The arrest of two Catholic nuns from Kerala in Chhattisgarh on charges of human trafficking and forced religious conversion has ignited a political controversy, with opposition parties criticizing the arrest and the Chief Minister defending the police action.
Coming on the heels of two successful bilateral meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden -- the Official State Visit of the Indian leader here in June and a bilateral meeting in New Delhi in September -- USCIRF in its announcement of the meeting said the Congressional hearing is on how the US government can work with the Indian government to address violations.
'Dating someone during divorce proceedings is legally permissible as long as it does not involve provable physical intimacy,' says lawyer Navaneet Kumar.
Similar bills in the recent past have been passed in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.
The state cabinet presided over by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had earlier this week approved the draft ordinance to curb forcible or "dishonest" religious conversions including those for the sake of marriage, which could land violators in jail for up to 10 years.
FCRA registration will also be cancelled if any NGO is not utilising foreign funding as per the aims and objectives of the NGO or if it has not uploaded the annual returns, the ministry said.
The Chhattisgarh high court has disposed of two petitions seeking the removal of hoardings prohibiting entry to pastors and 'converted Christians' in eight villages, holding that they were installed to prevent forced conversions through allurement or fraudulent means and cannot be termed as unconstitutional.
Israel and the United States had a plan. Iran punched back. And now the Gulf is reeling, the world is beginning to feel the pain and, as on date, no one in Washington or Tel Aviv appears willing to admit that the punch has landed, notes Prem Panicker, continuing his must-read blog on the war in the Middle East.
'The implementation of the judgment has largely been left to the discretion of the very executive authorities it sought to restrain.'
India witnessed religiously motivated killings, arrests, riots and coerced religious conversions and the police in some cases failed to respond effectively to communal violence, according to the US State Department report on International Religious Freedom.
What we are watching is something different: A fog manufactured and maintained by the people who started the war, so that the question of why it was started never has to be answered, observes Prem Panicker in his must read blog on the war in the Middle East.
The pleas, filed by advocate Vishal Thakre and others and an NGO 'Citizens for Justice and Peace', have challenged the Constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020 and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018 which regulate religious conversions of interfaith marriages.
The face-off between Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee and West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose intensified further on Wednesday after the politician lodged a counter-complaint against the state's Constitutional head at the Hare Street Police Station within 24 hours of the latter having filed a first information report (FIR) against the former at the same PS.
In May, 40 Rohingyas were blindfolded and flown to the Andaman and Nicobar islands and then thrown into the sea and made to swim to an island in Myanmar. And after the Pahalgam attack, at least 300 Muslims were 'pushed back' to Bangladesh from Assam.
As of now, there is nothing to suggest that the 'Michaelpatti episode' has the potential to polarise Dravidian Tamil Nadu on religious lines, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde refused, however, to stay the controversial provisions of the laws and issued notices to both state governments on two different petitions.
Even as the BJP government in Karnataka prepares to table the anti-conversion Bill during the ongoing winter session of legislature, state's energy minister V Sunil Kumar on Monday said that a law prohibiting 'love jihad' will also be introduced in the days to come.
The Haryana committee will also study laws enacted by other states on the issue, Vij said.
Punishment under the new law is a jail term from one and five years, and a fine of Rs 15,000.
Astrologer Chirag Daruwalla, who is following in the footsteps of his famed astrologer father, the late Bejan Daruwalla, helps you navigate the Naya Saal.
BJP state chief Rajeev Chandrasekhar stated that the arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh was due to a 'misunderstanding' and that they will be released on bail soon. He met with Archbishop of Trichur Andrews Thazhath to brief him that the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister have assured the nuns would be released on bail.
The woman said she is an adult and married the man a few months ago of her free will. It was not immediately known whether she also changed her religion.
The aim is to ensure that such crimes are checked and effective action is taken against the culprits.
An FIR has not been registered by the police following the complaint.
The Deepa Thoon controversy, if not allowed to die a natural death, could take the election focus away from the anti-incumbency impacting the DMK and into the secular space. Stalin would love to have it that way, all over again, after the three past elections, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'They have to prove the credibility of their talk; whether they want to focus on the secular face of India, whether they want to focus on democracy and above all freedom of an individual to practice his or her religion.'
On October 14, 1956, Dr B R Ambedkar, fulfilling his long-held vow to renounce Hinduism, embraced Buddhism along with over 500,000 followers at Nagpur's Deekshabhoomi, marking a new era of social and spiritual liberation for India's Dalits.
'When Hindus converted through inducements there was no hue and cry, but when reconversions took place, everyone cried foul. If re-conversions are bad, so are conversions.' 'Our government is not getting involved either in conversions or re-conversions. The BJP has nothing to do with it.' Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu in a candid interview.
The most beautiful aspect of Bad Girl is the way it delves into the mother and daughter relationship, observes Mayur Sanap.
Religious freedom and related human rights in India are under ongoing threat, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom alleged on Tuesday in an unusual year-end update of the status of its assessment of religious freedom in the country.
Senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sankh leader Indresh Kumar favoured the Karnataka government's proposal to bring a law against forced conversions in the state.
'A strict law against 'love jihad' will soon be brought in the state. Home Department has sent a proposal to the Department of Law,' the Home Department said in a statement on Friday.
Ultimately, whether the UP ordinance is struck down by the courts or not, it will be the courage of young Hindu and Muslim women and men that will act as a foil to the UP police-cum-mobs who will be out to get them.
Congress partly vehemently opposed the bill, calling it "anti people", "inhuman", "anti constitutional", "anti poor" and "draconian", and urged that it should not be passed for any reason and should be withdrawn by the government.
The law prohibits conversion of any place of worship and provides for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.
The US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also recommended to the Congress to raise the issue of religious freedom during US-India bilateral meetings, and hold hearings on it.
The CM said that the film exposes the conspiracies of 'love jihad', religious conversion and terrorism and its "hideous" face.
'Whom do I want to marry and what decisions I make for marrying the person I love are totally personal decisions, in which neither the State nor the courts have any right to interfere.'
The Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday that religious freedom does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion and that it certainly does not embrace the right to convert an individual through fraud, deception, coercion or allurement.
The Madhya Pradesh Assembly on Monday passed a bill that penalises religious conversion through marriage or any other fraudulent means and provides for a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
