Cardinal Oswald Gracias is archbishop of Mumbai and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. Here is his reflection on the topic of religious freedom in India, Asia and the world. His starting point in Benedict XVI’s message for the 2011 World Peace Day, which will be celebrated on 1 January (see World Peace Day 2011 – Religious freedom, the path to Peace, AsiaNews).  read more »

Kandhamal-( Orissa) 83-year-old man was denied cremation by Hindu radicals because of his association with Christians.

“These are blatant violations of constitutional rights. No citizen should be discriminated on the ground of religion or caste,” Father Santosh Digal, who looks after social communications in Cuttack-Bhubaneswar archdiocese, said.  read more »

Udupi ( Karnataka), 26th December 2010
Sampath Kamath, a believer, has been quietly conducting prayer services in his house at Manipal near Udupi, on Friday and Sunday evenings during the last two and a half years. But during the last one week he has been under attack from the Bajrang Dal activists, who want him to stop his prayer services in his house. They have also lodged a false complaint against him with the Manipal police that Sampath Kamath is involved in anti-national activities and that he is trying to convert Hindus to Christianity.  read more »

Madhya Pradesh (Jabalpur): Bro. Devanand Dandale (28), was distributing Christian Tracts and sharing the gospel message with the residents of Damoh Naka at Jabalpur on 26-12-2010, Sunday afternoon at about 3.00 p.m., when some Bajrang Dal & Dharam Sena activists caught hold of him and took him to their office where they forcibly took his mobile phone and the money purse with a little over four thousand rupees in it. They also telephoned to their friends and gathered about 20 activists. They also questioned him as to how much money he was getting and who was his boss and from where they were operating etc.  read more »

Christmas, Hindu radicals burn the car of a Christian leader in Kandhamal
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Christmas,-Hindu-radicals-burn-the-car-of...
by Nirmala Carvalho
Christians in Orissa, the scene of bloody pogroms in 2007 and 2008, celebrated the festive season in relative peace. Two episodes of tension: an attack on the local coordinator of the Council of Global Council of Indian Christians and the distribution of a blasphemous image.  read more »