'If a hero wanted Mr Rafi to sing for him, naturally it had to be him.' 'Then if it was Dilip Kumar, who is a soft-spoken man, he naturally wanted Talat Mehmood.' 'Raj Kapoor wanted only Mukesh. Now you tell me, where did I stand a chance?'
'The jurisprudence of a modern secular State has to be strictly rational.' 'Rather than aastha and aqeedah, our jurisprudence as well as the executive and legislature have to act in accordance with Constitutional rationality,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
A top commander of Al Qaeda in the Indian Sub-continent and three of his associates were killed on Friday in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi.
People's Democratic Party patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was on Sunday sworn-in as the 12th chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
In the backdrop of the latest unrest in Kashmir, separatist leader Sajjad Lone said the demand for independence for the region could be the reference point for starting a dialogue with the union government.
'The Ulema have come out as villains against Indian secularism, impeding the secular united resistance against violent Hindutva that is backed by ministers in the government,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
What plagues the Aligarh Muslim University? Armed with historical facts, Dr Mohammad Sajjad lists the likely reasons for the recurring turmoil in one of India's oldest educational institutions.
'Their brave resistance keep our hopes alive that this youth upsurge is strengthening India's democracy and pluralism,' states Mohammad Sajjad.
The 82-year-old former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister received the ED summons a day after the formation of the People's Alliance led by him was announced on October 15.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (centre) goes through Indian fabric made by self help groups at the head office of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development in Mumbai on Wednesday. Merkel arrived in India for a visit expected to focus on security and trade issues, as Europe's largest economy aims to strengthen ties with the Asian giant.
The Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday paid an ex-gratia relief of Rs 1 lakh to the next of kin of Bhim Singh, a member of the National Disaster Management Force team, who perished in a chopper crash in Uttarakhand while carrying out rescue operations.
This is likely to be the last extension of the central rule in the state as the Election Commission had issued a statement recently stating that elections in Jammu and Kashmir would be announced after the annual Amarnath Yatra beginning on July 1.
Singh said there is a large presence of terrorists across the Line of Control (LoC) but expressed confidence that the counter-infiltration grid will take care of the threat.
'... That they should emerge as role-models to be emulated by the fellow countrymen; and that the middle classes should not stick only to hate-filled and scornful criticism and condemnation against the state of affairs,' remembers Mohammad Sajjad.
'India's pluralist character, vibrant democracy, assertive intelligentsia and all attendant principles/institutions are the best assurance to allay the misgivings of the minorities.'
President Ram Nath Kovind signed the proclamation for imposition of central rule in the state, which plunged into a political crisis in June after the Mehbooba Mufti-led coalition government was reduced to minority following withdrawal of support by the 25-member Bharatiya Janata Party in the state.
All educational institutes across the state are closed for the second consecutive day, the officials said.
Theatre actress Nadira Babbar pays tribute to the legend who passed away on MOnday.
The other MEP involved in the attacks was Erika Mann, a German Socialist.
Taking a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday accused it of bringing in supporters from other parts of the state for Prime Mister Narendra Modi's rally in Srinagar.
'How many Indian parents, still alive, really have documents of, their parents's date and place of birth? Not more than 27% of still alive Indians have got birth certificates,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
Probes into serial blasts, which have a Kerala link, have found that since the past three years over 180 youth trained were extensively at Ernakulam in Kerala and readied for jihad.
The Centre is acting tough with Kashmir's separatist leaders by taking on their foreigner wives, refusing them to stay with their husbands in Jammu and Kashmir.
'In Kairana, the grand coalition was able to transfer its votes to a Muslim candidate in supposedly an era of anti-Muslim ambience.' 'Given this perspective, the Kairana result seems more significant than that of Gorakhpur and Phulpur a few months ago,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Pakistan's squad for the 12th hockey World Cup in New Delhi.
Muslims need to get out of their Isolation Syndrome, argues Mohammad Sajjad.
Jammu and Kashmir Minister of State for Home Sajjad Ahmad Kitchloo submitted his resignation to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday over communal violence in Kishtwar that claimed three lives.
In a joint operation, UP and West Bengal Police and central security agencies arrested Altaf from Baranagar area of West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district on Saturday. They claimed, during the interrogation, the arrested HuJI militants had confessed that the consignment of ammonium nitrate and RDX was brought from Jammu and West Bengal.
Sulking over denial of weighty portfolio to separatist-turned-politican Sajjad Lone, his party People's Conference today issued a veiled threat that it may consider quitting the ruling coalition of Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party in Jammu and Kashmir.
People's Conference chairman Sajjad Lone has conceded that the high voter turn-out for the Jammu and Kashmir elections not only surprised him but other separatist leaders in the Valley as well.
'Among the many composing geniuses, who created beautiful tunes for me to sing, Khayyamsaab was the last to remain alive.'
The PDP has 28 MLAs, followed by NC's 15 and the Congress's 12. The three parties together will have majority in the 87-member House. The Bharatiya Janata Party is the second largest party in the state with 25 members.
Minal had completed her undergraduate degree from Rizvi College of Architecture Mumbai in 1998.
The hounding of former AMU students by some alumni over their 'wining and dining' during Ramzan is deeply disturbing, says AMU Professor Mohammad Sajjad. 'Intolerance, irrationality, bigotry, religious/sectarian hatred, and all such pernicious tendencies must be fought and resisted, more particularly by university campuses, in order to build a better society.' 'Have we, as academics, failed, and that too, quite miserably?' he asks. 'I feel like confessing and saying yes, we have indeed failed.'
Flight PK8303 crashed among houses in the Model Colony residential area on Friday as it approached Karachi airport, killing 97 people, including nine children.
The European Parliament in Brussels witnessed acrimonious exchanges between some of the pro-Pakistani members and the rapporteur of the report on Kashmir during the debate on the compromise amendments to the draft report.
Police found that Zakir was a fake militant who along with his accomplished adopted names of some militants currently in PoK.
In a joint operation, the Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir Police on Tuesday arrested two suspected militants of Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islamia from Doda area of Jammu in connection with last month's serial blasts in three court premises in UP. The two, identified as Sajjad and Tariq Kashmiri alias Akhthar, were arrested from Doda town by the police forces of the two states alongwith sleuths of Central Security agencies and taken to Lucknow on a transit remand.
'This time, even the professedly secular parties have maintained a conscious distance from being identified with Muslims.' 'This could be interpreted as a success of the BJP campaign of what it has been calling 'minority appeasement', says Mohammad Sajjad.
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