Rev. Dr. Babu Joseph, Spokesperson of the Media/Information Office of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India, discusses what secularity in India means and how this constitutional cornerstone stone of the Indian state is in practice not adhered to. Lately there have been many incidents which show the great dangers the religious minorities in India face these days. Dr. Joseph criticizes strongly the part the politicians play in aggravating the religious tensions in his beloved homeland.

One of the murkier, computational and deleterious matters haunting the Muslim community all over the world every year is moon sighting for Eid. There are set committees in each country for moon sighting but they, though, remain hand in glove with each other. In the Indian subcontinent contentions between different committees end into unavoidable gestations keeping the masses at stakes.

India turned sixty on August 15, 2007 and as citizens of this great nation, we have many reasons to be legitimately proud of our achievements in all spheres of life. But as people with also personal lives and convictions we also have some reasons to be less positive, when we see that state after state has been legislating against the right of citizens to change his/her religious persuasion.

Of course all media has to choose what to report, and in this choice bias or subjectivity are bound to creep in. It is inevitable. But responsible media should keep in mind that there is a limit to what is inevitable. It is for example not allowed to invent or distort facts or to take them so much out of context that they are doomed to give a wrong idea to the public. A little case study in a report about a Shi'a pilgrimage shows how.

In recent weeks the UK has endured what is apparently the wettest June since records began, bringing with it devastating flash-flooding which has claimed lives. This is “because the world has been arrogant,” the Bishop of Carlisle, the Right Reverend Graham Dow is quoted as saying in an article by Libby Purves of the 4th of July in The Times.