Gracious God, who didst call Charles Freer Andrews to show forth thy salvation to the poor: By thy Holy Spirit inspire in us a tender concern, a passionate justice, and an active love for all people, that there may be one Body and one Spirit in Jesus Christ, our Savior; who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Charles Freer Andrews, Priest & “Friend of the Poor” in India, 1940

A Christian Socialist/Anglican priest from Newcastle, he was a missionary in India & close friend of Gandhi who dubbed him Christ's Faithful Apostle (his initials=C.F.A.) pic.twitter.com/4xHeZgotW5

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) February 12, 2024

Emmanuel, God with us, who didst make thy home in every culture and community on earth: We offer thanks for the raising up of thy servant Samuel Azariah as the first indigenous bishop in India. Grant that we may be strengthened by his witness to thy love without concern for class or caste, and by his labors for the unity of the Church in India, that people of many languages and cultures might with one voice give thee glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

The Church of England also commemorates Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, Bishop in South India, Evangelist, 1945 pic.twitter.com/QklFPozzou

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) January 2, 2024

Merciful God, who didst call William Carey to missionary work in India and didst endue him with a zeal for thy Word that led him to translate Scripture into many local languages and dialects: Give us a heart for the spreading of thy Gospel and a thirst for justice among all the peoples of the world; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who sheds thy light and peace throughout humanity, and who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

I lectured on William Carey Saturday and I’ve been reading Andrew Fuller today. It has been a sweet reminder that these men are still my friends. pic.twitter.com/yl1l7yDGCF

— Jake Stone (@jake_stone89) October 13, 2023

O God of the nations, who didst give to thy faithful servant Henry Martyn a brilliant mind, a loving heart, and a gift for languages, that he might translate the Scriptures and other holy writings for the peoples of India and Persia: Inspire in us, we beseech thee, a love like his, eager to commit both life and talents to thee who gavest them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Church of England celebrates Henry Martyn, Translator of the Scriptures, Missionary in India and Persia, 1812

Image: Nave window in @TruroCathedral – Henry Martyn was born in Truro and educated at Truro Grammar School. Photo: Michael Swift, via https://t.co/pdNVLNv7se pic.twitter.com/VIzF3LanWg

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) October 19, 2023

As recently as 2021, the southern India state of Karnataka recorded more than 30 cases of violence against Christians and their property. As recently as 2022, its government used a legislative loophole to pass an anticonversion law.

But this month, Christians are rejoicing after a newly elected state government has announced a significant financial investment in the community and promised to repeal the anticonversion law.

“There is evident change in the approach of the government,” said Atul Aghamkar, the national director of the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s National Center for Urban Transformation, based out of Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka. “That will make a big difference.”

Read it all.

“We are looking forward to improvements in education opportunities, health care, employment, and overall advancement.”https://t.co/r2t9KK5HUU

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) July 19, 2023

Her grandfather had been a mystery for as long as she could remember, his name an unanswered question, a frequent Google search.

All Sandra Sharpe knew about him was what others had told her.

“Good man,” they would say. “Fine soldier,” many recalled.

The rest was crumbs and brief glimpses of his life through out-of-place facts: He was a Marine and a general. He fought in World War I and II, and died suddenly of a heart attack in India during a round-the-world trip in 1965.

For decades that was all she could really find — nothing about a gravesite or even what town.

Until one day in 2012 when she discovered she wasn’t the only one looking for him.

Read it all.

The quest to find and bring home the remains of Maj. Gen. Harry K. Picket became an odyssey. A family looking for answers would join forces with a group of Citadel graduates determined to bring back one of their own. Soon it will reach its emotional end.
https://t.co/tpWrrxtFIW

— Caitlin Byrd (@MaryCaitlinByrd) July 4, 2023

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said ties between New Delhi and Washington are stronger and deeper than ever as India moves to secure what he sees as its rightful place on the world stage at a moment of geopolitical turmoil.

“There is an unprecedented trust” between the leaders of the U.S. and India, Modi said in an interview ahead of his first official state visit to Washington after nine years in office. He hailed growing defense cooperation between the two countries as “an important pillar of our partnership,” which he said extends to trade, technology and energy.

In Washington this week, Modi is expected to complete deals to manufacture jet-fighter engines in India to power advanced light combat aircraft, and to purchase high-altitude armed Predator drones from the U.S. in a multibillion-dollar agreement to boost surveillance efforts over the Indian Ocean and near its disputed border with China in the Himalayas.

Read it all.

It's been a very long time since Modi did an interview with a Western media outlet. In WSJ, he hits on some of the key themes of India's foreign policy during his term-especially India as a leader of the global South and taking on a greater global role.https://t.co/8gnS2ZC2bF

— Michael Kugelman (@MichaelKugelman) June 20, 2023

Emmanuel, God with us, who didst make thy home in every culture and community on earth: We offer thanks for the raising up of thy servant Samuel Azariah as the first indigenous bishop in India. Grant that we may be strengthened by his witness to thy love without concern for class or caste, and by his labors for the unity of the Church in India, that people of many languages and cultures might with one voice give thee glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

The Church of England also commemorates Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, Bishop in South India, Evangelist, 1945 https://t.co/LgbzgSu8XW pic.twitter.com/ewELZ0itXb

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) January 2, 2023

The United States has expanded its list of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom.

Two new nations—Cuba and Nicaragua—were added on Friday to the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC). Two others—Vietnam and the Central African Republic (CAR)—were added to its Special Watch List (SWL). And one new organization was added to its list of Entities of Particular Concern (EPC): Russia’s mercenary Wagner group, due to its cited offenses in CAR.

“Around the world, governments and non-state actors harass, threaten, jail, and even kill individuals on account of their beliefs,” stated Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State. “The United States will not stand by in the face of these abuses.”

His own watchdog, however, is unconvinced.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) tweeted its “outrage” over the non-inclusion of Nigeria and India. It is “inexplicable,” the independent bipartisan organization continued, given the State Department’s own reporting.

Read it all.

The US has expanded its list of the world’s worst religious-freedom violators.

Should Nigeria and India have been included?https://t.co/gdqcYRueaS

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 5, 2022

Last week, the racial-justice officers for the diocese of Chichester, the Revd Martha Mutikani and the Revd Dr Godfrey Kesari, called on the Church of England to “embrace minority communities” and “give them much more space” in leadership roles….

Delivering “Thought for the Day” on Radio 4’s Today Programme on Tuesday morning, the Rector of St James’s, Piccadilly, the Revd Lucy Winkett, said that “to acknowledge the UK’s first Hindu Prime Minister is a source of great significance and positivity, whatever the party politics, and to mark with gladness that a person of Global Majority Heritage, practising a faith that is followed by 1.2 billion people around the world, has become the first among equals in the British constitution.

“Given this, the very best thing that citizens of the United Kingdom, whatever their ethnicity, background or religion, can do, to honour this significant moment, is to expect the highest standards of integrity and courage,” Ms Winkett continued.

Mr Sunak took his oath as an MP on the Bhagavad Gita. In an interview with The Times in July, he said of his faith: “It gives me strength, it gives me purpose. It’s part of who I am.”

Read it all.

“This political instability has real life consequences. People, families and children are paying the price with a lack of targeted support for those hardest hit by the cost-of-living crisis," said @markrusselluk, chief executive of @childrensocietyhttps://t.co/cazQbZBqXt

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) October 25, 2022

Merciful God, who didst call William Carey to missionary work in India and didst endue him with a zeal for thy Word that led him to translate Scripture into many local languages and dialects: Give us a heart for the spreading of thy Gospel and a thirst for justice among all the peoples of the world; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who sheds thy light and peace throughout humanity, and who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

#OTD August 17, 1761
Birth of William Carey, pioneer English missionary to India. He taught at the newly founded Fort William College of Calcutta from 1801 until his death, and helped found the Serampore Press, which made the Bible accessible to over 300 million people. pic.twitter.com/4fgGnoyY61

— ☧ Today in Christian History (@LizBrown217) August 17, 2022

O God of the nations, who didst give to thy faithful servant Henry Martyn a brilliant mind, a loving heart, and a gift for languages, that he might translate the Scriptures and other holy writings for the peoples of India and Persia: Inspire in us, we beseech thee, a love like his, eager to commit both life and talents to thee who gavest them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Today the Church of England celebrates Henry Martyn, Translator of the Scriptures, Missionary in India and Persia, 1812

Image: Nave window in @TruroCathedral. Photo: Michael Swift, via https://t.co/pdNVLNdw3E. Henry Martyn was born in Truro and educated at Truro Grammar School. pic.twitter.com/yhRlGbXhCX

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) October 19, 2022

He counseled me to trust God for my provision and that God will take care of the ones he calls. But he also narrated his own life experience, when his wife asked him if the needs of the family were not met, what would he do? He had answered, “I would go back to the factory.” But he encouraged me by letting me know that he never had to do so; God had always provided.

As someone who delivered the precious Word of God to the church that needed it the most, Brother Andrew understood the importance of reading and studying the Bible as well as other books that can educate and disciple the believer. “Go through the Word of God and let the Word of God go through you,” he would tell us. He used to say that every Open Doors base should have a modest library where people can read and learn about ministry and topics in general.

Brother Andrew was very well read and informed. That is what perhaps helped him to focus on areas where many were oblivious. From the Iron Curtain to the “bamboo curtain” of China, from the Communist context to the context of the Muslim world, he always sought to carry Jesus and his gospel to people in need. He believed in the ministry being “lean and mean” and was not afraid to explore new frontiers or to have views that were less popular.

As I look back today, I am thankful to God for Brother Andrew and his life. For his simplicity and his matter-of-fact attitude, but most of all for his example in his obedience to Christ that allowed him to impact millions.

When he was once asked what he would like his epitaph to be, Brother Andrew answered, “He did what he couldn’t.”

Read it all.

“Every place outside the will of God is dangerous.” Brother Andrew https://t.co/SUEnxNGeOg

— Cindy Mallin (@cindymallin) October 3, 2022

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has outlawed a leading Muslim group and its affiliates for five years, accusing it of links to terrorist organisations, in a move that is likely to foment the country’s deepening communal tensions.

The banning of the Popular Front of India on Wednesday followed the arrests in recent days of more than 200 of its members and searches of top leaders’ houses and offices.

India’s Ministry of Home Affairs said the PFI was involved in “serious offences, including terrorism and its financing, targeted gruesome killings, disregarding the constitutional set up of the country [and] disturbing public order”. 

The ban extended to eight other groups that work on behalf of the Muslim minority population, which makes up about 200mn of India’s almost 1.4bn people. Those organisations included the Rehab India Foundation, the Campus Front of India, the All India Imams Council, the National Confederation of Human Rights Organisation, and the National Women’s Front.

Read it all.

India bans leading Muslim group over terrorism accusations@JohnReedwrites @jyots43 https://t.co/MHuJoWSf4N

— Benjamin Parkin (@b_parkyn) September 28, 2022

On an April day in 1905, the scientist J.S. Haldane descended hundreds of feet into a Cornish tin mine to find out if he could cook himself to death.

Amateur researchers had long known that humans have an extraordinary ability to withstand dry heat. One 18th century experimenter found he could tolerate temperatures up to 115 degrees Celsius (240 Fahrenheit), hot enough to cook steaks. But the moist, saturated air in the Dolcoath mine, dug through hot rock deep below the water table, seemed to change things. Though the temperature never climbed above 31.5C, Haldane’s body temperature and pulse rose with each minute, hitting feverish levels before he ascended after three hours. “It becomes impracticable for ordinary persons to stay for long periods” when the humid temperature rises above 31C, he wrote.

That finding hasn’t significantly changed over the years since — but our atmosphere has. As the climate warms, conditions once experienced only in saunas and deep mineshafts are rapidly becoming the open-air reality for hundreds of millions of people, who have no escape to air conditioning or cooler climes. After a few hours with humid heat above 35C — a measure known as the wet-bulb temperature — even healthy people with unlimited shade and water will die of heatstroke. For those carrying out physical labor, the threshold is closer to Haldane’s 31C, or even lower.

Brajabandhu Sahu knows the physical signs all too well. A street vendor selling foods like dosa, idli and uttapam on the corner of two busy roads in Bhubaneswar, the capital of the eastern Indian state of Odisha, he’s surrounded at times by what feels like a wall of fire from which he cannot escape. When the day is at its hottest, his head spins, his heart races, his skin blisters and the waves of nausea are constant. The moisture-laden winds that blow in from the Bay of Bengal put citizens in this region at particular risk.

Read it all.

Conditions once experienced only in saunas are rapidly becoming reality for millions.

After a few hours with humid heat above 35°C, a measure known as the wet-bulb temperature, healthy people with unlimited shade and water will die of heatstroke https://t.co/OY9awmDj5y

— Bloomberg Opinion (@opinion) July 8, 2022

When, as journalists, we prepare for a job, we think carefully about our questions, locations and equipment. But for one of us, documentary photographer Roshan Abbas, there is an added consideration — how much of his true identity to reveal.

Abbas, co-author of this article, is a Muslim man in India. A country where, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s watch, Muslims are being vilified and evicted from their homes, their freedom of religious expression stifled.

It’s oppression Abbas has experienced firsthand, choosing not to wear a kurta — a loose, collarless shirt — that might point to his identity as a Muslim, when traveling the country for work.

The decision is cautionary. In public spaces, there looms a sense of uneasiness. Mob lynchings of Muslims who look visibly Muslim have arisen in the past.

Read it all.

"Until recently, members of the BJP hadn't outwardly acknowledged their goal of making India a Hindu nation. Othering Muslims, the country's second largest religion, has proven to be an effective strategy in the BJP's majoritarian politics."https://t.co/MLZGyqLZ14

— Indian American Muslim Council (@IAMCouncil) May 19, 2022

Over the past three years India has endured more than its share of bad news and suffering. The pandemic has killed between 2.2m and 9.7m people. Lockdowns caused the economy to shrink temporarily by a quarter and triggered the largest internal migrations since partition in 1947, as city workers fled to their villages. Religious tensions have been simmering, stoked by the anti-Muslim chauvinism of the Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp), in power since 2014 under the strongman prime minister, Narendra Modi. Now a heatwave is baking the north of the country and the global oil- and food-price shock is battering the poor.

Yet as our Briefing explains, if you take a step back, a novel confluence of forces stands to transform India’s economy over the next decade, improving the lives of 1.4bn people and changing the balance of power in Asia. Technological leaps, the energy transition and geopolitical shifts are creating new opportunities—and new tools to fix intractable problems. The biggest threat to all this is India’s incendiary politics.

Since India opened up in 1991, its economy has prompted both euphoria and despair. One minute it is the next China: a rising superpower bursting with enterprising geniuses. The next it is a demographic time-bomb unable to generate hope for its young people; or a Wild West where Vodafone and other naive multinationals are fleeced. Over the past decade India has outgrown most other big countries, yet this has been overshadowed by a sense of disappointment. It has not engineered the manufacturing surge that enriched East Asia nor built enough big companies to marshal capital for development. Its fragmented markets and informal firms create few good jobs.

As the country emerges from the pandemic, however, a new pattern of growth is visible. It is unlike anything you have seen before. An indigenous tech effort is key. As the cost of technology has dropped, India has rolled out a national “tech stack”: a set of state-sponsored digital services that link ordinary Indians with an electronic identity, payments and tax systems, and bank accounts. The rapid adoption of these platforms is forcing a vast, inefficient, informal cash economy into the 21st century. It has turbocharged the world’s third-largest startup scene after America’s and China’s.

Read it all.

Fate, inher­itance and pragmatic decisions have created a new opportunity in the next decade for India. It is Narendra Modi’s to squander. Our cover this week https://t.co/614niqPJIH pic.twitter.com/7Rcz04U7kh

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) May 12, 2022

Two decades ago India’s information-technology (IT) firms were the stars of the rising country’s corporate firmament. The industry’s three giants, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro, became household names at home and familiar to chief executives of big businesses abroad, who had outsourced their companies’ countermeasures against the feared “millennium bug”, expected to wreak havoc on computers as the date changed from 1999 to 2000, to Indian software engineers. By the mid-2000s the Indian IT trio’s revenues were growing by around 40% a year, as Western CEOs realised that Indian programmers could do as good a job as domestic ones or better, at a fraction of the price. Then, following the global financial crisis of 2007-09, revenue growth slowed to single digits. For years afterwards the stars seemed to be losing some of their shine.

Now they are back in the ascendant. Having declined as a share of GDP between 2017 and 2019, exports of Indian software services ticked up again as the world’s companies turned to them for help amid the disruption to operations and IT systems wrought by the pandemic. In the last financial year they reached an all-time high of $150bn, or 5.6% of Indian GDP (see chart 1). NASSCOM, a trade body, expects the industry’s overall revenues to grow from $227bn last year to $350bn by 2026.

Read it all.

A half-a-trillion-dollar bet on revolutionising white-collar workhttps://t.co/0qPGRhrtBz pic.twitter.com/3vunUiQUGF

— Mir Mustafa Ali (@Im_AliMustafa) March 29, 2022

Gracious God, who didst call Charles Freer Andrews to show forth thy salvation to the poor: By thy Holy Spirit inspire in us a tender concern, a passionate justice, and an active love for all people, that there may be one Body and one Spirit in Jesus Christ, our Savior; who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

We remembering the Social Reformer and Educator Shri. CHARLES FREER ANDREWS on his birth anniversary. He popularly known as DHEENABANDHU or FRIEND OF THE POOR, a name given by GANDHIJI for his contributions during the india's freedom struggle#Dheenabandhu🇮🇳#CharlesFreerAndrews pic.twitter.com/emZq7gFTsf

— VIJAY KUMAR CHIRUTHALA 🐅 (@VChiruthala) February 12, 2022

The police officer arrived at the Hindu temple here with a warning to the monks: Don’t repeat your hate speech.

Ten days earlier, before a packed audience and thousands watching online, the monks had called for violence against the country’s minority Muslims. Their speeches, in one of India’s holiest cities, promoted a genocidal campaign to “kill two million of them” and urged an ethnic cleansing of the kind that targeted Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

When videos of the event provoked national outrage, the police came. The saffron-clad preachers questioned whether the officer could be objective.

Yati Narsinghanand, the event’s firebrand organizer known for his violent rhetoric, assuaged their concerns.

Read it all.

Violent anti-Muslim rhetoric has reached a dangerous new pitch in India while the government looks away, rights groups and local activists are warning. They fear that a singular event could ignite widespread violence that would be difficult to contain.https://t.co/JyJ4tl5IQA

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 8, 2022

An India-born priest has been ordained as a bishop in the Church of England at a ceremony held at St Paul’s Cathedral in London on Tuesday.
Aged 43, Saju is now the youngest bishop in the Church of England but not the first of Indian-origin as the current Bishop of Bradwell, Bishop John Perumbalath, was also born in Kerala.

The Rt Revd Malayil Lukose Varghese Muthalaly, known as Saju, hitherto vicar of St Mark’s Gillingham, Kent, was born in Kerala and grew up in a leprosy hospital in Bengaluru. He was consecrated by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby as the next Bishop of Loughborough, in the diocese of Leicester.

Family, friends, colleagues and supporters hailing from India, Dubai and Britain gathered at the service where two others were ordained as bishops and two of Saju’s children — Zipp and Abraham — said prayers.

Welby congratulated Saju in Hindi on Twitter afterwards. In English he tweeted: “A wonderful, exciting, beautiful day for the @churchofengland — a diverse, global church brought together in the joy of Jesus Christ.”

Read it all.

India-born priest becomes youngest consecrated Bishop in Church of England – Times of India https://t.co/7yplRNswrf

— The Indies Times (@theindiestimes) January 27, 2022

All hindus must pick up weapons and conduct a cleanliness drive,” bellowed a Hindu priest at a three-day “religious parliament” in north India last month. Another speaker fired up the large crowd even more crudely: “If a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious.” By “them”, she meant India’s 200m Muslims.

Those priests baying for blood are not isolated bigots. Under the Hindu-nationalist government of Narendra Modi, the world’s most populous democracy has seen a growing wave of intolerance. In Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi, Muslims have been denied the use of open space to pray because it “offends sentiments”. They have also been denied permission to build mosques. Elsewhere Muslims accused of transporting cattle for slaughter, or of being in possession of beef, are sometimes lynched. Muslim businesses are boycotted. In recent months young Hindu radicals have persecuted high-profile Muslim women by creating apps to “auction” them off.

Muslims are not the only target of Hindu chauvinism. In Varanasi, a Hindu temple town, posters warn non-Hindus to stay away. Attacks on Christians, a tiny minority, have risen in recent years. Last week, after Mr Modi, the prime minister, was briefly delayed on an overpass in Sikh-majority Punjab, people associated with his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp) warned darkly of a repeat of 1984, when thousands of Sikhs were killed in pogroms after the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. In an index of societal discrimination against minorities compiled by Bar Ilan University in Israel, India scores worse than Saudi Arabia and no better than Iran. It is impossible to know the number of hate crimes in the country: independent trackers were shut down in 2017 and 2019, and the government stopped collecting data in 2017.

Read it all.

India’s friends, starting with America, should use their influence to persuade Narendra Modi and his acolytes to check the spread of hate before it explodes into widespread violence https://t.co/2V6Gy165aB

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 14, 2022

O God, who by a star didst guide the wise men to the worship of thy Son: Lead, we pray thee, to thyself the wise and the great in every land, that unto thee every knee may bow, and every thought be brought into captivity; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Adoration of the Magi, by Jacopo Bassano, now in Barcelona. Tintoretto once said to Bassano: ‘Ah, Jacopo, if you had my drawing and I had your color, I would defy the devil himself to enable Titian, Raphael, and the rest to make any show beside us…” How true! pic.twitter.com/HedPxmYJe8

— Venice Art Guide (@VeniceArtGuide) February 16, 2018

Emmanuel, God with us, who didst make thy home in every culture and community on earth: We offer thanks for the raising up of thy servant Samuel Azariah as the first indigenous bishop in India. Grant that we may be strengthened by his witness to thy love without concern for class or caste, and by his labors for the unity of the Church in India, that people of many languages and cultures might with one voice give thee glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

The Church of England also commemorates Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, Bishop in South India, Evangelist, 1945 https://t.co/LgbzgSu8XW pic.twitter.com/qja4t71xwj

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) January 2, 2020

Almighty God, who in many and various ways didst speak to thy chosen people by the prophets, and hast given us, in thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the hope of Israel: Hasten, we beseech thee, the coming of the day when all things shall be subject to him, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

Madrid during Sunrise 🌅 pic.twitter.com/sqGroQbIPS

— Scott ☘ (@Havenlust) December 5, 2021

Merciful God, who didst call William Carey to missionary work in India and didst endue him with a zeal for thy Word that led him to translate Scripture into many local languages and dialects: Give us a heart for the spreading of thy Gospel and a thirst for justice among all the peoples of the world; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who sheds thy light and peace throughout humanity, and who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

OTD in 1785 William Carey was baptized in the River Nene by John Ryland Jr. They were later co-laborers in the Baptist Missionary Society. Carey is known as the Father of modern missions and served decades in India. pic.twitter.com/bNVKTFRFwf

— SBC History (@SBCHistory) October 5, 2019

India is growing increasingly assertive in its efforts to control online communications, challenging Twitter and Facebook’s practices and threatening to set a precedent that could extend far beyond its borders.

The largest U.S. internet firms are fighting new Intermediary rules issued by Narendra Modi’s government in February that they say curtail privacy and free speech. Officials have demanded Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. take down hundreds of posts this year, divulge sensitive user information and submit to a regulatory regime that includes potential jail terms for executives if companies don’t comply.

While the administration’s push to exert more control over user data and online discourse reflects efforts globally to come to grips with tech giants and their enormous influence, the stakes in India are particularly high for internet firms because — shut out of China — it’s the only billion-people market up for grabs. Unlike authoritarian regimes such as Beijing, critics fear actions taken by the world’s largest democracy could offer a template for other governments to encroach on personal privacy in the name of domestic security.

“India has introduced draconian changes to its rules,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in April. They “create new possibilities for government surveillance of citizens. These rules threaten the idea of a free and open internet built on a bedrock of international human rights standards.”

Read it all.

Big tech is gearing up for a massive fight with Modi’s India https://t.co/Oreu073Tlj

— Bloomberg (@business) June 30, 2021

Gracious God, who didst call Charles Freer Andrews to show forth thy salvation to the poor: By thy Holy Spirit inspire in us a tender concern, a passionate justice, and an active love for all people, that there may be one Body and one Spirit in Jesus Christ, our Savior; who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Respectful homage to Dinabandhu Andrews (Charles Freer Andrews), missionary, educator and social reformer, on his birth anniversary pic.twitter.com/J0YTbfYeL3

— . (@SujitSe98018197) February 12, 2020

Emmanuel, God with us, who didst make thy home in every culture and community on earth: We offer thanks for the raising up of thy servant Samuel Azariah as the first indigenous bishop in India. Grant that we may be strengthened by his witness to thy love without concern for class or caste, and by his labors for the unity of the Church in India, that people of many languages and cultures might with one voice give thee glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

The Church of England also commemorates Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, Bishop in South India, Evangelist, 1945 https://t.co/LgbzgSu8XW pic.twitter.com/SWUlVygsTx

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) January 2, 2021

Even before Covid-19 hit, white-collar workers were under immense pressure as India’s growth stalled. Suicides among professionals have climbed for two consecutive years, averaging 23 a day in 2019, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

“It’s the uncertainty that causes the maximum distress,” said Lakshmi Vijayakumar, a psychiatrist and suicide expert in Chennai, who added that the pandemic had led to significantly more suicides among professionals. “They are burnt out and Zoomed out,” she said. “There is the fear of infection and financial insecurity.”

The pandemic has compounded India’s economic challenges, with millions losing their jobs. The country’s economic output shrank by 24 per cent in the three months to June compared with the same period last year, the steepest fall among the world’s largest economies.

While casual labourers are beginning to pick up more work, middle-class professionals are still struggling.

Read it all.

.@SJFindlay: “Even before Covid-19 hit, white-collar workers were under immense pressure as India’s growth stalled. Suicides among professionals have climbed for two consecutive years, averaging 23 a day in 2019” https://t.co/StlN4qS4mi

— Rohan Sandhu (@Rohan_Sandhu) October 6, 2020