India’s leather industry fears ban proposal

Calcutta, India — India’s leather industry is worried about the ruling party’s effort to ban the slaughter of cows nationwide. The cow is sacred to most of India’s Hindus, who make up 85 percent of the population.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the federal coalition, wants to ban cow slaughter. Last week, coalition partners forced postponement of such a bill but the party plans another attempt.

Under India’s secular constitution, only state governments can currently impose such bans and few have done so. Most states do forbid sale of beef, except in big cities.

The nation includes 120 million Muslims and 20 million Christians. Leather exports are valued at $2 billion a year, and the industry employs about 2.5 million Indians.

Leather producers say they fear continuing pressure from Hindu nationalists in the run-up to state elections at the end of the year.

Nebraska court upholds dismissal of prayer suit

Lincoln, Neb. — A federal appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit against a Nebraska public school district and a school board member who led students in reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the 2000 high school graduation.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower federal judge who dismissed an American Civil Liberties Union suit that contended the Norfolk school district violated church-state separation.

The earlier ruling found no evidence that school officials knew what board member Jim Scheer would say beforehand and said his remarks were private, not made in his capacity as a school official.

School board members traditionally speak if they have a child graduating, and Scheer’s son was in the class.

Dissenting Judge Morris Arnold said Scheer used his office in a transparent effort to thwart the Constitution. “This was a religious act, pure and simple, at a state-sponsored event,” he said.