As Lorraine Alberto begins her Portuguese class at Goa University, students from the former colony are in short supply. Across Goa, a tiny coastal state once administered by Lisbon, there is little appetite for the territory’s 450 years of European heritage after a few short generations of Indian rule.
Ramshackle colonial homes and Bollywood’s increasing cultural dominance portend the disappearance of local history in a place where speaking Portuguese was once a passport to status and power.
My children don’t speak it at all,” Alberto told AFP. “They just don’t see the point of learning it.”
Those alive in 1961, when Indian troops marched into Goa and incorporated it into the rest of the country, recall an overnight transformation. India’s exit from the British empire in 1947 spurred many Goans to demand an end to Portuguese rule, but few expected so much to change so quickly.
“It was a very strange feeling … The changes came so fast,” said Honorato Velho, a retired school principal. The 78-year-old once lived next to the grandfather of Antonio Costa, Portugal’s current prime minister, and he fondly remembers a childhood peppered with European and local influences.
But his enthusiasm has not been inherited by the next generation.
“My wife and I still speak Portuguese out of habit, but never with our children,” Velho told AFP.

The Catholic Church in India has observed a “Day of Mourning” in memory of millions of babies aborted across the world. As the country marked the 50th year of its Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, on Aug. 10, church leaders said it had led to the killing of millions of babies in the wombs of their mothers and called for an end to such a practice as life is a precious gift of God and must be protected.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), in a message said that “millions of abortions have taken place in our country after that legislation and there is no sign of the slowing down of this anti-life trend.” In 2015 alone, at least 15.6 million babies were aborted in India, he said.
“We held special Eucharistic celebrations in honor of the departed souls of the unborn babies in our churches,” said Father Jacob G. Palackappilly, deputy secretary-general of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council.

The Kerala High Court on August 12 said that Cardinal George Alencherry must face trial in the land deal case. The court upheld the verdict of a district sessions court that on August 24, 2019, asked the cardinal and two others to stand trial in the case. The court has dismissed six petitions submitted by Cardinal Alencherry. Both the High Court and the district court observed prima facie evidence of Cardinal Alencherry’s involvement in the land deal. Although eight cases were registered against the cardinal, the district court served summons in only six cases.

Jesuits in Goa have mourned the death of Father Gregory Naik, their first provincial who explored the western Indian state’s colonial history and its connection with the Society of Jesus. Father Naik died August 9 at Xavier Residence in Alto Porvorim, on the northern outskirts of the state capital of Panaji. He was 88.

India’s tribal people recalled the long struggles to preserve their indigenous identity, culture and land while pledging to continue them on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. The sacrifice made by late Jesuit priest Stan Swamy for the cause of “jal, jangal and jamin” (water, forest and land) was remembered by Father Irudhaya Jothi, director of Xavier Institute for Development Education in Tripura at a gathering of tribal people in the northeastern state.

Catholic bishops in Kerala warn that the drastic fall in the birth rate among Christians threatens the community’s existence in the southern Indian state. The Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) that met August 2-6 expressed grave concern over the dangerously low birth rate among Christians who once accounted for one fourth of the state’s population.
The bishops justified the decision of Pala, Idukki and Thamarassery dioceses to reward families with four or more children. Pastoral letters were read in many churches in the state two weeks ago reminding believers about their “family duty and obligation.”

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad are at loggerheads in the western Indian state of Gujarat, known as the original laboratory of Hindutva. Interestingly, the reason for the quarrel is a church, which has become a bone of contention between the ideological partners of the Hindutva project that seeks to define India in terms of Hindu values.
It all began with a story carried last month by a Gujarati daily news-paper about a church constructed in Amba Jungle village with the “bless-ings” of Hiraben Mahala, a BJP member of the Kaprada taluka pancha-yat (a block-level administrative division) in the southern tribal district of Valsad.

The Catholic Church in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand has dismissed reports of a government school being used for mass conversion activities as “false, malafide and intended to sow hatred and division in society.”
The reports appeared in local print and electronic media last week, raising suspicions against the minority Christian community.
“There is no doubt that a group of people along with certain sections of media are running a campaign to tarnish the image of the Catholic Church in Jharkhand, which is unacceptable and condemnable,” Auxiliary Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas of Ranchi told.
He said that in the latest case from Sarangloya village in Khunti Diocese, the Church has documents to prove its case but the media did not even bother to contact church officials.
After news reports appeared, Bishop Mascarenhas and Bishop Binay Kandulna of Khunti, under whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction the village falls, visited the school accused of hosting conversions and met local people to ascertain facts.
The Roman Catholic Mission School was founded in 1936 by a few Catholics and later named St. Joseph’s School. Classes were held inside a small church building until 1962, when 24 local Catholic families came together and bought 35 acres of land after the British-era zamindari system run by landed aristocracy came to an end. The present school building was built on this land after the families requested the Church to teach their children.
“The families are the sole owners of the land and only they decide what they wish to have on their land. In the course of time they handed over this school under the care of fathers,” a Catholic Church press release said.
Jharkhand has 1.4 million Christians out of a total population of 33 million, mostly tribal people.

The Manipur High Court has ordered the release of a journalist detained under the National Security Act for a Facebook post criticizing the promotion of cow dung and urine as cure for Covid-19.
The high court July 23 agreed with the contention of journalist Kishorchandra Wangkhem’s wife that his case was the same as that of Erendro Leichombam, the political activist who was freed by the Supreme Court five days ago on the ground of protection of personal liberty after he had spent 67 days in custody over a similar Facebook post.
Kishorchandra, associate editor of the news portal The Frontier Manipur, who was jailed May 17 walked out of Sajiwa jail around 4.10 pm. He told The Telegraph minutes later that he would continue to work for the “betterment of society” by creating awareness among the public against laws such as that on sedition and the NSA.
A BJP-led coalition government is in power in Manipur.
The division bench of Manipur High Court Chief Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Kh Nobin Singh di-rected Kishorchandra’s immediate release while acting on the “letter petition” emailed by the journalist’s wife, Elang-bam Ranjita, to the chief justice and “his puisne judges” on Thursday seeking her husband’s release.

Indian Jesuits in Afghanistan are not sure what is in store for them as the strife-torn nation slips into conflict as the United States winds down operations after almost 20 years of war.
“We will continue to accompany and give hope to the suffering people in whatever way is possible for us,” Father Jerome Sequeira, country head of the Jesuit mission in Afghanistan, told.
But with the Taliban making sweeping gains, fears of human rights and cultural abuses loom large.
Father Sequeira said “uncertainty and nervousness are very much palpable in the country” but we “are committed to our cause.” The Jesuits came to Afghanistan in 2004 to join hands with the Afghans in rebuilding the war-ravaged nation through education.
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) stepped in to educate the youth, focusing on internally displaced persons (IDPs), returnees from neighbouring countries and other vulnerable sections of the host society.
In collaboration with local staff, the Jesuits trained more than 300 budding young teachers and through them were educating more than 25,000 young boys and girls in four provinces.