Reversal of decision within a fortnight of government refusing to renew its registration to accept and utilize foreign funds The Indian government has restored the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of the Missionaries of Charity (MC) clearing the decks for the globally renowned charity to receive and utilize foreign funds. “I am delighted that the Indian government has restored our FCRA license,” said Sunita Kumar, spokesperson of the MC, a congregation founded by Saint Mother Teresa of Kolkata. The change of decision comes less than a fortnight after the federal ministry for home affairs declined to renew MC's FRCA registration citing “adverse inputs.” “We never expected that our registration could be canceled but it happened,” Kumar told UCA News on Jan. 8, a day after the government restored the license of the charity organization on its website among legal entities permitted to receive foreign donations in the country. “We are happy that the restoration of our license happened without much delay,” Kumar said. The congregation was finding it difficult to carry forward its charitable works ever since news broke on Christmas Day that its application for renewal of the FCRA registration had been "refused." The ministry issued a statement on Dec. 27 saying the charity did

NEW DELHI, India (Morning Star News) – Hindu extremists in northern India launched an attack on a house church service on Dec. 25 that seriously injured a pastor’s son, one of at least 10 cases of aggression in Haryana state that stopped Christmas celebrations for hundreds of Christians. Pastor J.J. Singh, a Christian leader in Haryana state, said a team formed to help distressed Christians was exhausted by calls from churches attacked on Christmas Day, as they received reports from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. “Our Christmas was completely spoiled,” Pastor Singh told Morning Star News. “Our team left the Christmas program taking place in the church and sat around a table dealing with one case after another. The calls were still coming, but we were extremely exhausted and decided to shut down our phones.” In the attack on the Christmas service of the house church in Siwanka village, Sonipat District, Hindu extremists brandishing wooden batons and stones assaulted 73-year-old pastor Ram Kishan and seriously wounded his son, Vinod Kishan, the pastor said. “Five or six men pounced on me, and an equal number on Vinod, and began to hit us,” Pastor Kishan said. “They hit Vinod so badly that he began to bleed

The Mother Teresa nuns are hoping for some support from state governments in India after losing foreign donations Since Christmas, the Missionaries of Charity have been strictly rationing the food and daily use items for their regular 600 beneficiaries at their motherhouse and Shishu Bhavan, a children's orphanage, in Kolkata. On Jan. 2, the breakfast of tea, bread and eggs was cut short by an hour. "As long as you did it to one of these, my least brethren, you did it to me," said Razia, a beneficiary of the Missionaries of Charity, as she waited for the nuns to give her the weekly provisions. She lives with her two sick children across the road from the motherhouse and says she visits the tomb of St. Teresa and prays for the "difficult times to pass." Abdul Razzak, a 45-year-old beggar, stays put outside the motherhouse curled in his rags. He has been staying there since Christmas in hopes of getting his share of food and medicine. A few others like him sit along with him to receive their subsidy from the nuns. Since the pandemic began, they received their daily meal from the motherhouse, but now "sisters told us that we might not

The government of Orissa is offering economic aid to the Missionaries of Charity, who tell us from Bhubaneswar: "We are not worried, the Father will take care of our needs. New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The Indian governments stop to foreign funding is not limited to the Missionaries of Charity: as of January 1, almost 6,000 Indian NGOs can no longer access funds from foreign countries. The news - offering a broader picture of the problem that has come to the fore precisely at the time of Christmas in India - was broken by The Hindu newspaper which cites official documents of the Ministry of Interior in New Delhi. To be precise, 5933 organizations have lost the status required by the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, the legislation that regulates the possibility for Indian organizations to receive funding from abroad. One figure is enough to give an idea of the impact of what is happening: until December 31, 2021, there were 22,762 active licenses, today there are 16,829. In just a few days, therefore, they have been quartered. Together with the Missionaries of Charity, there are other high profile victims of this obstacle: Oxfam India, the local branch of one of the best-known international NGOs, released

Read the article in Scroll.in Scroll.in tracked three incidents in Bihar, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh that did not even make it to the news. On Christmas eve in Madhya Pradesh’s Jhabua district, eight Christians set out on their bikes to do their yearly round of carol singing. As the bikes passed through Parnaali, a forested area in Meghnagar tehsil, they were waylaid by a group of alleged Bajrang Dal members. The carol singers were struck with sticks and axes. “Out of nowhere, these men started pelting stones at us,” said Pastor Naikhya Garhwal, who was one of the carol singers. “Two people fell off their bikes,” he continued. “We were hit on our arms and backs with stones. When we fell off our bikes, more [attackers] came out and hit us with an axe. One of us, Ramesh, was hit directly on his head and his scalp was torn apart. My son, Sem, was hit so hard there was a big bump on his head. He developed serious internal injuries.” Nearly a week after the incident, both were still in hospital. The Jhabua incident is among the rash of attacks that broke out across the country around Christmas this year. Hindutva mobs disrupted celebrations in schools and