Sister Jiya, a member of the Medical Sisters of St Joseph (MSJ) order in Kerala, has become the first nun in India to direct a feature film.

Cinema was not exactly Sr Jiya’s field of expertise. She never learnt the craft of filmmaking, didn’t plan to be associated with the industry or even bothered to spend much time watching films. Yet she is now the writer-director of a full-length Malayalam feature film.

‘Ente Vellithooval’, the two-and-a-half hour long film which is all set to hit the screens, stands proof of Sr Jiya’s immense dedication and relentless hard work for over a year. The nun, who hails from Palakkad, is the in-charge of the lab at St Seba-stian’s Hospital in Cherupuzha, Kannur.

It all started when the Catholic Church observed 2015 as the Year for Consecrated Life. Sr Jiya wanted to make a short film on the people in the service of the church. She brushed up a story that she had written years ago and developed a screenplay with the help of some friends.

Sr Jiya got her work approved by her superiors in the church. Actress Sarayu was roped in to play the lead role of Sr Merina. The shoot started with the bless-ings of Archbishop George Njaralakatt of Thalassery.

The north-eastern Indian city of Guwahati city India has proclaimed “silence zones” around all religious paces in what many say is a bid to stop mosques using loudspeakers to call Muslims to prayer.

The district administration of Guwahati, the business capital of Assam state, following state government directions, issued an official notification declaring a radius of 100 meters around all religious places, including temples, mosques and churches, to be “silent zones.”

The pro Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party is currently ruling the state with its local alliance, having won a majority in elections last year. The win is seen as historic as it is the first time for ethnically diverse Assam and the north-eastern region for the party to form a state government.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has often been accused of being biased against religious minorities in the country ever since the party swept the national polls in 2014.

Assam has 31 million people, but Hindus are about 60 percent against the national average of 80 percent. Muslims make up about 35 percent, much higher than the 15 percent national figure. Christians are a minority forming 1.1 million or 3.7 percent of the total population.

City officials in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, have destroyed a century-old roadside cross, despite the strong opposition of the local Catholic community.

The cross was built on or around 1895 in the western Bandra neighborhood of the city.

“The religious structure is constructed on a private property,” said  Godfrey Pimenta, of the Watchdog Foundation. “The owner of the property had replied to the said notice and met Ughade wherein documentary evidence, including a Revenue Plan/Property Card, was submitted to explain the legal position of the structure,” Pimenta said, “Despite this, the ward officials demolished the structure.”

Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the Archbishop of Bombay, called the destruction of the cross “deeply disturbing.”

“The concerned [city official] must be held respon-sible and accountable for the action, which was illegal,” Gracias told Crux.

Manuel scavenging is the worst surviving symbol of caste-based discrimination and a sin against God and God’s people, asserts a joint meeting of top Christian bodies in Asia.

The participants of April 24-26 meeting urged Churches to take the lead to ensure the effective implementation of a law passed by the Indian parliament in 2013 to end manual scavenging practices in the country.

The “Abolition of Manual Scavenging in India: An Ecumenical Accompaniment and Advocacy Consultation” was organized by the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and the Church of South India (CSI).

The meet wants Churches in the country to acknowledge manual scavenging as a sin and to work for its abolishment in all forms at all levels.

The consultation opened jointly by NCCI general secretary Reverend Roger Gaikwad and CSI General Secretary Reverend Ratnakar Sadanand.

The keynote was delivered by Bezwada Wilson, Magsaysay Award Winner of 2016 and founder of the Safai Karmachari Aandolon, a movement to eradicate manual scavenging.

Although the Church’s mission is to find the lost, it has refocus its attention from the center to the margins with relevant strategies, he told the gathering. “The bottom line of the mission mandate is to defend and advocate for human rights, and affirm the life of every human with respect and dignity,” he explained.

The Church, he noted, has infrastructure and human and financial resources that should be used to help abolish inhuman and un-Christian ideologies such as casteism and practices like manual scavenging.

A group of Catholic bishops in India has met with a state official about a series of incidents involving the harassment of Christian services by right wing activists accusing churches of trying to forcibly convert Hindus. The Church in India says it takes strong measures to assure.

Seven bishops from the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh have met with the chief minister of the state to discuss the recent disruptions of Christian places of worship in the state.

In recent months, right-wing activists from the Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) have stopped services and harassed worshippers in the state, which is India’s largest, accusing churches of trying to convert the local Hindu population to Christianity. The HYV was founded by the chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, in 2002.

“We expressed a few concerns, seeking security and safety to the minority and especially to the places of worship, we also asked the honorable Chief Minister to look into the matter, where people take law into their own hands,” said Bishop Gerald John Mathias, the Bishop of Lucknow.

Mathias told Crux the chief minister assured them he would not permit vigilantism, and expressed his support for the work of the church in helping the poor and education.
“However, he told us that he was against ‘conversions,’ but we could go on speaking about Prabhu Yesu (Lord Jesus), and have respect for others faiths, and live in good will with all.”

The Syro-Malabar Church, one of the three rites of the Catholic Church in India, has issued a note to its clergy, saying that “Yoga is not a means to experience the divine, although it may contribute to physical and mental health.” In the statement, the Church’s Synod of Bishops recognises the important role yoga plays in Indian culture, but adds that it “must be considered as a physical exercise, a posture to concentrate or meditate.” By contrast, “the divine experience does not need any particular posture.”

For former Synod spokesman Fr Paul Thelakat, yoga is “acceptable and useful for concentration, meditation and for the holistic well being of body and mind. However,” he told AsiaNews, “the Synod does not consider yoga as a mythic or esoteric short cut to the spiritual life.”

In India, yoga is a required subject in schools. Every year, on International Yoga Day of (21 June), education in schools takes a back seat to yoga events and initiatives.

In the recent past, some Indian activists and intelle-ctuals have claimed that the observance is mandatory, forcing students to sing Hindu hymns and mantra. This limits freedom of worship among minorities and represents a lack of “sensitivity” towards Christian and Muslim students.

The note, signed by Card George Alencherry, head of the Synod, clarifies the position of the Church in the matter. The “God in whom we believe is a personal God,” it reads. “God is not some-one who can be reached through a particular post-ure.” For this reason, “It is not quite right to think that the experience of God and the personal encounter with the Lord is possible through Yoga.” In view of this, “every one should take utmost care to avoid getting into those prayer groups and spiritual movements which are against the Catholic faith and do not recognise the official teachings of the Church.” In fact, the “Synod does not consider yoga as a mythic or esoteric short cut to spiritual life,” Fr Paul Thelakat added. The “Catholic Church teaches the ways of self-purification and union with God are found in asceticism and prayer.”

A Christian prayer meeting was cancelled in the country’s IT capital Bengaluru on Apr 8 after complaints were lodged that this could facilitate forced conversions in the city which was to host two American preachers for this event. The cancellation came just about 12 hours before the prayer meeting was to be held. Nearly 1,000 people were expected to attend the meetings spread over April 8 and 9. It was cancelled in the wake of protests lodged by Hindutva groups like the Bajrang Dal.

In Bengaluru, the first complaint was filed by one Girish Bhardwaj, who wrote to the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office — a police wing that tracks foreigners visiting Karnataka — that two American evangelists were in India for “religious conversion,” in violation of their visa norms.

“The two foreigners had applied for Indian visa only to attend religious campaigns. Clearly, they are misleading the Indian Consulate,” he alleged.

Later Bajrang Dal convenor Keshav Nayak filed a police complaint that this progra-mme was “aimed at converting innocent Hindus, was being held daringly in public, where cash would be offered to the converts. As such, it hurts the religious sentiments of the Hindus.”

The Assam government on April 9 announced a draft population policy which suggested denial of government jobs to people with more than two children and making education up to university level free for all girls in the state.

“This is a draft population policy. We have suggested that people having more than two children will not be eligible for any government jobs,” Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said at a press conference in Guwahati. Any person getting a job after meeting this condition will have to maintain it till end of his service, he added.

“For employment generation schemes like giving tractors, offering homes and others government benefits, this two-children norm will be applicable. Besides, all elections such as panchayats, municipal bodies and autonomous councils held under the state election commission will also have this norm for candidates,” Sarma said.

Sarma, who is also the education minister, said the policy also aims to give free education to all girls up to university level. “We want to make all facilities free, including fees, transportation, books and mess dues in hostels. This step is also likely to arrest the school dropout rate,” he added.

Police stopped a church event attended by more than 150 people, including 10 American tourists, here after the right-wing Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) alleged that religious conversion was being carried out. The youth brigade, set up in 2002 by Yogi Adityanath who is now Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, filed a complaint against Yohannan Adam, the pastor of the church, accusing him of converting Hindus to Christianity, a charge the pastor denied.  SHO, Dathauli, Anand Kumar Gupta said no prior permission was taken for the meeting, which was held ahead of Good Friday. “We stopped the prayer meeting after a complaint was registered. A probe is underway and appropriate action will be taken if the charges are found to be correct,” he said.

Dathauli falls in Maharajganj district in eastern Uttar Pradesh. It borders Gorakhpur, the Lok Sabha constituency represented five times by Adityanath before he took over the reins of Uttar Pradesh. Gupta said mass was held there quite often but as this time foreigners were involved, the HYV suspected that conversion was going on.