As the world prepares to celebrate Valentine’s Day with chocolates, flowers, and dates, India’s Animal Welfare Board has issued an unprecedented appeal calling to celebrate February 14th as “Cow Hug Day,” claiming that such an event “will bring emotional richness” and “increase individual and collective happiness.”
This is NOT a joke! On 14th February, Valentine's Day, the Indian government has asked people to celebrate the day as "Cow Hug Day"!
On January 29, an umbrella body of several Hindu organizations held a protest rally against "Love Jihad" and religious conversions in Mumbai.
Many Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders attended the rally, including the Mumbai unit president Ashish Shelar, MP Manoj Kotak, MP Gopal Shetty, and the former MP Kirit Somaiya. Chief Minister Eknath Shinde was also seen participating in the rally with several Shiv Sena leaders.
After a crackdown in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam that saw more than 2,400 people arrested since February 3rd, hundreds of women have protested against the measure initiated by the Assam state government.
On January 30th, an Islamist suicide bombing occurred inside a Peshawar, Pakistan, mosque. As the number of victims rose throughout the day, police and rescue officials had reached a final death toll of 101 within 24 hours. Many of the victims were crushed under the collapsed roof. Over 200 were injured.
The chief of the Atheist Society of India was detained after making blasphemous comments about Hindu deities in Kondangal.
On December 31st, Dalit activist and Telangana president of Bharata Nasthika Samajam (Atheist Society of India) Bhairi Naresh was detained for making sacrilegious comments on Swamy Ayyappa and other Hindu gods.
Iran’s government said they shut down the Tehran-based French Institute of Research in response to cartoons from the latest edition of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Some of the caricatures they published were sexually explicit.
A new report from the Pew Research Center reveals that the 118th US Congress is more Christian and religious than the general public.
The new report says that around 88% of all members of Congress are Christian, compared to only 63% of Americans who identify as such. That includes 57% of Congress members who identify as Protestant and 28% who are Catholic, both higher than the national percentage.
The Supreme Court of India calls charity with the intention of religious conversion dangerous.
There is nothing wrong with charity by religious groups, but the same cannot be said if the purpose behind that act is for religious conversion, said The Supreme Court on December 5.
Indonesia’s national legislature passed a new criminal code on December 6 that will criminalize pre-marital sex.
The new criminal code will apply to Indonesians and foreigners alike, and the punishment for sex outside marriage would be up to a year in prison. Aside from pre-marital sex, the new criminal law would also penalize cohabitation between unmarried couples as well as insulting the President or state institutions, expressing opinions against Indonesia’s state ideology, and staging protests without a permit.
