The Roman Catholic Church of South India is under attack for trying to reinstate a priest convicted of paedophilia in the US who is currently living in Ooty.
Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul was found abusing two minor girls of his parish in the Diocese of Crookston in Minnesota in 2005. He was deported to his hometown Ooty but was extradited back to Minnesota. There a court convicted him in 2015 to a year in prison.
Jeyapaul served his sentence and returned to Ooty where rumours of his reinstatement surfaced. Finally the Ooty diocese clarified: “He was released from the prison in the US through a court order. His case was then referred to the Doctrine of Faith in Rome. According to their direction, the suspension was lifted. He has not been given ministry now. If he is given, it will be given with certain restrictions.”

Rallies, cultural events to mark Jaya birthday

Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa turns 68 on February 24 but the birthday celebrations will go on until February 28, according to a government press release.
Activists of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam plan to hold rallies, cultural and political programmes and special prayer ceremonies in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, New Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar, Kerala and Puducherry.
The celebrations were announced even as there was public dissatisfaction about Jayalalithaa’s governance. Her party was pulled up for mishandling last December’s flooding of Chennai and seven other districts, the recent strikes by government employees, nursing and petroleum dealers and administrative malpractices.
Opposition parties led by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have boycotted the Tamil Nadu assembly since February 16 when the interim budget was presented.

College student ‘rescued’ from self-styled guru

L M Prathyusha, a Chennai-based postgraduate student who left her college in mysterious circumstances on January 17, was brought back from the ashram of a self-styled guru Shiva Gupta, near Dehradun in Uttaranchal last week.
Prathyusha had left behind letters for her professors and parents living in Andhra Pradesh in which she said she was leaving in search of spirituality. However on her parents’ insistence police issued an interstate alert and ‘rescued’ her. They also found other women at the ashram but took no action against them or Shiva Gupta as no other family had complained.
Prathyusha was sent back to her parents. Police suspect she got introduced to Shiva Gupta online.

Chola period inscriptions

In a major archaeological find, 20 stone inscriptions dating to the Chola period (9th-13th century) were found at the Saptharisisvara temple at Lalgudi town in Tiruchi district last week.
An epigraphist team from the Tiruchi-based Seethalakshmi Ramasamy College said the inscriptions would help reconstruct the history of the area, as the temple enjoyed the patronage of all major dynasties of that period.
The find would also throw light on the business and trade practices of that period.

French woman found dead
A 68-year-old French woman was found dead at her house in Muthialpet in Puducherry last week.  Police suspect that Hunorine was murdered as her head was smashed in. Hunorine had adopted a girl and a boy some years back.