Thiruvananthapuram, India, Jul 25, 2007 / 08:31 am
A Muslim businessman has become owner of a newspaper that the Catholic Church ran for more than 100 years in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
M.A. Pharis, 46, has become chairperson of the public limited company that owns Deepika (little lamp), Kerala's oldest Malayalam-language daily. He is replacing Bishop Mathew Arackal of Kanjirappally, who had led the company since 2003.
Deepika's print line began to carry Pharis' name on July 16, but neither the daily nor its sister publications announced the change in their news columns. Other local dailies broke the news on July 17.
The Kerala-based Carmelites of Mary Immaculate congregation launched Deepika in 1887. Two priests, Fr. Nidhirikkal Manikkathanar and Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara, called it Nazrani Deepika when it began. In the local dialect, Nazrani means "Christian," or a follower of the Nazarene.