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 chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma called on public help to abolish the “evil practice”.
Sarma said almost one in every eight women in Assam had to bear children before turning 18 which was contributing to high infant and maternal mortality rates in the state.
State police director general GP Singh said 2,044 people were arrested in the first day, including 52 priests and legal authorities who had presided over marriages.
Singh said girls as young as 12 were still being married to men in the state and police had come up with a total of 4,074 cases to investigate.
The legal marriage age in India is 18 but millions of children are forced to tie the knot when they are younger, particularly in poorer rural areas.
Many parents marry off their children in the hope of improving their financial security.

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 a major cut to funds meant for their welfare.
The presentation of this week’s national budget was greeted with disappointment and cynicism by the nation’s 170 million Muslims, accentuating the existing trust deficit between them and the ruling dispensation.
Christians, the second largest minority group comprising 23 million people, along with the others had expected increased budgetary allocations to continue the ongoing welfare schemes, notably the merit-cum-means scholarship for professional and technical courses meant for students.
Instead, they got the proverbial rude jolt in the form of a slash in the allocations for different welfare schemes, which they were least expecting.
After all, for years now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been chanting his pet credo, Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas – meaning ‘together, for everyone’s growth, with everyone’s trust’ – assuring the minorities that they will not face any discrimination.
Clearly, the budget has turned out to be exactly the opposite. It only helps to reaffirm the minorities’ perception that the BJP is biased and discriminates against them, treating them as second-class citizens.
Consider these figures to see why minorities are angry and disappointed.
The budget allocation for the federal ministry of minority affairs has been reduced by 38 percent from 50.205 billion rupees (US$610 million) last year to 30.970 billion rupees (US$376 million) now.

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 Mysore has proceeded on leave due to health reasons.
“We demand that our Bishop William be immediately reinstated,” said Mathew Suresh, convenor of Mysore Diocesan Laity Voice, which organized the rally.
Suresh, former public relations officer of the diocese, told UCA News that a memorandum was submitted to Archbishop Moras after the rally.
“Filthy messages by some diocesan priests regarding our bishop are being circulated on social media, alleging that the bishop was kicked out of the diocese as he has five mistresses and many illegitimate children,” Suresh said.
The protest – named peace and prayer rally – covered some three kilometers through a public road from St Joseph’s Cathedral to culminate at the Bishop’s House at Bannimantap.

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 Madhya Pradesh.
The children at the center mostly come from broken families — typically abandoned or orphaned — who end up loitering around train stations; oftentimes, their fathers were addicted to drugs and their mothers were unable to make enough money to support their families, Pillai said.
“In some cases, children run away after being scolded or questioned by parents for something,” Pillai told GSR, adding that in such cases, “we do our best to reunite them with their families.”
Wearing a loose black skirt and a shawl swung around her neck, the nun gets up from the table and walks with the help of a stick and a prosthetic leg.
Six years ago, she lost her left leg in a train accident.
Sister Pillai’s “dedication to serve the runaway children even after losing a leg is amazing,” said Pranay Barve, one of the nun’s friends who is tasked by the railways to identify such children.

The Delhi High court has declared a virginity test conducted on a Catholic nun as part of a probe into the murder case as “unconstitutional.”
“The virginity test conducted on a female detainee, accused under investigation, or in custody, whether judicial or police, is declared unconstitutional and in violation of Article 21 of the Constitution which includes right to dignity,” a single bench of Justice Swarana Kanti Sharma said on February 7.
The petitioner, Sister Sephy, was convicted in the murder of Sister Abhaya, a 19-year-old junior nun on March 27, 1992. He had moved the High Court in 2009 challenging the Central Bureau of Investigation for subjecting her to the virginity test during the probe a year earlier.
The young nun’s body was found in the well of St. Pius Convent in Kerala’s Kottayam town and some Church officials termed her death as a case of suicide.
The Delhi court, however, has refused to grant her relief such as compensation and action against the officials for subjecting her to the illegal test.
The Delhi court’s verdict that came 15 years after the nun filed the petition said, “Virginity testing is a form of inhuman treatment and the same violates the principle of human dignity.”
“The test, being violative of right to dignity of an individual, cannot be resorted to by the state and the same shall be in teeth of the scheme of Indian Constitution and the right to life enshrined under Article 21,” it asserted.
Sister Sephy had also questioned the CBI for subjecting her to the test 16 years after the alleged crime had taken place and the need for virginity test to prove a murder case.
“Most shockingly, in the present case the virginity test was used to determine the truth of the accusation of murder against the petitioner,” the Delhi court said.
“Undoubtedly, the test in itself is extremely traumatic for a victim of sexual assault as well as upon any other women in custody and is bound to have devastating effect on the psychological as well as physical health of the person,” the court added. (See Focus)

An Indian origin Jesuit priest is credit for introducing to devotion to the Mother Mary of Vailankanni in the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Father James Bharataputra has been serving the Church in Indonesia for the past 50 years. The 84-year-old priest is credited with the construction of the Marian shrine “Graha Maria Annai Velangkanni” in Medan, the capital of the province of North Sumatra.
The island of Sumatra is inhabited mainly by indigenous groups and where traditionalist Islam is widespread.
Father James, as he is popularly known, was born in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He was naturalized as an Indonesian in 1989.
Father James says he nurtured the desire to become a mission since he joined the Madurai province of the Jesuits. He was sent to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to complete his theological studies. After his ordination in 1970, he visited Medan and the then Capuchin Archbishop Van den Hurk of Medan asked him to provide pastoral care to a small local Tamil-speaking Catholic community.

Dedicated to an Indian goddess as a child, Huvakka Bhimappa’s years of sexual servitude began when her uncle took her virginity, raping her in exchange for a saree and some jewelry.
Bhimappa was not yet 10 years old when she became a “devadasi” — girls coerced by their pa-rents into an elaborate wedding ritual with a Hindu deity, many of whom are then forced into illegal prostitution.
Devadasis are expected to live a life of religious devotion, forbidden from marrying other mortals, and forced at puberty to sacrifice their virginity to an older man, in return for money or gifts.
“In my case, it was my mother’s brother,” Bhimappa, now in her late 40s, told.
What followed was years of sexual slavery, earning money for her family through encounters with other men in the name of serving the goddess.
Bhimappa eventually escaped her servitude but with no edu-cation, she earns around a dollar a day toiling in fields.
Her time as a devotee to the Hindu goddess Yellamma has also rendered her an outcast in the eyes of her community.
She had loved a man once, but it would have been unthinkable for her to ask him to marry.
“If I was not a devadasi, I would have had a family and children and some money. I would have lived well,” she said.
Devadasis have been an integral part of southern Indian culture for centuries and once enjoyed a respectable place in society.
Many were highly educated, trained in classical dance and music, lived comfortable lives and chose their own sexual partners.
“This notion of more or less religiously sanctioned sexual slavery was not part of the original system of patronage,” historian Gayathri Iyer told AFP.
Iyer said that in the 19th century, during the British colonial era, the divine pact between devadasi and goddess evolved into an institution of sexual exploitation.

Christian leaders have hailed the move by a communist-led state government in India to introduce menstrual leave for female students in government-run higher education institutions.
They, however, were skeptical of the state government’s plan to provide 60 days maternity leave to students aged 18 and above in southern Kerala state.
“No doubt, the government’s decision to grant menstrual leave to college students is a highly appreciative move,” said Father Jacob G Palakkappilly, spokes-person of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), the regional bishops’ forum.
The state’s higher education minister R Bindu announced the government order on Jan. 19.
She said the government order also allows a maximum of 60 days maternity leave to female students aged 18 and above.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reiterated in a social media post his government’s decision to ensure “gender fairness” in Kerala.
According to him, the decision would lead to a reduction of 2 percent in the mandatory com-pulsory attendance of 75 percent required for female students.
“It will be a big relief for female students who otherwise had no choice of seeking condonation of their absence from classes,” Father Palakkappilly told on January 23.

The attack on Christians in central India is part of a political agenda and not linked to religious conversion, says a communist party delegation after visiting the violence-hit areas of Chhattisgarh state.
Not a single case of forcible religious conversion is reported in the central state, where Hindu nationalist mobs are using it as a handle to unleash violence against tribal Christians, the delegation said.
“The propaganda of forcible conversions is not borne out by facts. According to officials, there is not a single case of forcible conversion reported,” a delegation of the Communist Party of India-Maxist (CPI-M) stated in a memorandum to the state’s Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.
The memorandum said that there clearly seemed “a political agenda behind these attacks, given the schedule for elections to the state assembly later this year.”
The CPI-M delegation led by Politburo member, Brinda Karat, visited the violence-hit areas of Narayanpur, Kondagaon and Kanker districts on Jan. 20-22, and met victims of the violence, besides police and district officials.
The delegation found “unimaginable torture of victims,” especially women who were “stripped and beaten up” in public and bla-med the Congress government ruling Chhattisgarh for its inaction.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, head of the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization, will attend the 34th plenary assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), the national association of the country’s Latin rite prelates.
The January 24-25 annual plenary at Bengaluru’s St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences will address the theme, “Telling the Story of Jesus in our Context: The Synodal Way.”
On January 23, Cardinal Tagle, a Filipino prelate, visited leaders of other religions in Bengaluru city, capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore and vicars general Monsignors S Jayanathan and C Francis accompanied the prelates.
They met Usman Sharieff, secretary Jumma Masjid Trust Board and other leaders of the Muslim community at Khadriya Masjid, Millers Road, under the Management of Jumma Masjid Trust Board.
Their next stop was at the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) Temple at Rajajinagar where they exchanged pleasantries and matters of mutual interest with Madhu Pandit Dasa, temple president and chairman of the Akshya Patra.
At both places the Catholic prelates prayed for interreligious harmony, solidarity and fellowship, according to a press note from J A Kanthraj, the spokesperson of the Archdiocese of Bangalore.
Earlier on January 22, Cardinal Tagle was accorded a warm and affectionate welcome at the Bangalore international airport by a team led by Archbishop Machado. Others in the team were Fathers Stephen Alathara, CCBI deputy secretary general, Vignan Das, associate director Communio, Gabriel Christy and Vivek Basu.
The CCBI accounts for 132 of India’s 174 dioceses. It has 190 bishops, both active and retired, as members. It was set up as canonical national episcopal body to help India’s Latin rite bishops to exchange ideas and information, deliberate on the Church’s broad concerns and take care of the pastoral needs of the faithful.