Dand, India, 26 April (ENI)--Retired Indian soldier Amar Singh has been living in penury after six consecutive years of droughts that forced his family to stop farming in their fields around the village of Dand in India's northwestern state of Rajasthan. However, their harsh lives in the desert state changed for the better when church social workers arrived and set up self-help groups for women. Initially, Singh's wife Hiri Devi was not keen to join the women's group started by the social workers from the Church of North India (CNI). But her friends and her husband cajoled Devi to join the group and to take out loan of 5000 rupees (US$110). With that money, Singh's family bought six sheep. Two year's later, they have 55 animals.

And with the money accumulated from selling milk and wool, Singh deepened his well and found water to resume farming. The water ensured better feed for the sheep and the cattle with the fodder now grown in the field. "You don't find this in many villages," Singh told Ecumenical News International as he stood in his tiny onion plot surrounded by rocks and dying trees.

Prakash Dodiyar, the field worker who looks after the CNI programme in Dand and 15 neighbouring villages, explained, "The financial support is only part of our drought relief programmes. Our aim is to educate and empower the people to face the drought conditions." The church workers are also undertaking similar drought relief and rehabilitation programmes in 45 other villages in the region faced with acute water shortage and other problems.

"Normally, there is not much rain in this area. And when it fails for years in a row, what can we do?" asked Hukum Singh, a farmer who sits most of the time looking at his parched fields. But the church groups are using the situation to conduct training on water conservation methods. They arrange visits of water conservation experts to the remote villages and provide work to villagers with innovative water preservation projects.

Catholic Relief Services, the international emergency and relief body of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, is supporting several "food for work" watershed programmes in the desert state. Under these programmes, each worker gets four kilograms of wheat and 250 millilitres cooking oil each day for working 6 hours on making small dams, deepening ponds and other water preservation projects. "We are glad that we are getting employment while many villages are starving," said Santosh Telli, who works on a small dam at the village of Anshari.

Albert Abhay Singh, the project co-ordinator of the watershed programmes of the Catholic diocese of Ajmer, said the villagers were at first "not excited" about the food for work projects. But now, he asserted, they can see the benefits. [476 words]

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New Delhi, 25 April (ENI)--More than 600 members of the Church of South India (CSI) have staged a three-day protest march to Chennai, the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, in a campaign to return control of four Christian colleges to the church. "The missionaries started these colleges for the benefit of the entire community," said Chennai's CSI bishop Vedanayagam Devasahayam. "Unfortunately, the administration of these colleges have gone into the hands of individuals who treat these as their private property."

The march concluded on 23 April having started in Madhurantakam, 70 kilometres (43 miles) away. It is the second protest in recent weeks by church members in outlying parts of the diocese complaining that rural students are unable to gain entrance to the Christian institutions. Founded by Scottish and other missionaries from 1830 onwards, the Chennai-based Madras Christian College, Women's Christian College, Meston College and St Christopher's College were managed by church nominees until the early 1980s.

In 1981, the members of the Madras Christian College's governing body voted an amendment whereby they became life members of the board, thereby sidelining the church, said Devasahayam. In following years, new members of the governing body were coopted without church consultation. There were similar constitutional changes in the boards of other three colleges. Devasahayam said, the actions of the governors meant it had become difficult for needy students from rural areas, especially low-caste dalits who account for more than two-thirds of the denomination's members, to gain admission to the colleges.

However, the present chairperson of the Madras Christian College, Besant Raj, rejected the complaints of the bishop. "The changes were made in the meeting presided over by the then bishop and nobody objected to this for years," Raj, a CSI member, told Ecumenical News International.

Raj said that the college was being administered in the "most professional manner" and adhered to standards and to the quotas for the Christian community set down by the government. [339 words]

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Jerusalem, 24 April (ENI)--Thousands of Orthodox Christians crowded into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to witness the annual holy fire ceremony in which a flame believed to be miraculously lit in Christ's tomb is then dispersed throughout the Orthodox Christian world as an Easter message that Jesus has not forgotten his followers. The Greek and Armenian Orthodox patriarchs entered the underground tomb in the church during the ceremony on 22 April and soon emerged carrying torches baring flames.

"Christ, Christ," the crowd, some crying with joy, shouted as the flames lit up the church. Clutching torches and unlit wicks, believers surged towards the flames to light their tapers. Flaming torches were then passed to pilgrims through the streets of Jerusalem's Old City to the peels of church bells as tens of thousands of Christians who had not been able to enter the church due to lack of space lit their torches as well.

Lamps lit with the holy fire were taken by aeroplane to Greece, Russia and other parts of the world for Orthodox Easter ceremonies. The ousted Greek Orthodox Patriarch Irineos was absent from the ceremony which was presided over by his successor, Patriarch Theophilos, and his Armenian counterpart.

"The Easter holiday, and especially the Holy Light ceremony will take place in a spirit of serenity, far from incidents and protests," Theophilos told the Athens News Agency. Members of the Armenian church however complained that police had prevented hundreds of their worshippers into the church for the ceremony. In 2005, Armenian and Greek clerics exchanged blows over which of their respective patriarchs would emerge first from the underground tomb with the holy fire.

About 3000 Israeli police blockaded the Old City, allowing only 15 000 worshippers into the church, anxious to prevent past tragedies in which people were crushed to death or fires erupted during the ceremony. [325 words]

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Jerusalem, 18 April (ENI)--It was the busiest Easter in years in Jerusalem as tens of thousands of Christians participated in rites over the holiday period in the holy city where the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus took place. But the celebrations were marred when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed nine people and injured dozens of others on 17 April at a Tel Aviv takeaway restaurant.

A lull in violence in recent months had brought the largest number of Christians in years to the Holy Land to take part in Protestant and Roman Catholic Easter services, which this year coincided with the Jewish feast of the Passover. In addition, Easter Sunday for the Western churches coincided with Palm Sunday for the Eastern Orthodox churches leading to an even greater influx of pilgrims into Jerusalem.

On Good Friday, 14 April, worshippers walked along the Via Dolorosa singing hymns as they retraced the path taken by Jesus to the crucifixion. On Easter Sunday, two days later, Christians commemorated the resurrection with mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the church built over the skull-shaped hill believed to be the site of the crucifixion.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, celebrated Mass at the church. In his homily, Sabbah said that Jesus' message of peace gave hope and courage to local Christians. "The Word of God sustains us and reminds us of the One in whom we believe," said Sabbah. "Jesus' death and resurrection send a message to all of you who are suffering in this country and who are seeking a peace that seems unattainable. You who think that salvation can only be found in war and in the death of others, you who kill, who are headed for death, and who hate, Jesus is saying to you all, here and today: 'Peace be with you.'"

Among the visitors were about 2000 Egyptian Coptic Christians who visited the Holy Land for the first time since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000. [352 words]

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Manila, 18 April (ENI)--Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" and the "Gospel of Judas" have triggered debates in this predominantly Roman Catholic country where some faithful are nailed to crosses on Good Friday, the day that marks the crucifixion of Jesus.

"Authoritarian religion which has held sway in this country since the colonial period is bound to be affected profoundly by Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code'," wrote commentator Carmen Pedrosa in the Philippine Star newspaper. "This is not such a bad thing ... Religious questioning carries far-reaching implications for a country held down by dogmatism."

For Pedrosa, the current debate over Brown's best-selling novel may yet usher in an intellectual enlightenment, which, she hopes, can help Filipinos get over what she calls their "backwardness". But Catholic priest and biblical expert Regino Cortes has warned the faithful that Brown's novel is "misleading", and he has published "The Da Vinci Code: An Exegetical Review," a 131-page book that seeks to correct "apparent inaccuracies" in Brown's best-seller.

The recently-published "Gospel of Judas", which portrayed the disciple who betrayed Christ as a confidante of Jesus, also invited commentaries from both clergy and lay Christians. "Whatever hype this 'discovery' has rendered the believers and unbelievers alike, the fact remains that Jesus was betrayed and he was sentenced as a criminal was a result of a sinful meeting of sinful men who condemned him to death," said the Rev. David Tabo-oy of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines.

Meanwhile, seven Filipinos were unmindful of the debate over the "Da Vinci Code" and the "Gospel of Judas" that heated up during the Lenten period preceding Easter. As in previous years, they let themselves be nailed on wooden crosses in a village in Pampanga province on Good Friday to atone for their sins and to thank Christ for his blessings. [314 words]

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Thrissur, India, 13 April (ENI)--The killing of two church aid workers in northern Sri Lanka who were caught in an ambush highlights escalating tensions in the South Asian island nation that threaten scheduled peace talks in Geneva next week. Two staff members of Caritas, the Roman Catholic aid agency, were killed and two others suffered minor injuries when their vehicle passed an army vehicle that was targeted with an anti-personnel mine that also killed five soldiers. The 10 April attack was thought to have been carried out by Tamil rebels.

The mine exploded at Mirusuvil village near Jaffna and killed aid workers Shanmugaratnam Pathmanathan and Chelvendra Pradeepkumar from Caritas who were returning from working at a tsunami relief site. "It is very shocking and sad for all of us," the Rev. Damian Fernando, executive director of Caritas Sri Lanka, told Ecumenical News International, from his office in Colombo. "This shows the dangerous situation in which our people are working."

"What happened in Trincomalee yesterday was a repeat of the same tragedy," Fernando said referring to the killing of 12 Lankan navy staff and their bus driver on 11 April in another mine explosion in the east of the island. The blast injured another 9 sailors and two British aid workers whose vehicle crashed into the military convoy after the blast. Fernando said the Caritas staff had been "stunned" by the deaths of their colleagues, but added, "We will continue to serve the people." He said, "The situation is looking grim. But, if we stop work in the region, the people will be suffering."

Nearly one million people in the north and east of Sri Lanka lead harsh lives due to widespread displacement and devastation following a two-decade civil war waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) seeking autonomy for ethnic Tamil majority areas. The war killed more than 65 000 people and had displaced about 1.8 million persons prior to a 2002 ceasefire which many believe is now verging on collapse due to frequent skirmishes between the Tamil rebels and Sri Lankan forces.

Anglican Bishop Duleep de Chickera of Colombo said in an Easter message, "Death and destruction is perceived and encountered from a new perspective and human affairs and history transformed with a new courage. This is the Easter hope." United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on 12 April appealed to both the Sri Lanka government and the Tamil Tigers to attend the peace talks scheduled for Geneva from 19 to 21 April, facilitated by Norway.

"Annan believes it is of utmost importance to find ways to implement the cease-fire agreement, start rebuilding trust and lay the foundations for a lasting peace," a UN spokesperson told journalists. [464 words]

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New Delhi, 6 April (ENI)--Christian groups in India are furious at the Gujarat government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for forcing out Roman Catholics nuns from a government-run leprosy hospital where they have served for more than 50 years. Six nuns working in the Narol government-leprosy hospital in Ahmedabad on 5 April bid a tearful farewell to the hospital where their congregation had worked since 1949.

"Our contract with the government expired March end. They refused to renew our contract and asked us to leave immediately," Sister Karuna, ousted superintendent of the hospital told Ecumenical News International on 6 April. Under a contract with the government - renewed every five years - six nuns were in charge of nursing care in the leprosy hospital which has up to 50 resident patients and 150 other leprosy affected- people visiting the hospital each day.

The nuns belong to the Catholic Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate congregation. The remaining 24 staff, including doctors at the hospital are government employees. "This decision smacks of highhandedness and discrimination because the sisters were not even consulted about the possibility of them having to leave," the Jesuit social action group Prashant lamented in a 6 April statement.

The Evangelical Fellowship of India joined the protest saying that the government had "used the state machinery * with total disregard of the consequences for the leprosy patients". Said Sister Karuna, "We felt very sad as many leprosy patients and also some of staff were weeping when we left."

Prashant director, Cedric Prakash, said although violence directed against Christians had declined in recent times, there had been a renewal of "government level harassment of the Christian community". He noted that even routine government permits to Christian institutions have become difficult. He said, "This incident shows the new approach of the government here to Christians." [323 words]

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New Delhi, 4 April (ENI)--India's sentencing of an abortionist to jail for using ultrasound technology to determine the sex of an unborn child before an abortion is the first executive action since the government's March launch of the "Decade of Survival of the Girl Child". India's federal government launched the campaign to reverse an alarming decline in the ratio of women to men due to rampant female foeticide that has increased due to the ability to detect the sex of a foetus using 21st century technology.

Medical records enabled authorities to trap Dr. Anil Sabsani who sent a "customer" to have a sex-selection test in order to obtain an abortion. The doctor and his assistant were sentenced in late March to two years in prison and a fine of 5000 Indian rupees in court at Palwal, in India's Haryana state. "It is a tragedy that every year, half a million girl children are being killed and prevented from being born," lamented Renuka Chowdhury, India's minister for Women and Child Development, launching the Decade of the Survival of the Girl Child on 8 March, also international Women's Day. "We have got to put a stop to this."

The 2001 national census had recorded alarming trends in the sex ratio with less than 800 girls for 1000 boys below 6 years in several areas while there were only 929 female adults for 1000 men. Chowdhury said the "most shocking" aspect of the decline in female sex ratio is that it is reported from developed regions with economic prosperity, high literacy and better income compared to backward regions.

The Christian Medical Association of India had made a pioneering study of births in Delhi's hospitals which showed last year that in families that had a third child after two girls, there were only 219 girls for 1000 boys. Besides enforcing strict measures to curb female foeticide, the minister said the Girl Child decade campaign would focus on empowerment and creation of greater employment opportunities for women.

"We welcome this announcement. But government should make sure that serious efforts are made to curb female foeticide," said Annie Raja, general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women. Raja, a prominent women's activist, told Ecumenical News International, "It is not enough that the government announce grand plans without making serious efforts for proper implementation of the programme."

Jessy George, secretary of the Young Women's Christians Association in Delhi told ENI, "We are glad that the government is acknowledging the gravity of the problem." But she said widespread female foeticide needs concerted action to change gender prejudice against girls.

Besides widespread son preference under Indian tradition, thousands of young brides are killed for failure to meet dowry demands. This makes many families try to prevent the birth of girl child even by breaking the law. She noted that according to Hindu tradition, a father cannot attain "moksha" (salvation) unless he had a son to perform his last rites. This ancient religious sanction rendering the girl child "unwanted" has spawned the dowry system reducing her to an economic liability for the family. [528 words]

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New Delhi, 31 March (ENI)--Plans by the government of Rajasthan state in western India to introduce laws banning religious conversions will be used to harass the state's small Christian community, church leaders are warning. "The move to introduce the anti-conversion bill [draft law] is not just mischievous but downright unconstitutional," said the All-India Christian Council (AICC) in a statement on the move by the Rajasthan government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Local media reports have said state officials have accused Christian missionaries of using force and monetary enticements to convert low-caste Hindus and populations referred to locally as "tribals".

The AICC's general secretary Abraham Mathai told Ecumenical News International from Mumbai on 31 March that the BJP-led government appeared "determined to push" the law through, as it has a clear majority in the state legislature. But, the Christian council and civil rights groups would try to block it by taking the case to the state governor who is appointed by India's federal government, Mathai said.

"This is a calculated move on the part of the government to suppress the Christians," said the Rev. Abraham Mathew of the Mar Thoma church. Rajasthan state has witnessed anti-Christian violence in recent months with attacks on nuns, priests and church institutions. Christians in the state make up less than 100 000 of its 57 million people. [242 words]

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