धार्मिक कट्टरपन
November 19, 2016
On November 16, Teesta Setalvad was invited to deliver the K.G.Kannabiran Memorial Lecture in Madurai by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties(PUCL).
The full text of the lecture cam be read here.
Excerpts
Land Acquisition, Forest Rights Act and Labour Laws
Apart from this assault on civil and political liberties, this regime –coming to power as it did backed by...
November 19, 2016
An influential South-Asian rights group has terminated its ties with a major US airlines alleging that it was carrying out racial and religious profiling of Muslims, Arab and South-Asian passengers on its flights reports PTI.
Representation Image
"Southwest (Airlines) employees have been racially profiling Muslim, Arab, and South Asian passengers in the last year, including at least...
November 19, 2016
Amid chants of "Allahu akbar", huge and angry crowds gathered outside the Supreme Court in Mauritania on Tuesday demanding the execution of a man who complained about religion being used to justify social discrimination.
Demonstrators outside the Supreme Court. The banner says: ""We demand the execution of Ould Mkhaitir immediately".
In December 2013 engineer...
November 18, 2016
An excerpt from Ram Puniyani's latest book, Ambedkar, Hindutva and RSS
As the country came forward to celebrate the 125th birth Anniversary of Dr. Bhimrao Babasaheb Ambedkar, (14th April 2016) there was a sort of competition amongst different political and social groups to hold the anniversary programs. While dalit groups have been organizing these programs all through, lately many other...
November 18, 2016
The militant groups attacking Pakistan are an extension of the philosophy of the State.
A few of us had met for drinks at a friend’s farmhouse on the outskirts of the city of Kasur, which borders Lahore. We knew we just had to visit the shrine of Baba Bulleh Shah before heading back to Lahore, for a visit to Kasur is incomplete without seeing this Sufi shrine in the heart of the city...
November 17, 2016
The spread of fascism in the 1920s was significantly aided by the fact that liberals and mainstream conservatives failed to take it seriously. Instead, they accommodated and normalised it.
Image: PA/Roman Pilipey
The centre right is doing the same today. Brexit, Trump and the far right ascendant across Europe indicate that talk of a right-wing revolutionary moment is not exaggerated. And...
November 16, 2016
A revaluation of our institutions is in order
Photo Credit: Rajib Dhar/Dhaka Tribune
Let’s give it to the urban elite: We have yet again survived another crisis without having to resort to a much needed debate on democratic norms and institutions.
Some houses and temples have again been burned. People have again been victimised. It’s not a very surprising routine,...
November 16, 2016
Muslims in India should speak out against any act of violence on Hindus committed by members of the majority population in Islamic countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Tuesday.
He was a addressing a gathering in New Delhi at a seminar on — Role of Muslim Youth in Strengthening Democracy — organised by National Tricolour Association of...
November 15, 2016
Tens of millions of people around the world remember to this date, where they were and what they were doing when the twin towers fell. As they do when Mr. Barack Obama, a black man, became the most powerful man in the world. Strangers rejoiced on the streets of little towns around the world. Not because they thought that their lives would be suddenly better, or that the complex political and...
November 14, 2016
The Jumm’ah (Friday prayer) gathering on November 11th was unusually quiet and everyone seemed to be deeply reflective. Unusually so. Even those who are usually chatty seemed quieter than normal. Given that we don’t have a mosque in the area where I live, we meet in a hotel room to pray, every Friday. The Imam there pointed out, like others throughout the country have, that there is...