Articles
Changing the Religious and Cultural Landscape of the Northeast through Saffronization
Opinion | Articles | Pamreihor Khashimwo | 31-Mar-2025
Abstract The religious and cultural landscape of Northeast India has undergone significant transformations due to the increasing influence of Hindutva ideology, often referred to as Saffronisation. This process, driven by organisations affiliated with th.....
Fails, Ails & Travails
Opinion | Articles | Chhotebhai | 26-Mar-2025
These words are not just a rhyme; there is reason behind them – fails, ails and travails. I use them in the context of the church in India and more specifically the Catholic Church. Looking at its grandiose institutions, wealth and prestige one could wond.....
No Other Land
Opinion | Articles | Cedric Prakash | 11-Mar-2025
Many years ago, there was a popular American song which one gustily sang at camps, picnics and other get-togethers. Thanks to its very catchy tune, it was always a hit. The chorus of the lyrics went thus: “This land is your land, and this land is my land.....
Saluting Zakia Jafri: Remembering the Gujarat Carnage 2002
Opinion | Articles | Cedric Prakash | 05-Mar-2025
February will always be a painful month for some particularly the Jafri family: on 28 February 2002, Ehsan Jafri, a former Member of Parliament and an authentic and much-loved citizen of secular India was murdered; on 1 February 2025, his wife Zakiaben wa.....
Pope Francis is a Miracle
Opinion | Articles | M L Satyan | 04-Mar-2025
At the age of 88 pope Francis is battling with his life. The health complications he is facing are indeed of grave concern for the doctors. His critical condition has caused grief to not only the Catholics but also to all the people of this world. Pope.....
Penny for your Penance
Opinion | Articles | Chhotebhai | 04-Mar-2025
There are two common English phrases where the word “Penny” is used – “A Penny for your thoughts”, and “Going to spend a penny”. The first is obvious; the second means going to relieve one’s bladder. That could cost a penny in a British public convenience.....
Destroying Secularism
Opinion | Articles | Cedric Prakash | 06-Feb-2025
On 28 January 2025, the well-known Calcutta daily ‘The Telegraph’ carried an article entitled ‘Rub your eyes: Hindu Rashtra Constitution to be unveiled at Mahakumbh on Basant Panchami’. The seemingly innocuous inside-page article, speaks volumes not only .....
What is Education without Character?
Opinion | Articles | M L Satyan | 04-Feb-2025
I was deeply disturbed when I watched a video in WhatsApp sent to me by a Professor in Kerala. A Plus One student in a government higher secondary school at Anakkara in Palakkad, Kerala, issued a death threat to a teacher. The student's anger was sparked .....
Ecumenism is non-negotiable
Opinion | Articles | Chhotebhai | 29-Jan-2025
Ecumenism is non-negotiable When we say that something is non-negotiable, we mean that it cannot be compromised or watered down. Its message and mission must be forthright, sincere and enduring. Ecumenism, commonly understood as Christian Unity, comes .....
Walking Our Sacred Land: Renewing Indigenous Catholic Identity Amid Crisis
Opinion | Articles | James Pochury | 20-Jan-2025
As excavators churn up the sacred soil of our ancestral lands, the stakes grow clearer: this is not just about losing territory but about the erasure of identity, culture, and faith. In the Northeast of India, where the earth carries the stories of our an.....
Celebrate Diversity
Opinion | Articles | Cedric Prakash | 19-Jan-2025
It is late evening, the day after Uttarayan (15 January), traditionally called ‘vasi uttarayan’. It has been a dull, cloudy day; the wind has been fairly good though. Since yesterday thousands have been on building –tops, flying their kites and many other.....
Corporate Greed is not Nation building
Opinion | Articles | M L Satyan | 17-Jan-2025
Today two industrialists have become the talk among the social media, both in India and in abroad. One person is Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys and the other person is Mr. S.N. Subrahmanyan of Larsen & Toubro (L&T). Months after Infosys co-founder N.....
The heat is now on Christians in Northeast India
Opinion | Articles | John Dayal | 08-Jan-2025
India’s bishops, as much as its civil society, possibly missed an ominous warning in a report in the Kathmandu-based portal Himal Southasian about the growing support within tribal communities in the northeastern states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh for .....
School drop-out rate is a serious concern
Opinion | Articles | M L Satyan | 05-Jan-2025
I had an opportunity to work with Functional Vocational Training and Research Society (FVTRS) from 2008 to 2014. The focus group of FVTRS was always school dropout students. Local NGOs became partners of FVTRS to provide skill training to school dropout s.....
"Celebrating 50 Years of Fr. Niphot’s Walk with Indigenous Wisdom"
Opinion | Articles | James Pochury | 02-Jan-2025
For five decades, Fr. Niphot Thianwihan of Chiang Mai, Thailand, has walked side by side with the Indigenous Karen people, learning and living their profound wisdom. His journey resonates deeply with the realities of the tribes and Indigenous peoples of N.....
True Spirit of Christmas is to Give, Unite, and Hope
Opinion | Articles | Peter F Borges | 22-Dec-2024
What does Christmas mean to you? Is it the sparkle of lights that adorn every street, the joyful hum of carols in the air, or the warm aroma of freshly baked cakes and sweets wafting through your home? Is it the excitement of unwrapping presents, the laug.....
A Reflection on Christmas
Opinion | Articles | M L Satyan | 16-Dec-2024
Four months ago, I conducted a few sessions during a retreat held at Christeen Retreat Centre, Kottayam, Kerala. The participants consisted of a bishop, priests, nuns and lay Catholics. The topic that I dealt was: Cross, Death and Resurrection. I presente.....
Undoing the Culture of Silence
Opinion | Articles | James Pochury | 14-Dec-2024
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." (Martin Luther King Jr.) When the youth of ICYM Northeast recently walked the hallowed grounds of Old Goa, touching the sacred relics of St. Francis Xavier and .....
Why is the Pope’s Visit to India thwarted?
Opinion | Articles | John Dayal | 07-Dec-2024
The prophetic Monsignor, Benny D’Aguiar, wrote in The Examiner, India’s oldest newspaper which he edited, of Pope Paul VI’s visit to Mumbai in 1964 to attend the International Eucharistic Congress: “There has never been anything like it within living memo.....
CHRISTMAS: A History or a Mystery?
Opinion | Articles | Chhotebhai | 07-Dec-2024
Where was the Holy Family when Herod ordered the killing of the children in Bethlehem? As we approach Christmas, this question began to haunt me. It forced me to look deeply into the infancy narratives in both Mathew’s and Luke’s gospels. As a layman with.....