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TCONEWS ADMINAugust 29, 2023

79min100

Chatbots for Retail and eCommerce: Capabilities, Benefits, Development

chatbot e-commerce

The e-commerce landscape is already changing with the adoption of chatbots. Forward-thinking brands are using chatbots to improve customer service, provide faster responses, gather more data about their customers, and overall creating a more enjoyable shopper experience. The chatbot uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and natural language understanding (NLU) to mimic human speech. Businesses are always adopting chatbot e-commerce chatbots and incorporating them into their workflows to answer customer questions and work around the clock. Although chatbots have some weaknesses – they are not very intelligent – they can be useful when they do the right work. By utilizing TheBigBot SaaS platform, you can leverage the power of chatbots, automate marketing campaigns, streamline e-commerce operations, and enhance customer engagement across multiple channels.

  • GPT-powered chatbots can handle customer inquiries, process returns, and facilitate exchanges, leading to increased customer satisfaction and repeat business.
  • The flow should also be straightforward, and the answers should vary at different stages of the customer’s journey.
  • This is when you need to offer comparison tables between you and your competitors, and essentially convince the user to choose you.
  • Your team will need to work with your Facebook Messenger chatbot to round off the customer experience.

Virtual assistants can provide this function by making suggestions to users based on their preferences and what you already know about them. This is a great use of AI in retail for clothing brands, where you may already know a customers size. Searchspring; AI-powered search and merchandising solutions that can help improve the customer experience and increase sales. Over-reliance on AI can lead to errors and mistakes that could damage a brand’s reputation. For example, if a chatbot can’t answer a customer’s question or provide appropriate assistance, the customer may become frustrated and turn to a competitor.

Increased sales and better service for your online shop!

Whether you’re shopping for makeup, need expert advice as you decide on a product, need to order an Uber, or simply need to see the weather forecast before you plan your hiking trip, bots are expected to make life easier. Through offering quizzes to better understand individuals their chatbot serves up personalized makeup advice, how-to guides and videos as well as product suggestions. Sephora is hoping to engage and turn active Kik users into paying clients as well. Currently, there are thousands of chatbots available for platforms such as Android, Messenger, Kik, Slack, or Telegram, and more are being introduced every day.

  • This, of course, translates to increased revenue, leads to higher customer retention, brings about more repeat customers, and generates more useful data as well.
  • Your very own chatbot can bring all those customers into the exact dialogue flow that you want them to join.
  • To understand how chatbots can mitigate some of these frustrations and improve the user experience, we need to first look at how customers are choosing to interact with businesses today.
  • Chatbots are still trending massively and many believe they’ll be the No.1 contributor to Gartner’s prediction that 85% of customer interactions won’t be handled by humans by 2020.
  • The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.
  • So, this can be utilised in relation to food orders, product suggestions, customer support, arranging meetings, and even looking for a particular service.

With chatbot and AI technology recording usage history and other data, Alexa will remember for them. The bot would have direct access to the basic Facebook profile data whenever a user starts engaging with a chatbot. This way, through more quizzes and questionnaires, it would become easy to gather data and save the main attributes. We will phone or set up a video call to explain our analysis of how you can empower yourself to ignite your online business.

Deploying a chatbot, e-commerce style

Additionally, they have native integration with many e-commerce platforms, including Magento. In building voice assistant content, the first practice your businesses should consider is selecting a voice personality that suits your brand. Most of the time, buyers judge information based on the context, if your business brings out a fun image, an uplifting voice will be more engaging https://www.metadialog.com/ for customers. By improving context awareness, you can also improve the voice assistant’s answer. This can be done by making the experience more personal and using data to understand and partly predict how users will react. Collectively, they enable your businesses to create convenient and seamless shopping experiences for customers within an integrated and personalized platform.

https://www.metadialog.com/

By providing them with a topic or keyword, they can generate unique and high-quality content optimized for search engines. For example, an apparel brand can use these tools to create product descriptions, blog posts, and other content that includes relevant keywords and phrases. This can help improve the store’s search engine rankings and drive more traffic to the site. Technology solutions like Nosto and Crossing Minds incorporate AI to provide personalized product recommendations, targeted marketing, and other AI-driven features. By leveraging AI for personalization, e-commerce merchants can stay ahead of the curve and provide a superior shopping experience for their customers. Offering customer support across multiple platforms and channels isn’t a luxury service in today’s digital landscape.

The increasingly popular Flowers in the US even enables consumers to send flowers to their loved ones via voice. Thankfully, just about all of us have moved on from the days of old sales techniques such as picking up the trusty Yellow Pages and pestering potential clients through cold-calling. Tommy Hilfiger recently paired up with A-list model, Gigi Hadid, on chatbot e-commerce a fashion line. Users of the bot can view the entire collection (modelled by Hadid), go behind the scenes to their design sessions, and purchase the pieces. Our new website has just been released; we welcome your feedback allowing us to provide a better experience… Integrate our compliant solution with your existing systems for a seamless implementation.

chatbot e-commerce

Thanks to machine learning, chatbots are capable of providing a personalised experience to your users, learning with and about them. They adapt to their preferences and needs easily, making tailor-made suggestions to each user and each request for help or information. For this leading e-commerce marketplace with over 8 million active customers a year, it was vital to implement large-scale support. Respond quickly to all customer requests and expertly guide them through the online shopping process without compromising the quality of their customer service. This raises concerns among brands and retailers, especially around the spread of fake news.


TCONEWS ADMINAugust 4, 2023

146min168

6 Ways Ecommerce Sites can Benefit from AI in Digital Marketing » Figment Agency

ecommerce chatbot use cases

Those who shop online demand highly personalized experience which adds value to their lives. It’s best to start small when adopting ML technologies in your business. You can use new solutions to analyze the data sets and test the insights.

  • The intelligent software puts retailers in a strong position to make specific assortment and planning decisions, and track the business impact of those actions.
  • Here are some key examples of industries, use cases and business areas where we highlight the potential application and benefits that a chatbot can deliver.
  • In fact, even if you only use your chatbot for simple tasks, it can be useful to have them offer the user the option to flag a human.
  • There are indeed, and they are precisely what we’ll be exploring in this post.

This frees their customer support team to cater to those customers who need support for more complex problems. As such, a chatbot, if designed to carry out the company’s refund and exchange policy, can certainly execute these tasks instead of customer support agents in your company. Slush, an organization that holds entrepreneurial events all over the world, did exactly this and experienced very positive results. In 2018, the LeadDesk chatbot on Slush’s website successfully handled 64% of all customer support requests for the Slush customer support team—a significant load.

Top IT Development Companies in Canada 2023: Meeting the Software Demand

Between 2020 and 2022, global eCommerce payment fraud losses were estimated at around $41 billion. Some of the most common frauds impacting online retailers are payment fraud, fraudulent purchases, and identity theft. Business owners should train their employees to use AI, specifically machine learning, in their workflow.

https://www.metadialog.com/

With automated intelligent services, a business can improve customer satisfaction by reducing the wait time. Analyzing large amounts of data takes a lot of time for an individual or a small team. But thanks to AI, companies can breeze through it and deliver accurate insights on consumer buying habits.

Test Chatbot

Used properly, chatbots can be one of the best business tools currently available. That said, badly deployed chatbots may create a lot more problems than they solve. Ecommerce businesses are foreseeing immense potential of artificial intelligence to increase their income in ways that they never could before. That is why such companies as Facebook, IBM, and Yahoo have already publicly expressed their focus on developing AI as a new source of business and are investing heavily in artificial intelligence initiatives.

This must be considered when you decide to bring in chatbots as part of your customer service or marketing mix. By personalizing the questions a chatbot asks, you can direct customers to the best way to buy and create a better user experience along the way. Because chatbots are built to ask questions, collect answers, and automatically direct customers, window shoppers, and new customers can get a lot of value out of simply being asked what it is they’re looking for. Chatbots can help your business acquire customers more easily than live human agents. Plum, a company which creates an AI-equipped, money-saving software, uses a chatbot  to teach incoming users how their product works. Their chatbot starts by introducing their software and giving social proof and then asks users whether they’d like to learn more.

The prompt is the set of instructions given to an AI in order to obtain a desired response. On a large scale, prompting is the technological ingredient that makes it possible to build a trusted chatbot with AI that meets retailers’ challenges. Generative AI often appears as a “black box” to its users, meaning that businesses should be prioritizing transparency and control.

Heard on the Street – 6/12/2023 – insideBIGDATA

Heard on the Street – 6/12/2023.

Posted: Mon, 12 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

From personalized product recommendations to chatbots and virtual assistants, there are numerous ways to leverage AI in ecommerce and gain a competitive edge in the digital marketplace. Conversational AI platforms like chatbots and virtual assistants are used to handle the different processes involved in sales. In this way, chatbots and virtual assistants help in improving the sales management of an organization. Chatbots can be integrated into warehouse systems, databases, and CRM systems to simplify and streamline.

Consumer Goods and Services

As employees will later be operators, they must understand how these technologies can benefit their work. In reality, many companies don’t have the resources to invest in the infrastructure and tools required to run AI systems. You can outsource AI-powered tools, but they will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

ecommerce chatbot use cases

Before buying products/services, today’s customers like to do research. And during their research quest, they often try to contact a business/service to learn more about a product’s ecommerce chatbot use cases price, i.e., a quote, in order to make a decision. For businesses, implementing such a service requires a huge investment in necessary hires, infrastructure, and technology.

If you have a salesperson/team, this will also free up their time to focus on high value queries. Chatbots can help you shorten your customer service response times and increase customer satisfaction. 1.4 billion people are using chatbots for sales, with the UK part of the top 5 chatbot-using countries (alongside the US, India, Germany and Brazil). Chatbots and AI voice assistants provide uninterrupted support outside regular business hours when human agents are unavailable, such as on Christmas day.

Uber Matching leverages machine learning to match drivers and riders based on geographical factors like traffic. Image Clean-Up helps eCommerce retailers improve their listings’ visuals without a third-party image editor or a professional camera. With a few clicks, sellers can remove the background elements of an image, creating a cleaner look that appeals to potential buyers.

Pros of chatbots

So wherever your customers encounter a Zoom-powered chatbot – whether on Facebook Messenger, your website or anywhere else – the experience is consistent. Laiye’s AI chatbots include robotic process automation (RPA) and intelligent document processing (IDP) capabilities. They seamlessly utilise support integrations to allow human agents to easily enter and exit conversations via live chat and create tickets. Zendesk’s unique approach to Al revolutionises customer experience solutions by delivering intelligent responses to customer enquiries thanks to its ease of use and deep expertise in customer service.

ecommerce chatbot use cases

Consequently, opportunities aren’t missed, the process is transformational for an end customer, and forecourt salespeople have mundane work taken off their hands. A key component of any artificial intelligence solution is data – the more data you have, the faster your AI chatbot can learn and improve. In short, more context leads to better https://www.metadialog.com/ chatbots and more personalised conversations. A chatbot can ask your customers what language they prefer at the start of a conversation or determine what language a customer speaks from their input phrases. Zoom Virtual Agent, formerly Solvvy, is an effortless next-gen chatbot and automation platform that powers good customer experiences.

Providing a personalised experience is a big part of satisfying customers. It can engage customers and provide quick solutions to keep them satisfied, gently moving them to the next stage in their journey. As per a report from Microsoft, 47% of customers switch to another brand because of poor customer service. Product finders don’t just rely on artificial intelligence – they need high quality, up to date product content, copywriting and user research in order to succeed. This takes careful planning and obviously isn’t a technology challenge – it’s all about imaginative communication.

Which industries use chatbots the most?

The real estate industry uses chatbots more frequently than any other industry—the ability for these small businesses to answer customer questions around the clock in a timely fashion is critical when it comes to making a sale, or renting a unit. It's easier than you think to implement a chatbot.

How chatbot can help small businesses?

Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular for small businesses because they provide a great way to improve customer service, increase sales, and better understand your customers. Chatbots can gather customer feedback, which can later be used to enhance your products and services.


TCONEWS ADMINNovember 28, 2018
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By Manasi Inamdar

Christian Institute of Management (CIM) jointly with the Board of Theological Education Senate of Serampore College (BTESSC) and Asia Theological Association (ATA) conducted consultations for the leaders of Theological Institutions/Bible Seminaries in the five regions of India – South, West, East, North Western and Northern region consultations were held recently.

The regional consultation for Western India was held at Hotel Samrat, Pune  on Monday 19 November 2018. Representatives from  leading theological Institutions and well wishers  attended the programme.  CA Raja B. Singh (Chartered Accountant) , Mumbai in the key note address titled ‘Legal and Managerial Scenario of Churches and Missions in India’, spoke about  the ignorance of the tax system of the country, and discussed financial laws applicable for Institutions and churches.  He particularly talked about  and lack of awareness on GST and FCRA by Christian organisations . Rev. Dr. Praveen Paul,  Principal  of Union Biblical Seminary, Dr. Aby Alexandar, CIM and Dr. Reji Samuel took various sessions.

Regional consultation for Northern India  was held at Navajeevan Renewal Centre, New Delhi, on Wednesday 21st November 2018.  Key note address was presented by  Dr. (CA) Sanjay Patra, (Exec. Director FMSF), on ‘Emerging Legal and Managerial Scenario of Churches and Missions in India.’ He highlighted on the challenges faced by organizations and institutions from externally and internally. He also encouraged Christian community to be prepared  to respond positively and be a good model to the nation. Mr. Anand Joshua , Executive Director, CIM  and Dr. Reji Samuel took various sessions.


TCONEWS ADMINOctober 21, 2018
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3min67210

By Jatin Adhav

Pune:- In a time where the youth are ignored completely, especially in the professional area, The National Christian Youth Council, (NCYC) an interdenominational Christian youth body working for the  development and concerns of youth today, organised a Career Guidance and Business Development Seminar on Saturday October 20, 2018 at The Hindustan Convent Church, Solapur Road, Pune.

The objective of the organisers was to appeal Christian youth to have a holistic approach towards personal and professional life and generate job and business opportunities for them through the platform.

Talking to Rohan Gaikwad, Founder, NCYC, said “The Seminar benefited 200+ eager experienced, unexperienced, skilled, unskilled, employed, unemployed youth who were guided by eminent and experienced key resource speakers, and various exemplary dignitaries from the field of education, business,  legal, theology and medicine”.


Mrs. Sharvari Govande, Principal, St. Mary’s College of Education stressed upon the need for a balance between one’s spiritual and secular life, while Mrs. Sangeeta Kadam, Principal, Epiphany School laid emphasis on the dignity of labour in today’s context of unemployment amongst youth.

Adv. Markas Deshmukh, Bombay High Court, Legal Advisor to many financial and educational institutions, guided the youth to learn more about the government schemes and other benefits available for minorities, and appealed them to educate and equip themselves to face the bigger world that awaits them.

HRs, Managers, Business Owners from top companies  like ExL Services Private Limited, HDFC Life Insurance Limited, Skyskaper Consultancy Services Private Limited, eLearning Solutions Private Limited, Nutrilite and Amway and many others and in and around Pune  arranged for on the spot interview rounds and recruitments at their respective desks.

The youth thanked the NCYC for thier management and support in helping them in securing jobs and offering business opportunities to them through such a large and convenient platform.

The program ended with lunch and more than 70% youth securing jobs and business opportunities.


TCONEWS ADMINSeptember 30, 2018
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5min9410

The Christian community across India, irrespective of denominations, is observing a one-day prayer meeting on October 1 for the persecuted Church in India.

Talking to Shibu Thomas, Founder, President, he said “Persecution Relief, an ecumenical body, that records persecution against Christians in India, is taking the lead and appealing to all the believers, to pray for early release of 100’s of Christians jailed for alleged religious conversion cases. We are glad that The Christian Observer – www.tconews.org , India’s premier Christian Newspaper, who have been publishing exclusive Christian News across 45 countries and with a readership of 4.5 lacs, have accepted joining us as our Media Online Partner.”

100’s of Worship places, have been closed down, attacked and vandalized. Men, Women and Children have been indiscrimately beaten up during the Sunday Worship services inside the Church. Believers are forcefully stopped from attending Prayer meetings in many villages & cities. False FIR’s against Pastors & Priests are made literally every day across India.  We desperately need God’s supernatural intervention, to strengthen the persecuted and their families so that they may not deny Christ; that they will have more power to withstand hardships; that they will not run away from the faith; that they will continue to seek guidance and comfort of the Holy Spirit amidst attacks and humiliations.

Persecution Relief has recorded more than 1000 cases of Christian Persecution. In the last 9 months, we have recorded more than 60 cases in Uttar Pradesh alone, with 100’s of Worship places shut down with the help of the Police; 100’s of false FIR’s have been registered against Pastors of various Churches.

What is ICDPP?
The first of its kind in India, ‘Indian Christian Day of Prayer for the Persecuted’, was commemorated for the first time on 01 October, 2017, at a national level. Persecution Relief dedicates this day of prayer to Christian men and women across all denominations, who are joyfully and faithfully serving Jesus Christ, despite persecution and discouraging circumstances in India.

In 2017, participation from several Churches, Bible Colleges, Christian Institutions, small-group meetings, exceeded expectations, to make this day memorable.

Shibu appealed to the community saying that “Join us once again, on Monday, 01 October 2018, to commemorate the 2nd “INDIAN CHRISTIAN DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE PERSECUTED” (ICDPP), to raise awareness and lift up the persecuted Christians in prayer.” (As 1st October is a Monday, Churchs will be joining on 30th September & 7th October 2018 across India to Pray as a congregation.)

Why 01 October?
When Peter was kept in prison, constant prayer was offered to God for him by the Church, and the angel of the Lord delivered him. The same way many men & women of God have been delivered by the power of Prayer.

One such inspirational true story is of Pastor Philip George, who was released from prison after 666 days on 01 October, on account of the miraculous POWER OF PRAYER.

Dr. Jayakar Ellis, Founder Editor of the tconews.org said “Let us join our hearts in solidarity with believers, and respond to the Holy Spirit’s call. Let us set our personal agendas and voices aside and join on our knees, seeking God’s heart and His hand on behalf of our persecuted brethren in India.”

For details, please contact the below:-

Shibu Thomas,
Founder, President
PERSECUTION RELIEF
INDIA:  +91-99932 00020
founder@persecutionrelief.org

For all queries write to us: persecutionrelief@gmail.com
Report Christian Persecution in India 24×7 Toll Free – 1800-1234-461
www.facebook.com/persecutionrelief
www.persecutionrelief.org
www.twitter/PersecutionR


TCONEWS ADMINJuly 27, 2018
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5min7100

The Bombay Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) in its recently held 141st Annual General Meeting nominated and unanimously elected its new President to the YWCA Board of Management along with a set of office bearers who will function as the officially elected members of the Board to provide governance to the YWCA of Bombay. Mrs. Priyadarsini John, Professor with the Dr. D.Y.Patil University and a long time Navi Mumbaikar has taken this role. Mrs Priya John is the wife of Dr.Pearl John, Consulting Director with CEB, a member based Advisory Organisation and the mother of Miss.Divya John. Mrs. Priyadarsini John called fondly as Priya is a multi-faceted personality; a talented singer, gifted musician, ardent social activist, an exemplary teacher, a devoted wife and a dedicated mother. She dons the multiple hats she wears with considerable ease and gives her best to every role she is required to take. She hails from Trivandrum, lived most of her life in Bengaluru, studied in CMC Vellore and currently lives in Navi Mumbai. A committed Christian she espouses a deep rooted faith in Christ and sees her mission as giving Christ His due within the YWCA framework.  Stree reproduces the Presidential Address delivered by Mrs. Priya John on June 25, 2016 at the 141st AGM of the Bombay YWCA.

In the words of Mrs. Priyadarsini Joh:-

“Greeting to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am humbled as I stand before you this afternoon in awe of God’s grace and delighted by the confidence posited by you to elect me to this key portfolio of the Bombay YWCA.

As I reminiscence on my journey within the Y, I have so much to be grateful for. I entered the Y world as a young 26 year old, the warmth I experienced here was palpable. The senior members ensured I felt at home and soon was integrated into the ‘Y’s committees and activities. I cannot thank enough the spirit of camaraderie and support that exists within the ‘Y” organization. The senior members have provided leadership and direction to the organization with practical wisdom and a service mindset. Let me use this opportunity to thank all the past presidents and members of the board for the unwavering focus, active engagement and sacrificed service. Further I would like to thank the staff of the Y for your strong commitment, sincere efforts and excellent work ethic.

I am blessed to be part of such a group of dedicated, immensely talented, fully committed members of the Y to serve this great organization and together achieve the vision espoused by the Y.

As we progress the baton we would do well to focus on the following priorities for the ‘Y’ during 2016-17.

  • Existing Members: Leverage the skills, capabilities and time of the senior members of the Y to advance the organizational goals and objectives.
  • New Memberships: Enhance the memberships particularly infuse young members into the Y and strengthen the Y-Deepa such that the rich heritage of the senior members of the Y is effectively passed on to the younger generation in shaping the community at large.
  • Social Action: Enhance our relevance to the society by the following specific segments:
    • Target and campaign against drug trafficking by concerted efforts of the diverse constituents of Y
    • Focus on Justice beyond borders and ensure we activate and contribute to a society that is founded on earnestness, equality and equanimity where principle of justice becomes the bedrock of every action of every enterprise

The task at hand is large and time to deliver is minimal. I count on your continued support, consistent efforts and constant engagement that we be the beacon that we are called to be in this dark world and bring the light of Jesus to our every touch point. Thank You.”

We at The Christian Observer wish Mrs.Priyadarsini John the very best in her efforts at the YWCA.- Dr.Jayakar Ellis, Editor


TCONEWS ADMINJuly 20, 2018
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1min4190

The Ryan International Group of Institutions was recently recognized for its efforts for charity by the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Group’s school in Sharjah received this accolade for participating in the world’s largest charity donation for the poor. The students collected over 205,122 items of clothing for donation. This was verified by the authorities of Guinness World Records and was declared as a record.
Speaking on this achievement, Ryan International Group of Institutions Managing Director Grace Pinto said, “We are grateful for the vision that Lord Jesus Christ has given us to nurture responsible and compassionate future citizens of the world.”

Ryan Schools are well-known for providing holistic education to students and undertaking large scale initiatives to reach out to the underprivileged to build social responsibility amongst them.
Chairman Dr. A. F. Pinto, CEO Ryan Pinto and others celebrated the feat with the students of the school.


TCONEWS ADMINJuly 20, 2018
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7min2960

“We want to be honest with you, there is very little hope.”

 So wrote Compassion International to its 130,000 sponsors of Indian children this past Friday.

One week after sharing the good news of four nations no longer needing child sponsors due to the passion of millennials, the ministry shared the bad news of another nation that will probably not need child sponsors due to government interference.

A little more than a year after the Indian government told Compassion that it could no longer receive funding from outside the subcontinent, the humanitarian organization will likely be closing its last operations there.

“Since we can no longer distribute funds to our field offices, we have just had to notify our India country staff that we must formally close our field offices in India by March 15,” Compassion told sponsors by email. “Should nothing change, that means an end to our sponsorship program in India in the next 60 days.”

Compassion, which has been working in India for more than 48 years, said it has tried everything in the last 10 months to stay afloat. The email listed its efforts, which include:

  • Seeking the advice of legal experts in both the US and India
  • Leveraging influential relationships, including US representatives and senators, the former US Secretary of State, the former and current ambassadors to India and the White House Office of Faith-based Affairs, as well as members of Parliament in the United Kingdom
  • Asking Compassion sponsors to pray and to write Congress (more than 35,000 letters were sent)
  • Testifying in front of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee
  • Leveraging personal relationships within the US and India

Compassion’s 580 Indian-staffed development centers care for more than 145,000 children. That’s only about 8 percent of the 1.9 million children assisted by Compassion worldwide, but also more than any other of the 25 countries where it works.

The Indian government objects to Compassion’s Christianity, according to the ministry’s testimony to US lawmakers. Hindu nationalists have put increasing pressure on Christians in India since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014. The subcontinent has been steadily moving up Open Doors’ list of places where it’s hardest to be a Christian, from No. 28 in 2014 to No. 15 this year, the highest rank it has ever held.

“An average of 40 incidents were reported per month, including pastors beaten, churches burned and Christians harassed,” stated Open Doors. “Of the 64 million Christians in India, approximately 39 million experience direct persecution.”

There doesn’t appear to be a government plan to pick up Compassion’s care for Indian children. More than 1 in 3 of India’s 1.2 billion people are children, yet India spends less on health and education than comparable emerging economies.

Of India’s roughly 472 million children, 33 million are child laborers, 80 million are out of school, and 97 million are undernourished, according to a recent petition asking Modi’s administration to spend more on children.

But while the government may not have a plan in place, that doesn’t mean the children will be abandoned entirely, said Compassion spokesperson Becca Bishop.

“[The children] may have lost Compassion’s support, but they haven’t lost the support of their local church,” she said. “Those churches, if they have the funds, may still be able to carry out a lot of the services.”

World Vision, which sponsors more than 245,000 children in India (about 6 percent of its global total), also partners with local churches, though not exclusively, spokesperson Amy Parodi told CT. So far, World Vision isn’t having problems getting foreign funding into the country, she said.

CT covered Compassion’s cash crunch in December, including how the Indian government squeezed off its foreign funding. With no way to pay for materials or staff, the organization began paring down programs last summer.

“Our staff in the India field offices have stretched every last penny beyond what we thought possible to extend the programs for our children, while we in parallel explored alternative delivery methods to provide funds, yet a solution has not been discovered within the needed timeframe,” stated Compassion’s email to donors.

The news comes on the heels of Compassion’s largest surge of sponsorships, when students attending the 2017 Passion Conference eliminated the list of children waiting for sponsors in four countries.


TCONEWS ADMINJuly 20, 2018
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3min3450

India may be the world’s largest democracy, but the government often falls short when it comes to protecting Christians and other minorities from attack by militant Hindus.

In 2017, Christians experienced almost as many attacks against them during the first half of the year than during all of 2016. So far this year, there are  no signs that the religious intolerance and persecution is letting up.

Just within this past week, two major incidents occurred: one in Tamil Nadu state, and another in Jammu Kashmir.

Last Saturday, parishoners of Maknayeem Church near Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu attempted to enter their church for a prayer and fasting meeting. When they arrived, they discovered the church gate was locked.
After unlocking the gate, they entered the church and found 43-year old Pastor Gideon Perisyaswamy hanging form the rafters of the church.

According to Wilson Chowdhry of the British Asian Christian Association, when police arrived on the scene they appeared “whimsical” and failed to initiate an investigation of the crime scene. Instead, they labeled the pastor’s death a suicide.

Chowdhry says the church members suspected foul play because a gold ring was missing from the pastor’s finger and there were signs of welts, bruising and torture on Pastor Gideon’s body.

“This was a particularly special day in which a large number of the church were about to attend for prayer an fasting. It would seem very unusual for a man to commit suicide before that without leaving a note,” he said.

According to Chowdhry, the church and pastor had received several death threats from militant Hindus who were angry about the church evangelizing and converting Hindus to Christianity. Pastor Gideon had reported the threats to local police.

On January 16, 2018 in Jammu Kashmir, a Hindu mob burned Sehal Christ Church of Seri Panchayat. Several Christian businesses were also set ablaze.

Chowdhry says the militants were upset because a former Hindu was given a Christian burial.

The woman, Seema Devi had converted to Christianity before she became ill and died. Her parents wanted her body to be cremated which is the Hindu custom, but her husband wanted the Christian ceremony because his wife was Christian.

The parents accused Rinku Kumar of murdering his wife Seema, but Chowdhry says Kumar actually prayed regularly for her healing.

Many Christians from Sehal Christ Church have fled into the woods because Hindus are forcibly re-converting many of them to Hinduism. Chowdhry says his organization has helped the pastor find refuge in a safe house about 200 miles away from the village.


TCONEWS ADMINJuly 20, 2018
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2min2870

Panaji: The Catholic Church in Goa on Jan 29 issued an advisory to citizens, urging them not to have a casual and careless approach towards their moral duty of voting, saying the “quality of seeds sown during elections determines the quality of legislations and policies in governance that will follow”.
The advisory also cautioned citizens to be aware of the reality that any “oppressive, discriminatory and destructive legislations proposed at the national level require the collaboration of state governments for enactment and their cooperation for implementation… One cannot be blind to the larger thrust that is being placed in recent times at the national level to undo the Sovereign, Socialist, Secular and Democratic fabric of our nation as enshrined in our Constitution.”

“The undue intrusion and interference of governments in the judiciary or educational and financial institutions cannot be a sign of good governance,” the statement issued by the Centre for Social Justice and Peace read, adding that “the terror unleashed by state and non-state actors to silence dissent or diverse opinions about governance by labelling them as anti-national or unpatriotic cannot be ignored by responsible citizens.”

The church also took a dig at the government’s recent push towards digitisation saying “the shift from the social policy of ‘roti, kapdaaurmakan’ for uplifting the poor sections of the society to an emphasis on digital and cashless policy involving smart phones, ATM cards and apps as the basic requirement for every citizen to avail of government benefits and purchase their basic needs is a worrisome phenomenon.”

With about 26 per cent of the population in Goa following the Christian faith, the church has, for years, been instrumental in guiding its voters before the election, especially in South Goa, which has a strong catholic presence. Goa goes to polls on 4 February and will see the BJP fighting to retain power in a three-way contest with Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party.