‘Situation for India’s religious minorities is at tipping point’ – report

The report shows that since Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the number of violent acts against India's religious minorities have increased (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
A report by a religious freedom watchdog shows a dramatic increase in the number of attacks on Christians and Muslims in India in the last four years and “the situation … is at a tipping point”. The number of reported incidents in the first three months of 2018 was greater . . . Read More

India: Life sentence for top politician gives hope for justice for Kandhamal Christians

India: Life sentence for top politician gives hope for justice for Kandhamal Christians. (Photo: Getty Images)
Rights activists say the lifetime prison sentence given to a top politician in India on 17 December for his involvement in the riots that led to the killing of thousands of Sikhs in 1984, gives hope to India’s Christian minority still waiting for justice, reports Matters India. The High Court . . . Read More

Record anti-Christian violence in India’s most populous state

Record anti-Christian violence in India’s most populous state
India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, saw a “record level” of anti-Christian violence last month, according to a survey by Violence Monitor, a monthly magazine that reports incidents of violence against minorities, as reported by AsiaNews. The magazine revealed that out of 25 cases of religious intolerance reported in the . . . Read More

Nine-year-old Indian girl from convert family reported raped, then murdered

Nine-year-old Indian girl from convert family reported raped, then murdered
A nine-year-old girl from an Indian family that had recently converted to Christianity was murdered (and possibly raped before that) on Sunday, 5 August, in Punjab state. The girl was playing with her friends in the city of Gurdaspur, near the Pakistan border, when a 15 year old boy is reported to . . . Read More

Missionaries of Charity complain of ‘baseless innuendos’ as government orders probe

Roman Catholic nuns of the Missionaries of Charity order pray at the tomb of Mother Teresa at a service to commemorate the 20th death anniversary of Mother Teresa at the Missionaries of Charity house in Kolkata on September 5, 2017.
The order of nuns founded by Mother Teresa has moved to defend itself from “false news” and “baseless innuendos” after the government yesterday ordered all the country’s states to inspect all childcare homes run by the Kolkata-based order. The women and child development minister, Maneka Gandhi, made the announcement on Monday as criticism . . . Read More

‘Total impunity’ in India, as Muslims and Christians ‘bear brunt of ruling ideology’

‘Total impunity’ in India, as Muslims and Christians ‘bear brunt of ruling ideology’
Frequent reports of violent attacks against India’s religious minorities show the “total impunity” enjoyed by their Hindu nationalist attackers, says one civil rights activist. In one recent attack, a pastor, his wife and their congregation were attacked at their ‘house church’ in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state on Sunday (8 . . . Read More

India: 16 more Christians detained under Jharkhand’s ‘anti-conversion law’

A number of the Christians who were arrested by police, after they held a prayer service at the house of a Christian family in Phulpahari, India. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
A group of 16 Indian tribal Christians who visited another tribal family in the eastern state of Jharkhand to talk to them about Christianity are in police custody after the local village head accused them of “conversion by inducement”. Last year, Jharkhand became the seventh Indian state to introduce a . . . Read More