Thiruvananthapuram, India, Jan 15, 2008 / 23:28 pm
The Catholic Church in the southern India state of Kerala has regained ownership of a 120-year-old local newspaper from a Muslim businessman, UCA News reports.
On December 30 M.A. Pharis, a Muslim, returned his stake in the company that publishes the daily Deepika to the Church. The newspaper is the oldest daily in the Malayalam language.
Charlie Paul, a Catholic lawyer and Deepika reader, reacted to the news, saying "I'm happy the title [of the company] has been returned to the Church." He said that the newspaper has contributed "immensely" to the growth of the Church in Kerala, but "we realized it only when we lost the title," he told UCA News. "Catholics are emotionally attached to Deepika. I hope the present management would run the newspaper without selfish interests," he added.
The newspaper was founded by the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate in 1887. In 1989, ownership shifted to Rashtra Deepika Limited, a newly-founded public company. After a financial crisis, the company’s chairman Bishop Matthew Arackal of Kanjirappally invited Pharis to invest in the company and take over as the chairman.