Articles

By V. Krishnaswamy, IANS,

Trawling through the net, I came across pictures of Sir Allen Stanford getting out of a black chopper bearing his name and on to the Nursery Ground at Lord's. And then there was that amazing still of $20 million in $50 bills in plastic crate, which had been wheeled out after the Texan billionaire's announcements of his promises to boost English and West Indies cricket.

By John Dayal,

By Muhammad Adeeb, General elections are over. A new BJP government is in place. The results of the elections have been eye-opening for all Indians in general and Muslims in particular. Ironically, the outcome of the poll battle has exposed the tragic dispersion of the Muslim vote and a surprising polarisation of the Hindu vote. This trend has proved to be a dangerous sign. In fact, the results have also exposed the hapless and pitying state of Indian Muslims, as a community. The 25 crore Muslims, have as a community, reduced their political weightage to a naught. The community, which once was reputed as king-maker, has turned into ashes. What is in store is so evident that it needs no elaboration.

TwoCircles.net presents “Agenda for India”. Series editor is Charu Bahri. Challenges & Solutions

Vatican city: The Pope during consistory of cardinals on Tuesday announced September 4 as the date for Mother Teresa's canonisation, the media reported. After months...

By Zaidul Haque, TwoCircles.net,

If left unamended by the Supreme Court, the legal, social and political repercussions of the judgment are likely to be extremely damaging By Siddharth Varadarajan,

By Asghar Ali Engineer, The ulama in medieval ages had broadly divided the world into two categories: Darul Islam and Darul Harb i.e. abode of Islam and abode of war. In those days there was no democracy and there were monarchs and autocrats everywhere. There was no concept of citizenship but the ruled were treated as subjects. Where monarchs or sultans were ruling those regions were called Darul Islam and where non-Muslim monarchs ruled and persecuted Muslims, those regions were called Darul Harb i.e. abode of war.

By Tanzil Asif and Sneha Dipika for TwoCircles.net Tauquir Alam is the son of Mansoor Alam, a RJD leader and three-times MLA from...

By Rohit Bansal, IANS,

By Shobha Shukla, Deepawali is the festival of lights which is celebrated all over India . It marks the advent of the winter season and signifies peace and prosperity and the victory of truth over evil. This year's Diwali (it falls on 28th October) is a bleak one indeed.

By Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam, Over the last few months it has become quite evident that the NDA government at the Centre is hostile to...

By Sushma Ramachandran, IANS, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has pleased the "aam aadmi" (common man) but made the "khaas aadmi" (the elite) unhappy in his 2009-10 budget proposals. Constrained by the global recession and domestic economic strains, he has provided a much awaited further stimulus to the economy by raising plan expenditure by as much as 25 per cent in real terms.

On April 7 2015, five people accused in the murder of two policemen were killed in an encounter in Aler, Nalgonda after the...

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,

By Saeed Naqvi, Does the 72-hour ceasefire in the three week long conflict in Gaza brokered by the UN and US advance peace? Just as I write this comes news that the Palestinians have captured an Israeli soldier. Has the ceasefire collapsed? I am keeping my fingers crossed.

By M Naushad Ansari,

Unheard & Unspoken: Terror stories from Madhya Pradesh: Part 10 By Kashif-ul-Huda, 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 Mohammed Arifuddin for TwoCircles.net,

By J.S.Bandukwala for TwoCircles.net

By Mohd Asim Khan, New Delhi: If the average Muslim mind in the capital is any indication, the Congress is in trouble in this Lok...

By Danish Khan,

By Danish Reyaz,

This book examines the role of Ulemas in attempting to use the idea of jihad as an instrument for combating colonialism in South Asia...

By Ram Puniyani,

By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net Srinagar: The annual report of separatist faction Hurriyat (M), headed by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has brought out...

By Shahidur Rashid Talukdar,

By Anjali Ojha, New Delhi: Realising the old adage that divided we fall, old and ageing socialists have got together once again to revive the...

By Amulya Ganguli, Unlike the Biblical tale of a prodigal son, the return of a foot-loose family member may not be a cause of great joy to his relatives. In Rahul Gandhi's case, it can be a source of embarrassment and misgivings. The embarrassment is likely to be caused by speculation about where the not-so-young prince was for nearly two months, what he learnt during the days away from the madding crowd, and whether his ruminations - he is supposed to have taken a course in meditations (vipasana) - have eased the tensions caused by the setbacks suffered by his party from 2013.

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS, The Thackeray family's parochial agenda has a long history. It all began with Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's father, Keshav Sitaram, who was a member of the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, the organisation which spearheaded the agitation for a separate Maharashtra in the 1950s.

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,

New Delhi : Veteran Communist Party of India (CPI) leader A.B. Bardhan was in critical condition after suffering a paralytic stroke here on Monday,...

By Amulya Ganguli,IANS The M.S. Liberhan report on the Babri Masjid demolition could not have come at a worse time for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). First, the party is still reeling from the shock of two successive defeats in general elections because they have set off an internal debate on the correctness of its political line. The report will make the discussions all the more bitter.

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 Firoz Bakht Ahmed There's lot of hue and cry over Muslims losing their minority status in Uttar Pradesh, according to a recent Allahabad High Court judgment. The so-called secularist parties and so-called Muslim leaders are crying hoarse indulging in mere lip service about the annihilation of minority status of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh for fear of losing their vote bank.

By Prasanto K. Roy , IANS,

अफ़रोज़ आलम साहिल, TwoCircles.net हिन्दू संतों के भीतर से ही सामाजिक सौहार्द और समरसता की आवाज़ें उभर कर सामने आ रही हैं. एक तरफ़ जहां...

By Syed Zubair Ahmad,

By Shaheer Khan for TwoCircles.net Eminent Urdu writer Hamida Salim passed away on Sunday, August 16th at the age of 93 at her house in...

Dr Syed Zafar Mahmood,

By Asghar Ali Engineer What is religion? It is simple but difficult question to answer. What is generally considered to be religion may be mixture of many things – superstitions, customs, traditions, cultural practices and so on. What is received generally by a believer is often blend of all this. For a believer all this is integral part of religion. Any violation of any of this is considered as violation of religion itself.

TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter दिल्ली: जी न्यूज़ के प्रोड्यूसर विश्व दीपक ने कल इस्तीफा दिया और कारण गिनाए जिसमें उन्होंने साफ़ कहा है कि जी मीडिया...

By By Kul Bhushan, IANS, Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) can cheer the good news that a special university for education of their children will open its doors next year in Bangalore. The bad news is that only half the seats will be given to NRIs and PIOs.

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net, Though the outgoing Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi earned political martyrdom, yet it is debatable who inflicted more wounds on him. True, the last bullet was fired by his mentor-turned-tormentor Nitish Kumar, the injuries caused to him by the BJP in the first seven months of his nine-month regime proved no less fatal.

By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,

By Amit Dwivedi,

Ram Puniyani

The communal violence in India has been a festering sore on its body politic. Due to its peculiar nature, the crimes are not registered-investigated and guilty are usually not punished. The state while sloppy in these matters has been forced to appoint the inquiry commissions in to the violence, mainly due to public pressure. Most of the inquiry commissions have met with indifference from the political-administrative-legal system. The fate of Srikrishna Commission is no different. Its recommendations have not been honored so far.

New Delhi: A petition was filed in the Delhi High Court on Tuesday seeking action against JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on a...

By Anjuman Ara Begum, TwoCircles.net,

सिद्धांत मोहन, TwoCircles.net चार राज्यों और एक केन्द्रशासित प्रदेश में चुनाव के नतीजे सामने आ चुके हैं. असम में भाजपा ने जीत दर्ज की है....

By Prachi Salve New Delhi: India’s child sex-ratio (below six years) is now the worst in 70 years, possibly the worst ever. The latest decline...

By Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee, A fact finding team of Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee comprising Lateef Mohammed Khan, Kaneez Fathima, A. Srinivas, Shefali Jha, Adv. Gulam Rabbani, Adv. M.Mandakini, and Mohammed Ismail Khan visited the Arsh Mahal area of Kishan Bagh in Hyderabad city. Fact finding team met the people of both the communities and visited houses of victims, met their family members, members of the deceased, the spot of Nishan sahib (religious symbol of Sikh on flag), firing spot, grave yard and Gurudwara. Actually the Arsh Mahal of Kishan Bagh is located on the hill, from where we can see the whole city. This locality is attached to the famous Nehru Zoological Park and a lake named Mir Alam. It has come to our notice that the whole area of Kishan Bagh as well as the Zoo area is in fact Waqf property. Indeed it is a very beautiful place and the people who live in this area belong to Muslim community whose living standard is of below poverty line. It can be named as a slum area. Most of the people work as Auto drivers, fruit vendors and daily wage laborers. Adjacent to this area, there is a locality of Sikh community which is called Sikh Chawni. The Sikh population is around 1500. But the economic status of Sikh community is strong and most of them are businessmen. There are two 2 Gurudwaras and many Nishan Sahib in that small area.

By Shafaque Alam

By Mayank Chhaya, IANS, It is rarely, if at all, remembered that the Dec 2-3, 1984, Bhopal industrial disaster had capped off five weeks of what was probably the bloodiest time in independent India's history until then. In a macabre sort of way, the Bhopal disaster seemed to provide perfect denouement to the series of dystopian events that preceded it during the Orwellian year.

By Alex Verghese, IANS, Just a few days ago, the same street in Central Tehran where my taxi had to slow down due to joyful opposition supporters, had now turned into an obstacle race as we walked and ran to escape the teargas and passed burning garbage bins. On Saturday, it was a harrowing experience while returning home from work.

By Dr Mookhi Amir Ali,

By Rakhshanda Jalil,

By George Joseph, IANS,

By Nina Mehta, IANS, Aamir Khan and his friends, in the movie "Three Idiots" rush from the hospital to write an exam. Since they reach late, they keep writing even after the professor says "Time Up", and sure enough the professor refuses to take their answer sheets. Aamir asks the professor whether he knows their roll numbers and names and when the teacher says no, Aamir mixes their sheets with the rest.

By Bobby Ramakant, Citizen News Service (CNS), Earlier this month the Group of Twenty (G-20) leaders had announced a USD 1.1 trillion booster-dose into the world economy by the end of 2010 through multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Health advocates believe that critical reforms are needed for IMF policies to prevent disastrous fallouts like rising tuberculosis (TB) incidence in countries that might receive IMF funding.

We will continue to work for the ordinary people, says Vijayaraghavan By Siraj Wahab in Jeddah,

By Dr Mookhi Amir Ali,

By Soroor Ahmed for TwoCircles.net There is a unique short-cut route to sainthood in Bihar. Vatican must learn from it. There is no need to wait...

By Veturi Srivatsa, One wonders how Narendra Modi could draw a parallel between India winning a cricket match and the Mars achievement of space scientists when he himself and his alter ego Amit Shah controlled Gujarat cricket till the two shifted to Delhi.

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS, It is West Bengal's misfortune that its political fate is in the hands of some of the most short-sighted and petty-minded politicians in recent memory. Nothing brings out this fact more than the fiasco over the Nano plant of the Tatas in Singur. In the normal course of things, all sensible politicians would have welcomed the project, which has attracted worldwide attention because of the technological marvel of so cheap a car.

By Nimmi Bhaskaran for TwoCircles.net,

Introduction

By K. Subrahmanyam, IANS, Now that India and the US have formally inked the 123 civil nuclear cooperation agreement and sealed another pact with France following the Sep 6 waiver by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), it is time to look at the fierce debate on the issue in this country with some detachment.

Book: Riots and after in Mumbai: Chronicles of Truth and Reconciliation Author: Meena Menon Pages: XCII+267, Hard Bound, First Edition: 2012, Price: 595