Delhi Confidential: After PM Modi’s call to action, BJP goes the extra mile to reach out to Kerala’s church leaders

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to Kerala BJP for wooing the Christian community, party leaders are making extra efforts to reach out to the church leaders. On Wednesday, Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, head of one of the warring factions of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in Kerala, accompanied by Union Minister V Muraleedharan, met the PM in his Parliament office. With the Malankara Church, which has a diocese and runs educational institutions in Gujarat, being extended support by the Gujarat BJP and the government, the meeting pleased both the sides. Though Baselios welcomed the development initiatives of the PM and invited him to visit their headquarters in Kottayam, he learnt to have flagged with the PM the attacks on churches in different parts of the country.

New Beginning

For the first time on Wednesday, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar used an i-Pad to conduct the proceedings of the Upper House, marking the beginning of a paperless tradition by the Chair. Officials say since the new Parliament building is supposed to be paperless and technology-driven, use of i-Pads and ‘tablets’ will soon become a norm. Though Dhankhar had to adjourn the House within four minutes after the proceedings began at 11am, he had made his point well and that too without using a piece of paper.