Articles

By Asghar Ali Engineer,

By Madhu Chandra

By Ram Puniyani,

By Zafarul-Islam Khan,

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS, The rekindling of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's secularism in Bangladesh will mark a dramatic transformation from the present doom-laden atmosphere of terrorism in the subcontinent as well as in the larger Islamic world.

By Shaik Zakeer Hussain,

By Tariq Hasan for TwoCircles.net, President Barack Obama's parting advice to the people of India hours before his departure from New Delhi following his three-day state visit had triggered a debate in India. Obama's mildly-worded counsel served as a timely reminder to the political establishment that divisive politics based on sectarian and communal grounds can derail the country’s ambitious programme for economic resurgence.

By Syed Mohammad Aamir Ali, “People crushed by laws, have no hopes but from power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous,” Edmund Burke In Post-9/11 scenario the countries in the first world such as Britain and America, which contributed significantly in the modern definition of liberal democracy are busy waging wars and promulgating draconian laws in the name of protecting democracy. It is heartening to see that in a relatively backward country such as India, not only the human rights and civil liberties movement but even mainstream political parties are resisting and creating public opinion against such acts.

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net, If the BJP preferred Narendra Modi over Lal Krishna Advani as its prime ministerial candidate because of the former’s young age, by that logic Mahatma Gandhi was right in not accepting the opinion of 12 out of 15 Pradesh Congress Committees to make Vallabhbhai Patel the first PM of India and opted for 14 years younger Jawaharlal Nehru.

By M. Burhanuddin Qasmi The Muslim women veil issue in France is gradually taking an ugly shape across the world. The ‘extra’ liberal people possessed with Western life style even in the East count banning ‘burqa’ as women ‘liberation’ from ‘the dark age’ in tune with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, yet majority of Muslims across the globe consider it as direct attack on one’s freedom of living and religious practicing. It is nothing less than forceful conversion of Muslim women to the Western civilization, some argue.

By Yoginder Sikand The media might portray them as vehemently opposed to change, but that is not quite an apt description of the Indian ulema as a class. Here, as elsewhere, such banal generalizations are quite unwarranted. In recent years, in fact, a number of ulema associated with leading Indian madrasas have been advocating reform, both in the madrasa system as well as in the relations between the ulema and the wider society. And, slowly but steadily, such changes are being noticed.

By Vatsal Srivastava, IANS,

By Yoginder Sikand, TwoCircles.net,

By Najiya O., TwoCircles.net,

By Prasanto K. Roy, IANS, There's no polite way to put this. China is a rogue nation, a military dictatorship masquerading as a people's government. It's an apparent economic success in the short term, but its aspiration to become an economic superpower is not compatible with its political model.

By Md. Ali, TwoCircles.net Renowned Islamic scholar and preacher Dr. Zakir Naik angered a section of Sunnis and Shias by his statement to a private TV channel that a Muslim should seek help only from Allah and no one else, not even the Prophet. Angered by his statement a section of the community reportedly approached the home minister of Maharashtra RR Patil and demanded a ban on the Islamic conference which he is organizing between November 14 and 24 in Mumbai.

By Faisal Fareed, TwoCircles.net,

By Alfred Hackensberger Less than two weeks after the death of Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak appointed Tantawi's successor to the most senior post at the 1,000-year-old university, the oldest and most revered seat of learning for many Sunni Muslims. Ahmed al-Tayyib, the former Grand Mufti of Egypt, has assumed the position of highest religious authority in the country, one which sets the tone for Sunnis the world over. Approximately 90 per cent of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims are Sunnis.

By V.M. Khaleelur Rahman for TwoCircles.net

By Vinod Behl, The government's recent policy initiative to ease foreign equity norms in construction by reducing the minimum capital requirement from $10 million to $5 million and built-up area from 50,000 sq mts to 20,000 sq mts may well provide a lifeline for fund-starved, debt-ridden property developers. Yet, more reforms to boost credit flow are needed to provide a long-term solution to the funding crisis faced by the realty industry.

By Nagraj Adve and Partha Kayal, At the Boatkhali Kadambini Pre-primary School on Sagar island in the Sunderbans, classes stop for five-six days each, twice...

By Mudassir Rizwan, TwoCircles.net,

Muslims settled down in Shillong in 17th century though, they are at best still struggling to make their presence felt. With migration of Muslims from Hindi heartland including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the position of local Muslims have got strengthened a little in Shillong that is dominated by Christians.

By Balraj Puri Fresh inquiry into Ruchika case, mainly due to the media hype, has revived many similar cases of women victims suppressed by powers that be in places like Ghaziabad and Ahmedabad. In Kashmir, it has given a fresh stimulus to the agitation over suspected rape and murder of two sisters-in-law in Shopian.

By Rehan Ansari, TwoCircles.net

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS, The Amarnath land transfer row has come as a godsend to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was looking for an emotive issue after the Ayodhya temple movement fizzled out. The party now hopes to recapture the mood of the "awakening" of Hindus, which was associated with Ayodhya, to consolidate its position in the run-up to the next round of assembly elections.

By Yamin Zakaria,

By Fakir Hassen, IANS, I am now convinced that India, Indians and all things Indian permeate almost every corner of the globe, influencing everyone and everything.

By Avinash Pandey, At 218 in 2013 and 237 in 2012, one would expect a national outrage on the unusually high number of body bags returning to India from Qatar. One would think especially so, for the fact that these body bags belonged to Indian citizens. It must have incensed even the apologists of neoliberal regime for whom the idea of citizenship might be passé but still value the significant foreign remittances sent by those who came back in the body bags, remittances that the country so desperately needs.

By Gershon Baskin,

Jerusalem: Thirty-nine young people from Gaza applied to attend a peace education workshop sponsored by the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) that was held this past weekend in a school in Beit Jala. Thirty-five of them were denied entry by the IDF and did not have the opportunity to join the 70 other Israelis and Palestinians who spent the weekend in dialogue, debate, disagreement and agreement, rejoicing in the mutual recognition that we all want peace and that peace is possible.

By Mahtab Alam for TwoCircles.net,

By Ravi M. Khanna, IANS,

By Shafaque Alam,

By Kaleem Kawaja, The Sikh community in India has pledged to donate 250,000 packages of ready- to- eat meals daily for next few days to the victims of the recent horrible earthquake in Nepal. This is an awesome example of how the Sikh community always helps the suffering in their hour of need. When floods hit Kashmir in September 2014, the Sikh community donated 100,000 meal packages.

By Adnan Alavi, India's leading software company Infosys may be a an IT giant but its action against an employee on false terror charges has finally been questioned by the court also.

By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net, TCN series: Visit to Malda and Murshidabad: Concluding part.

By NM Sampathkumar Iyangar According to a respected magazine, 75 per cent of the people of India (definition of India, not clarified!) want Mohammed Afzal hanged without delay. "I really wish LK Advani becomes India's next prime minister; he is the only one who can take a decision and hang me. At least, my pain and daily suffering would ease then!" said easily the most prized VIP 'culprit' of India recently.

By Kul Bhushan, IANS In another three months, some NRIs may be thinking of sending their children for higher education in India. NRIs in different countries have different reasons for preferring Indian higher education.

By Afzal Usmani for TwoCircles.net,

By Amit Kumar, Twocircles.net On March 21, 2015, the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were celebrating Ugadi, the Telugu New Year. But for...

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,

By IANS,

Dr Rahul Pandey, Bobby Ramakant and Dr Sandeep Pandey, Citizen News Service - CNS Story of Modi’s development model so far: Cutting health and education...

By Arul Louis New York : India's confidence level in dealing with other countries economically has risen and it is now in a position to...

By Ashok Tandon, A 28-year-old dhoti-kurta clad young man was jostling to push his blanket-wrapped baggage into the unreserved compartment of a passenger train at Delhi Railway station on May 8, 1953. It was a send off for Shyma Prasad Moookerjee, founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (predecessor of the present day Bharatiya Janata Party), on a mission to enter Jammu & Kashmir defying the entry-permit order of the government and demanding full integration of the state into the Indian Union.

Dr. Prasenjit Biswas

By Syed Ali Mujtaba, TwoCircles.net

During the World War II days British Prime Minister Winston Churchill used to begin his speech on the radio saying – Ladies and Gentleman lend me your ears … The same call is needed for some disturbing news that has come out from the different parts of the country very recently.

By Shameer KS for TwoCircles.net, Abdul Nasir Maudany is the chief of Kerala-based Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). After spending eight years in prison on charges of being involved in Coimbatore bombing, he was absolved of all charges and released by the courts. Now, once again he is on the verge of arrests for his alleged role in Bangalore bomb blast of 2008. He is accused number 31 in that case and Karnataka police is in Kerala to arrest him. Shameer KS sat down with Maudany to ask him about the case and his thoughts.

By Dr Wasim Ahmad,

By Zafar Iqbal, "The future of Urdu and Hindi is tied together and both depend upon each other," said Professor Asghar Wajahat at the third bi-lingual poetry recitation program held Sunday 16th August 2009 at the Montgomery County Executive Office Building in Rockville, Maryland. Professor Wajahat, a noted Hindi fiction writer and chairman of Hindi Department, Jamia Millia Islamia was presiding the bi-lingual “Yaum-e-Azadi” mushaira-kavi sammelan.

By Jasim Mohammad, According to a shocking news, noted actor Emraan Hashmi has been denied NOC by Nibana Cooperative Housing Society. Emraan Hashmi wanted to purchase a flat in the building which was his legitimate right. Consequently, famous film director Mahesh Bhatt and Emraan Hashmi jointly held a press conference and revealed their pain. Instead of setting the wrongs done to Emraan, Maharashtra police slapped cases under different sections of Indian Penal Code against Emraan Hashmi and Mahesh Bhatt without realizing larger issues involved.

By Anayat Ali Shah, Fitoor, released on February 12, an Indian adoption of Dickens’ novel Great Expectations, set amidst in the disputed territory of Kashmir....

By Maulana Waris Mazhari, (Translated by Yoginder Sikand)

By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net, Abdul Mannan Hossain is a Lok Sabha Member from Murshidabad, highly-Muslim dominated, poor, hunger-stricken district in West Bengal. He is a graduate, and two-times Congress MP from the area. In all three sessions of the current 15th Lok Sabha, he hasn’t opened his mouth in the House on any issue of his constituency, though he was present on 39 out of total 79 days.

By M. Zajam, TwoCircles.net, In India communalism is still not considered a major problem and effective strategy is not in place to tackle this menace. Intellectuals and politicians do talk about it whenever some unfortunate incidents happen but a concrete plan is not followed to handle it on the long term basis.

By Manzar Imam for TwoCircles.net, Subjugated for centuries, women have come a long way to getting their voice heard even in the most so-called progressive...

By Mohammed Kaleem Siddiqui for Twocircles.net Ahmedabad : Over a hundred thousand Muslims of Gujarat congregated on the occasion of the 17th national...

By Ram Puniyani,

Kolkata : The Election Commission on Thursday said central police forces would guard all polling booths during next year's West Bengal assembly elections and...

Waris Mazhari is the editor of the Delhi-based Urdu monthly Tarjuman Dar ul-Ulum, the official organ of the Old Boys' Association of the Dar ul-Ulum, Deoband. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, he talks about the much-debated issue of madrasa reforms in India in the context of the recent proposal of the National Minorities' Education Commission for the setting up of a Central Madrasa Board.

By Vikas Datta, Ancient Greek playwrights invented this literary device but the Romans gave it the name we know - deus ex machina (God from...

By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,

By Tanay Sukumar Young graduate mothers gave birth to 899 girls per 1,000 boys, lower than the national average of 943, according to an IndiaSpend...

By Syed Ali Mujtaba, The recently concluded 16 Lok Sabha election has thrown up many harsh realities of Indian democracy and its time for introspection and chalk out possible correction methods from the lessons learned, if we may like worship the ideals of democratic governance.

By Parvin Sultana for Twocircles.net, Author: Tabish Khair The holy month of Ramadan was marked by frequent attacks by ISIS in different parts of the world....

By Anthony Zeitouni, CGNews, US Undersecretary for Political Affairs, William Burns, attended a recent meeting in Geneva between EU Secretary-General Javier Solana and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. This decision was the first direct and official contact between the US and Iran after nearly three decades of troubled relations. The decision to send Burns to the talks was a wise and courageous one despite his nominal role as an observer.

By Arun Nigavekar, IANS, India's higher and professional education system is passing through a phase that is turbulent, non-directional and unsustainable.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Former president Dr APJ Kalam’s death has brought back into discussion on his work, career and mission as the middle...

By C. Uday Bhaskar, IANS, A little noticed but major Indian policy initiative was unveiled in distant Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, last week.

By Md. Hassaan Khan,for TwoCircles.net,

By Syed Zahid Ahmad,

By Haricharan Pudipeddi Chennai : Superstar Rajinikanth, who turns 65 on Saturday, has long since been synonymous with style. From the way he flips his...

Four myths about India's leading prime ministerial candidate By Cedric Prakash, As a Christian and particularly a Jesuit priest, I take stands and believe that while...

By Dr. Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqui, (Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand) What is the role of violence in human life? Under what conditions does Islam permit violence? What rules and conditions has Islam laid down for the conduct of armed conflict? When does violence qualify to be termed as ‘terrorism’? Does Islam at all allow for terrorism? This article deals specifically with these questions, although it is not possible for me to do full justice to these issues in a single article.

By Ankush Vats New Delhi : It's often been a murky tale of harassment for outstation women students of Delhi University year after year. But...

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,

By Afzal Usmani, “Jo hai Taazgi meri zaat mein, wahi zikr-o-fikr chaman mein hai Ke wajood mera kaheen bhi ho, meri rooh mere watan mein hai “ (Hanif Akhgar Malihabadi)

By Mohammed Shafeeq, IANS,

By Abdul Kalam Azad for TwoCircles.net,

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 Syed Zahid Ahmad, Today in his 187 point speech lengthening to 27 pages, the Union Finance Minister has following two short points for national minorities.

By Rajesh Sampath, Comparisons can be risky, but not impossible. Consider for a moment India’s Dalits, or “untouchables,” and African Americans. Racial inequality in America has its...

By Irfan Engineer Election time is season for Manifestoes of major political parties participating in the poll. Manifestoes are seen by some members of the...

By Shehzad Poonawalla,

By Sahana Ghosh Kolkata : Women in Indian villages can challenge patriarchy and discriminating gender roles if their participation in solar electricity projects, from planning,...

By Sevanti Ninan, In a world captivated with social media and instant opinions, B.G. Verghese, who died on Tuesday at 87, would be considered an anachronism. There was nothing instant or fleeting about the concerns he pursued in a 60-year career. His interests were multiple, backed by diligently acquired expertise - and they remained consistent. He was India’s original development reporter, focusing on environment, planning, infrastructure and rural development right from the 1950s to the second decade of the 21st century.

By Lulua Asaad, Vienna - When I made the decision to move to Vienna, I was unprepared for the repercussions my attitude, behaviour and opinions would have in forming and influencing European perceptions of women from Saudi Arabia, a country that is at a crossroads between modernity, globalisation, liberation, empowerment, heritage and cherished traditions.

By Arvind Padmanabhan, IANS, One would have expected Finance Minister P. Chidambaram to go a little easy on the fiscal deficit front, given that he...

Foundation stone of Frank & Debbie Islam Management Complex was laid at AMU in February 2016 By TwoCircles.net news Boston: Entrepreneur Frank Islam was honored with...

अफ़रोज़ आलम साहिल, TwoCircles.net पटना: बिहार राज्य महादलित आयोग के चेयरमैन डॉ. हुलेश मांझी ने हाल में ही बेहद हैरान करने वाला बयान दिया है....

By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net,

By Yoginder Sikand, TwoCircles.net In a development of far-reaching and frightening implications for the stature of the Indian judiciary, Bar Associations in several parts of the country are effectively banning advocates from defending Muslim youth branded as 'terrorists', many of them who may well be wrongly accused. A chilling indicator of how deeply-rooted anti-Muslim prejudice has now become.

By Arshi Javaid for Twocircles.net, Burhan Wani, a commander of Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, was killed in an encounter on July 8, 2016, which...

By Yoginder Sikand, TwoCircles.net

By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal, The CBI may have succeeded in its mission in Shopian, that of what Noam Chomsky refers to as manufacturing consent about non-existence of any violations in the twin rapes of Asiya Jan and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan. But this is only as far as the opinion outside Jammu and Kashmir, formed by a consistent over-drive of narration of lies, is concerned.

By K. Datta, IANS "It was not glory we sought," Col. John Hunt, British leader of the 1953 Everest expedition, wrote of his team, "unless it be the common glory of man's triumph over nature - and over his own limitations." Neither Edmund Hillary nor Tenzing Norgay, the first men to climb Mount Everest, had come to the world's highest mountain in 1953 expecting personal fame. But because they were the first to set foot on its summit after ten failed attempts, fame had to come to them whether they expected it or not.

By Amulya Ganguli , IANS, Since theatrics have been an integral feature of Arvind Kejriwal's politics, his resignation as Delhi's chief minister...

By A. Vinod Kumar, IANS,

“Everyone will adjust. And while it can hurt some small businesses and individuals, it is better to do it than not.”–Mauro Guilin By Maryam...

By Mohammad Zeyaul Haque, The situation of Indian Muslims suggests that aggravation is the only word which symbolizes them, suggests Mohammad Zeyaul Haque

Patna: The Bihar School Examination Board has been surprised by a large number of impersonators caught this year in the Class 10 exams that...

By Asghar Ali Engineer,

By Asarul Haque Jeelani for TwoCircles.net The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 has communicated and executed free and compulsory...

By Vatsal Srivastava, Prior to the finance minister’s budget speech, Currency Corner had argued that Indian equities are all set for a short-term correction irrespective of what Arun Jaitley delivers on the reform front. Markets have had an almost parabolic up move since April and profit booking around these price levels was inevitable. Markets still look overbought as current valuations are pricing in a substantial earnings upgrade in coming quarters. However, one can look at adding quality mid-cap and small-cap names as well as PSU banks which have witnessed a deep correction due to their higher betas in the last week while the Nifty has just fallen only a couple of percentage points.

Over the past more than 10 years, thousands of poor Muslim children have benefited from Aaghaz, many of whom have now got well-placed jobs and are now supporting the education of other poor Muslim children. It’s like completing a circle. By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net, On May 5, 2015 Mazhar Farooqui, a journalist working in Dubai, sent a simple, two-line message to a 70-member WhatsApp group called ‘Aaghaz Foundation’.

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed,

By Sandeep Donald Shah, IANS It is time the people of India understand the serious dangers high-rise buildings in many leading cities face from possible earthquakes because of flaws in construction. The last two years have seen an increased number of conferences and workshops on earthquake risk mitigation. There is interaction among members of the scientific and engineering community specializing in earthquake-related issues.

By Admiral (retd.)Arun Prakash, IANS,

By Saeed Naqvi, It challenges credulity that Europe did not anticipate terrorist attacks after its involvement in direct and indirect military action against the people of Libya, Syria, ISIS and so on.

By Amit Kapoor, Over the past few weeks, there has been a growing interest among media in Inddia's indirect tax regime. On the one side are...

By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar, IANS, It is past 1 a.m. on Anjuna beach. And nearly a year after her body was discovered on the sands here, Goa has disgracefully unlearned every lesson the Scarlett Keeling murder taught. State laws prohibit the playing of loud music after 10 p.m., but at Anjuna beach, the law has been made a mince-meal of, best stuffed in a baked clay chillum with a small lump of hashish and puffed away. Just the way a Japanese youngster in a batik-dyed waistcoat and stained three-quarter trousers lounging at a table is doing it.

By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net

By M.R. Narayan Swamy, IANS,

सिद्धांत मोहन, TwoCircles.net रूह अफ़ज़ा, ये कोई पेय या महज़ शरबत नहीं है. एक सभ्यता का नाम है. एक पूरे त्यौहार का नाम, एक पूरी...

By Aziz A. Mubaraki,

By M.J. Akbar, How many words will India get in Barack Obama's autobiography, Faith, Hope and Miscarriage, due in 2013?

New Delhi: Condemning the BJP's "insensitivity" over the death of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula, the Congress on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi...

By IANS, Sydney : Recruitment consultants are likely to nix prospects of immigrants on account of their skin colour, accents, ethnicity and qualifications, much less find them jobs, according to a new study. Researchers found that only a small number had found jobs that matched their qualifications and many remained jobless or had accepted unskilled work. The barriers to finding employment were language skills, accent, ethnicity, skin colour, prejudice, lack of cultural understanding and a lack of helpful support from recruitment and government agencies.

By Asghar Ali Engineer,

The role of police in democratic society is very different from that of police in colonial society. However, it is 61 years now that India became independent and there is no change in the role of police a wee bit. Today our police have become even more colonial in its attitude. The British colonial rulers had enacted the police an act in 1861 to use the police for suppression of people's movement and to terrorize colonized people. Our police too is terrorizing innocent people fighting for their rights.