An Indian Catholic diocese in southern Karnataka state has sought justice for a nun who was sacked from her teaching job under pressure from hardline Hindu groups who alleged she spoke ill of Hindu deities and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Sister Mary Prabha Selvaraj, a teacher at St. Gerosa English Medium Higher Primary School, run by the Sisters of Charity in Mangaluru (formerly Mangalore), was removed on Feb. 12 following protests against her. The protests were led by D. Vedavyas Kamath, a legislator from the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who vowed to continue them until the nun was shown the door.The allegation against Selvaraj was based on an audio clip circulated by a parent on social media. The audio clip reportedly carried the voice of the nun teaching a poem, Work is Worship, by Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian poet who won the Nobel for literature in 1913. The poem stresses that God is not confined to a particular religious place of worship. Soon after the audio clip went viral on social media platforms, there were calls made for boycotting Christian schools.The protesters claimed the nun made derogatory remarks against Hindu deities and the Indian prime minister and caused chaos in the school, which has more than 1,000 students. District administration officials who visited

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the criminal trial in a Madhya Pradesh court against a person accused of forcibly converting a couple and their two children to Christianity. A bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra noted that the local court proceeded with the trial despite an earlier undertaking by the counsel for Madhya Pradesh before it that nothing will happen in judicial proceedings till January 5. The SC had on December 15, 2023, heard the plea of Christian missionary Ajai Lall challenging his prosecution in the case for the first time. After taking note of the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Lall, the bench had issued notices to the Madhya Pradesh government and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. The case was filed by NCPCR after a video of a woman who claimed that she, her husband, and children were asked to convert to Christianity in exchange for money and were harassed by the petitioner when they stopped going to church went viral. This article is originally published on https://indianexpress.com/article/india/supreme-court-stays-trial-against-man-for-converting-others-to-christianity-9097358/lite/

MUMBAI: Allegations of unauthorised data collection and profiling of citizens in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) under the guise of collecting data for Maratha survey reservations have surfaced raising concerns among Christian community and civil rights groups. The Bombay Catholic Sabha (BCS) and Citizens for Justice & Peace (CJP) have raised objections to what they describe as ‘a clandestine operation conducted under the guise of the Maratha Reservation Survey’. The allegations surfaced during a press conference organised by the BCS and CJP at the Mumbai Press Club on the subject “Policing and Profiling of Citizens: How a surreptitious NPR database and selective surveys are profiling vulnerable citizens.” Reports received from various areas including, Vikhroli, Gokuldham, Goregaon East, and Thane suggest that individuals purportedly conducting the survey have been using app-based software to collect the data. The surveyors, whose identities remain undisclosed, have been accused of asking intrusive questions about religious affiliation and conversion history, particularly targeting Christian households. One particularly disturbing incident, according to Dolphy D’souza, president of BCS, involved surveyors entering a cosmopolitan housing society and singling out Christian homes, reminiscent of past instances of community profiling. Melwyn Fernandes, secretary, Association of Concerned Christians, highlighted the unsettling nature of the inquiries, stating, “Many

An FIR has been filed against five people, including two Karnataka BJP legislators, Vedavyas Kamath and Y Bharath Shetty, for allegedly inciting people and forcing students of a school in Mangaluru to chant Jai Shri Ram.The management of St Gerosa English Higher Primary School said Kamath initiated a protest in front of the school without seeking clarification from them. It is alleged that students were forced to chant Jai Shri Ram. The case has also been filed against two corporators, Sandeep Garodi and Bharath Kumar, and Bajrang Dal leader Sharan Pumpwell in the matter. The protesters were also accused of instigating enmity between the Christian and Hindu communities by directing slogans against Christianity during the protest. Given the sensitivity to communal issues in Dakshina Kannada, the district in which Mangaluru is situated, such actions could have created law and order issues, police said. Therefore, an FIR has been lodged, seeking stringent action against those who protested in front of the school.The case has been registered under sections 143, 153A, 295A, 505(2), 506 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). This article is originally published on  https://www.indiatoday.in/india/karnataka/story/karnataka-bjp-mlas-case-jai-shri-ram-chant-convent-school-protest-2502302-2024-02-15

Religious Conversions: After coming to power, BJP, which has been doing politics on the issue of conversion in Chhattisgarh, is now going to bring 'Religion Independent Bill' to stop religious conversions. Brijmohan Agarwal, Education and Culture Minister in the Vishnu Dev government, announced this in the Chhattisgarh Assembly on Wednesday. He said that many forces are working to destroy the demography of Chhattisgarh. This law is being brought for such people, so that apart from the legal conversions, all the illegal conversions that are being done can be stopped. Politics has been happening between BJP and Congress: It is noteworthy that before the assembly elections, BJP was cornering the Congress government in Chhattisgarh over religious conversion. BJP alleged that a game of conversion is going on through missionaries in the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh. However, the Congress party has also been showing a mirror to the BJP on this. Countering the conversion issue in Chhattisgarh, Congress had said that instead of making allegations, the government should issue a white paper on how many churches are there in the state and under whose government these churches were built. The Chief Minister had made these allegations against the missionaries: It is noteworthy that a few days

India (International Christian Concern) – Christian minorities in Chhattisgarh, India, face increasingly severe religious persecution at the hands of radical Hindu nationalists. Recent incidents have highlighted the targeted attacks on these communities, leading to heightened concern for their safety and well-being. A group of Christian farmers was attacked by radical Hindu nationalists.“We had grown good crops last year and all of a sudden, one day, violence took place against us and all the crops were left for animals to eat, and all the animals ate up my hard-earned crops,” said one farmer. “We do not have any food to eat. It was such a tough time for us. We had no seeds and fertilizer to cultivate the land. We were honestly seeking the Lord and waiting on God for his help.” International Christian Concern (ICC) aided 50 farmers (and their families) in the community by purchasing seeds and fertilizers for their farms, aiming to help them rebuild their livelihoods in the aftermath of the attack. Another farmer said, “We as a family suffered so much loss due to no seeds and fertilizers for planting crops. God provided the needed products through ICC. It’s been such a big help to us and all our farmers.

Hyderabad: Atleast three had head injuries while some had minor ones after a fight broke out between two groups in Methodist church in Janwada village, Narsingi of Ranga Reddy district. One group pelted stones on some people who were practicing a religion. The incident happened on Tuesday night. The injured were treated in Gandhi hospital and got discharged.The incident happened after there came an issue of road widening. While the villagers asked to widen the road, the members of the church protested calling it encroaching on their land. During the attack, doors and windows of the church area were broken. Sources said that the attackers also assaulted women who came in their way. According to the victims, they claimed that they were attacked as they belonged to the downtrodden sections of the society. According to one of the church member, "There has been road widening issues for years and the church objected since the road to left and right is being planned. The people came to start work and both sides of people started arguing and broke into a big fight." Whie the Church people took refuge in church, the mob entered church and vandalized and attacked them. Some of attackers names are reported

MUMBAI – A Catholic school in western India has requested police protection after members of a Hindu nationalist group known for staging aggressive “reconversion” ceremonies announced the intention to “by hook or crook” conduct a Hindu ritual known as Saraswati Puja at the school on Ash Wednesday. Saraswati Puja is a ritual performed in honour of the Hindu goddess Saraswati, considered the embodiment of wisdom and creativity. It’s typically carried out on the Hindu festival of Basant Panchami that marks preparations for the arrival of spring, and which falls this year on 14 February, the same date as Ash Wednesday. The individuals who said they plan to conduct the rite identified themselves as members of the Hindu Jagran Manch, which was founded in 1982 and is known for its efforts to resist the influence of other religions and to promote the “reconversion” of Muslims and Christians in India to Hinduism. According to media reports, a member of the Hindu Jagran Manch argued that the school should permit the celebration of the Saraswati Puja ritual at the Don Bosco School in Dhajanagar, on the outskirts of Udaipur, because the majority of its students are Hindu. The group also said they would seek support from the

A Christian community event to be held at Sankal village in the tribal taluka of Dediapada in Narmada district on February 11 was “called off” after right-wing organisations flagged the gathering for alleged “religious conversion”. However, the organisers denied the allegations. The event titled ‘Aatmik Jagruti Sabha’ was called off after the Dediapada police launched an inquiry and summoned its organisers to record their statements. The police action came after the Narmada district administration forwarded to the Superintendent of Police a memorandum by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Rashtriya Adivasi Manch of Narmada district alleging “religious conversion”. The area also witnessed protests from local villagers in the run-up to the event, which was to be held for the first time in Dediapada in the premises of a local church. Meanwhile, Amarsinh Vasava, a member of local Christian body Samast Kristi Samaj, said it was only a spiritual gathering. “The event has been called off because of the protests… It is not true that it was a platform for religious conversion; it was only to be a spiritual gathering. In today’s times, people are aware and it is not easy to lure someone to convert into another faith and the allegations are

The Syro-Malabar Catholic Congress presented Kerala state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan with the petition late last month after a major signature campaign, one meant to address what the congress described as “unprecedented crises” facing the Christian community there. Vijayan “was very concerned and assured to consider our demands,” Catholic Congress President Biju Parayannilam told UCA News this month. “Around half a million Catholics” in Kerala signed the petition, UCA News said.“Ordinary people are struggling to eke out a living and we want the government to focus its attention on their problems,” Father Philip Kaviyil, director of the Catholic Congress’ global committee, told the news outlet. Among the demands presented to the government was the timely delivery of social security payments. Elderly citizens in the state are given the equivalent of about $20 per month from the government, but they “are not getting it on time, making their life miserable,” the priest said. Farmers are also reportedly struggling to make ends meet while also dealing with wild animal attacks.Parayannilam said the activists were “hopeful that the government will make some positive announcement regarding our demands in the current budget session of the state assembly.” Vatican News noted that Christians make up about 20% of the local population in Kerala, with the