India
Tech company CEO faces backlash over participation in Hindu nationalist event
By Aysha Khan — January 8, 2020
(RNS) — Facing online backlash, the California-based CEO of enterprise software company Zoho has doubled down on plans to attend an event hosted by India's RSS paramilitary group.
Muslims in fear as police crack down in India’s heartland
By Sheikh Saaliq — January 7, 2020
MEERUT, India (AP) — A crackdown on protests against a new citizenship law has been the harshest in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where Muslims comprise 20% of the population.
When retail and reverence collide
By Indu Viswanathan and Parth Parihar — January 2, 2020
(RNS) — Yoga's ubiquity has put Hindu imagery in the mainstream, but until HIndus are seen as equals in the U.S., mocking our faith's images defines us as colonialist caricatures.
Amid citizenship law outcry, Indian authorities ban protests
By Ashok Sharma — December 20, 2019
NEW DELHI (AP) — The protests have targeted the new citizenship law, which applies to Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities who are in India illegally but can demonstrate religious persecution in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Across India, opposition building against citizenship law
By Sheikh Saaliq and Emily Schmall — December 17, 2019
(RNS) — Critics say the legislation, which for the first time conditions Indian citizenship on religion, violates the secular constitution of the world's largest democracy.
Why these New York Sikhs are fundraising for a mosque in India
By Aysha Khan — November 25, 2019
(RNS) – A Sikh-majority village in the Indian side of Punjab has some 300 Muslims, but no mosques. This Sikh family in New York City wants to change that.
How India’s youth are taking to a path shown by a 15th century mystic
By Kalpana Jain — November 13, 2019
VARANASI, India (RNS) — As Indian millennials chart their own spiritual paths they are leading a revival of the teachings of a mystic who wrote couplets on the nature of the divine and criticized any form of orthodoxy.
Tennessee pastor trapped in India over customs violation
By Aysha Khan — October 30, 2019
(RNS) — A Tennessee pastor has spent the past three weeks stranded in India after he was arrested and then released over a customs violation, according to his attorney.
After call from Indian official, library pulls Sikh ‘genocide’ memorial
By Aysha Khan — October 16, 2019
(RNS) — After an Indian official called the Connecticut library, the entire memorial — which accused India of committing genocide against Sikhs in 1984 — was quietly removed from the library.
Opposition to Modi isn’t just about anti-Muslim violence, Indian Christians say
By Aysha Khan — October 9, 2019
(RNS) — Framing the opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party’s Hindutva creed as a Hindu-Muslim conflict ignores the persecution of India's Christians and other religious minorities.
Hindu nationalists open self-styled religious courts as a rebuke to Sharia law
By Priyadarshini Sen — October 4, 2019
ALIGARH, India (RNS) — Last year, the right-wing Hindu Mahasabha Party demanded the closure of all Muslim Sharia courts in India. When their petition was denied, the party set up its own unsanctioned courts across Uttar Pradesh, based on Hindu principles of justice.
Decades-old Hindu pilgrimage, aided by Modi government, takes a populist turn
By Kalpana Jain — September 23, 2019
VARANASI, India (RNS) — Religious fervor, supported and aided by India’s right-wing Modi government, is on the rise among some blocs of millennials in India.
A school where Muslims and Hindus pray together stirs strife in divided India
By Priyadarshini Sen — September 11, 2019
ALIGARH, India (RNS) — Founded to help poor children of both of India's predominant faiths, the Chacha Nehru's inclusivity has irked Muslim and Hindu leaders alike.
India ends Kashmir’s separation, giving hope to Hindus looking homeward
By Rajiv Pandit — August 26, 2019
(RNS) — In the 1990s, thousands of Pandit homes, businesses and temples were destroyed or occupied, and 350,000 Pandits fled in a mass exodus. So, when earlier this month the Indian government finally abrogated Articles 370 and 35A ... my family celebrated.
Pollution of a sacred river becomes a symbol for India’s environmental challenges
By Priyadarshini Sen — August 15, 2019
BANGALORE, India (RNS) — This city's early 1990s tech boom outstripped its waste management plans, leaving its Vrishabhavathi River choked with industrial waste.
