By Matters India Reporter New Delhi, April 4, 2020: A Christian group has been distributing home-cooked food and rations to people in need in different parts of Delhi since March 25. Unity in Christ, a registered NGO, is led by Minakshi Singh, chairperson, who spearheads the efforts to feed people who affected by the 21-day lockdown due to COVID-19 in India. “We are making food for distribution for poor people. We have also decided to give raw food packets and homemade food in optional days as long as this lockdown lasts, Singh told Matters India. “We intend to render service to people in need during these difficult times. They need our support. Our efforts are all being done by donations of different religious people, of goodwill and walk of life for this noble cause,” Singh said. In the beginning, the number was about 50 people. Gradually the number on the increase as much as 400 people, she informed. Other team members are Sanjay McGee, Dipika McGee, Noel Shashi, Tina Paul and Noel Shashi and a few others from different faith groups. It has been seven days of food distribution in Cluster Loni Gaziabad and other areas. “We do not want appreciation, but a generous heart. We want your

A young mother and her two children were staring at her husband as he lay unconscious after a mob of 60 villagers in eastern India had stormed their home and beaten him with wooden sticks. “The children and I tried to wake him up – we thought he had fainted – but there was no response,” Bhimeshwari Sodi told Morning Star News. “We cried out for help, but there was nobody to help us. The neighbors said that he was dead.” The animist mob, worshippers of the gods of their tribal religion, beat 30-year-old Kama Sodi unconscious in Odisha state’s Kodalmetla village, Malkangiri District on the morning of March 12, she said. They had first attacked him the night before, surrounding his house as he, his wife and children were praying as they would before bed, Bhimeshwari Sodi said. Before the attack that night, the hard-line animists had shouted at the family that they would kill them, she said. Animist villagers threw belongings of Sodi family out of their home in Odisha state, India. (Morning Star News) “I was able to protect my two small children from their beatings, but my husband was in their clutches,” the 26-year-old Sodi said. “They were beating him very

A Christian woman in Odisha leaves house and family after facing brutal treatment from her husband for following Christianity. Kasturi from Tumhara village started following Christ in 2019 because she found a sense of peace when the church community carried her daily burdens. However, the decision to follow Christianity came with a coast for Kasturi. From the day she was baptized, her husband started to curse her and verbally abuse her. There were times when her husband would kick her out of the house. She would find shelter at her cousin's place and later return home to care for her children. On January 19, 2020, when her husband was not at home, Kasturi went to attend a Sunday worship service. For her surprise, when she returned, her husband was already back. He greeted her with a brutal beating. He told her to recant her Christian faith otherwise she would never be allowed to step out of the house. Kasturi was not willing to give up the faith that brought her a sense of peace, and she decided to leave. "Although I left my house and family, I am still at peace in Jesus Christ," Kasturi told International Christian Concern. "Now, I can go to church every Sunday

RSS workers were also given official permission to manage rice distribution at PDS shops in the state's Kamareddy district. As photographs on social media showing RSS workers manning a police check post in Telangana triggered a row, officials on Sunday said no permission was given to the volunteers and they were told to leave the place. The police inspector in charge of the check post, has since been shifted and attached to the headquarters, police said adding no case had been registered over the incident. Indian Express has quoted Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat as having said, “This is the job of the police and we can do it. No permission has been given [to the RSS workers].” The RSS, on its part, dismissed as ‘false’ the reports about its members checking ID cards at checkposts and said these were motivated by “narrow and vested interests”. RSS volunteers helping the police department daily for 12 hours at Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district checkpost, Telangana. #RSSinAction pic.twitter.com/WjE2pcgpSy— Friends of RSS (@friendsofrss) April 9, 2020 Photographs circulated on social media purportedly showed RSS swayamsevaks manning a police check post on a highway in Yadadri Bhongir district during the ongoing coronavirus lockdown with several netizens raising objections. They sought to know how RSS activists “carrying lathis”

Millions of people made unemployed, return to their villages of origin. Premier Modi apologizes for the difficulties caused by the total blockade. Parishes, dioceses and Christian associations assist migrants, Dalits and refugees. Priest: "They call them 'rat eaters'. Our help is a blessing”. Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Dioceses all over India are rushing to respond to the tragedy of the poor, who suffer most from the quarantine imposed across the country to contain the coronavirus infection. Speaking to AsiaNews, Msgr. Felix Machado, archbishop of Vasai and secretary general of the Indian Episcopal Conference (CBCI), declares: “Over the years, the intensive and extensive network of our Small Christian Communities are serving people.  Our Unit leaders all over India, know the details of the people living in their zones. We also refer to them as Basic Human Communities, as not one is excluded". The fragile conditions of the poor are causing a humanitarian crisis. The blockade of the country has left millions of people unemployed in the big cities, mostly economic migrants who flocked to cities from rural areas in search of better conditions. The little they earn they send home to families left behind in the villages. Migrants like Goutam Lal Meena, who earns 400 rupees a day in Gujarat (4.8 euros). Having lost

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the nationwide lockdown will be extended until May 3, hundreds of migrant workers in Mumbai gathered near the Bandra railway station asking the government to arrange transportation so that they could return to their villages safely. Expressing dismay, Father Jaison Vadassery, secretary to the Conference of the Catholic Bishops' of India Commission for Migrants, told UCA News that "It is a matter of concern for the government and all of us because we have to make sure that vulnerable migrants don't suffer and we have to fight together against Covid-19, which has taken many lives in our country." "We can't ignore their plight because they are the ones who are suffering the most during the lockdown. We have to collectively work to address their situation because many have run out of money and depend on the mercy of others," he added. The Christian leader expressed that the government has to ensure proper care as media reported that many migrant workers have little food to eat and are being harassed by their landlords. According to Uddhav Thackeray, the chief minister of Maharashtra, the migrant workers had gathered at the railway station after rumors about the resumption of train

Migrant workers allege the administration stopped serving them food after shelters were set ablaze on Saturday. The banks of the Yamuna in Delhi have swollen up with men who cannot go home. On Tuesday afternoon, some lay curled over nothing more than a gamcha or cloth towel. A few guarded their bags and belongings by using them as pillows. Others had nothing on them apart from their clothes. Hundreds of these daily-wage earners are now confined to the garbage- and excreta-laden shores of the river near Kashmere Gate, less than 10 km from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a televised speech in the morning telling Indians why a three-week nationwide lockdown aimed at containing the coronavirus epidemic had to extended by another fortnight. These men are rural migrants who survived in the nooks and crannies of Old Delhi, picking up whatever work came their way – construction, plumbing, loading goods, pitching tents for events. But no one has earned a rupee since March 21 – the last day work was permitted in Delhi before the lockdown began. Their meagre savings have run out. With transport shut, they have no way to get back to their families in villages across North India. They

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi extends the lockdown on businesses and travel until 3 May. More than 120 million day labourers have become destitute all at once. “I thought I could help my family by coming to Mumbai to work.  But now I have nothing,” said one labourer. The Pahunch charity has provided food parcels to 800 tribal migrants. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to lock down the whole country, closing businesses and banning travel, has created an army of poor people, forcing more than 120 million day labourers into destitution all at once. Kuldeep Kerketta, 22, is one of them. Originally from Odisha, the tribal man arrived in Mumbai last January, seeking work to support his mother, sisters and brother. "When the lockdown was announced, the factory shut down and I didn’t get paid. No salary,” he said. Now he is “homeless, jobless and hungry.” The lockdown came into effect on 25 March until 20 April, but Prime Minister Modi yesterday extended it until 3 May So far, India seems to have contained the pandemic. In total, the authorities have reported 9,756 COVID-19 cases with 377 deaths. However, many fear that the virus might reach the slums and the countryside. Once that happens, up

Some unidentified people on April 17 disrupted a Christian NGO’s distribution of food kits among those affected by the nationwide lockdown in western Uttar Pradesh. “We were distributing provision for about 3,000 families in Electronic City in the Sector 62 of Noida when a mob disrupted our work. Seeing the crowd the police asked us to wind up and we complied,” said Indian Missionary Society Father Joson John Tharakan, director of the Board for Research Education and Development (BREAD). The Noida-based NGO is managed by the Delhi province of the Indian Missionary Society. It supports some 40,000 school children in six states with education and meals. In view of the lockdown, BREAD decided to distribute 5 kg wheat flour to some 30,000 families living in Noida. They started the distribution on April 15 with the support of the Noida administration and the police, Father Tharakan told Matters India April 17 after the mob disrupted their work. “Seeing the crowd, the police told us that they might not be able to control them. So, they asked us to stop the distribution and move. As we were going to our vehicle, someone clicked photograph from behind us and tweeted it to the commissioner,” the priest narrated. The commissioner,

As per the annual report published by the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), as many as 366 incidents of violence against Christians, mostly related to physical violence, threats, harassment and the disruption of church services were reported in 2019. Reports from the Religious Liberty Commission (RLC), an EFI initiative, showed that hate crimes and targeted violence against Christians is worst seen in states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. RLC pointed out that Uttar Pradesh, the most populated state in the country, accounted for almost a quarter of all incidents against Christians. The Hindu YuvaVahini group, founded by Yogi Adityanath, is a Hindu youth militia that has been involved in communal violence and in targeting religious minorities. Following Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu was the second worst place for Christians to be in. The state recorded 60 anti-Christian violence, which is traced to caste supremacist attitudes in villages and their linkages with political elements. RLC explained that most of the incidents recorded are related to physical violence, threats, harassment and the disruption of church services, by either religious radicals or the police. According to the commission, targeting Christian congregations on Sundays has become a trend across many states, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Furthermore, many