Kochi, India, 16 June (ENI)--Road building may usually be an issue for civic groups but Roman Catholic bishops in Kerala have joined a political debate on how much the state's roads should be widened in order to create better highways on a densely populated strip of land. "The church has always stood for the development of the land, and we will encourage our people to make sacrifices for it [the widening of roads]," the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Conference said after its 8 to 10 June meeting, attended by bishops from 30 dioceses.

Kerala contains India's most concentrated pocket of Christians, who number nearly seven million among the state's 36 million people. Catholics make up the majority of Christians in Kerela, followed by members of the Mar Thoma and Orthodox churches, who trace their faith to the apostle Thomas who is said to have arrived on the shores of Kerala in the company of spice merchants from the Middle East in A.D. 52. The Catholic bishops' statement follows a controversy over widening the narrow and winding roads in the 700 kilometre- (420 miles) long strip of land that makes up the state on the shores of the Arabian sea.

The bishops criticised the state government's recent decision to limit the maximum width of highways in the state to 30 metres as, "short sightedness" to avoid displacing hundreds of thousands. The regulation width for national highways is 90 metres. "The decision to reduce the width of the highways to 30 metres with an eye on coming elections is an injustice to the future generations of the state," lamented the Kerala bishops.

While endorsing the call for boarder highways, and urging more than four million Catholics to make sacrifices for it, the church leadership also asked the government to provide, "adequate and attractive" compensation and rehabilitation to those who would be displaced by the widening of roads. "We are speaking out because this is a necessity. People are forced to waste their precious time on the roads due to traffic jams," Bishop Joshua mar Ignatios, president of the bishops' conference in the state, told ENInews from his office at Mavelikkara on 14 June. "Socially and educationally, we are far ahead in the country but we are lagging behind in development due to our poor roads. Wider roads are a must for the progress of the state."

Currently, most major roads in Kerala are only 10 to 20 metres wide due to the high density of population and hilly terrain. Yet, with the number of vehicles increasing steadily in the affluent state that has narrow and winding roads, Kerala has the highest ratio of road accidents in the country according to population. According to federal government figures, the tiny state of Kerala, which accounts for only three percent of India's population, records 12 percent of the road accidents in India each year

"My diocese (in southern Kerala) will be severely affected [by road widening schemes], and some of our churches will have to be transplanted. Still, we are willing to make this sacrifice for the development of the land," said Bishop Ignatios who belongs to the Syro Malankara Church that switched its allegiance from the Orthodox Church to the Catholic Church in 1932. [550 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]

Hong Kong, 7 June (ENI)--Asian human rights advocacy groups say the recent stoning to death of an Indian couple after one of them was deemed to have married someone from the lowest caste is a is a "grim reminder" of how strong the caste system still is in the world's second-most populous nation. The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said in a message sent to ENInews on 28 May that the death of Swapna Reddy, raised in a Hindu upper caste family, and her husband Sunkari Sriniwas offers more proof of, "the stark reality of the continuing practice of caste-based discrimination and caste prejudices in India".

The Asian commission said the couple was stoned to death on 26 May following strong opposition by Reddy's family to their marriage. The husband, Sriniwas, was a Dalit, people once deemed to belong to the "untouchable" caste. Six people were arrested after the slayings, including the parents of Reddy, according to the online news site India-server.com on 28 May.

India has enacted laws to counter caste-based discrimination that dates back 3000 years, but the AHRC said, "Though India boasts about some of its senior bureaucrats, a former president, chief ministers and constitutional court judges, including the former chief justice, as members of the Dalit community, in reality, the effect has been only symbolic. "The fact that the parents of a woman went to the extent of stoning their own daughter to death for marrying an untouchable Dalit, underlines the fact that mere legislation will not end caste-based discrimination," the commission said.

The AHRC said India is both "defiant and sensitive" to national and international criticism on everything related to caste-based discrimination, while refusing to show "sensitivity in dealing with the issue at the domestic level". Bijo Francis, the programme officer of the South Asia Desk of the AHRC/Asian Legal Resource Centre, told ENInews on 1 June that the "caste system is one of the [most] cruel violations of human rights, and it is very typical in India and throughout Asia".

He said that churches have a key role to play in addressing the social ill, including by providing education, care for the people who suffer, and struggling for justice. Sunita Suna, the Asia-Pacific regional women's coordinator of the World Student Christian Federation, told ENInews the "caste system is a shameful thing" that needs to be denounced by all churches.

"It is not easy to uproot the caste system, it involves power politics in the society," said Suna. "Therefore, all the churches and movements in India should come out and speak out publicly against the system." Stressing the role of local and grassroot efforts, she appealed to international communities and Christian groups to support Indian churches in the struggle against the system.

The International Dalit Solidarity Network marked its tenth anniversary on 10 March, saying that in the struggle for Dalit rights there have been some gains in international momentum, including an endorsement by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. "Much, however, remains to be done if one of the world's most serious human rights issues, which affects 260 million people, is to be eliminated," Tutu had said in March. "In 2001, I noted that India was at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid and expressed the belief that the Indian people would want to end the scourge of caste discrimination.

"I still hope that this is so, and I strongly urge the Indian government and my own government to endorse international efforts to end the practice of 'untouchability', which is a blot on humanity. Such support would be a boost to the struggle for Dalit rights, not only in India, but all over the world," said Tutu. [630 words]

[COURTESY TO ENI AS SOURCE]