Bengal Church to educate youth in “sensitive areas”

(October 31, 2011) Catholic bishops and Religious of eastern India’s West Bengal state have decided to promote education among youths living in the state’s “sensitive areas.” A four-day joint meeting of the bishops with priests and nuns that ended on Friday, decided to open four high schools and two technical schools in the state’s tea estates and areas infested by Maoist guerrillas. The regional unit of Conference of Religious India (CRI) and the state’s bishops would soon meet to work out the formalities, Sister Gracy Sunder, an organizer of the meet, told Ucanews. The Holy Cross of Chavanod nun, who is CRI’s regional president, recalled that a similar meet last year had decided to study the plight of tribal people in Midnapore district because of Maoist infiltration and those living in tea estates at the foothills of Darjeeling. That meet had formed two teams to study the problems and propose suggestions. Some 75 people, including six bishops, attended the latest meeting at Our Lady of Happy Voyage Basilica, Bandel, 45 kilometers east of Kolkata, the state capital, that discussed the theme, “Working towards justice, peace and reconciliation: harmony in the context of struggle of our people in West Bengal and Sikkim.”