"Girls are sitting outside classrooms and demanding their fundamental rights. The hijab is a part of their cultural and religious identity of these girls. It is like the mangalsutra for Hindus, crucifix for the Christians and turbans for the Sikhs," Prathapan said during Zero Hour.
'I am not in favour of the hijab myself.' 'I personally think it wrong to make women shut themselves out of the world, where there is so much to see.' 'But I can't dictate to others about what they should wear.'
France's interior minister Brice Hortefeux has called for the withdrawal of citizenship of immigrants who practise polygamy or female genital mutilation. Hortefeux said there were "possibilities to have nationality withdrawn in the case of polygamy, genital mutilation and serious wrongdoing". The punishment would not apply only to immigrants, but also to those who have a foreign background, even if they were born in France.
Scenes of angry parents of such children arguing with police and school authorities and an instance of a student trying to flaunt a saffron scarf as an apparent retaliation were also reported.
"It is not a crime to be a Hindu. It is not their (Islamic) State."
Chinese nationals teaching Mandarin in different parts of Pakistan have left for home after being called back by Beijing following the recent deadly attacks targeting them, an official of the Karachi University said on Monday.
The six Muslim girl students of the Government Pre University Girls College in the coastal town of Udupi did not turn up for classes on Wednesday, a day after their petition seeking permission to wear hijab inside classrooms was dismissed by the Karnataka high court.
China and Pakistan have agreed to step up their defence and counter-terrorism cooperation amidst 'challenging times', as Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa held wide-ranging talks with the Chinese military leadership to further cement their all-weather strategic partnership.
In a mistaken zeal to bolster the BJP's electoral base, the party - or at least its rabid followers - appear to have convinced themselves that the Hindu rashtra is already here. It's grave mistake, warns Amulya Ganguli.
Pakistani security forces on Thursday raided the house of the father of the woman suicide bomber from Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) who blew herself up in Karachi University that killed three Chinese teachers and injured another.
'Everyone has failed us. The United States ditched us.... We will be forever indebted if the Indian government help us evacuate our family'
Sanaya Dalal on feminism, France and the burqa
In her August 17 video appeal, Khudadadi had said: "I don't want my struggle to be in vain and without any results."
The counsel for the petitioners in the hijab ban row on Monday told the Supreme Court the Karnataka high court did an "objectionable" thing when it tried to "interpret" the Holy Quran and held the headscarf worn by Muslim women was not an essential religious practice.
Hizbul Mujahideen militant Mushtaq Ahmad Chopan, who was killed in the attack, tried to escape from Tral police station wearing a burqa. In the incident, constable Mehraj Din was also injured, a police spokesman said.
Kamaljeet, who is now back in her native place Barkandi village in Bathinda, and her father Sikandar Singh, explained their week-long ordeal and how travel and placement agents in Punjab are bleeding poor families financially with a promise of a better future.
Inspired by her mother, Rayana R Khazi refuses to give into the forces of fundamentalism.
Karnataka has told the high court that its order dated February 5 did not ban the headscarf but only delegated the powers to decide the school uniform to the college development committees.
Polling across 55 assembly constituencies assembly in nine districts got off to sluggish start at 7 am due to the cold and fog at several places.
Their leaders in the provinces, which have been under the control of Taliban commanders for several months now, speak the language of the bigot. Women are known to have been abducted and enslaved. Several young girls have simply disappeared.
When the Taliban ruled the country between 1996 and 2001, they banned education for females and barred women from leaving the house without a male relative.
'I have stopped going to college and instead come here to protest.' 'What is the point of going to college when you are unsure about your citizenship?' 'I am here to protest and save my future.'
The 27-year-old German national, later identified as Rami Mackenzie, was allegedly an expert in making suicide vests and was wanted by German authorities for links with extremists. He was clad in a burqa which covered his face at the time of the arrest.
"This is our stand that hijab is not an essential religious practice. There was a statement by Dr B R Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly where he said 'let us keep the religious instructions outside educational institutions'," Karnataka Advocate General Prabhuling Navadgi told the full bench of the high court, which is hearing the hijab case.
On Monday, the Delhi government said gatherings with more than 50 people were not allowed in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The size of gatherings has since been reduce to 20 people.
She was kidnapped by child traffickers when she was 14. Today, this 17 year old wants to become a lawyer so that she can help the survivors of such henious acts.
Heavy security has also been put in place at the Chepauk area ahead of the protest as protesters proposed to lay siege to the Secretariat and the District Collector's office against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Hindu festivals are now becoming occasions when anti-Muslim hatred is expressed freely through slogans and songs that are full of abuse against Muslims or calls to either kill them or humiliate them, observes Apoorvanand.
'The show is about women taking ownership of their lives.'
For 16-year-old Negin Afshar, riding a motorbike around a dirt track in Kabul isn't just about the excitement. It is also a way to show that Afghan women can be tough too in a country where concerns are growing that hard-earned rights might be lost.
Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram has left the world dismayed with the kidnap of 257 schoolgirls from a secondary school. The abductions have spurred a global online #BringBackOurGirls campaign, with the hashtag hitting over a million. But the plight of the girls continues to haunt Africa's most populous nation. The story so far...
'Bommai's predicament is pathetic right now because deep inside he is not like this, but to remain in power he has to talk and speak against his own conscience.'
Right to protest and express dissent occupies a fundamental stature in a democratic polity and therefore the sole act of protesting should not be employed as a weapon to justify the incarceration of those exercising it, said the Delhi high court on Friday while granting bail to five accused including a woman in a north-east Delhi riots case.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's barbs at Congress "wearing the burqa" of secularism triggered a fresh war of words with the party hitting back at him while senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha was worried that the "spurious" communal-secular debate would only help the ruling party.
Burqa-clad Taliban militants on Monday stormed a police station used by local intelligence personnel at Bannu in northwest Pakistan and took several hostages, before security men stormed the building to end the siege. Four Taliban fighters were killed and another captured following a heavy exchange of fire.
Congress on Tuesday took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party for its move to charge Rs 5 per ticket for attending Narendra Modi's public meeting in Hyderabad, saying it shows the "true value" of the Gujarat chief minister.
Afghan security forces have killed all the Taliban attackers who unleashed a wave of coordinated suicide attacks targetting diplomatic area, NATO bases and the Parliament in Kabul, a top official said on Monday.
A Taliban love triangle has led to a burqa-clad woman been executed in Afghanistan with an AK47 with baying villagers cheering in delight, a media report said.
'My family goes to the airport every day so that they can find a way out.'
At least 10 policemen were killed as a suicide bomber blew himself up when security forces mounted an operation to rescue hostages taken by a group of militants who stormed a police station in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, officials said.
