Articles

By Asghar Ali Engineer

Unheard & Unspoken: Terror stories from Madhya Pradesh: Part 4 By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net

Afzal Memon is the Director of the Gujarat Sarvajanik Welfare Society, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He is also a prominent activist of the Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic reformist movement. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand in 2005, he talks about the changes taking place among Gujarat’s Muslims three years after the anti-Muslim genocidal attacks that took a toll of thousands of lives. Q: Do you think there is any major change in the situation in Gujarat now as far as inter-communal relations and the attitude of the state are concerned?

By Amit Kapoor Jayalalithaa was to Tamil Nadu what Narendra Modi was to Gujarat. Their respective states symbolise their legacy and present unique models...

By Panchendra Kumar Naik for TwoCircles.net India is facing acute political and moral disorders – flared recently by Hardik Patel led agitation for the reservation...

By Manzar Bilal and Mudassir Rizwan, TwoCircles.net, To solve problems facing Urdu Language in Bihar pressure groups should emerge once again like the ones that ensured it second official language status in the state, says Rehan Ghani, Managing Editor, Pindar, one of the oldest Urdu dailies in Bihar. Concerned with the Urdu speakers’ apathy towards the language, Ghani, also Associate Editor, Door Darshan, Patna, holds Urduwalas more responsible than the government for the sordid state of the language.

By Dr Syed Zafar Mahmood, Circulation of wealth: Zakat & Sadaqah Bringing about economic equality through circulation of wealth in the society is one of the...

New Delhi : Twenty children, including eight girls, were rescued from shoe factories and placement agencies here on the initiative of Bachpan Bachao Andolan,...

By Zaidul Haque, TwoCircles.net Kolkata: Ashna Khan, a ten-year-old girl from Kolkata, set a fine example of kindness by donating the entire amount received...

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

By Amit Kapoor, The government's manufacturing focus is evident. On the recent three-country foreign visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Make in India campaign received a fillip. India was also the partner country at Hannover Messe, described as the world's leading trade fair for industrial technology.

London: An Indian-origin Muslim cleric has been awarded an honorary doctorate by University of Leicester in Britain in recognition of his commendable work for...

By R.K. Parashar, IANS Dalhousie (Himachal Pradesh) : Sardar Ajit Singh - the name may not ring a bell among today's youth. Legend goes that this forgotten hero, an uncle of martyr Bhagat Singh, breathed his last on Aug 15, 1947 -- holding on to life till he heard the news of India's independence. Unfortunately, no one pays him even a perfunctory homage at his memorial in Panjpulla in Dalhousie.

By Sadia Dehlvi, I am both amused and terrified as the "Hindu Terror" and "Muslim Terror" debate rages on. Emotions sway between laughter and tears when some leaders talk of " Hindu persecution in India" and make a distinction between terror crimes allegedly committed by members of the majority community and those by Muslims. Nothing can be more dangerous and threatening to a society than religious based intolerance and injustice.

By Amulya Ganguli For the present, the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh has bought peace with the family of the slain journalist, Jagendra Singh,...

By AnIndianMuslim.com,

Dr Mohd. Manzoor Alam, The last few weeks have witnessed a steady rise in different kinds of violence, rape and murder of women (Dalit, Muslim, OBC), attack on and murder of Muslim youth and others suspected to be Muslims, sundry violence in Bihar, UP and Maharashtra.

By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net,

By TCN News,

By B.R.P.Bhaskar, IANS,

By Kaleem Kawaja,

By TwoCircles.net news desk, Misra Commission report excerpts - home page Initiatives taken for Development of Minorities High Power Panel under the Chairmanship of Dr Gopal Singh

By A Mirsab, TwoCircles.net, Mumbai: In a controversial development, India's elite National Investigation Agency (NIA) today gave clean chit to 6 accused, including Sadhvi Pragya...

By Zaidul Haque, Twocircles.net Kolkata: The All India Trinamool Congress, which released its election manifesto a few days ago, seems to have paid more...

By Uma Ramasubramaniam, IANS

By Rohini Hensman Whose Faith and Belief?

By Tarique Anwar, TwoCircles.net,

I am in Muslim dominated Dargah Shah Arzan area of Patna to see how people here do their Iftar arrangements. There is a tradition of collective Iftar usually arranged in mosques in the month of Ramadan. The mosque of this area is one of them.

I entered the palatial three-storey mosque which seemed to me no less than a palace. On its ground floor some people were offering Namaz and some were reciting the Holy Quran. I went upstairs and reached the first floor and then second floor.

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,

By Amit Kapoor, Crude oil prices have plummeted globally. The present levels have consequences for both oil exporting countries like Russia, Nigeria, Mexico and Venezuela and those in the Middle East, as well as developing economies like China and India that depend on imports for meeting the demands of their fast prospering populations. In the past, the high price ensured that the oil exporting countries had enough inflows in the form of payments by developing and developed economies that have had a shortage of crude oil pre-July. However the economy is just one of the consequences of cheap oil. The other effects of equal, if not more importance include geopolitics and strategic alignment.

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net, In election rallies in Bihar recently Narendra Modi would often be seen flanked by two Dalit leaders–– Ram Vilas Paswan...

By Gowhar Geelani for TwoCircles.net Day 8. Kashmir is curfewed. At least 43 civilians are killed. All of them have been identified by the local...

By Rohit Bansal, IANS, Last September, Amitabh Kant, the chief executive and managing director of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corp (DMICDC), was quizzed on the lack of visible manifestations of the $90-billion being poured into 24 manufacturing cities between Dadri in Uttar Pradesh and Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Maharashtra, alongside the 1,500-km dedicated freight corridor.

By Anjuman Ara Begum, TwoCircles.net,

By Ram Puniyani

By Rupa Abdi, TwoCircles.net Black was the colour of pathos, and I was submerged in it. Women dressed in black sarees and salwar kameez were beating their chests to the chant of ‘Ya Hussain’. The chorus rose to a fevered pitch followed by a sudden silence. In that momentary silence was crystallized generations of mourning. The place – a Shia Muslim neighbourhood in Lucknow; the time – the tenth of Moharrum. If grief has different shades, on can see it during Moharrum.

By Amit Kapoor, Over the past few years, we have heard of all sorts of deficits that have been ailing India. The most recent one has been a ‘rain deficit’ with monsoon expected to be less than normal according to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). While the lack of rains has generated fear amongst farmers, it has generated broader concerns for the union and state governments in containing inflation, which is expected to rise even further with this latest declaration from the IMD.

By Balraj Puri,

Soon after taking over his assignment as the Governor of J&K state NN Vohra, made first overture to ease the situation in the valley by offering to surrender the land the state government allotted to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board of which he is the ex-officio head. It immediately caused a backlash in Jammu region when the BJP and other Hindu organizations called for a Bandh and led protest marches.

By Jaspal Singh Recently Shashi Tharoor, a Congress party Member of Parliament, participated in a debate on reparations for colonial rule by Britain in Oxford...

By Manoj Kumar, IANS,

By Vikas Datta, A realm of unimaginable riches or knowledge, or where time stands still and aging stops... mankind always had a penchant for dreaming up places like Atlantis, El Dorado, Shangri-La, Iram of the Pillars and the like and then making huge efforts to find them. Conversely, some actual places achieved fabled status due to hazy information - like this African city, once an unparalleled hub of knowledge and trade but now a forgotten and impoverished backwater, though ending up in the English language as a synonym for any mysterious but outlandish place.

By Abdul Hannan Siwani Nadvi, Commenting on the Editorial "The Message from Speedy Trials" of The Hindu dated 22nd March 2014 in the context of Mumbai Sessions Court's judgment in the Shakti Mills gang-rape case in which 4 accused got life imprisonment, Mr. Siddharth, an ordinary Indian man, raises valuable points. He says that these kinds of incidents will continue to happen unless we realize that the basic cause is the commercialization of lust brought about by films and pornographic industry. "Who dares to oppose them?"

A persona tribute to Col. B. K. Narayan By Rudra Narasimham, Rebbapragada

Education opens up avenues for growth, the second part of the SYM generation of Indians, special three-part series by Charu Bahri for TwoCircles.net. Limited access to modern education has precluded most Indian Muslims from adequate representation in the private and public sectors and without the know-how to back professional ventures, limited the avenues for youth desirous of kick-starting their own enterprises.

By Dr Wasim Ahmad,

By Anil Sharma , Ajmer (Rajasthan): Ajmer, home to the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, will see state Congress chief and union minister...

By Amulya Ganguli,IANS,

By Ram Puniyani, The Modi Sarkar has been installed in power from last three weeks or so (May 16, 2014). While there is lots of hope from this government by sections of society, there are other types of fears which have started getting actualized and the consequences of that are being felt with great amount of horror. After the morphed images of Bal Thackeray and Shivaji were uploaded on social sites a well planned attack on Muslim minorities was orchestrated in Pune. In this attack the rampaging mobs not only paralyzed the city, they also attacked mosques and torched at least 200 public and private vehicles. The culmination of this was the public lynching of an IT professional, Mohsin Shiekh, an IT manager from Sholapur, a resident of Pune. He was brutally killed by a mob of Hindu Rashtra Sena, led by Dhanajay Desai. This is ‘Hate crime’ of worst order.

By वसीम अकरम त्यागी, 'टाईगर सही था हमें लौटना नहीं चाहिये था....' महज इस एक पंक्ति में अपना विरोध दर्ज कराने वाले याकूब मेमन की...

By DPA, Kabul : A suicide car bomb targeted a convoy of Afghan and NATO forces in the northern province of Kunduz Thursday, killing seven policemen and injuring 13 other people, a district governor said. The bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into one of the vehicles in the province's Emam Saheb district, Mohammad Ayoub Haqyar told DPA. "Seven policemen were killed in the attack and six other police and seven civilians were injured," he said, adding that a police unit commander was among those killed.

By Amit Kapoor, When Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the people from the ramparts of the Red Fort on this Independence Day (August 15), he mentioned the need to do away with the Planning Commission as it does not reflect the realities of today. He also emphasized the need for an institution that has team spirit and which strengthens India's federal structure. What the new institution may look like is far from being completely clear. Most experts opine that in all likelihood it is going to be a team of experts drawn from the states and the center and headed by the prime minister. The institutional framework and its real role at this juncture are far from clear.

By Quaid Najmi Aurangabad (Maharashtra) : A unique 'roti bank' has been launched in this city, famous for its Ajanta-Ellora caves, for the poor. People...

By Kaleem Kawaja

By C. Uday Bhaskar, IANS, A two-day international conference on genocide that concluded in Dhaka July 31 exhorted the UN to recognise the mass killings and rape that the Pakistan Army had unleashed in the torturous and tumultuous events that preceded the birth of Bangladesh in December 1971.

By Nadim Nikhat,

By Shobha Shukla, CNS,

By Maulana Waris Mazhari, (Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand)

By Ram Puniyani, Book: The Saffron Condition, Politics of Repression and Exclusion in Neo Liberal India Author: Subhash Gatade Publisher: Three Essays Collective, New Delhi Pages: 475