NEW DELHI,  DEC 21 (CWNews.com) - A special postal stamp to mark the Jubilee 2000 will be released on Christmas Day by Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the presence of Archbishop Alan Basil de Lastic of Delhi, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, India's government announced this week.

More than 1,200 invitees including members of Parliament, senior government officials, and church leaders will attend the function on Christmas which is also the birthday of Prime Minister Vajpayee, who heads the federal coalition government led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party.

"We welcome this initiative. It is the manifestation the secular character of the Indian constitution and polity in which all religions are treated equally," Archbishop Lastic said. However, he said the Christian community would be happier if the government declared the forthcoming year as the "Year of Christ" as earlier suggested by Prime Minister Vajpayee.

The federal cabinet had approved Prime Minister Vajpayee's proposal last January to observe 2000 as the Year of Christ. However, the Hindu lobby in the government led by the pro-Hindu BJP later scuttled the proposal saying that Christianity is not "an Indian religion."