'This chauvinistic attitude, what they call nationalism in the name of religion, is sad.' 'It is a tragic state that we are all in currently.'
Muslim groups on Wednesday softened their stand over the visit of Jeet Thayil, who read excerpts from banned book of Salman Rushdie during Jaipur Literature Festival last year, saying they have no objection provided the act is not repeated.
Ahead of the Jaipur Literature Festival, Muslim groups on Monday warned organisers against inviting authors who hurt religious sentiments of the community, including the four who had read out passages from Salman Rushdie's banned Satanic Verses at the event last year.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
In its Annual Human Rights Report for 2006, the State Department also said 'attacks against religious minorities and promulgation of anti-religious conversion laws were (areas of) concern'.
Renowned Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer, who passed away in Mumbai on Tuesday , was opposed to all forms of religious bigotry including by the clergy of his own faith. For opposing the Syedna, spiritual of Dawoodi Bohras, Engineer faced scorn, boycott and even, sometimes, violence. In February 2000 Dilip D'souza had chronicled in Rediff.com one such assault on Asghar Ali Engineer; we reproduce it here. In Tribute.
'... 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.
"Our initial investigation suggests both the attacks were carried out by homegrown Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh," said the home minister.
"Few nations are more vital to the future of American security and prosperity than India," Garcetti told the committee.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Wednesday attended the four-day congregation of Buddhist monks and scholars that triggered a diplomatic row between India and China and led to the postponement of border talks, but refused to make any political comments.
Experts said the direction is meant to maintain party unity.
The Imam has convened a National Conference of Muslims in New Delhi on Saturday, which is being attended by over 300 top Muslim clerics, scholars and religious heads.
The US on Wednesday welcomed the "fatwa" issued by more than 1,000 Islamic clerics against the Islamic State terming the actions of the dreaded terrorist group "un-Islamic and inhuman."
The Assam cabinet had on December 13 approved a proposal to close down all Madrassas and Sanskrit Tols (schools) however, the legislation brought in the assembly during the day did not contain anything related to the Sanskrit tols and the education minister also did not mention anything about it.
'In the Middle Ages, when Muslims were around 15 per cent of the population of the world, they accounted, according to one estimate, for 90 per cent of scientific advancements.' 'And today, when Muslims are around 22 per cent of the population of the world, their share in scientific writings is less than 1 per cent!' point out Ziya Us Salam and M Aslam Parvaiz.
Over 300 eminent personalities from the creative and scholarly community of India, including actor Naseeruddin Shah, filmmaker Mira Nair, vocalist TM Krishna, author Amitav Ghosh and historian Romila Thapar have expressed solidarity with the students and others protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens. Writers Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, actors Ratna Patak Shah, Jaaved Jafferi, Nandita Das, Lillete Dubey, sociologist Ashis Nandy, activists Sohail Hashmi and Shabnam Hashmi were also among the signatories.
So should airlines play the keening, trance-like Siddi folk music from the Kutch peninsula? The Sufiana Kalam of Kashmir? Carnatic music? Rabindra Sangeet? Bihu melodies? Classical music from the Hindustani gharanas? Ghazals? Bhajans? Bollywood hits?... asks Kanika Datta.
"There are many people who utter so many things in sleep which do not make any sense," he said adding, talaq has to be given in "full senses in order to have religious sanctity."
The Delhi high court on Friday asked the Centre to reply to pleas by Facebook and WhatsApp challenging the new IT rules for social media intermediaries requiring the messaging app to "trace" chats and make provisions to identify the first originator of information.
A year after the holy Buddhist city of Bodh Gaya in Bihar was rocked by serial bomb blasts, the city is gearing up for the three-day International Buddhist Conclave in which 300 scholars, historians and Buddhists from across the world will participate. The conclave will be held in September, officials said on Saturday.
'The Hindu quest for political power in terms of a Hindu identity can pose a problem for tolerance, as the alignment of religion with power often does.'
The 700-odd clerics of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas were in agreement that yoga exercises included Hindu religious rituals that were haram (forbidden in Islam). During the weekend talks in Padang Panjang, a village in West Sumatra province, the clerics and scholars felt that practising rituals will erode and weaken Islamic faith.
A bench of Justice N Kirubakaran, since retired, and Justice B Pugalendhi, in a recent order also said that in our country 'it is made to believe that Sanskrit alone is Gods' language'.
It claimed that the Act is violative of Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution and thus, is liable to be struck down.
The body of Sehrai, 77, was handed over to his family on Wednesday evening and taken in a police escort to Kupwara in north Kashmir, at least 350 km from Jammu, where he would be buried at his ancestral graveyard in accordance with the COVID-19 guidelines.
'He was always opposed to a form of nationalism that was narrow, selfish and arrogant.' 'He will always remain a beacon of inspiration for freedom-loving people across the world and for movements of resistance against oppressive State power.'
Suicide attacks by terrorists in the name of Islam are "un-Islamic", the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e Hind a prominent Muslim body, said on Monday. The body, which has its association with the Darul Uloom Deoband also announced holding of a meeting of religious leaders in Mumbai on February 14 to denounce acts of violence.
The government on Wednesday named nine out of 15 members of the 'Shri Ram Janambhoomi Teertha Kshetra' trust constituted for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya as mandated by the Supreme Court. Here's all you need to know about the members of the trust who have been named so far.
Pradeep Sharma, mechanical engineer at the University of Houston, Kavita Ramanan, professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, Dilip Da Cunha, architect, planner and teacher at Harvard University and Columbia University, Mukul Sharma, professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College, and Tahera Qutbuddin, professor of Arabic Literature and Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago, have been awarded the 2020 Guggenheim fellowships.
'We are patriots who love India and the secular ideals it has always upheld.'
Some important simple truths about the issue may be more helpful than high sounding debates, asserts Mohammad Sajjad.
It is increasingly clear that for the BJP to try and establish itself as an electoral force in Tamil Nadu, the party has to come out of the old Brahminical mould, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The CM said that initial probe indicated "mismanagement" to be the prime reason for the accident, which occurred on Wednesday evening.
The 51-year-old televangelist, who is currently abroad, is being probed under terror and money-laundering charges by the NIA.
The BBC says the news will be a blow to the US, which had hoped to complete such a document within six months.
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