Church representatives from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia will visit churches and civil society groups in India to back justice and peace work and oppose caste discrimination and violence against Christians.

Caste-based discrimination in India may be 3,500 years old, but something new is unfolding, says Maurice Melanes. That is a new movement for change with a theological twist.

Speakers at the Global Ecumenical Conference on Justice for Dalits last weekend gave a human face to the 3,500-year-old system of institutional caste-based discrimination.

The head of the world's largest inter-Christian body says that the role of churches in combating prejudice and offering an alternative vision of justice and peace is a key component of their Gospel calling