Fr. Peter Hans Kolvenbach, the 29th Superior General of the Society of Jesus (1983-2008) died in Beirut Lebanon on November 26. He would have completed 88 years on November 30. May he rest in peace! Fr. Kolvenbach inherited the mantle of the leadership of the Jesuits from the visionary andContinue Reading
New Delhi: In the dense smog that engulfed India’s capital early this month, a baby named Vaishnavi gasped through the night. Inside the concrete room that her father and mother rent for $20 a month, they took turns staying up, laying a hand on her rib cage, feeling it moveContinue Reading
The decision to put a one day ban on Hindi NDTV, since withheld, came as a big jolt to the country. A major channel was asked to stop the broadcast. The charge was that its broadcast on Pathannkot revealed sensitive information regarding national security. On the same Pathankot issue thisContinue Reading
By Ellen Barry India’s family law was written to discourage divorce, and in that sense it has succeeded brilliantly: The last census, in 2011, showed that the number of Indians who described themselves as separated was nearly three times the number who were divorced. The country’s legal code offers aContinue Reading
We know the old adage that two wrongs do not make a right. We may also remember the three R’s –reading, riting and rithmetic. My three Rights are different, and not to be confused with the three Rites that have become the bane of the Catholic Church in India. TheContinue Reading
New York, Nov. 9: America began a new journey last night without knowing where and how it will end. Donald Trump was elected convincingly as the 45th President of the US in the early hours of this morning by literally turning on its head another turning point in history: theContinue Reading
[Archbishop Felix Machado of Vasai, India, published this essay in the Indian ecumenical journal Sampreeti in October 2016, and he will also deliver a version of it as a talk to the Catholic bishops of India at their plenary meeting scheduled for January 2017. ] Next year will have completed 500Continue Reading
Come October 31st 2016: India remembers Sardar Vallabhai Patel who was born on this day in 1875 in Gujarat; he was more famously called ‘the Iron Man of India’. As free India’s first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, he worked tirelessly for national integration, fully convinced that groups likeContinue Reading
Retired Justice of Supreme Court , Justice Markandey Katju wrote (on 26 September 2016) to the Supreme Court judges, “You are aware that one Ikhilaq was brutally lynched by cow vigilantes in Dadri. Instead of severely punishing the perpetrators of this heinous outrage, the police and local judge are proceedingContinue Reading
The talk of a Uniform Civil Code has nothing to do with gender justice. It has entirely to do with a Hindu nationalist agenda to ‘discipline’ Muslims For nearly eight decades, the women’s movement has discussed and debated the desirability and feasibility of a Uniform Civil Code, and has endedContinue Reading
