From a Pakistan-trained militant to one of the prominent separatist faces in Kashmir, life has come a full circle for chief of the banned Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Yasin Malik, who was in limelight for varied reasons over the past three decades of turmoil in the erstwhile restive border state.
With the Uttar Pradesh government set to conduct a survey of private madrassas, proprietors of the theological schools fear that their institutions may be declared illegal and 'run over by bulldozers'.
The educated, respectable and established Muslims voices, that were on the modernising side on the Shah Bano issue, are fighting on the opposite side now, mostly because they worry about Narendra Modi, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The state cabinet presided over by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had earlier this week approved the draft ordinance to curb forcible or "dishonest" religious conversions including those for the sake of marriage, which could land violators in jail for up to 10 years.
'All parties are engaging in polarisation to strengthen their political vote banks, which is very unfortunate because these are young, impressionable, students.' 'These students are our future.' 'What kind of a society are we banking upon if we are planting such poisonous seeds into their minds?'
TMC's campaign in the seat in south Kolkata is already underway with the Election Commission announcing the by-poll on Saturday, following a request from the state government to avoid a constitutional crisis.
Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday struck down National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri's controversial move to dismiss a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a major blow to the cricketer-turned politician who is now likely to face a no-trust vote in parliament after the ruling.
The incident happened after thousands of Afghans gathered at the Kabul airport to seek an evacuation flight amid Taliban's takeover of the country, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Deputy director for the People's Liberation Army Office for International Military Cooperation Major General Huang Xueping held a video conference with his US counterpart Michael Chase last week.
The prime minister needs 172 votes in the lower house of 342 to foil the Opposition's bid to topple him.
The Kerala high court on Tuesday declined to interfere with the decision of a Christian woman to marry a Muslim leader of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, a decision which stirred a political storm in the state after her relatives alleged "love jihad", as she categorically told the court that she has not been illegally detained and she was not interested in speaking to her family at present.
Addressing a public rally in Aurangabad late in the evening, in which he was termed as 'Hindu Jananayak', the MNS chief said if Uttar Pradesh government could remove the loudspeakers, what was stopping the Maharashtra government, led by his estranged cousin Uddhav Thackeray, from doing so.
The US state department in its annual report to the Congress on international religious freedom has alleged that in India in 2021, attacks on members of the minority communities, including killings, assaults, and intimidation, occurred throughout the year.
The poll results will depend much on whether the caste and community coalition worked out by Akhilesh can withstand the onslaught of the Hindutva forces who have increased their efforts to polarise the electorate on communal lines.
It was heartening to see so many women -- young and old, many in hijab and burqa shaking their bodies, raising their arms and singing with complete abandonment.
Priyantha Kumara was murdered by Pakistani fundamentalists last Friday, provoking civil society protests in Lahore and Karachi against the horrific crime.
President Rajapaksa, through a special gazette last month, appointed the 13-member task force for the establishment of a 'One Country, One Law' concept in Sri Lanka and comprised members from the majority Sinhala and minority Muslim communities.
China's ruling Communist Party has appointed Wang Junzheng, sanctioned by the US, Britain, EU and Canada for his alleged role in the human rights violations against Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang, as the head of its party unit in the sensitive Himalayan region of Tibet.
Party insiders concede statements of the Raja kind have the potential to hurt the DMK's electoral chances in closely-fought seats in 2024, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Those who win indulge in shooting, looting, throwing bombs and burning houses.'
Adhikari, who is contesting against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from Nandigram's seat in the upcoming polls in West Bengal on Saturday said the state will turn into Kashmir if Trinamool Congress comes back to power.
"The Taliban want an Islamic country. These people want to make a Hindu Rashtra," the lyricist said without naming the RSS.
A top leader of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami was on Tuesday sentenced to life by a special Bangladeshi tribunal on charges of committing "crimes against humanity" during the 1971 independence war against Pakistan. "He (Abdul Kader Mollah) will serve the life term," said chairman of the three-member International Crimes Tribunal Justice Obaidul Hassan.
In a live-address to the nation, 69-year-old Khan also discussed a 'threat letter' that purportedly showed 'evidence' of a foreign conspiracy to topple his coalition government.
Vice President Dhankar's and Law Minister Rijuju's recent interventions have the danger of destabilising the Constitutional equilibrium, cautions N Sathiya Moorthy.
While most political parties have mostly stayed mum about the vicious anti-hate speeches -- reportedly calling for killing Muslims and former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh -- made at the so-called 'Dharma Sansad' event in Haridwar from December 17-20 -- student organisations protested against the inflammatory and provocative speeches, calling for the immediate arrests of the accused.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday sought to defend his widely criticised statement equating Muhammad Ali Jinnah with Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru and saying they helped India get freedom even as an Uttar Pradesh minister suggested a narco test for him for 'glorifying' the founder of Pakistan.
Wearing saffron scarves and holding saffron flags, the Bajrang Dal and VHP activists on motorcycles raised 'Jai Sriram' slogans.
Why should an elected government, any party's government, need a law to protect itself from its people? asks Shekhar Gupta.
Dnyandev Wankhede, Sameer's father, has sought damages of Rs 1.25 crore from Malik and an order restraining him from making further false or incorrect statements against the Wankhede family.
Quoting verses from Surah Al Bakra in Qur'an, Justice Krishna S Dixit said a pious Muslim owes a moral and religious duty to provide subsistence to his destitute ex-wife.
India's most powerful prime minister in five decades gets publicly admonished -- if gently -- by the US vice-president. The question is, would this make him reflect on how and why, or which ones of his government and party's missteps exposed his flank like this? asks Shekhar Gupta.
The raids, as per official sources, began at 3:30 am and involved as many as 300 NIA officials from across its various offices.
The properties include Goawala compound and a commercial unit in Mumbai's suburban Kurla (West) 147.79-acre agricultural land located in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra and three flats in Kurla (West).
A police team from Chhattisgarh landed in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, on Tuesday morning to arrest a TV news anchor from his house over a case lodged against him for playing a clip of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi out of context. However, the Raipur police were obstructed by their Uttar Pradesh counterparts who took Ranjan along with them, they claimed.
The National Investigation Agency Wednesday registered a case under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in connection with the 'heinous murder' of a tailor in Rajasthan's Udaipur by two people who, the agency said, wanted to 'strike terror among the masses across the country'.
The silence is specially deafening from three parties that symbolised hope for Muslims: The Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Samajwadi Party. 'What fear prevents these leaders from at least talking about the way our community is being targeted?' 'Will they really lose Hindu votes if they do so?'
The remarks by China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, Geng Shuang, came during an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the situation in Afghanistan on Monday after the sudden and rapid takeover of the Afghanistan government by the Taliban insurgents.
Challenging the government order restricting the use of any cloth that can disturb peace, harmony and, law and order, the girls who petitioned in favour of hijab requested the Karnataka high court on Monday to allow them to wear Islamic headscarves of the colour of the school uniform.
Adityanath has of late earned the nickname "bulldozer baba", which helped the party create a narrative of tough administration in the state polls.
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