A workshop in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad has asserted the rights and well-being of taxi drivers employed in various platforms
The July 10 workshop, held at the Montfort Social Institute and organized in collaboration with the Bengaluru-based National Law School of India University, addressed various challenges faced by these drivers.
Brother Varghese, director of Montfort Social Institute, described platform work as a new and complex phenomenon for modern civilization. He emphasized the unprecedented situation where employees are uncertain about their employers, the source of their income, and whom to approach in case of issues. He stressed the need to identify and fight for the rights of platform workers, both from the platforms as well as from the government.
Babu Matthew, a speaker at the workshop, emphasized that platforms often employ eloquent language to shift the liability of assets onto the workers. This practice places an immense burden on the drivers, subjecting them to physical, mental, and economic strain.
The workshop was attended by 20 workers representing well-known companies such as Ola, Zomato, Uber, Rapido, and Swiggy. “Their presence lent authenticity to the discussions as they courageously shared their daily struggles and voiced their concerns,” Brother Theckanath said.

Prayers and protest marches by India’s small but socially influential Catholic community were staged across the country July 2 in response to ongoing violence against Christians in the country’s northeastern state of Manipur.
Called by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, the protests highlighted that more than 100 people, largely Christians, have been killed so far in Manipur, with the carnage unfolding just ahead of the August anniversary of an anti-Christian pogrom in 2008 in the state of Orissa.
The conflict pits the largely Hindu Meitei ethnic group against the mostly Protestant Christian Kuki people, each of which represents roughly forty percent of the state’s population of four million, but the Meitei enjoy the support of regional and national political forces dominated by the Hindu nationalist BJP party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Since the violence began on May 3, estimates are that some 50,000 displaced persons are now living in 300 refugee camps, though with larger numbers expelled from their homes and villages who haven’t moved to any formal settlements. Over 5,000 structures, including churches and private Christian homes, have been burned, and some local observers claim that as many as 120 people have died.

Christian community in India has suffered as many as 400 incidents of violence in the first half 2023, says the United Christian Forum, an ecumenical group.
A press statement from the forum titled, “Atrocities against Christians in India increasing drastically year on year,” says the incidents have occurred in 23 of India’s 28 states.
A forum official told Matters India July 11 that they have not included the northeastern Indian state of Manipur where ethnic violence allegedly targeting Christians has raged since May 3.
During the same period last year, the forum recorded 274 such incidents against Christians in India. January topped last year’s chart with 121 incidents (almost 4 incidents a day), followed by 40 in May, 31 in February, 29 in April, 28 in March and 25 in June.
However, the Indian government disputes the figures as wrong data used to sully the image of the country abroad.
On April 13, the government said this while responding to a public interest litigation filed by Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore Reverend Vijayesh Lal of Evangelical Fellowship of India, and others who claimed violence against Christians in the country.
Archbishop Machado and others in their petition had told a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud that from 2021 to May 2022, 700 cases of violence against Christians were reported and a majority of those arrested were followers of the faith.

Manipur’s Interfaith Forum for Peace and Harmony (IFPH) has organized rally appealing for an end to the ongoing violence and for initiating dialogue between the two warring ethnic groups.
Some 500 people belonging to diverse religious and faith traditions, ethnic and spiritual communities participated in the July 11 rally at Palace compound in Imphal, capital of the northeastern Indian state where clashes between Meitei and Kuki groups began on May 3.
Five Members of Parliament from Kerala and Tamil Nadu also joined the rally to express their solidarity with the interfaith initiatives.
Addressing the media in the campus of Bal Vidya Mandir, convener, IFPH Deben Bachaspatimayum said, “People of all age and sex who participated in the rally are concerned citizens of India who also represented the core values of humanity across diverse religious, faiths and spiritual communities in the state.”
Stating the purpose of the rally, he said, “We collectively mourned deaths caused by violence; extended prayers of healing for victims; expressed solidarity with the displaced; and extended solidarity with women and citizen groups calling for ceasefire and dialogue.”
Members of the forum comprised of All Manipur Buddhists Association, All Manipur Christian Organisation, Art of Living, Bhakti Seva Lub/Ekta Parishad, Brahmakumaris, Catholic archdiocese of Imphal, Divine Life Society, Federation of Madrasahs, International Society of Gaudiya Vaishnavas, International Society of Krishna Consciousness, Jain Samaj, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Lainingthou Sanamahi Temple Board, Mahatma Seva Ashram, Manipur Baptist Convention, Meitei Christian Church Council, Manipur Cultural Integration Conference, Naga Christian Forum, Rongmei Naga Baptist Association, and Tinkao Ragwang Chapriak, Phom.

After his US visit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a significant stop in Cairo, where he met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
This is the first visit to Egypt by an Indian prime minister in 26 years. During his stay, Modi officially invited al-Sisi to attend the G20 summit in New Delhi in September.
Egypt is one of the countries that have officially asked to join the BRICS group (a global forum that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa set up as an alternative to the G7).
The summit in Cairo also provided the two leaders with the opportunity to sign a series of bilateral agreements on issues ranging from agriculture to the protection of their archaeological heritage.
Culture and religion also played an important part in Modi’s visit, particularly as it might affect India’s domestic affairs. In fact, the prime minister visited Cairo’s 11th century al-Hakim mosque, which was recently restored thanks to Dawoodi Bohra, an Indian Ismaili Shi’a group.
Originally from Egypt, the community of about half a million is concentrated in Modi’s home state of Gujarat, where he started his political career that led him to the prime minister’s office.
Relations between Hindus and Muslims in the state remain tense, especially since communal riots broke out in 2002 causing major bloodshed.

Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore on June 15 comm-ended the Karnataka government for repealing the controversial Anti-Conversion law, enforced by the previous Hindu nationalist government.
“On behalf of the Christian Community, I express my pro-found gratitude and satisfaction towards the government of Kar-nataka for its decision to repeal the anti-conversion bill,” the archbishop says in a press state-ment issued after the state cabinet decided to withdraw the Act.
Karanataka’s Congress led government, which defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party, June 15 decided to repeal the anti-con-version law and proposed to take steps to officially remove the law in the state legislative assembly’s next session starting July 3.
The Anti Conversion Bill, also known as the Karnataka Pro-tection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, 2022, was enacted, ignoring opposition from the Congress party and others, including Archbishop Machado.
The anti-conversion laws in Karnataka and other states have led to an increase in attacks on Christians. They have also fueled doubts, mistrust and disharmony between communities, lamented the archbishop, who heads the Catholic Church in Karnataka state.
Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash, a human rights and peace activist, welcomed the Karnataka govern-ment move “as a great step to restore freedom enshrined in the Indian constitution.”

A young Indian climate activist has urged Pope Francis to help bring peace in Manipur, her troubled state in northeastern India.
Licypriya Kangujam on June 5 met the Pope and briefed him about the ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur.
The 11-year-old girl also submitted a memorandum to urge the rich nations to pay the loss and damage caused by the climate crisis to the global south.
An ethnic clash erupted May 3 in Manipur between the majority Meitei people, who live in the Imphal Valley, and the tribal community from the surrounding hills, including the Kuki and Zo peoples. More than 70 people were killed and hundreds wounded in the violence that remains unabated. Hundreds of churches belonging to all Christian denominations were torched or damaged in the violence.
Licypriya was among 5 young people selected from all around the world to meet the Pope in his residence in the Vatican. The Pope assured her of every possible effort to bring peace in Manipur.
The young India was in Rome for a five-day official visit. On June 5, she addressed the Green and Blue Festival organized by the biggest media group in Italy as a part of celebrating World Environment Day 2023 at the World’s famous The Colosseum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government’s predictable move to reignite the controversy over the Uniform Civil Code has invited predictable responses.
Opposition leaders have flayed this move. Questioning the need for the Law Commission to take this up again, several opposition leaders have effectively positioned themselves against the UCC. Muslim organisations have gone a step further and condemned it as a sinister move that is against minorities and the Constitution.
The stage appears set for an ideological battle, both tragic and ironic, with the BJP pushing for the constitutional promise of a UCC and the secular politics arrayed against it.
This is exactly how the BJP must have scripted this debate. It is a mark of our times that secular politics retreats from whatever ground the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP illegitimately encroach upon—Hinduism, traditions, nationalism, and now the UCC.
If this retreat must be halted, secular politics must reclaim the principled and progressive position on the UCC. It must assert that the UCC has nothing to do with customs and practices of any one religion; it is about asserting the uniform primacy of constitutional principles of equality between and within religious communities and uniformly ensuring gender justice. It must realise that opposing the idea of a UCC is poor politics. Besides, it is a bad political strategy in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

“The silence of the prime minister, the incompetence of the interior minister even after his visit to the state, and the indecisi-veness of the local government in ending the violence are worrying. The authorities cannot escape responsibility and shift blame.”
In the face of violence that has now been going on continuously for a month and a half in Manipur State, he is calling the government of Narendra Modi to its responsibilities by the Archbishop of Imphal, Msgr. Dominic Lumon.
He does so in a detailed report issued to all of India’s brother bishops on the situation in the battered northeastern Indian state rocked since early May by serious fighting between the Meitei and Kuki.
“The violence and fires,” writes Msgr. Lumon, “continue unabated, especially in the suburbs of the region. Precious lives have been lost, homes and villages burned or destroyed, property vandalized and looted, places of worship desecrated and burned. More than 50,000 people have lost their homes and are languishing in camps for the displaced. Many have left the capital Imphal and the state to safer places in neighboring Mizoram State, other northeastern states, and metropolises. There is a complete collapse of the constitutional apparatus in the state. In short, there is fear, uncertainty and a general sense of hopelessness.”
The archbishop points out that in the clash between the two communities it is the entire Manipur community that suffers, regardless of affiliations. “In a month and a half,” he denounces, “the elected state government and the central administration in New Delhi have been unable to restore the rule of law and put an end to the insane violence. It can be said that we are facing the collapse of the state machinery at the local level. One wonders why President’s Rule (direct administration by the federal government in New Delhi, provided for in serious cases by Article 356 of the Indian Constitution ed.) is still not considered as an option.”
The prelate speaks of many more casualties than the 100 deaths in the official figures, “Violent activities in the suburbs outside the capital are greatly underestimated,” he writes. “But still house fires continue to occur, even in the heart of the city of Imphal.

Bishop George Palliparambil of Miao diocese in Arunachal Pradesh is the postulator of the cause for the beatification of the Paris Mission Society missionaries Nicolas Michaël Krick and Augustin-Étienne Bourry, who are inseparable from the history of evangelization in the region, one of the most remote areas in north-eastern India.
The French missionaries were murdered in 1854 by local tribal people on the Chinese border. More than a century and a half later, the local Catholics claim their spiritual patronage to the missionaries and work for their beatification. Fathers Krick and Bourry were declared “servants of God” in 2010.
I think Christianity becomes global in the sense of people connect it with the global Christian community
The true Catholicity of Catholicism tells us to go deeper into reality
The cause of sainthood started when the Diocesan Commission of Inquiry was opened in 2019 by the Diocese of Miao. Salesian Bishop Palliparambil, 69, followed the process as postulator of the cause for beatification of the missionaries. The bishop, who served this border region with China and Burma for over 40 years, tells about these two central figures for the local Church.