Home›South Asia›Modern AreaBrowse ByModern AreaThis page groups sacred regions by the present-day country or countries they actually fall inside. Wikipedia notes that the Holy Land "today ... chiefly overlaps with the combined areas of Israel and parts of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Palestine." Browsing by modern-area lets a visitor find every sacred region that falls inside the same present-day country.FactsModern AreaSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsDirectoryCategoryWell-attestedRegions 1Modern AreaFilter Results1 entryApostasy or Blasphemy LawAllIndia criminalized religious-feelings insult, not named blasphemy, under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, added in 1927 after a prosecution over an anti-Muhammad tract failed to fit the narrower Section 295: it punished deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings of any class of citizens, by words spoken or written, signs, visible representations or otherwise, with imprisonment up to three years, a fine, or both, rising to five years if committed in a place of worship. Effective 1 July 2024 the provision was replaced by Section 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which carries forward the same conduct and the same maximum penalty under India's recodified criminal law. India has no apostasy statute; conversion between religions is lawful, though several states restrict conversion procedurally under anti-conversion laws aimed at alleged inducement rather than apostasy itself. Section 295A is cognizable and non-bailable and has been invoked across the political and religious spectrum, against critics of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity alike, and courts have repeatedly narrowed its use to acts carrying genuine malicious intent rather than mere offense. (1)Ban or Official WatchlistAllThe US Commission on International Religious Freedom has repeatedly recommended in its annual reports that the State Department designate India a Country of Particular Concern. On 4 January 2024 the Secretary of State announced the department's Countries of Particular Concern list, renewing twelve other designations, and India was not among them; the commission called the omission unjustified and asked Congress to hold a hearing on the decision. India carries no Countries of Particular Concern or Special Watch List designation from the State Department itself. (1)CapitalAllNew Delhi (1)Concordat BasisAllIndia holds no concordat with the Holy See. An Apostolic Delegation to the East Indies existed from 1881, and Pope Pius XII raised it to a full internunciature covering all of India on 12 June 1948, shortly after independence. That upgrade formalized diplomatic representation but did not take the form of a bilateral treaty, consistent with India's own constitutional secularism, which recognizes no established religion. (1)Established YearAll1947 (1)Establishment StatusAllSecular State Declared (1)Government TypeAllfederal parliamentary republic (1)Legal StatusAllThe constitution declares India a secular state (the word "secular" added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976), guaranteeing freedom of religion under Articles 25-28; marriage, divorce and inheritance are still governed by separate religious personal laws rather than a Uniform Civil Code. (1)Registration or Recognition RegimeAllNo national law requires a religious group to register, but a group that receives funding from outside the country must register under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, whose licenses the central government has suspended from numerous religious and charitable organizations, Christian and Muslim among them, citing violations of the act's terms. Separately, twelve of India's states have enacted their own anti-conversion laws as of 2023, generally requiring a district official's prior approval of a conversion and providing fines or imprisonment for anyone found to have induced one by force, fraud or inducement; the laws apply chiefly to conversion out of Hinduism and are administered state by state rather than nationally. (1)Religious CompositionAllAbout 79-80% Hindu, 14-15% Muslim (one of the largest Muslim populations in the world by absolute number), with Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Jain minorities (India Census 2011; Pew Research Center, Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020). (1)Sovereignty StatusAllSovereign UN member state (1)State Funding MechanismAllIndia ran a direct Hajj subsidy from 1954, paid as concessionary airline fares and worth about 100 million dollars in 2013 and 75 million dollars by 2016, until Minister for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi ended it on 16 January 2018, four years ahead of a 2012 Supreme Court order that had directed its gradual phase out by 2022, redirecting the freed funds toward education for minority girls and women. State religious funding continues today through a different channel: statutory endowment boards such as Tamil Nadu's Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, overseeing more than 36,000 temples, and the state Wakf Boards administer religious trust income under government supervision rather than through direct budget subsidy. (1)IndiaModern Area1 entrySources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category TreeComments (0)No comments yet. 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