About 300 people from two parishes at Dasarahalli in Bangaluru pledged to donate their eyes. The parishioners belonging to St Claret and St Joseph Church on July 16 pledged to donate their eyes with Project Vision, an organization working for the cause in the city.

So far more than 60,000 people have pledged to donate their eyes with Project Vision. Already 100 people have received sight through the donations done through this organisation in various parts of the country. According to Project Vision, in 2016, only about 26,000 people donated their eyes in India, though there were about 85 lakh deaths reported.

Indian Americans, spanning various communities, held protests in three US cities, to express their outrage over lynching of minorities by mobs in India and the Narendra Modi government’s policies which are “emboldening such forces.”

The protests here as well as San Diego and San Jose were organised by The Alliance for Justice and Accountability (AJA), an umbrella coalition of progressive organisations across the US, and other groups. A fourth protest is scheduled to be held in New York City on July 23, said a press release from AJA.

These protests are similar to the “Not In My Name” protests that have been held across various cities in India. Besides the AJA, the protests in San Jose were jointly organised with the “Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice,” while the South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI), will be part of the protests in New York City.

Protesters slammed the “brutal killings of mostly Muslims and Dalits in the name of cow protection,” alleging these were orchestrated by “Hindu supremacist groups ideologically aligned” with the BJP-led central government and “drawing inspiration” from the beef ban imposed by the governments in various states.

“The reign of terror unleashed by Hindu supremacist cow vigilantes is clearly targeted at browbeating the nation’s religious minorities into the status of second class citizens,” said Suhail Syed, one of the organisers of the protests in Washington DC.

Protesters in San Jose carried signs, such as “India – Hostage to Hindutva?” and “Beef Ban is Cultural Fascism.”

The AJA has pledged to work with people of all faiths to defend India from the onslaught of hate and divisiveness.

The Jesuit-run St Xavier’s college in Kolkata city marked its transformation as India’s first Jesuit university when opened its new academic year on July 7, just six months after achieving the new status.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee unveiled the plaque of the new building along with business tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, a former student of St Xavier’s, who funded the building.

The Archbishop Thomas blessed the Marble statue of St Xavier after a short prayer at the entrance marking the opening of first academic session of university.

The 157-year-old institution was allowed to build a university in New Town, a satellite city of Kolkata, last December when state legislature unanimously passed a bill –The St Xavier’s University, Kolkata Bill 2016.

Jesuit Father Felix Raj, vice chancellor of the university, told the gathering that they could not have achieved it but for the support of many people. Welcoming the new students he said: “We shall try the best to form them men and women for others. It is only the beginning and we will slowly grow,” he said.

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.