By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net
It takes a lot of effort by our reporters, writers, and volunteers to bring news stories and analysis that you come to expect from TwoCircles.net (TCN). As we begin the new year here is a look back at 2012 with 12 stories, one for each month.
January
Amir Khan: 14 years in jail, acquitted but still scared of police witch-hunt: We broke the story of Md. Amir Khan, who was wrongly accused of terrorism and spent 14 years in jail before being acquitted.
February
Monumental Neglect: Nizamia Tibbia College of Hyderabad dying slowly : The 200-year-old Unani college and hospital is dying a slow and silent death. Not only the marvelous structure is falling in pieces, the institution therein is also lying on death-bed thanks to governmental apathy and monumental neglect.
March
UP 2012: An analysis of Muslim-led political parties: An election that returned 68 Muslims to the UP assembly, a record when it comes to Muslim political representation in the state, also showed a mixed result when it comes to the Muslim-political party experiment. The increase in the number of Muslim-led party clearly shows the disenchantment with the major political parties.
April
Ayesha Khatun : The woman on a mission: Ayesha Khatun hopes that education will pave the way for these under-privileged communities to interact and assimilate with society and building schools is the first step in this direction.
May
Young Nikhat desperately looking for Fasih: Young Nikhat Perween looks tired. In search of her husband she has knocked at every relevant door from Saudi Arab to New Delhi since 13th May 2012 when her husband Fasih Mehmood was picked in Al-Jubail, Saudi Arab. But in response she has got just one liner: We don’t know him, we have no information about the arrest.
June
Unheard & Unspoken: Terror stories from Madhya Pradesh: In spite of M.P. being the capital of Hindutva terrorism, state police and intelligence focus seem to be on Muslims. In this series we trace the lives of several Muslims youth and their families and how they have been made to suffer in the heartland of India- their stories largely unheard and unspoken, until now.
July
Two young boys I knew were taken during a 96 crack down. 1 came back broken & maimed after some days, other never came back #TortureKashmir
— IbneBattuta (@Ibnebattuta) July 6, 2012
Stories of Kashmir torture trend on twitter: IbneBattuta informed TwoCircles.net that “this was just an idea that came after I found Channel 4 was screening ‘Kashmir Torture’ documentary on July 10th.” He sent a tweet suggesting #TortureKashmir as the hashtag, “then it cascaded into a huge torrent on its own.”
August
Assam Violence: Tale of two (relief) camps: The Assam government’s claims of providing adequate and satisfactory relief to victims of the recent violence in parts of the state seem to have fallen flat as the ground reality seems to show otherwise – visible differences can be seen between the relief camps of the affected communities (Bodos and Muslims).
September
US consulate attack was unfortunate, but don’t regret that incident: TMMK chief Dr. Jawahirullah: “That protest shouldn’t have been violent; but our party has grown extensively in recent years, it was done by some new party members. But we are not apologetic to the USA and we do not regret that incident. Has US involved in war crimes ever apologized for its past mistakes? Do they even regret production of anti-Islamic film from their soil?”
October
India’s first glass mosque – in Shillong: “It took us one and a half years to complete the only glass mosque in India and the largest one in the northeastern region,” said Nongrum, who is also general secretary of the Shillong Muslim Union (SMU). The four-storey building – 120 feet high and 61 feet wide — stands inside an Idgah Complex in the city’s Lahan area and is close to the garrison grounds along the Umshyrpi river. At night, the mosque’s glasswork glows and glitters.
November
Kerala: Saffronisation could be addressed by bringing into light internal inequalities: Dalits and lower castes do realize that the logic of a monolithic ‘Hinduism’ has been deployed not only to terrorize non-Hindus but also lower castes and Dalits who are forced under the fold of Hinduism by the state and the communal forces—remember that the DHRM (The Dalit Human Rights Movement) is branded as a terrorist organization in Kerala.
December
Did Gujarati Muslims vote for the BJP?: There is nothing in the data to suggest that Muslims voted for BJP in any significant number but there is an ample evidence to suggest that Congress benefitted more in those seats where Muslims had a significant presence.