district — a repeat of the 2009 hooch tragedy in Ahmedabad in which 159 people died in similar circumstances — has yet again brought into focus the debate on prohibition.
Gujarat, since its foundation in 1960, adopted the policy of being a dry state as a mark of respect and tribute to Mahatma Gandhi.
Gandhi’s idea was influenced by his Hindu morals and Islamic scriptures that described liquor as evil. He regarded alcohol as a social evil, capable of adversely impacting the lives of humans of all classes. “Let’s not fool ourselves. It is time to come out of denial mode and accept the fact that Gujarat is not as dry as it claims to be”
Despite more than six decades of policing, the state has failed to stop a thriving bootlegging industry. Time and again it has been proved that Gujarat’s prohibition policy has been a sham, a farcical exercise.
The tragedy in Botad prompted former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela to question the futility of prohibiting liquor. Does banning alcohol really benefit people? No, said Vaghela who wants the prohibition policy to be reviewed as early as possible. He wants to relax restrictions and legalize sales and distribution to reduce illicit supplies.
Vaghela also suggested this could provide economic opportunities for the state’s tribal people for whom liquor is not taboo, unlike mainstream society. “Let’s not fool ourselves. It is time to come out of denial mode and accept the fact that Gujarat is not as dry as it claims to be,” he said.

The first indigenous women religious congregation in eastern India has concluded its 125 years of founding through various programs at Ranchi, capital of the Jharkhand state.
Jesuit Archbishop Felix Toppo of Ranchi July 23 presided over the jubilee Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand state.
He was assisted by Bishops Vincent Barwa of Simdega, Binay Kandulna of Khunti, Anand Jojo of Hazaribag, Julius Marandi of Dumka, Fulge-nce Aloysius Tigga, Antonis Bara of Ambikapur concelebrated along with Father Linus Pingal Ekka, apostolic administrator of Gumla.
The Mass was also attended by 75 priests from various parts of India and some 800 members of the congregation representing all four provinces and the delegations of Andaman and Europe.
In his homily Archbishop Toppo commended the vigor and zeal of the Daughters of St Anne in serving God’s people. The jubilee theme was “Celebrating God’s Graciousness: Committed to Renewed Mission.”
“Today is the apt time to raise our hearts and minds in praise of God for all his merciful acts that we have benefited for last 125 long years,” the prelate said.

A Stella Maris port chap-lain in Thailand has been recognized by the US Department of State for her dedicated and untiring work supporting trafficked seafarers and fishers.
Apinya Tajit, Stella Maris Deputy Director in Chanthaburi diocese received the US Department of State 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report Hero Award from Secretary of State Antony J Blinken at a ceremony in Washington DC on July 19.
She has helped hundreds of workers in the fishing sector from various countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Burma and Bangladesh and has also played an active role in raising awareness of child trafficking, visiting schools throughout Thailand to educate more than 10,000 students each year.
Apinya has worked with global maritime network Stella Maris since 2005 and has for the past seven years dedicated her energies towards combatting human trafficking.
“This Award is completely unexpected to me, and I feel honoured to receive it. Stella Maris works closely with law enforcement agencies in Thailand to support trafficked fishers and seafarers. We assist by way of helping identify victims, rescuing them, helping them reintegrate into society,” she said.
We provide training, access to legal advice, and funding to help them rebuild their lives,”

Mary Song Thi May ‘is a special gift from God bringing His love to her people’ in Mai Yen Parish in Mai Son district.
For more than a decade now, Benedette Marang Ji Grawng has been living in a crowd-ed camp for displaced people in conflict-torn Myanmar.
With each passing day, simple life becomes even more difficult to endure with increasing challenges and hardships, but that hasn’t diminished her faith, says Ji Grawng, a Catholic mother.
“The more difficulties I face, the deeper and stronger my faith becomes. I believe in God who fulfils all our prayers,” says the slightly built 43-year-old Kachin mother of three.
In the midst of her busy daily schedule involving cleaning, cooking, sewing clothes and taking care of a three-year-old child, the devout Catholic finds time to share teachings from the Bible with her two teenage children, aged 16 and 18. “I also send my children to catechism and Bible classes,” Ji Grawng told. “My children are obedient and I am proud to be their mother.”
She lives with her three children and husband, Paul Magi Seng Awng, in a tiny 81 square foot (7.5 sq meter) room in the Catholic Church-run St. Paul Ja Maing Kaung camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs).

A suicide warning at the entrance to Aokigahara Forest, known as Suicide Forest, in Japan’s Yamanashi prefe-cture. It reads: “Life is a precious thing that you have from your parents. Try to calmly think about your parents, brothers and sisters, your children. Please do not keep things to yourself. Talk to someone.”

A television commercial for an energy drink in 1990s Japan told viewers they could work 24 hours straight without feeling tired. The claim, if made today, would be seen as an invitation to karoshi or death caused by overwork.
The most attractive start-ups today are those that offer the possibility of arriving late at work and working from home at least one day a week.
Yet in 2019, there were 29,169 suicides out of which 1,949 or 9.7% were cases of karoshi. The precise causes are to be found in the inability to give up a commitment even if all psycho-physiological sensors tell the body it cannot take this anymore.
This is what happened to Yui (not her real name), a 23-year-old who recently graduated from university. She found a job in Japan’s notorious broadcasting network, NHK. Her aspiration was to make documentaries on social issues.
“It was last year, April 2021. I just graduated from University and was super excited to go work for them. But it was unusual from the beginning,” she recalled.
“After days of hard work, I suddenly realized my body was feeling strange. I felt incredibly tired. And the tiredness wouldn’t go away. That’s when I realized I had been working for 22 days straight,” Yui said.