Tag Archives: Country: India

Telegraph: A British schoolgirl was murdered by health workers in India in a failed attempt to harvest her organs, her parents have claimed.

First Post: The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saw ministers expressing differing views on the clause which seeks to provide a share to a woman in her husband’s residential property, including inherited and ‘inheritable’ premises, in case of divorce, sources said.

CNSNews: The federal government is spending $355,825 in taxpayer dollars to develop a “culturally relevant stigma-reducing intervention” program for the transgender population in India.

LifeSiteNews: Responding to a groundswell of public opinion, the Supreme Court of India has asked the government to respond to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition that seeks to ban online pornography.

The Christian Institute: Fiona Bruce, MP for Congleton, said in the debate on Tuesday that if they are to condemn the gender abortion practices of China and India, they must “be ready to condemn and challenge any suggestion that gendercide is taking place in the UK”.

AP: After a month of heated debate, the government in the tourist hotspot of Goa refused permission for promoters to open the country’s first Playboy club in a 22,000-square-foot open-air property on upmarket Candolim beach.

Christian Today: Now is not the time to visit Kashmir if you’re a Christian tourist. AsiaNews reports that local Christians—but especially foreigners—in the picturesque but contested Indian state are increasingly in danger of anti-conversion violence.

LifeSiteNews: Raw video footage shows unconscious women in saris being unloaded from a filthy plastic stretcher and lined up like butchers’ carcasses on the ground to recover from surgeries at a “mass sterilization camp” in India.

The Express Tribune: Babies born to Indian surrogate mothers for gay and single Australians may be left stateless and unable to leave the country after New Delhi changed the rules on surrogacy, an expert has said.

Religion Clause Blog: The court dismissed a petition filed on behalf of a 17-year old Muslim girl who claimed that the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act is not applicable to Muslims because Muslim Personal Law permits marriage of a girl after she has attained puberty.

Times of the India: In a first-of-its-kind step towards regulating the practice of surrogacy in India, the Union home ministry has issued stringent guidelines for visas being issued to foreigners seeking to rent a womb in India.

OnIslam.net: An Indian court has ruled that polygamy is not encouraged by the Noble Qur’an, but only allowed under certain circumstances, saying the practice does not fit modern democracies, The Indian Express reported Tuesday, January 1.

LifeNews: Colonialism used to be about the rich exploiting the resources of other lands. Now, biological colonialism (as I call it) finds well off (mostly) Westerners exploiting destitute people in developing countries for their body parts and functions, essentially using people as natural resources. Renting uteruses of destitute Indian women for their gestational capacities–just one form of BC–is apparently on the rise . . .

NCPA Policy Digest: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) have started to plan their own development bank, as well as a bailout fund to help many countries around the world. This is done in response to the growing dissatisfaction of Western banking institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), says The Diplomat.

Fides Service: A court of first instance in Orissa sentenced to six years in jail 12 persons guilty of violence against Christian communities, during the campaign of indiscriminate violence which occurred in the district of Kandhamal (Orissa) in 2008. “It is the first step toward justice. P

Benjamin Bull at Christian Post: On August 30, an Indian state High Court struck down a law requiring people who want to convert to Christianity to give a civil magistrate 30 days advance notice. Just how one provides advance notice of a future intent to convert is anyone’s guess, and was doubtlessly one of the reasons the Indian court struck this crazy law down.

LifeNews: esterday I stumbled across the trailer for a documentary called It’s A Girl. The 3-minute preview stopped me in my tracks – particularly the part in which an Indian woman matter-of-factly describes how she strangled her newborn daughters. Eight of them.

NY Times: When it was over, the men threatened to kill her if she told anyone, and for days the girl said nothing. Speaking out would have been difficult, anyway, given the hierarchy of caste. She was poor and a Dalit, the low-caste group once known as untouchables, while most of the attackers were from a higher caste that dominated land and power in the village.

The Indian Express: The Gujarat High Court today held the Government cannot give monetary benefits to any community on the basis of religion as such a move will violate Constitution that bars discrimination on religious ground.

The Hindu: The Supreme Court on Monday issued a notice to the Centre and Chief Secretaries of all States on a petition from the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), asking for a direction to include the category of transgender people as a third category in providing various opportunities and facilities such as the voter ID card, passport, driving licence, ration card and admission to educational institutions.

Religion Clause Blog: In India, Jains are celebrating a 9-day festival of Paryushana, ending today.  As reported by Express India and Times of India, in 2008 India’s Supreme Court ordered all slaughter houses and meat shops closed during the festival in deference to the Jain community.

Religion Clause Blog: Last week, Canada’s foreign minister John Baird in a visit to India promised to do “whatever we can within the limits of the Constitution” to prevent extremist activity in Canada by Sikhs who want to create a separate Sikh state of Khalistan in the Punjab area of India.

NY Daily News: A new initiative in India could jail families who force women to abort a female fetus. Current laws prohibit sex selection, but they are widely ignored.

Katherine Infantine at First Things: Such poverty remains prevalent in Mother Teresa’s homeland as Alliance Defending Freedom chief counsel and executive director of global activities Benjamin Bull says, “. . . a law designed to prevent conversions to Christianity in India is exhibit A for the truth that, in some countries, religion is but one more aspect of life controlled by government or ruthless factions that fear no government.” Bull says . . .

Benjamin Bull at the Christian Post: Although universal in nature, religious liberty is not universal in practice the world over. And a law designed to prevent conversions to Christianity in India is exhibit A for the truth that, in some countries, religion is but one more aspect of life controlled by government or ruthless factions that fear no government.

AP: Thousands of Kashmiri Muslims protested Friday against an anti-Islam film, burning U.S. flags and calling President Barack Obama a “terrorist,” while the top government cleric here reportedly demanded Americans leave the volatile Indian-controlled region immediately.

The Age: Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop has questioned whether the gender imbalance caused by the selective abortion of female foetuses could hinder the rise to affluence of China and India.

Alan Sears at the Alliance Defending Freedom Blog: For years, under a law oddly-titled “The Freedom of Religion Act,” the province has required that anyone converting to Christianity (or any other faith) had to notify the local magistrate and have the decision made public record within 30 days. Anyone converting to Hinduism – or reverting back to that religion from a previous conversion – was exempt from this requirement.

The high court of India’s Himachal Pradesh province struck down legal provisions Thursday that had restricted Christian conversions. The provisions, part of the improperly named “Freedom of Religion Act,” required that a magistrate be notified of all religious conversions and that they be publicly recorded 30 days in advance.

Religion Clause Blog: Time reports that last Friday, in the Indian state of Gujarat a special court sentenced Maya Kodnani, the former state minister for women and child development, to 28 years in prison for her role in the 2002 Naroda Patiya massacre during which Hindus killed 96 Muslims as part of widespread Hindu-Muslim violence following the firebombing of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims.

Religion Clause Blog: In Evangelical Fellowship of India v. State of Himachal Pradesh, (HC Himachal Pradesh, Aug. 30, 2012), a 2-judge panel the High Court of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh struck down as unconstitutional provisions in Himachal Pradesh’s Freedom of Religion Act 2006 . . .

LifeNews: Increasingly we are learning about the deep-seeded prejudice against girls in some Asian countries. With an estimated 163 million women in Asia “missing” due to sex-selective abortion, which is equivalent to the entire female population of the United States, the lives of Asian women are getting worse not better.

Washington Post: More than 250 Pakistani Hindus have arrived in India over the past two weeks bearing tales of religious persecution, according to Indian border officials, fueling perceptions of growing discrimination against minorities in Pakistan.

The Hindu: India has sought strengthening of security around places of worship in the United States and urged Washington to come out with a strong message of reassurance to the Indian community following the Wisconsin gurdwara shooting that left six dead.

Christian Today: For months, a group of Hindu extremists in southern India had been blasting high-volume movie music at the prayer meetings of a local Christian ministry.

AP: An Indian court on Monday sentenced 21 Hindus to life imprisonment in the deaths of 11 members of a Muslim family during some of the country’s worst sectarian violence 10 years ago.

Catholic Culture: In an effort to stem the burgeoning conflict between Christian indigenous peoples and Muslim settlers in the eastern Indian province of Assam, Bishop Thomas Pulloppillil of Bongaigaon is calling for peace talks . . .

AP: Police say a communal clash between Muslims observing the holy month of Ramadan and Hindus offering alms to one of their gods left one man dead and 20 injured, including policemen, in northern India.

LifeNews: Just another indication of how abortion has turned the world upside down. India is cracking down on doctors that tell parents the sex of their baby. Charges have been brought and a handful of doctors have been suspended for determining the sex of a fetus and disclosing that information to the parents, which is illegal in India.

LifeNews: First an Indian “gestational carrier” died in childbirth. Now, we learn that a 17-year-old Indian girl is dead after predators in the IVF industry allowed her to be hyper-ovulated for money three times in 18 months, and she was apparently convinced or coerced by her employer to sell her eggs

NY Daily News: A woman Congress legislator from Assam was thrashed by a mob at a hotel in Karimganj town late Friday night after she converted to Islam and married a Muslim friend, police said Saturday.

Christian Today: Christians are calling for a new law to bring in accountability and transparency in church property transactions. The All India Catholic Union (AICU), a representative of the Catholic laity, has reiterated its demand for a law to govern church properties spread across the country.

Christian Today: A Catholic church in Mangalore was Monday attacked by a group of unidentified people in a presumed attempt to trigger communal conflict.

Catholic Culture: Some 50 Hindu extremists attacked a tiny Christian village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa on June 15, beating a Protestant pastor and 20 residents.

Life News: Two abortion practitioners who fed the bodies of girl babies killed in abortions to dogs to hide the sex-selection abortions they were performing have been charged with homicide. The charges are in connection with a legal abortion they performed that resulted in a woman’s death.

NY Times: The actor Aamir Khan opened a significant chapter in gender politics in the first episode of his show, “Satyamev Jayate” (Truth Triumphs), last month when he took on the topic of female feticide. Media coverage of the subject exploded afterward, highlighting India’s shocking record on female feticide — 10 million aborted over two decades, according to a 2006 study by the British medical journal The Lancet.

NY Daily News: British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced his plans to make forced marriages a crime, and parents who coerce their children could face prison terms. British government provides advice and suport to approximately 600 forced marriage related cases every year – half of which are for families form Pakistan and the rest from India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Turkey.

Catholic Culture: Women in the Beed district of India’s central Maharashtra state have been forced to undergo abortions late in pregnancy when they were discovered to be carrying female babies, AsiaNews reports.

LifeNews: Two doctors who fed the bodies of aborted baby girls to dogs in order to hide cases of sex-selection abortions in India has been arrested.

AsiaNews.it: Main entrance burned, the rest preserved thanks to intervention of a security guard. Two assailants unknown. The pastor of Holy Family: “We are concerned, it is a premeditated attack.” The President of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) calls for the intervention of chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir to protect the Christian community in the state.

Religion Clause Blog: Last December, the government of India announced the creation of a 4.5% sub-quota for economically and socially disadvantaged non-Hindu minorities– Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians– within the existing 27% Other Backward Classes (OBC) set-asides for government jobs and education.

India Today: Some doctors in Beed are disposing of female foetuses by feeding them to dogs in order to destroy evidence of female foeticide.

India Today: Some doctors in Beed are disposing of female foetuses by feeding them to dogs in order to destroy evidence of female foeticide.

Religion Clause Blog: The Tribune (Chandigarh, India) reports that both houses of India’s Parliament this week passed a long-pending amendment to the Anand Karaj Act 1909 that will now allow separate registration of Sikh marriages solemnized under the Anand Karaj ritual.

MPR (includes audio): India’s Supreme Court is now weighing arguments by opponents and proponents of legal homosexuality.

One News Now: The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has made progress in defending the rights of Christians in India. . . . “No one should be targeted for violence, inhuman treatment and religious discrimination simply because of their Christian faith,” [Benjamin] Bull contends. “The legal efforts of ADF in India are all designed to ensure that the religious freedoms protected in India’s constitution are upheld. Aggressors should not be allowed to get away with persecution by either disregarding the law or by attempting to pass laws that conflict with the constitution.” [more]

Successes in challenge to anti-conversion law, convictions against persecutors of Christians

BioEdge: Many women in India who hire surrogates use fake tummies to keep the surrogacy a secret, the Times of India reports.

Choudhury, Cyra Akila, Between Tradition and Progress: A Comparative Perspective on Polygamy in the United States and India (May 3, 2012). University of Colorado Law Review, Vol. 83, No. 4, 2012. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2050671

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Great Britain gave 166 million pounds ($268 million) to a government program in India that forcibly sterilizes poor women and men. The UK’s aid agency cited a need to address climate change by reducing population as a key reason to fund India’s abusive program, reports The Guardian.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Delegates at the UN witnessing the push to put population control in the Rio+20 document could take a warning coming from India, the nation who has implemented it zeaolously for decades.

NY Times: Three years ago, Salma Khatun’s husband divorced her in a fit of rage after a quarrel, pronouncing what is known as the triple talaq in the presence of witnesses. The triple talaq is a formula of repudiation. The first two times it is pronounced, it can be revoked, but the third time it makes a divorce binding, according to some interpretations of Islamic law.

LifeNews: A woman in India who was forced into six sex-selection abortions by family members obsessed with male babies is now using her experience to help other victims and prosecute doctors who illegally use ultrasounds to reveal the gender of an unborn child to a male-minded couple.

Examiner.com: In New Delhi, India, Islamic extremists storm a prayer meeting, resulting in the beating of a 65 year-old widow, another woman, and the mocking of attending Christians.  This all happened less than a month after they helped drive a young woman out of her home and village for her faith, Compass Direct Reports.

NY Daily News: The Supreme Court Thursday upheld the constitutional validity of the right to education act that mandates unaided private schools keeping 25 percent of seats for students from economically and socially weaker sections of society.

Religion Clause Blog: Gulf Times reports that a court in the Indian state of Gujarat yesterday convicted 23 people in connection with the Ode village massacre that took place in 2002 as part of broader Hindu-Muslim religious riots set off after a train carrying 60 Hindu pilgrims was set on fire by a mob

News.va: Allegations of conversions and then violent beatings: is what the Hindu extremists of the movement RSS (“Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh”, “National Volunteer Organization”) did against the Christian Protestant Pastor Mallikarjun Sangalada, 37, and other four Christians of his community.

Time of India: Women may be able to stake claim to marital property if an amendment to matrimonial laws is accepted by the Cabinet.

Religion Clause Blog: The Indian government charged that Rabbi Zalman Bernstein did not declare on his visa application that he would be conducting religious activities and would be trying to convert foreigners.

BosNewsLife: Suspected Hindu militants broke up a Christian prayer meeting and forced two women leading the gathering to stop evangelizing in India’s southwestern state of Karnataka, as part of several attacks against devoted believers across the country, Christians told BosNewsLife Monday, March 12.

ZeeNews.India.com: “New Delhi: Contradicting its earlier stand, Government on Tuesday came out in support of decriminalisation of gay sex, drawing the ire of the Supreme Court which asked it not to make a “mockery” of the system.”

AP: The Indian government Tuesday clarified to the Supreme Court that it accepts a recent ruling legalizing gay sex in the country.

Religion Clause Blog: In the Indian city of Rajkot, a number of Hindu organizations, supported by both the Congress and BJP parties, have launched demonstrations to protest the arrest by local police of 37 people who displayed swords in a procession last week celebrating the Hindu festival of Maha Shivratri (The Night of Shiva).

Deccan Chronicle: The government is considering a change in the law to exclude the religion of individuals from marriage certificates. This follows demands by minority groups, including Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists, now shown as Hindus in official documents.

NDTV.com: Homosexuality should be seen in the context of changing society as many things which were earlier unacceptable have become acceptable with passage of time, the Supreme Court observed on Thursday.

DNA India: Anti-gay rights groups, challenging legalisation of homosexual sex, were today asked by the Supreme Court to explain how such acts are against the order of nature as submitted by them.