National

Catholic social worker wins Jain center’s first life-time achievement award

A Catholic social worker, who has campaigned against substance abuse for three decades, on February 15 received the first “Life Time Achievement award” instituted by a Jain center in Karnataka. Dharmasthala conferred the award on Thomas Scaria, who heads the Ecolink Institute of Well-being, for his outstanding contributions to prevent and manage substance abuse. Karnataka […]

Indian archdiocese alleges minorities cut from voter list

Several thousand voters belonging to religious minorities such as Christians and Muslims have been allegedly removed from electoral rolls in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, say Catholic leaders. The state, where the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) runs the government, is headed for polls in May and Christian leaders suspect deleting minority voters could […]

Protestant bishop sent to jail in “fake” conversion case

A Protestant bishop was remanded in judicial custody in connection with an alleged case of religious conversion in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The family members of Auxiliary Bishop Paul Muniya of the Shalom Church in Jhabua district have denied the allegation and asserted that the prelate was charged with a fake conversion […]

NE Elections 2023: Christian Leaders Call on Citizens To Vote With Good Conscience

In the wake of State Elections this month in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, Chri-stian leaders from different parts of Assam and North East region calls on citizens in the region to remain alert on threats to the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of India and safeguards ensured therein to the people. A meeting was held […]

India nabs 2,000 people in child marriage crackdown

More than 2,000 people were arrested Friday in India’s remote northeast after a government crackdown on illegal child marriages, police said. India is home to more than 220 million child brides, according to UN figures, but the number of child weddings has fallen dramatically this century. The two-week police campaign in Assam state began after […]

India’s minorities get the raw deal in budget allocations

It is an open secret. There is no love lost between India’s religious minorities and the federal government led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). When Muslims, the largest minority that makes up 14.2 percent of the nation’s 1.4 billion people, needed a healing touch they got a budgetary shock in the form of […]

Catholics seek reinstatement of sex-accused bishop in India

More than a thousand Catholics joined a rally on Feb. 5, demanding the reinstatement of a bishop in the southern Indian state of Karnataka who is facing allegations of sexual abuse and financial mismanagement. The Vatican appointed Retired Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore the apostolic administrator of Mysore Diocese last month, after announcing that Bishop Kannikadass A William of […]

Nun who survived train accident cares for abandoned children

Sister Ambika Pillai is seated at a table while answering the children’s questions around the table, all busily creating decorations out of colored paper. Pillai, a member of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Garden, is the secretary of Navjeevan (New Life) Children’s Home in Khandwa, a town in the central Indian state of […]

Hindus call off rally through Christian villages in eastern India

Dayal among three awarded for promoting religious freedom, civil liberties