Stung by persistent criticism of Hindu activists that Christian missionaries in India are pressuring and inducing poor Hindus to convert to Christianity, the Vatican threw the gauntlet at Hindus on the eve of the Diwali festival.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue said on Monday:

Belief and freedom always go together. There can be no coercion in religion: no one can be forced to believe, neither can anyone who wishes to believe be prevented from doing so.

Although Christians account for just 2.3% of India’s population of 1.1 billion people, they’ve faced criticism for several decades from Hindus (80.5% of the population) that missionaries have engaged in converting the poor Hindus through pressure and various inducements.

Some Hindus derogatarily refer to new Christians as “rice converts” suggesting that the poor have been bribed with some rice to renounce their faith and embrace Christianity.

If Hindus can be swayed to desert their faith with a few morsels of rice, it’s a sad reflection on the failure of the Indian state to provide the most basic needs of its citizens.

Cardinal Tauran went on to add in his note to Hindus:

Allow me to reiterate the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, which is quite clear on this point: “It is one of the major tenets of Catholic doctrine that man’s response to God in faith must be free. Therefore no one is to be forced to embrace the faith against his own will” (Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, 10). 

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran asked both Hindus and Christians not to be misled:

Our respective communities must pay urgent attention to the education of believers, who can so easily be misled by deceitful and false propaganda.

Cardinal Tauran ended his first message to Hindus since he took over as president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue with Diwali greetings to Hindus.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is one of the biggest festivals for Hindus across India as well as for the Great Indian Diaspora.

Heady from its overwhelming success in the search arena, Google wants to extend its sway into the mobile arena as well.

On Monday, the Mountain View, California company rolled out a new alliance of 34 members called Open Handset Alliance to develop new cell phones based on open technology standards.

Google and other members of the Open Handset Alliance will spearhead development of the so-called Android technology that’s supposed to make it easier and cheaper to develop new features for cell phones.

Android, which is to be offered free of cost to handset makers, will include the popular open source Linux operating system, Sun Microsystems’ Java programming language as well as mobile applications.

Google is hoping that the new mobile phones will entice users to access more of its Internet services that today cater mostly to desktop and laptop users and provide a new platform for its ad services.  

Developers will get a peek at a beta of Android Software Development Kit (SDK) on Continue Reading…

The Wall Street Journal is tooting its horn that it’s hit the one million paid subscriber mark for its online edition WSJ.com.

WSJ.com subscribers stood at 989,000 at the end of the third quarter, up 25.5% year over year.

WSJ.com is that rare success in a sea of failures of newspapers that have struggled to get readers to pay for their online editions.

Media moghul Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp is acquiring the Wall Street Journal’s parent company Dow Jones & Co, has mulled the idea of making WSJ.com free to increase readership and make it a more attractive vehicle for advertisers.

But the print version of Wall Street Journal continues to be a concern as it does for most major newspapers in the U.S.

Total paid Wall Street Journal circulation - both print and online - fell 1.5% over the last 12 months to 2,012,000.