Shiv Sena attacked Shobhaa De, saying had Bal Thackeray not done 'dadagiri' to preserve Marathi culture, her forefathers would "have been born in Pakistan" and she would have "attended Page-3 parties in a burqa".
Earlier, it was alleged that a poster of Ganga Jamuna Higher Secondary School in Damoh showed girls, including Hindu students, wearing headscarves that looked like hijab.
The Great Indian Family, observes Sukanya Verma, is a cheerful fable that points out the absurdity of discrimination as a tool employed by power hungry opportunists.
Amid row over wearing hijab in classrooms in some colleges in Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party state chief Nalin Kumar Kateel said the state government will not allow 'Talibanisation'.
The Karnataka government on Thursday ordered that the students studying in schools managed by the minority welfare department schools in the state should not wear saffron scarves, hijab or any religious flags.
Addressing party workers, Thackeray claimed Mufti told him that the BJP's alliance with the PDP was on the condition that Article 370, which provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir, won't be abolished.
The controversy refuses to die down as some students remained adamant to be allowed to attend classes with 'hijab' and 'burqa' on Thursday as well.
'These are the people who don't want peace in the state, who want to disturb the harmony in the state.'
Muthalik said the dress code is introduced so that there is no display of upper and lower caste or religious identities.
A group of girl students of the college wearing burqas and hijab entered the college and held a protest in the premises raising slogans in favour of the right to wear head scarves.
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.
Citing popular protests in Iran, an Islamic country, against the mandatory use of hijabs, he claimed that religion freedom in India cannot mean promotion of "separatist" designs.
The Muslim Rashtriya Manch, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's Muslim wing, has backed the burqa-clad student who was heckled by youth shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans at a Karnataka college, saying 'purdah' is a part of Indian culture.
The girls insisted that they should be allowed to write the exam wearing hijab but the college authorities citing the High Court order denied them entry.
As you know that the Karnataka Education Act and Rule does not permit any religious items inside the class. So we are very clear that no student can wear hijab inside the class, Nagesh explained.
China's charge d'affaires Pang Chunxue met Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah to discuss various issues, including the security of the Chinese nationals in Pakistan in the wake of the suicide bombing.
The husband of the woman who blew herself up at Karachi University in Pakistan on Tuesday said her "selfless act" has left him speechless but he is proud of what she did.
Reuters Photographers Jorge Silva and Zohra Bensemra capture slices of life of Kabul.
China demanded that the Pakistan should apprehend and punish the perpetrators to the full extent of the law.
When turbans are allowed on school and college campuses, or sacred ash on the forehead, can one ban the hijab? asks T N Ninan.
The government has already ordered closure of the degree and diploma colleges till February 16.
The law in France, which only affects a few thousand women and seems to have been passed because of anticipated political mileage rather than any serious engagement with women's rights, should not serve as an excuse to sensationalise the experience of one group and, therefore, ignore the deeper and more universal problems that women face.
"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.
The jewellers said the decision was taken to avoid hurting the religious sentiments of any community.
'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.'
October 15 marks two months since the Taliban captured Kabul and thereafter all of Afghanistan. How has life changed for the Talib in these weeks?
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.
Violent protests against Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen's purported article spread on Tuesday night to Mangalore, where the offices of the newspaper which published it was attacked by a group of miscreants. However, the situation in Shimoga and Hassan towns, which had witnessed violent protests on Monday, remained under control with no fresh untoward incident. In Mangalore, miscreants forced their way into the building housing the office of the New Indian Express.
"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.
'We've no objections to women wearing lipstick under a burqa. But the film shows these women doing unmentionable things,'
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.
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.
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.
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.
'Everyone has failed us. The United States ditched us.... We will be forever indebted if the Indian government help us evacuate our family'
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.
In her August 17 video appeal, Khudadadi had said: "I don't want my struggle to be in vain and without any results."
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