By TCN News,
Aligarh: To bring intellectuals, scholars, policy makers, analysts and civil society members on one stage to discuss minority rights and to chalk out the future plans , Aligarh Muslim University is organizing a two-day national seminar on “Minority Rights in India: Vision and Reality” on November 14-15, 2011.
Highlighting the point why seminar is being organized, Dr. Aftab Alam, seminar director, said that despite constitutional safeguards, minorities in India have been discriminated against and their rights have been more than frequently violated and Muslim minority in particular suffers from development deficit as highlighted by the Sachar Committee report.
“There has been continued neglect both by the central and state governments in the public policies to redress the development deficit of Muslim minority. Unfortunately, no other provision of the Constitution has perhaps been so much undermined as the Article 30 of the Indian Constitution, which was meant for ensuring educational development of the minorities. The complaints about the denial of permission/NOC for establishing minority educational institutions and refusal of recognition/affiliation have become very common” Dr. Alam added.
Justice M.S.A. Siddiqui, Chairman of National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, will inaugurate the seminar. The issues that will be discussed at the seminar include secularism, religious conversion and freedom of religion, communal riots/pogrom and minorities’ right to physical existence, the role of state and police during communal violence, role of National Commission for Minorities and National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions, empowerment of minorities and questions of reservation and educational and cultural rights of minorities.
Other prominent speakers of the seminar include Mrs. Faouzia Khan, Minister of State for Minority Development, Govt. of Maharashtra, Mr. Syed Shahabuddin, President, All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat and Maulana Mohammad Fazlurrahim Mujaddadi, Member of the high power committee to monitor the Govt.’s schemes related to minorities’ development.