On the United Nations designated World Human Rights Day on December 10 the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA) is holding a meeting of its members in New York for a time of remembrance, introspection, prayer and fresh resolve. As the world remembers the continuing challenges involved in bringing basic human rights to many parts of the globe, FIACONA focuses particularly on the worsening situation in parts of India in respect of the safety and security of the Christian community and its institutions and places of worship. 2005 has been a year of exceptional threat to Christians in India despite the efforts at the national level of the Congress led secular government coalition to retrieve the situation left behind by the previous NDA government led by the BJP and its extreme Hindu nationalist family of social, cultural and religious organizations ("Sangh Parivar"). Christians have faced every conceivable form of threat, assault, insult besides loss of life and property. A simple collection of reports from the media detailing a few of these assaults in 2005 is attached to this release. These are merely a fraction of the actual number of attacks faced by this community. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the poison of communal hatred that had been deliberately and systematically fostered by extremist Hindu groups and individuals affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has now lodged itself in the body politic in many parts of the country. The bogey of `forcible conversions` has been exploited widely by extreme nationalist groups. Such groups have taken the law into their own hands and in the process not spared even women and children in vulnerable areas such as in Convents and in Christian religious social service organizations. In fact in a number of places there have been ostentatious ceremonies organized by extremist groups to `forcibly re-convert` Christians back to Hinduism. This has been done even in the case of Dalits who had no respectable place in Hinduism in the first place. Institutionalized racism and caste based injustice has taken many forms; one of which is the denial of basic rights, access to employment and other affirmative actions to Dalit Christians rights that are freely available to Dalits of other faiths. The current legal challenge in the Supreme Court of India on this very issue will determine the fate of these Christian minority populations. The UPA Government should take steps to enunciate policies that restore the rights and legal protections that Christian Dalits had lost. It is to the credit of the Congress led UPA government that it has taken decisive steps in ensuring that distorted and communally slanted versions of the history of minority groups in India that had been fostered by the previous government were not allowed to pollute the minds of India`s school going youth in some states through their social studies and history text books. However the UPA government has continued the obsession with so called `conversions` by leaving intact a provision in the soon to be passed Foreign Contributions Management Bill, 2005, introduced by the BJP government, that prohibits funds to be received by Christian institutions against which vague and unsubstantiated accusations of `forcible conversions` had been made. This blanket clause is not just a threat to the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion but could serve the purpose of unscrupulous state and local governments in denying overseas funds to genuine Christian service organizations. FIACONA resolves to continue to shine the light on these aberrations that tarnish the fair name of India`s secular democracy. The vast majority of India`s majority Hindu community is tolerant and compassionate and generous in dealing with the diversity of ethnic groups and faiths that populate this great nation. It is the extreme elements present not just in India but also within NRI communities in the West that seem to be growing in size and influence that need to be controlled and their views and advocacy brought within the bounds of India`s constitutional guarantees and its body of enlightened laws.