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Patti, Aug 31, 2022: Some unidentified miscreants on August 31 vandalized a Marian statue kept in front of a church in Patti, an old town in the northern Indian state of Punjab. They also set ablaze the car of the parish priest. According to a message from Father Thomas Poochalil, the parish priest of Infant Jesus Catholic Church in Patti, the “shocking incident” took place around 12:45 am. While some kept the security guards under gun point two others attacked the statue and the car. According to a report in truescoopnews.com, four people were involved in the act. It also reported that Christians jammed the Patti-Khemkaran road in the morning. They also staged a sin-in demanding justice as well as the arrest of the accused. Police tried to convince the people to calm down. Father Poochalil said the miscreants raised slogans, ‘We are Khalistanis.” The church’s CCTV footage shows the miscreants taking the head of Mother Mary’s statue with them. The parish comes under the diocese of Jalandhar and Patti town near Tarn Taran is some 50 km south of Amritsar, the holy city of Sikhs. Father Poochalil said the parish has informed the police, who have started investigation into the incident. The priest sought prayers for the

Bhubaneswar, Aug 26, 2022: A state-level peace and harmony convention was held in Odisha on the fourteenth anniversary of the Kandhamal communal massacre in the eastern Indian state. More than 300 civil society groups, political leaders, journalists, lawyers, writers, students, and academicians, including priests, and nuns across the state joined the day-long peace and goodwill convention August 25 at Geet Govind Bhawan, Bhubaneswar, the state capital. The chief speakers at the convention were Prakash Yashwant Ambedkar, a former Member of the Parliament, and Arfa Khanum Sherwani, a renowned journalist and the senior editor of the Wire online portal. Sister Justine Geetanjali, a member of the Odisha unit of the Citizens for Communal Harmony Peace and Justice, in her introductory remark briefed about the current state of affairs in the country and about the Kandhamal riots. Ambedkar, the grandson of the founder of the Constitution, Baba Saheb Ambedkar, who addressed the first session, raised questions on sensitive incidents such as the case of Bilkis Bano. He said injustice done to the exploited class is not known. It has been going on for many decades. “Ambedkar made many provisions for the benefit of the people in the Constitution. He ensured equality, women’s protection, and justice for all.

István Perczel could well be a modern-day Indiana Jones for Kerala’s elite approximately 60,00,000-strong Syrian Christian community spread across the globe. But instead of engaging in gun fights and discovering lost treasure and ancient cities, The Hungarian scholar of Byzantine history and early Christianity is bringing to life a forgotten body of Malayalam scholarly literature—one that is written in a script based on the Syriac alphabet, an ancient writing system that dates back to the 1st century AD, and shares similarities with Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic and Sogdian. He is now on a quest to develop an InScript keyboard for the lost script—the first of its kind—for which he had to decode thousands of palm-leaf documents lying forgotten in cupboards. They were arguably the oldest written historical records of the Syrian, or Saint Thomas Christians, a community that converted long before colonisation and missionary expansion in India. Most of the records, popularly believed to have been destroyed in the 16th century by the Roman Catholic Church, are written in Garshuni Malayalam. While Garshuni is traditionally referred to as Arabic in a Syriac script, the records Perczel is digitising are Malayalam written in the Syriac script. It was used by the Kerala Syrian Christian

One of the convicts spoke to Scroll.in and claimed he was innocent. He also claimed he had come home straight from prison, a fact belied by photos of the event. In Godhra, Bilkis Bano convicts felicitated by RSS member soon after their release Eleven men convicted in the Bilkis Bano gangrape case walked out free on August 15. They were felicitated at the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Trust auditorium by a member of the RSS. | Sitting in his family-run grocery store on Tuesday, flanked by a host of relatives, 47-year-old Radhshyam Shah kept referring to himself as the “accused”. When it was pointed out to him that he had, in fact, been convicted of gangrape – a verdict upheld by the Supreme Court – his response was matter-of-fact: “Yes, the court did say that.” “But,” he was quick to add, “we are innocent.” In 2008, Shah and 11 other men from Randhikpur in Gujarat’s Dahod district were sentenced to life imprisonment for raping a young pregnant woman from their village, Bilkis Yakub Rasul Patel, more commonly known as Bilkis Bano, and for murdering 14 of her relatives during the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat. Those killed included a day-old infant and Bano’s three-year-old daughter. The

Seeks dismissal of a petition for urgent intervention of Supreme Court to end attacks on Christians and their institutions India’s federal government has sought dismissal of a petition that sought to end the persecution of Christians, saying there could be a “hidden oblique agenda” behind it. In its affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court on Aug. 16, the government said there seemed to be an agenda behind filing “such deceptive petitions.” The government alleged that such petitions were meant to “create unrest throughout the country and perhaps for getting assistance from outside the country to meddle with internal affairs of our nation.” The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore, the National Solidarity Forum and the Evangelical Fellowship of India, said that an average of 45 to 50 violent attacks against Christian institutions and priests were reported every month. A record 57 attacks were recorded in May, the petition said and sought urgent intervention from the top court. Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the federal government, told the court that such “half-baked and self-serving facts and self-serving articles and reports culminating into a petition — based upon mere conjectures — clearly appear to be for an oblique purpose.” Describing the petition as

August 16, 2022. Washington DC. The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA) congratulates the people of India on the 75th Anniversary of her independence from British Rule. FIACONA applauds the resilience of the people of India and their commitment to a democratic system of government in the face of organized assault on the institutions of democracy by non-state actors and their affiliated political parties. The unprecedented number of attacks against Christian and other religious minority groups and the rise in hate crimes against them should be a serious concern for all democratic nations around the world. It is important for India to stay true to its founding principles of liberal democratic values. Right-wing politics has the potential to threaten stability in the Indian Ocean corridor. A strong pull toward dictatorial tendencies will weaken the Union of India like it has weakened other countries in that region. Such internal developments will lead to social unrest and political instability internally, as has been in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar. India, the largest democracy in the world, should emerge as a leader and example to other democracies in the world.  A strong and vibrant India that respects the freedom of all its people irrespective

Four evangelists were arrested in Maharashtra , an Indian state on charges of trying to convert to Christianity. The incident, which took place on August 5, was reported from Saravali Talavpada village in Dahanu taluk of Palghar district. Clement de Beila, Mariam T Phillips, Pinky Sharma Kaur alias Paramjit and Parashuram Dharma Dingada, who came to visit a woman believer in their congregation, were surrounded by members of the local extremist Hindu organizations and surrounded their house and took them to the local police station alleging that they were trying conver this woman to Christianity. They were accused of trying to convert this tribal sister by tempting her. The local police have registered a case against them under Sections 153, 295, 448 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, which include inciting enmity between different sects, housebreaking and other offences. It is noteworthy that this development comes after the pro-Hindut government came to power in Maharashtra State. According to Voice of Martyrs, the main persecutors of Christians in India are well-organized Hindu terrorist groups, local governments they influence, and nationalist Hindus. Their aim is to “purify” India into a completely Hindu state. They see the evangelicals as traitors to the Hindu motherland. Hindu organizations

No merit in reports judges not keen on anti-violence case filed by Christians, says Archbishop Peter Machado India's Christian community has immense faith in the nation's judiciary, says Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore India's Christian community has immense faith in the nation's judiciary, says Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore. (Photo: UCAN files) A Catholic archbishop has condemned media reports saying India’s top court was delaying the hearing of a case seeking an end to violence against Christians. “I am extremely distressed about articles in newspapers that the honorable Supreme Court, India’s top court, is not taking up the matter of attacks against Christians. There is no merit in the allegation. I strongly condemn it,” said Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore in southern Karnataka province, on July 30. The prelate’s statement came a couple of days after Supreme Court Justice D Y Chandrachud criticized a section of the media for carrying news items hinting that the top court was not very keen on hearing the petition. Ucan Store “You get it published in newspapers that the Supreme Court is delaying the hearing. Look, there is a limit to which you can target the judges. Who supplies all this news,” asked Justice Chandrachud on July 27 while clarifying the

The missionaries told the tribals that they will get relief from their pains if they convert to Christianity. The villagers in the Dahanu area of the Palghar district foiled an attempt of four Christian missionaries to convert the tribals to Christianity by luring them with money. The missionaries told the tribals that they will get relief from their pains if they convert to Christianity. The Dahanu police then arrested the four Christian missionaries on Friday, 5th August 2022. The incident took place in the Sarawli Talawpada village of the Dahanu taluka of the Palghar district on Friday afternoon when four Christian missionaries entered the house of an old tribal woman spotting her alone at her home. They lured her with money to convert to Christianity. The missionaries asked her to stop practicing her faith and accept Christianity so that she would get relief from her ailments. According to a report by Loksatta, they offered her money and tried to force her into religious conversion. As the local villagers and the members of Hindu organizations came to know that the missionaries have come to the village, they quickly gathered in large numbers and took those missionaries and the old woman to the local police

July 18, 2022: Some Church leaders have hailed the nomination of veteran Congress leader Margaret Alva as the vice presidential candidate by India’s Opposition parties. “It is certainly a privilege for the minority Christian community in India, as it is the first time a Christian leader is proposed to the vice president’s post,” said Father Faustine Lobo, the spokesperson of the Karnataka Regional Catholic Bishops’ Council. The name of Alva, 80, was announced unanimously by 17 Opposition parties July 17 after they met in New Delhi. Alva was born on April 14, 1942, in Mangalore (now Mangaluru), a Christian stronghold on the Arabian coast in Karnataka state. She has served as a federal minister and governor of Goa, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Uttarakhand states. Tweeting minutes after the announcement, Alva said she was a privileged and honored to be nominated as the candidate of the joint opposition for the post of vice president of India. “I accept this nomination with great humility and thank the leaders of the opposition for the faith they have put in me,” she said. Father Lobo, who is currently serving as a parish priest in Mangaluru, told Matters India that Alva’s candidature is a recognition to the Christian community who plays

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