Not with standing the Western nations' zeal to wage a war against the group, unless its source of funding is known and curbed, its rampage will likely continue.
Articulate segments of Muzaffarpur have been at the the forefront of all anti-establishment mobilisation, which makes their silence over the atrocities in a shelter home in the town puzzling. Could it be that if those accused of horrific crimes belong to dominant castes and if the victims belong to the vulnerable groups, then the middle classes become mute, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
'Kalesaab could have easily earned Rs 1 lakh per month as rent from this place but he gave it to Muslims for free. Secularism in India is alive only because of people like him.'
Auction house Bonhams has sold a spectacular collection of arms and armour once owned by Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan for over 6 million pounds (Rs 56.8 crore).
'If the charges are so serious against him, then why hasn't a single case been registered against Dr Zakir Naik?'
In a rare public admission of Pakistani links to militancy in China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, the official media in Beijing said the co-founder of the Al Qaeda linked East Turkestan Islamic Movement was indoctrinated in a madarasa in that country.
'I am only slightly puzzled by why the childishness has not left the minister. It is easy to be prejudiced and closed-minded when one is in one's teens. But adults should view the world as adults, not as squabbling and petty schoolchildren,' says Aakar Patel.
'Gujaratis, among all Indians, are supposed to be born businessmen, but if more than 80% of them do not have the ability to do basic arithmetic, the future is grim.' 'The big issues are in society and they cannot be changed by an HRD minister no matter how brilliant she may be or think of herself as being,' says Aakar Patel.
'... The girl's parents would probably react in the same manner as the parents of the Hindu girl who marries a Muslim boy.' Minority Affairs Najma Heptulla, in an exclusive interview.
'No civilised nation can thrive if it is possessed with the spirit of Hindutva.'
Voting was held in Maldives on Saturday for the second multi-party presidential elections with long queues of people outside polling stations in this Indian Ocean archipelago, which has seen a series of unsettling political events in the last eighteen months.
'Why isn't the BJP ready to give reservations to Muslims despite the high court telling it to do so?' 'A K Antony said the Congress lost the 2014 election because of Muslim appeasement. Antony should have gone to the jails of Maharashtra and found out how many Muslims were arrested during Congress rule. I don't know what kind of appeasement this is.' 'We reposed faith in so-called great secular leaders and they deceived us.'
Everything you need to know about the three properties belonging to Dawood Ibrahim, which were auctioned on Tuesday.
'AMU is a secular university with an Islamic ethos.' 'We do not discriminate on the basis of religion. Let me tell you Muslims do not need reservations. They need affirmative action in education.'
Over 2 million Muslims, including 136,000 Indians, will begin Haj when they assemble in the valley of Mina as Saudi authorities said preparations have been completed for the world's largest annual gathering after the city underwent a multi-billion overhaul.
'Elected representatives have won elections in the past on the basis of money power received from the central government.' 'This fact has been highlighted by former army chief V K Singh who boasted of crores of rupees being distributed to Kashmiri politicians in order to buy their loyalty and win votes.' 'All the Kashmiri politicians have been co-opted by the Indian State,' says separatist Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
'I do not believe that they have become terrorists and have gone to Syria to fight.' 'I feel they have only become very orthodox Muslims.'
'In the name of cultural nationalism, Modi wants to impose another ideology on Muslims.' 'His agenda, we feel, is saffronisation of Indian culture.'
Right actions might help reduce this trust deficit. But what we have today is over- enthusiastic vigilante groups targeting minorities over beef or 'love jihad', against whom the government does little apart from meek condemnation, says Utkarsh Misgra.
'The government is not insisting that customers must eat a certain quantity only.' 'Customers can ask for extra portions.' 'It is dictatorial, but we welcome it because it is one step towards ending food waste.'
Ditch your tuitions and expensive books; there is a way you can crack the GRE without burning a hole in your pocket.
The Afghan-India Friendship Dam, earlier known as Salma Dam, on river Chist-e-Sharif in western Herat neighbouring Iran, will irrigate 75,000 hectares of land and generate 42 MW of power.
Yes, Aurangzeb was a tyrant who ill-treated his subjects. But was he the only Mughal emperor guilty of this, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
How much do you know about Shah Jahan, Mumtaz Mahal and the Taj Mahal?
The new arrests came as the injured toll doubled from 59 to 119.
A young IT grad jailed for visa fraud committed by his agent, gives an insider's view of life in jail.
Releasing its 70-point programme, Kejriwal called party's manifesto 'holy'.
Yaadhum is a documentary that talks about how Islam spread in South India because of trade and not through invasion.
Minister of State for Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Ansari believes a national debate on a Uniform Civil Code is a must. 'The need of the hour is to debate this issue at length in order to create a consensus,' Ansari tells Rediff.com, adding, 'Such a debate must take place at the grassroot level. We must understand all the divergent viewpoints before any draft can be prepared.'
'If you go up to an average American or British citizen, and tell them you are a Muslim, they look at you suspiciously. It's not a good feeling,' Saif Ali Khan tells Sonil Dedhia.
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Narendra Modi has expressed readiness for a probe by any government agency to be completed within 30 days into charges by Congress leaders that he had spent Rs 10,000 crore on poll publicity and offered to write to the Election Commission himself in this regard.
Yakub Memon, who was convicted for helping finance the serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993 in which 257 people were killed, was hanged at the Nagpur Central Jail on Thursday morning shortly before 7am.
'Disgruntled, disillusioned, Muslim youth -- of whom there is no dearth, given the Muslim world's sorry state -- are ready to take on the might of the West and attack it in any way they can.' 'For them, it is their faith, and not the reasoning of Newton or Descartes that has stayed with them, sustained them through the misery their world had sunk into,' says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Sanaya Dalal on feminism, France and the burqa
'For showing us a shining vision of how even a ceremonial role can be infused with life by a patriot, a scientist and a humble man of the people, representing the best of India's pluralist ethos, we will remember Dr Kalam.'
Zakir Naik, a gentle, rockstar televangelist, is dangerous as young Muslims may be swayed by his fundamentalist interpretations of Islam and justify victimhood and extremism, says Shekhar Gupta.
The man behind Aligarh Muslim University 200 years on.
Shubir Rishi/Rediff.com speaks to rockstar saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan days before the release of the sequel, MSG 2.
'Small bands of terrorists believe they can destabilise superpowers if they are ready to become martyrs.' 'Since the road to paradise is under the shade of swords, it is a win-win situation for those ready to die for the cause of Allah.'
'Muslims, like people of all other faiths, are quite comfortable with the idea of nationalism and democracy today. But are they following Islam in its spirit? That is a different question.'
