Author: Priya Saha

The 12th round of corps commander-level talks between the militaries of India and China recently concluded with a joint statement carrying the usual homilies about enhancing mutual understanding and resolving the remaining disputes along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh. It is to be noted that no concrete forward movement has been visible in the unfinished disengagement process which has stalled since Indian and Chinese troops pulled back in the Pangong Tso area in February this year. True, discussions on other friction points – Gogra, Hot Springs and Depsang Plains – continue and plans are afoot to…

Reacting to shocking visuals of a temple being vandalised in Pakistan, Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Wednesday hit out at those opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which provides Indian citizenship to persecuted religious minorities in the neighbouring country.Taking to Twitter, Shekhawat posted a video of miscreants vandalising the Shri Ganesh temple in Rahimyar Khan district of Pakistan, and stressed the need to protect the minorities, who deal with these situations on ‘a daily basis’.  “Why did Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah introduce the CAA bill and why do other minority religions including Hindus need…

Sunday morning Mass is about to begin at the St. Matthew’s Catholic Cathedral in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.The century-old St. Matthew’s is one of the country’s oldest and largest churches.As worshippers enter the main building, they kneel in front of the altar and make cross signs in front of their chests.Related: Sudan’s troubled attempt at education reformA youth choir, accompanied by electronic keyboard music, begins to sing and the congregation stands.“I have so many memories in this church … because of so many things that I experienced growing up in Sudan as a Black woman and as a Christian young…

A case was filed under the Digital Security Act with Shahbagh Police Station against Dhaka University law department professor Sheikh Hafizur Rahman Karzon for allegedly making derogatory remark about the Hindus and their religious belief in a Facebook post. Bangladesh Hindu Juba Parishad general secretary Amit Bhowmik filed the case with the police station on Sunday. Shahbagh Police Station officer-in-charge (investigation) Mahfuzul Haque told New Age on Tuesday. ‘The case was filed on August 1 under the Digital Security Act and Cyber Crime unit is handling this case,’ said Mahfuzul Haque. It was alleged that Hafizur made the post with…

Americans who contend there’s a level playing field for Blacks and whites today are in the minority of public opinion, according to new research by Gallup. The polling firm finds a growing number of Americans believe non-white people are subject to disparities in employment and housing that whites do not face. “Americans have become less confident in recent years that equality exists for Black people in the nation, as well as in their own community,” the polling organization said in a July 30 survey summary titled “Americans’ Confidence in Racial Fairness Waning.” The new data points to an already-documented trend…

The inhabitants of Suandrapara, a Christian village in the Rangmati area of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, were forced to flee after suffering threats and two violent attacks from Buddhist radicals. The villagers, who converted from Buddhism 16 years ago, were attacked after they refused to re-convert and demolish their church building. The Buddhists attacked both members of the church and the building, breaking a cross, tearing down part of a wall, and damaging the roof. The church building was left in a state of complete disrepair [image credit: AsiaNews] The assistant pastor, Tubel Chakma Poran Adetion, explained, “We were…

Minority rights in India’s criminal justice system are in dire straits as revealed graphically in the institutional murder of Father Stan Swamy, the Adivasi rights activist. The authorities’ indifference to end such horrific human rights violations is also brought out in several recent reports.Persisting violence and crimes against minority Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and ‘national or ethnic minorities’ (UN terminology) elsewhere in India including the northeast, where I was posted for several years, pose a challenge to India’s criminal justice system. The matter came up for serious consideration at the 8th session of the UN Forum on Minority Rights in the…

August 3 marks the anniversary of the genocidal attack carried out by Daesh in Sinjar, Iraq. It will be the seventh anniversary of the attack. It will also be seven years of enslavement for some women and children. Indeed, on this seventh anniversary, there are still close to 3,000 women and children missing and presumed subject to continued abuse by Daesh fighters (if alive).  The attack on Sinjar, which took place on August 3, 2014, was one of its largest attacks by Daesh against the ethno-religious minority group in Iraq. Daesh fighters killed hundreds, if not thousands of men. As…

08/02/2021 Bangladesh (International Christian Concern) – According to Asia News, a church in Bangladesh was attacked and demolished by Buddhist radicals. Local reports indicate the attack, which happened in two phases, took place after weeks of threats. “We were Buddhists and we met Jesus Christ in 2005,” Pastor Tubel Chakma Poran Adetion told Asia News. “In January of this year we build the church. Every day we gathered and prayed, but the local Buddhist majority didn’t like it. They attacked us and demolished our church twice.” Pastor Adetion is the assistant pastor at a small church in Suandrapara village, located…

The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) has told the Supreme Court that minorities have to be treated as the “weaker sections” in India, where Hindus are “predominant,” as the body justified the Union government’s various schemes for religious minorities.“In our country like India where the majority community is predominant, the minorities have to be treated as the weaker sections within the meaning of Article 46,” said NCM’s affidavit submitted in the Supreme Court before a bench headed by justice Rohinton F Nariman. Article 46 obligates the State to promote educational and economic interests of the weaker sections.Responding to a petition…

Ordained Uniting Church minister Rev. Dr Elenie Poulos recently published her PhD dissertation. The politics of belief: the rise of religious freedom in Australia draws on Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the religious freedom debates that have taken place in Australia over the past 35 years.  The dissertation finds that the debate about religious freedom, once about the rights of minorities, has since been used to legitimise ongoing discrimination. “I was interested in why and how religious freedom became such a hot topic in public debate,” Rev. Dr Poulos said.“My academic background is in linguistics, so it was a pretty…

IN the West, although the culture and traditions we value are largely the result of the influence throughout society of centuries of Christian teaching, Christianity has no special protection in law.  Blasphemy laws are a relic of a bygone era. The last successful prosecution in Scotland was in 1843. The last person imprisoned in England for blasphemy was in 1922, and there have been no prosecutions for blasphemy in Northern Ireland.  We live in a largely godless society in which few take offence at blasphemous speech which traduces Christ, or portrays God as a figure of fun or of derision.…