Tag: India

Indian bureaucrat convert to challenge preaching ban

February 3, 2015 India Bangalore, Chennai, Converts, Ghar Wapsi, Hindu Munnani, Hindu nationalism, India, Proselytism, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand

Chellakani Umashankar, an elite Indian bureaucrat in southern Tamil Nadu state, has decided to challenge the order by the government of southern Tamil Nadu state that asked him to stop preaching and cancel his evangelical conventions. “This is nonsense. I am going to challenge it in the court” 51-year-old Umashankar, . . . Read More

Obama addresses persecution during India visit

January 27, 2015 India BJP, Constitution, Hindu nationalism, India, Narendra Modi, Religious freedom

President Obama addressed India’s treatment of minority faiths during his final speech on January 27 after a three-day-long visit to the country. His comments were widely interpreted as a message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose rise to power emboldened activists to declare India . . . Read More

2014: A year of rising hostility toward Christians

January 7, 2015 Global News -- No Particular Country Africa, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Asia, Boko Haram, Buddhist nationalism, Central African Republic, China, Communism, Converts, East Africa, Fulani herdsmen, Hindu nationalism, India, Iraq, Islamic extremism, Islamic State, Latin America, Malaysia, Mexico, Middle Belt, Middle East, Narendra Modi, Nigeria, North Korea, Religious freedom, Sri Lanka, Sub-Saharan Africa, Syria

While the world’s eyes were riveted to Syria and Iraq in 2014, life for Christians worsened even more profoundly in Africa, according to an annual report on religious freedom. The situation deteriorated most rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa, in countries where Islamic extremism is the main source of pressure upon Christians, . . . Read More

We meant what we said

December 30, 2014 India Bihar, Converts, Dalits, Hindu nationalism, India

Between 30 and 40 recent Indian converts to Christianity have signed their names to a petition to re-affirm their decision and to seek police protection from intimidation by fundamentalist Hindu groups that want to bring the Dalits back to Hinduism. The petition claims that several nationalist groups have been intruding . . . Read More

10 arrested for insulting Hinduism

December 29, 2014 India India, Madhya Pradesh, Proselytism

When police in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh determined there was nothing to support accusations that 10 Christians had tried to bribe a Hindu into conversion, the Christians were then accused of insulting Hinduism. The Indian Express reported that police arrested the Christians — five men and five . . . Read More

Christmas 2014 ‘evokes not joy but fears’ for India’s Christians

December 18, 2014 India BJP, Christmas, Dharm Jagran Samiti, Good Governance Day, Hindutva, India, Maharashtra, Narendra Modi, RSS, Uttar Pradesh

Christmas is an occasion mostly associated with joy and celebration. But since the start of the holiday season, India’s minority religious groups of Christians and Muslims have been especially under pressure. The Indian Parliament has hardly functioned since the start of December because several opposition lawmakers have been protesting a . . . Read More

Christmas repurposed in India

December 15, 2014 India Christmas, Dharm Jagran Samiti, Good Governance Day, Hindu nationalism, India, RSS

In the lead up to Christmas, India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development has asked all schools to observe 25 December as ‘Good Governance Day.’ It is marked to celebrate the birthdays of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a former Prime Minister of India, and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, a Hindu nationalist, educationist . . . Read More

India’s PM urged to investigate Delhi church fire

December 4, 2014 India Delhi, India

Investigations are currently underway after St. Sebastian’s church, among the largest in East Delhi, went up in flames on the morning of 1 December. According to Daijiworld, Delhi Archbishop Dr. Anil Couto has called on India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to urgently order a judicial enquiry into the fire in . . . Read More

Tension simmers following attack on Christians in troubled Bastar

November 3, 2014 India Ghar Wapsi, Hindu nationalism, India, Pentecostals

Man injured in the attackWorld Watch Monitor Scores of policemen are camping in a remote Indian village following an Oct. 25 attack on Christians by Hindu fundamentalists. Government officials characterize the violence in Madhota village, in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh state in central India, as a “clash between . . . Read More

Nepal PM promises religious freedom

October 28, 2014 Nepal Anti-conversion law, Hindu nationalism, India, Islamic extremism, Nepal, Sushil Koirala

Nepal Prime Minster Sushil Koirala says religious freedom will be guaranteed in the country’s new constitution, which the national political parties have promised to complete in January 2015. Koirala made his pledge Oct. 6 to an audience of Muslims, who make up about 4 percent of Nepal’s 26 million people. . . . Read More

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