Tag: India

Religious intolerance increasing, says Pew annual report

April 25, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country China, Egypt, Europe, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Religious freedom, Russia, Saudi Arabia

Europe is seeing an increase in government's engaging in harassment and use of force against religious groups. This is partly caused by a surge in migration.

A report released earlier this month by the Pew Research Center shows an increased intolerance towards religion by governments and societies alike in 2015. According to Pew’s annual report, restrictions on religious activities increased in 2015, as did harassment relating to religion. The global study, which included 198 countries, found . . . Read More

Chief Minister of India’s most populous state bans ‘illegal’ abattoirs

March 30, 2017 India Beef, BJP, Converts, Ghar Wapsi, Hindu nationalism, India, Maharashtra, Minorities, Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh

Butchers in Uttar Pradesh face difficult times as state government bans 'illegal' slaughter houses.

India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party on 19 March appointed a highly controversial Hindu cleric to lead the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. The choice for Yogi Adityanath – a controversial Hindu monk who has been repeatedly accused of stirring anti-Muslim sentiments – is a shocking rebuke to . . . Read More

Uncertain future for Indian Christians after BJP’s election victories

March 22, 2017 India Anti-conversion law, BJP, Catholics, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Hindu nationalism, India, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand

India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have consolidated its political position across India after the party won several state elections. These were held in February and March; after results were counted in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur, it had secured a comfortable majority in India’s most populous . . . Read More

Islam to overtake Christianity as world’s largest religion by 2070?

March 17, 2017 Asia-Pacific, India, Indonesia, Islamic extremism, Middle East, North Africa, RSS, Vishva Hindu Parishad

Islam is the world’s second-largest religion, after Christianity, but this could change if current demographic trends continue, as Islam would overtake Christianity by 2070, reports the BBC. New reporting from the US-based Pew Research Center shows that Islam is the fastest growing major religion. The reason, it says, is simply . . . Read More

Isolated, female and vulnerable to abuse: Christian nannies in the Gulf

March 8, 2017 India, Nepal, Philippines, Trauma, Women

Locked up in the palaces of rich families, abused and treated as slaves by their “owners”, sexually exploited, or almost starved to death. Such is the plight of many foreign Christian nannies and housemaids from Asian countries working for families in the Arabian Peninsula – and almost nobody knows about . . . Read More

‘Hindus never convert people’, says Indian MP

February 16, 2017 India Converts, Ghar Wapsi, Hindu nationalism, India, Minorities, Vishva Hindu Parishad

The Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs has claimed the Hindu population in India is decreasing because “Hindus never convert people”. Kiren Rijiju, tweeting on 13 February, also wrote that “minorities are flourishing”. Hindu population is reducing in India because Hindus never convert people. Minorities in India are flourishing . . . Read More

Religious persecution ‘central’ to refugee crisis

January 12, 2017 Afghanistan, Europe, India, Iraq, Libya, London, Nigeria, Pakistan, Refugees, Somalia, Syria

Religious persecution is playing a “central role” in the global displacement crisis, the charity Open Doors UK and Ireland has said. Refugees eating donated food outside a derelict warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia. According to Open Doors, more than half of the world’s 65.3m refugee population come from Somalia, Afghanistan and . . . Read More

Police rapes, acquittals and false accusations highlight Christians’ vulnerability in India

January 12, 2017 India Chhattisgarh, Dalits, Hindu nationalism, India, Raipur, Rape, Women

The acquittal of two suspects in the gang rape of a Catholic nun, and a series of rapes by security forces in remote areas of the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh have highlighted the vulnerability of women from marginalised communities. “If you are a woman tribal or from a minority, . . . Read More

Nationalism in Asia, Islamic extremism in Africa – the 2017 World Watch List

January 11, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Afghanistan, Africa, Asia, Bhutan, BJP, Ethiopia, Hindu nationalism, India, Iran, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Kenya, Libya, Narendra Modi, Nepal, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Yemen

One of the greatest increases in animosity towards Christians last year took place in India as a result of religiously motivated nationalism, according to the latest annual survey of the 50 countries in which it is most difficult to live as a Christian. Since the rise to power of Narendra . . . Read More

Priests visit scene of anti-Christian violence

October 28, 2016 India India, Kandhamal, Narendra Modi, Odisha

Thirty-two priests from north-eastern India have visited the scene of the worst anti-Christian violence in India’s history, . Villages in the Kandhamal district of the eastern state of Odisha (formely Orissa) were the scene of a rash of violence in 2008, during which more than 100 Christians were murdered and . . . Read More

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