Missionaries of Charity was to care for (in Mother Teresa's words) "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." It began as a small community with 12 members in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and today it has over 4,500 Sisters running orphanages, home for those dying of AIDS, charity centres worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine in Asia, Africa, Latin
Missionaries in India volume containing the proceedings of the 50th anniversary celebration of the CBCI. Arun Shourie said about his book: "To celebrate the 50th anniversary of its establishment the C.B.C.I. convened a meeting in January 1994 to review the work of the Church in India. [...] For some reason the organizers were so kind to ask me [Arun Shourie] to give the Hindu perception of the work of Christian missionaries in India. That lecture and the discussion which followed forms the scaffolding of this book." Fr. Augustine Kanjamala, Secretary of the CBCI, who had invited Shourie for the lecture at Pune, later