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.

A violent crowed of tribal people vandalized a Catholic Church, a grotto of Mother Mary and the presbytery in Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh state on Jan. 2.
The crowed armed with sticks and stones forced open the main gate of the Sacred Heart Church, in the heart of district headquarters and started to pelt stone at the Church.
They then forced into the Church through the main door and destroyed everything including the crucifix in the altar.
The crowed also vandalized the presbytery and a grotto of Mother Mary inside the Church campus.
Father Jomon TD, the parish priest told Matters India, “nothing is left everything is destroyed”.
“The more than five decades old Church”, the priest said, “was rebuilt five years back and now everything inside is ruined”.
Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur of Raipur has condemned the attack and sought action against those behind it.
“We are deeply saddened and pained by the destructive attacks on Christians and today’s atrociously vandalizing the Catholic Church and presbytery at Narayanpur in the Diocese of Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh,” archbishop said.
The crowed that attacked the Church was part of a protest under banner of Sarva Adivasi Samaj that is opposed to tribal people adopting other faiths especially Christianity and Islam.

Christians in India’s Assam state have decided not to cooperate with the police, who began a survey aiming to gather details of Catholics, their churches, institutions, and religious conversions.
“Catholic parishes and institutions have refused to give details because the government and state chief minister himself has disowned it,” said Archbishop John Moolachira of Guwahati on Jan. 5.
Archbishop Moolachira said Christians see the circular, issued by the police department in Assam on Dec. 16, as discriminatory as it singles out activities of the Church.
Following the Christians’ objection to the circular, the state’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma disowned it during a press conference.
The leader of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, which runs the state government, said his administration did not want any survey of the activities of Christians in the state.
“I completely dissociate myself from the [police] circular,” Sarma told reporters.
Archbishop Moolachira told UCA News that since the chief minister had disowned the circular, the Church has advised Christians not to give any details to the police survey.
“We came to know about the circular during the Christmas season. Along with several other Christian organizations, we objected to it. Later, the government disowned the circular,” he said.
The police across all districts in the state were told to comply with the circular by Dec. 22.
It wanted to collect data on the number of churches established in the last year, instances of religious conversions in the past six years, and the prime factors leading to conversions.
The circular also wanted the police to identify the people who are working for religious conversions.
“It is strange that when we raised this issue with the state chief minister, he said he had no knowledge,” Archbishop Moolachira said.

Some 300 people from different faith groups have joined for a prayer meeting on the side of a street in New Delhi to express solidarity with tribal Christians who were forced to flee their homes due to the violence in central India’s Chhattisgarh state.
Leaders from Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Bahá¼í faiths prayed with lighted candles on Jan. 8 asking the government to end violence against Christians for their refusal to recant their Christian faith.
The Delhi Archdiocese’s Commission for Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue organized the program in front of its Sacred Heart Cathedral drawing attention to the plight of tribal Christians in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur and Kondagaon districts, who were forced to flee their homes due to the violence.
Non-Christian tribal groups, backed by right-wing fringe elements, are reportedly insisting that tribal Christians give up their faith and return to their traditional animist practices.
Nearly 18 villages in Narayanpur and 15 in Kondagaon were attacked, according to a fact-finding team.
The team, which visited the affected districts, said more than 1,000 people have been displaced due to the attacks and social boycotts which started in the second week of December in tribal-dominated Chhattisgarh state.