The Bombay High court on June 30 by way of interim relief, restrained the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) from demolishing two Holy crosses located in Bandra (W) until further orders.

A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Vibha Kankanwadi restrained the BMC while hearing a petition filed by Bombay Catholic Sabha. Senior Counsel Joaquim Reis appearing for the Sabha argued that the cross situated at Chapel Road and near Nandi Talkies, both in Bandra, have been there since a long time and cannot be said to be illegally built. He informed the court that since the Sabha had agreed to remove/relocate the two crosses located in the Khar area on their own, the notice for demolition was not maintainable. The bench, while asking the civic body to file its reply to the petition, posted the matter for further hearing in second week of July. Till then, the BMC cannot take any coercive action. The civic body had issued notices to the Sabha on June 24 asking them to relocate the holy crosses or it demolish them.

Church groups in the central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh have joined a government ini-tiative to plant millions of saplings to arrest climate change and propagate a message of conserving water.

All nine Catholic dioceses in the state joined the government’s 12-hour long tree plantation drive on July 2. The government claimed 60 million saplings were planted in one day; most of them on the banks of the river Narmada, considered a holy river by majority Hindus in the state.

“It was a great move in the direction of protecting the environment, conserving water and promoting greenery, thereby arresting the ill-effects of climate change,” said Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur.

Bishop Almeida issued a special circular to all parishes and Catholic institutions, urging priests, nuns and the laity to actively participate in the state’s plantation drive, said Father Somy Jacob, a parish priest of Jabalpur.

For nearly half a century, Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who worked with the poor in the Indian city of Kolkata wore a simple white sari with three blue stripes on the borders, one thicker than the rest.

Senior nuns who work for Missionaries of Charity, a 67-year-old sisterhood which has more than 3,000 nuns worldwide, continue to wear what has now become the religious uniform of this global order.

On July 10, news washed up that this “famous” sari of the Nobel laureate nun, who died in 1997, has been trademarked to prevent “unfair” use by people for commercial purposes. India’s government quietly recognised the sari as the intellectual property of the Missionaries of Charity in September last year, when the nun was declared a saint by the Vatican, but the order had decided not to make it public.

Biswajit Sarkar, a Kolkata-based lawyer who works pro-bono for the order, says he had applied for the trademark in 2013. “It just came to my mind that the colour identified blue border of the sari had to be protected to prevent any future misuse for commercial purposes,” he told me. “If you want to wear or use the colour pattern in any form, you can write to us and if we are convinced that there is no commercial motive, we will allow it.”

The austere blue-trimmed white sari has long been identified with the nun and her order. The story goes that in 1948, the Albanian nun, with permission from Rome, began wearing it and a small cross across her shoulder. According to some accounts, the nun chose the blue border as it was associated with purity. For more than three decades, the saris have been woven by leprosy patients living in a home run by the order on the outskirts of Kolkata.

Sushma Swaraj, the External Affairs Minister  of India asked her visiting Yemeni Abdulmalik Abduljalil Al-Mekhlafi to secure the safe and early release of abducted Indian priest Father Tom Uzhunnalil after being told he was still alive. In the meeting, Al-Mekhlafi conveyed that, according to available information, Father Uzhunnalil was alive and the Yemen government has been making all efforts to secure his release and assured all coopera-tion in this regard.

The Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) on July 10 condemned what it calls “dastardly attack” on Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir.

“To attack people going to worship is to attack the very essence of what makes us human beings,” says a statement issued by the Protestant Church soon after Indian television channels reported the killing of seven people on their way to Amarnath, a pilgrimage centre in the northernmost Indian state.

More than 12 people were reportedly wounded in the attack that occurred at 8 pm on July 10.

“EFI prays for God’s solace to their families so that they can have the strength to bear their loss. EFI continues to pray for peace in our nation,” says the statement issued by Reverend Vijesh Lal, general secretary of the fellowship.

The Reverend also said his Church prayed and hoped that “sanity and peace will return as people learn to resolve differences and demands in a democratic and constitutional manner.”

Religious based targeted violence must have no place in India, he asserted.

Cardinal Oswald Gracias said he thinks Pope Francis may not be able to visit India as planned at the end of 2017. The Archbishop of Bombay said that while he is optimistic the pope will visit India at some point in the future, discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government about a visit this year have taken longer than expected.

“I am beginning to lose hope about 2017,” the cardinal, who was in Rome for a meeting of the Council of Cardinals on which he serves, said in an interview with NCR June 15. “We are already in June,” said Cardinal Gracias. “Even if suddenly they said, ‘Come,’ it is a pastoral visit … [and] will take several months for the dioceses to prepare the people.”

“It should not just be a flash in the pan, he comes and goes,” he continued, explaining that for Pope John Paul II’s visit to the country in 1999, the Indian bishops “planned for almost a year before he came to make it effective.”

During the half-hour conversation, Cardinal Gracias touched on a wide range of other topics including the Council of Cardinals’ desire to ensure lay people are consulted on bishops’ appointments and his hope that the Vatican will decentralize more authority to local bishops.

Francis first announced his intent to visit India in October 2016, saying in a press conference he was “quasi-sure” he would visit the country along with Bangladesh in 2017. Vatican officials are known to have been working on a visit for November or December, when temperatures in the region are normally coolest.

Should the India visit be postponed it would be the second expected papal visit for 2017 to be delayed, following the Vatican’s announcement May 30 that Francis will be unable to visit South Sudan this October as previously planned.

An inter-denominational Christian organization in northeast India has welcomed an ecumenical prayer initiative launched by a retired Catholic archbishop known for his relentless efforts for peace in the restive region.

Archbishop emeritus Thomas Menamparampil, of Guwahati (Assam state) and former apostolic administrator of Jowai (in Meghalaya state) has proposed a “special ecumenical prayer for peace and harmony among communities” at the start of each month, starting in August, by all Churches and friends, following an act of vandalism in the Catholic cathedral of Bongaigaon.

The initiative to calm tension in north-eastern India, one of the most restless regions of the country, has been enthusiastically welcomed by the United Christian Forum North East India (UCF NEI), a grouping of Christian, Catholic, Presbyterian and Baptist organizations.

Archbishop Menamparampil told Asianews that from August, the prayer that he composed would be recited throughout the region.

Church leaders have expressed solidarity with ethnic Gorkha people who are on an indefinite strike protesting for a separate homeland in the Darjeeling area of eastern India.

Since June 8 Darjeeling district in West Bengal state has witnessed violent clashes between local people and the police.

Street protests, stone throwing by the public as well as violence from both sides intensified since June 12 when the popular local organization Gorkha Janmukti Morcha called for an indefinite strike demanding for Gorkhaland — the creation of a separate homeland for ethic Gorkha people. At least three people have been killed in the violence so far.

“The church is not directly involved in the protest. But the church is with the people,” Bishop Stephen Lepcha of Darjeeling told ucanews.com explaining that local people are demanding for the right of self-governance as West Bengal state, under which the region falls, does not attend to the needs of local people.

“The problem arises here again because people do not see the government helping with any development in this hilly region. People suffer unemployment and poverty. The administration has failed miserably,” said Bishop Lepcha, a native of Darjeeling.

Outlawed fundamentalist groups have the support of political and religious leaders, and are not punished for violence against minorities. The economy excludes the most vulnerable groups in society. “Vegetarian terrorism” is unleashed against killing cattle. The retired abp Menamparampil said in an interview:

“The details of the incident are widely known. What we notice also in this case is a reco-gnizable pattern in the attack. The central area of worship is targeted, the holiest objects are dishonoured, the aim apparently is to publicly humiliate a minority community. The impression left behind, however, is one of robbery. No definite conclusions can be drawn. Officials put it to anti-social elements; they say that Hindu temples and Muslim masjids are also being robbed. What they do not say is that anti-social elements are being cultivated by fundamentalist groups, irresponsible politicians, and of late, even by corporations.

The police become helpless when lawless groups enjoy patronage from political ‘strong men’ or are linked with emotion-driven religious leaders. These groups are organized into senas and dals (armies and squads), brain-washed, and initiated into various forms of reckless social interventions, e.g. to act as moral police, or as self-appointed protectors of women, to defend cultural values, and humiliate minority communities. Assam seems to be free of such elements at this stage. But there is evidence that that groups may be under training.”