Church In Chikkaballapur Damaged As The Assembly Considers An Anti-Conversion Bill

Miscreants damaged a church in Karnataka's Chikkaballapur district, prompting the filing of a police report. The event occurs as the state Legislative Assembly prepares to discuss and enact the 'anti-conversion' bill on Thursday. The law has several problematic clauses, along with a maximum penalty of ten years in prison for forceful conversion of adolescents and women from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities to another faith.

Hundreds of individuals from at around 40 different socio-political organisations marched in Bengaluru on Wednesday to protest the Karnataka Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, also termed as anti-conversion bill.

Despite the potential of being defeated by an unified Opposition in the Legislative Council, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which sees the bill as a weapon to gain political traction ahead of the 2023 state Assembly elections, is eager to move through with the measure.

However, in another reports, a 26-year-old British visitor and three of her family members tested positive for the Covid variant in Bengaluru, bringing the total number of Omicron cases in the state to 23. The Union Health Ministry has ordered states to revive Covid war rooms and tighten limits and surveillance. The state administration issued a directive on Wednesday directing health officials, deputy commissioners, and district monitoring officials to track, trace, and quarantine the primary and secondary contacts of Covid 19 positive people without fail.

Furthermore, in response to the recent vandalism of the statue of famed Kannada warrior and liberation fighter Sangolli Rayanna in Belagavi, pro-Kannada organisations have called for a state-wide bandh on December 31 in Karnataka. Activists from the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti are accused of defacing the statue (MES). In recent days, a series of retaliatory clashes have erupted between Kannada and Marathi activists in Karnataka and Maharashtra.