Thu, 11/03/2010 - 12:32pm Lawyers to help Kandhamal riot victims to move the supreme court of India

March 10, 2010
Forum of Lawyers for Kandhamal, Orissa violence,

A group of Religious lawyers today finalized plans to help to improve conviction rates in anti-Christian riot cases in the eastern state of Orissa.

The Forum of Religious Lawyers for Kandhamal (FRLK) will help victims appeal to the Supreme Court to reopen 11 murders cases handled by two fast track courts in Orissa, said forum head Monfort Brother Varghese Theckanath.

Flawed investigation and a lack of expert legal help were to blame for the high rate of acquittals, Brother Theckanath said.

Five representatives of the forum concluded a two-day meeting with Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar in Orissa state capital to finalize plans today.

The Religious lawyers formed the forum after they came together Feb. 25-28 in Hyderabad, capital of southern Andhra Pradesh state.

The Hyderabad meeting was initiated by Montfort Social Institute in that city and Pune-based Streevani, a Church-run center for women’s empowerment.

The 54 members who gathered for the initial meeting, all priests, brothers or nuns, have agreed to spend time in Kandhamal, the epicenter of violence, to provide legal help to victims, Brother Theckanath said.

The seven weeks of rioting and violence against Christians in 2008 resulted in 3,232 complaints by victims.

Police have filed 831 cases for investigation. The investigations of some 120 cases have been completed and sent for trial.

By February end the courts have closed some 60 cases, convicting a total of 89 persons and acquitting 251 people, the Religious lawyers said in a statement.

They plan to work with other groups to appeal to the Supreme Court to “stay all criminal proceedings” of riot cases and to re-open and re-investigate all cases.

“We propose appointing a leading criminal lawyer each” in the district, state and Supreme courts,” the brother said.
Global council of Indian Christians(GCIC) had earlier approached National Human Rights Commission and National Women’s Commission to ensure justice for victims

Wed, 10/03/2010 - 1:33pm Why teach only Gita in schools: Madhya Pradesh minorities

10-3-2010
Bhopal: Minorities in Madhya Pradesh have criticised plans to introduce the Bhagvad Gita in state-run schools, saying the scriptures of other religions should also be part of the syllabus, even as a section of Muslim leaders sees nothing wrong with it.

The Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh has said the government should, if it has to, teach the scriptures of all religions and not just the Hindu scriptures.

'We are not against introducing lessons from religious scriptures in schools. But all religions in the country should get equal representation,' Bhopal's Archbishop Leo Cornelio said.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had declared last week that his government was contemplating introducing the Gita in the school curriculum as 'its study is necessary for moral education'.

'The Bhagvad Gita is a treasure of knowledge. Children should be imparted the knowledge of the Gita and there should be no politics over it,' Chouhan said.

But Cornelia said the move favouring just one religious text was against India's secular character which respects all religions equally.

The archbishop said the church supports the idea of having lessons from scriptures as they will help inculcate values in students, but the problem is 'ever since the BJP government came to power in the state in December 2003, it has made efforts to promote the Hindu religion alone'.

Madhya Pradesh Catholic Churches' spokesman Father Anand Muttangal said: 'We welcome the proposal of the government to include the religious scripture in the educational syllabus. We too have been asking the government to include religious education as part of the curriculum so that children will know about religions when they complete studies, but the thing is that here too it is selective.

Wed, 10/03/2010 - 10:18am Art of living Sri Sri Ravi Shankar flays Husain for nude painting

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar flays Husain for nude painting
By: Agencies Date: 2010-03-09 Place: Bangalore

Self styled Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the founder of Art of living,expressed surprise over the hue and cry over painter MF Husain's move to give up Indian citizenship and chided him for painting Indian gods in the nude.
"While India has a policy of free expression, one cannot accept blatant insult to the heroes of its land. It is the intention behind a man's creativity which is questionable," Ravi Shankar said in a statement.
"In one of Husain's paintings of Mahatma Gandhi, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein and Hitler, he painted only Hitler nude and said that his way of humiliating a person is to paint him nude.
"No one has ever sculpted Rama and Sita as nude. Creative expression is always welcome. No country has been as liberal as India... Any nude woman could have been painted by him but calling the women Sita, Lakshmi (and) Saraswati shows his perversion and hatred.
"Will MF Husain show the same creativity and the same spirit with Islamic heroes and would he, then, be able retain his Qatari citizenship?
Double standards, bias and hatred do not go well with men of excellence."