Articles

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,

By V.M. Khaleelur Rahman,

By Ram Puniyani,

Chennai : An intermittent light drizzle since the morning on Saturday has added to the worries of Chennai residents who are battling the worst...

By Anil Giri , Kathmandu: Nepal police have apprehended four Indians from Nepalgunj along the India-Nepal border Friday evening with a huge cache of foreign...

By Rajaraman Sundaresan for TwoCircles.net Society at large today, is caught up with too many ideas. Confusion and complexity are part of any diverse society...

By C Uday Bhaskar, The demise of the ailing Saudi Arabian monarch king Abdullah is a significant punctuation for the desert kingdom, the Arab-West Asian region and the extended Islamic world, which in turn has larger global implications. The royal transition has been effected and King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud has taken over the reins of the kingdom. In keeping with local practice, shorn of titles and pomp, Abdullah was buried in an unmarked grave.

By Mirza A. Beg

By A. Vinod Kumar, IANS,

Relatives raise serious questions about MP ATS story of five Muslim youths arrest from Indore

By Vikas Datta, IANS, Browse through the crime fiction section of any bookshop or online store and, apart from American and British writers, the largest...

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS When regional parties began to appear in India following the first signs of the Congress' decline in the 1960s, they were hailed for two reasons. One was that they reflected local aspirations, which a 'national' party tended to overlook. And the other was that they were said to represent the subalterns or the marginalised sections that didn't have much of a say in a party like the Congress, which was dominated by the upper castes.

By Ram Puniyani,

One has been hearing a lot about the conversion activities of Christian missionaries. That there is a threat to Hindu nation due to Adivasis converting to a 'foreign religion' is becoming part of social common sense. The real face of the conversion came to fore when after the attack on nuns in Alibaug (March 2008) was followed by a massive conversion to Hinduism, Shuddhi ritual (April 27, 2008) in nearby Mumbai. The person involved in both these has been the same.

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,

By Marty Martin Chicago, Illinois - Over the past five years, as part of a project on religious fundamentalism, I've studied and talked with Muslims from Houston to Auschwitz. And as I've gained a better understanding of how Christians and Muslims see each other, I've learned that how we communicate is as important as what we communicate.

By Amulya Ganguli, If Rahul Gandhi is in retreat in a Buddhist monastery in Myanmar, as rumours have it, then he can be said to be imitating, in part, the Sakya prince who left home and hearth 2,500 years ago to find out the meaning of life. In the Congress' heir-apparent's case, however, his quest is seemingly for finding his own rightful place in the 130-year-old party.

By Tanvir Salim Ramadan is here, and there will be a mad rush to organize Iftaar parties in New Delhi. Most likely Prime Minister Narendra...

By Admiral (retd.) Arun Prakash, IANS,

No single politician in post Independence India has captured the imagination and respect of Muslims as the AIMIM Member of Parliament from Hyderabad By Dr Ajmal, Around 15-16 years ago, I remember reading an article in The Hindu written by an Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The article –titled ‘In search of Muslim Leader’ – detailed how much Indian Muslims are in search of a leader of their own, who could take them through the tumultuous journey of practicing faith with respectful living in a partial and polarized India.

By K. Datta, IANS, Even in the thick of the Indian Premier League (IPL) battles on which the eyeballs of cricket crazy, though not necessarily informed, masses have been fixed for the last few weeks, the silver medal-winning campaign of the Indian hockey team has received some media attention. This is as it should be.

By Ashis Ray The cricketing fraternity now in the West Indies for the World Cup are aghast at the shadow boxing, the apparent blame game that's erupted in India over who were responsible for India's unspeakable performance in the premier one-day tournament. Did Greg Chappell, the Indian coach, really make the remarks attributed to him by a TV channel? If he did, this was most indelicate of him. If he did not or his statements were not for reproduction, then the media concerned have done him an injustice. The absence of a denial, however, irreparably damaged him.

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 Asghar Ali Engineer,

By Danish Reyaz,

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

By Tarique Anwar, TwoCircles.net,

By Sheikh Qayoom Srinagar : Retaining her father's assembly seat is the first major political challenge Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti faces after...

By Aziz A. Mubaraki,

By Bhavana Akella and Sushil Kumar New Delhi : Bihar on Thursday joined the states that have banned liquor, with newly elected Chief Minister...

By Soroor Ahmed, TwoCircles.net,

By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net,

By C. Uday Bhaskar, IANS, July 26 marks 10 years after India won the limited but high-stakes Kargil War initiated by Pakistan. On this day in 1999, the Indian soldiers gave the country a significant victory - albeit at a heavy cost in life, limb and blood. More than 500 military personnel gave their lives and a grateful nation celebrated a Kargil Diwas (Day).

By Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam, In a burst of anti-Muslim violence in a village of Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district, hundreds of homes have been torched and the occupants made to flee for safety in the biting January cold.

By Nigar Ataulla for TwoCircles.net “As Muslims and as people who follow Islam, A positive approach should be the motto of our life. Allah Almighty says again and again in the Quran that one should be positive. Negativity is not part of Islamic lifestyle or thinking. Muslims should think positively and be a vibrant community. We should work on the positive motto that we are here to lead, not to be led….” K. Rahman Khan, Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha.

By M.R. Madhavan,IANS, The Lok Sabha has passed the bill to revise the salary of members of parliament. Much of the debate in the media has been on the wealth of current MPs and the lack of accountability. It is important to focus as well on structural issues related to remunerating legislators.

By Irfan Engineer, Mobs on the streets of Shimoga and Hassan protesting against an article that appeared in Kannda Prabha allegedly written by Taslima Nasreen has once again kicked up a debate on freedom of expression and need to place some reasonable restrictions on that freedom. Taslima Nasreen has described the article Purdah hai Purdah to be distorted.

By Amulya Ganguli , Even though the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to pip the Aam Admi Party (AAP) at the post in the Delhi assembly elections, doubts remain as to how much ahead it will be of its rival. In the last election, too, the BJP won more seats than the AAP although it fell short of the half-way mark in the 70-member legislature. In the forthcoming contest, therefore, the BJP's first wish will be to win at least 35 seats although its combative president, Amit Shah, is predicting success in two-thirds of the seats.

By Maloy Krishna Dhar, IANS The media has often accused the Indian government of neglecting spies once their cover is blown. The reality is that intelligence agencies take full responsibility of locating, cultivating and, if possible, retrieving highly prized agents as opposed to others who pass off as spies. Col. B. Bhattachariya, arrested in East Pakistan from a border region, attained national attention because of the war-like situation between India and Pakistan in the early 1960s. Bhattachariya was a spymaster and not a spy.

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS, Since the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) problems relate to both leadership and ideology - the two crucial aspects of any organisation - the chances of its recovery do not appear too bright at the moment. In the matter of leadership, the party has got bogged down in the most familiar of political quagmires: the reluctance of aging and uncharismatic people at the helm to make way for Generation Next.

By Sameer Khan for TwoCircles.net

By Amit Kapoor, India is looking forward to the tenure of its 14th Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, with the expectation that he would take the country out of the muddle and disorder that is driven by deeply ingrained thoughts and beliefs. We, as Indians would have to fight battles of the mind to overcome the challenges we face.

By Amulya Ganguli, Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is taking its time to select its chief minister for Maharashtra, Narendra Modi is leaving his distinctive mark on political and other fields. In politics, the prime minister has brushed aside the earlier by-poll setbacks by his successes in Maharashtra and Haryana. Although the BJP failed to get a majority in the western state, it made a few points which the party probably wanted to make for some time.

By Mohit Dubey Lucknow: After the impressive electoral victory of the Grand Alliance or "Mahagathbandhan" in neighbouring Bihar, murmurs for a similar political arrangement ahead...

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 Rehan Ansari, TwoCircles.net

By Amulya Ganguli It has now become almost a routine feature of Narendra Modi's trips abroad to take a dig or two at his...

A bunch of dedicated, zealous IITians have set out to coach and empower poor talented Kashmiri students to get into prestigious educational institutions By Raqib...

By TwoCircles.net news desk

Presidential address by Marghub ur-Rahman, Rector of Dar ul-Ulum, Deoband.

Delivered at the "All-India Anti-Terrorism Convention", Organised by the Rabita-e Madaris-e Islamia Arabia at Deoband on 25 February, 2008. Translated from Urdu and edited and abridged by Yoginder Sikand

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds. May Peace be on the Prophet Muhammad and His progeny.

जावेद अनीस जाट आरक्षण आंदोलन आगामी तीन अप्रैल तक के लिए टल गया है. इसी के साथ जाट नेताओं ने हरियाणा सरकार को एक नयी डेडलाइन देते हुए कहा है कि सरकार 31 मार्च तक चलने वाले विधानसभा के मौजूदा सत्र में आरक्षण विधेयक पारित कराए. अखिल भारतीय जाट आरक्षण संघर्ष समिति के राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष यशपाल मलिक ने उम्मीद जतायी है कि सरकार उनके सुझावों पर गौर करेगी

By Soroor Ahmed for Twocirlces.net As a son of a poor ‘chai-wallah’, Narendra Modi knows well how comfortably––‘aaram se’, to use his own expression––the...

By Alok Singh , New Delhi: Is AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal slowly drifting away from his old associates and gravitating towards a new set of...

By Kousar Fathima Purdah is not new to Indian Muslims, it has always been a part of Muslim society but with passage of time and...

By Asghar Ali Engineer

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 Maulana Mohammad Wali Rahmani, Power and freedom are a two-edge sword. If it lands in the hand of people of low moral ground, consequences cannot be but worse. This is exactly what is happening in our country India. Here freedom means freedom unlimited, unrestricted: freedom for burying truth and freedom for telling a lie repeatedly until it is accepted as truth; freedom to keep one from noble deed and freedom for evils. Using that kind of freedom, Muslims are now being labeled as terrorist.

By Tanzil Asif, Batla House Encounter has always been a hot political agenda in all Muslim dominated areas of Delhi esp. Okhla since it’s occurrence in September 2008. This time the issue seems to have faded at least from Jansabhas and speeches of our netas. People can be seen in small groups discussing who did what to prove the encounter fake legally and politically.

By Mazher Hussain, Finally we seem to have succeeded in dividing India, a country of a billion plus, into just two groups. Both groups claim to be secular. The only difference is that while one group accuses the other of being communal, the other brands the first group of being pseudo secular.

By Asghar Ali Engineer

By Amit Kapoor, The Global Slavery Index 2013, compiled by non-profit Walk Free Foundation, presents quite a dismal picture about a reality in India: Modern...

By Dr. Mumtaz Naiyer for TwoCircles.net Last week there was an outcry in the print, electronic and social media as Avinash Rout, 7, and...

By Asghar Ali Engineer, EARLIER this month, religious scholars and leaders from around the globe drafted a ‘Charter of Compassion’, and floated it on the Internet for all to sign up to. According to them, “Compassion should be the plinth of religions.”

By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net

By Mukesh Berry, IANS, We started our evening casually at The Taj Mahal Palace at the Crystal Ball Room. I got there at 9.35 p.m. Wednesday with my brother Manish for our friend's wedding reception. We hadn't been there 15 minutes when we heard sounds we dismissed as construction work or crackers. When the 'boom boom' went on and got nearer, it was apparent they were gunshots.

By Dr Syed Muneeb Ahmed,

New Delhi: There were 418,536 prisoners in Indian jails at the end of 2014, against the capacity of 356,561, the government said on Tuesday. Minister...

By Usama Khalidi,

The preeminence acquired by the Jews in the West over a mere 50 years holds many lessons for large minority populations that may find themselves in adverse political circumstances, of course because of the vagaries of recent history; who isn't a victim of it? Going beyond mere envy, Muslims everywhere need to ponder how the Jews acquired their political and economic dominance in just a few decades. It was certainly not through any use of quotas and reservations in jobs or college admissions, or seats in legislatures.

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS, Just as the deaths of 'kar sevaks' (Hindu pilgrims) in an arson attack on their train led to retaliatory violence by the Hindutva brigade against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, similarly the murder of five Hindus, including the head of an ashram in Orissa, has sparked off attacks against Christians by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal activists.

By Arun Kumar Washington: The US House of Representatives has passed a bipartisan amendment to the FY2016 Intelligence Authorization Act calling for expansion of US-India-Israel...

By Rajat Arora Youthhood is considered a crucial period for establishing a positive well-being in a lifetime of a human being but a vast number...

By Narayanan Suresh, IANS, With a population of nearly 1.2 billion, human life has never been a premium in India. Thousands die every year due to easily avoidable causes such as stampedes at temples, wilful flouting of road safety rules particularly by state-run buses, people touching live electric wires left loose by government utilities and drowning in open manholes of sewage pipelines.

सिद्धांत मोहन, TwoCircles.net वाराणसी: रमज़ान अब ख़त्म हो रहा है. बस एक या दो रोज़ और. फिर ईद. फिर इबादत का यह माह एक साल...

By Navaid Hamid, I got the news of the demise of Swami Akshay Brahmchari, freedom fighter and a Gandhian, through an email of Syed Shahabuddin, President of All India Muslim Majlis e Mushawarat.

By Naved Masood for TwoCircles.net,

By Shahidur Rashid Talukdar,

By Sana Khan for TwoCircles.net, Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un - From Allah we came, and to Allah we shall return. The Muslims...

By Sanjoy Hazarika For weeks, protesters had blocked the national highway at Doom Dooma, among the major tea producing areas of Tinsukia district. Their grievance appeared genuine: demanding justice for the family of a young man who was killed by the army in the area, a man from the Moran community, one of the most economically backward groups in Assam, which anyway is at the bottom of India's economic pile.

By Kashif-ul-Huda, TwoCircles.net

Hajj is the most important travel in a Muslim’s lifetime, and for most of us it is once-in-a-lifetime travel. Some wait for years to save money and be free from obligations so that they can carry out this religious obligation with spiritual sprit and peace. It, therefore, comes as a surprise to hear of incidents wherein Hajis and their relatives get into arguments, heated exchange and even physical violence.

By Abdul Hafiz Gandhi,

By Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Over the past two weeks, I have heard and read many questions, comments, and news stories regarding recent changes...

By TCN Staff Reporter Delhi: Amit Shah, President, BJP, has assured the Sir Syed Minority Foundation of India that he will raise the issue of...

By Sabrina Iqbal Sircar for TwoCircles.net Hmm. Let me see now. I am a little tired actually trying to tell the world that Feminism...

By Shamim Akhter, Two days back I went through a report in BBC website under the title “India state-run banks ‘turn away Muslims’” regarding denial of access to government banks to Muslims in India. The report reveals the truth of the government banks operating in different parts of the country. The report quotes the National Commission of Minorities as saying that there has been a 100% increase in the number of complaints it has received over the past year from Muslims who say they are being prevented from opening accounts in state-run banks.

By Asghar Ali Engineer,

A friend of mine Daniel Mazgaonkar gave me a Hindi copy of Vinoba Bhave’s book on Islam to see whether the Qur’anic verses and hadith have been correctly quoted. I am reading it particularly those portions wherein Vinoba Bhaveji has quoted Qur’anic verses and ahadith. I have yet to go through the whole text but meanwhile certain portions which I read are worth writing about.

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government is working on an action plan to facilitate financial assistance and other help to meritorious students of classes 10...

By Saeed Naqvi, Eminent TV anchor, Rajdeep Sardesai, has in a recent article drawn attention to the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has restored balance to his cabinet by inducting Manohar Parrikar and Suresh Prabhu, two Gaud Saraswat Brahmins, as full fledged ministers. Some writers took him to task for his Brahminical digression, strange in a country where caste drives so much of public life.

By Yoginder Sikand Almost six years after a deadly wave of genocidal attacks that targeted Muslims in Gujarat, the victims of the state's worst case of anti-Muslim violence still wage a tough battle for survival. In one of the worst-hit parts of the Gujarat, the Panchmahals district, scores of Muslim families have been reduced to penury after having lost their homes and possessions and with their male earning members still languishing in jails.

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,

By Sanjiv Kataria, IANS, As the clock gallops closer to Oct 3, the date when the 2010 Commonwealth Games begin at New Delhi, I am amongst the millions of terribly nervous Indians. It is the same awful feeling that I experienced as a student when my exam preparations were below par.

By Mushtaq Ul Haq Ahmad Sikander Recently a book release function was held in Kashmir Valley in which a book Fikr e Ghamidi: Ek Tajziyati...

By A Mirsab, TwoCircles.net, New Delhi: Stressing upon the need of proper utilization of parliament to resolve problems of people, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM)...

By Parmod Kumar, The Narendra Modi government - like any other new dispensation - is offloading the bureaucrats who had served under the Congress led UPA-II and has reportedly asked some governors and other political appointees occupying constitutional positions to step down. Shunting out babudom is not a problem as their positing is at the discretion of the government but a problem has arisen as eight governors are resisting calls to voluntarily quit.

By Mohit Dubey Lucknow : Changing their hues comes naturally to politicians. They switch parties -- and ideologies -- with bewildering ease. And as...

It’s a fixed match in favor of BJP By Mehboob Makhdoomi, After Mufti Sayeed’s controversial ‘Thank you’ to Pakistan, militants and the Hurriyat, I did expect many more gimmicks from the PDP. And we all know what ensued this week. My personal opinion, which I have a right to speak out, is that apart from the ‘Common Minimum Program’ of PDP-BJP, which is for the public consumption and addresses issues quite broadly, there is another text drafted and mutually agreed-upon, between the two parties. They were not on a picnic for more than two-months, and they weren’t even indecisive about their alliance. It was all about this unpublished draft, which is in its implementation-phase these days.

By Vikas Datta, It is an unfortunate occurrence that if there are many outstanding literary figures in any era, only one or two will figure in the general public consciousness. Elizabethan England had no shortage of dramatists but can you think of anyone except Shakespeare? Russian literature flourished in the 19th century but the only names that register now are Tolstoy and, maybe, Dostoyevsky. Likewise, mid-19th century Delhi could boast of a galaxy of accomplished poets, but all have been overshadowed by Mirza Ghalib, though some were much more popular then and just one couplet of one of them had sent him into raptures.

Prateek Mittal & Vartika Singh On August 15, 2016, in his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised a safety net of up...

फहमिना हुसैन, TwoCircles.net भारत में कुपोषण की शुरुआत मां के गर्भ से ही हो जाती है. गर्भवती महिलाओं को जीवन भर पौष्टिक भोजन का अभाव...

By Syed Ali Mujtaba,

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed, IANS, Ahmedabad and Bangalore, like many others, are global cities and the terror that struck these on consecutive days too is a global phenomenon. As a human being and an Indian Muslim, I literally wept over the needless deaths of those who died or were maimed. In the last decade, a significant number of moderate Hindus have started supporting anti-secular and anti-minority groups that want to transform India into a theocratic Hindu nation. This bodes ill for the nation. The situation calls for introspection by Muslims, India's largest minority community.

By Ram Puniyani, Arun Shourie, who was part of NDA, a fellow traveler and an ideologue of BJP wrote several books, many of them against minorities and dalits in particular. One of these which was strongly protested against by large sections of people, dalits in particular, was his “Worshipping False Gods”. In this book he expressed the mind set of RSS-BJP politics towards Ambedkar. In this long bulky volume he was heavily critical of Ambedkar’s ideology, his agitations for democratic values and his struggles for social justice. Now a decade and half later on one side many a dalit leaders, Ramvilas Paswan, Udit Raj, Ramdas Athwaley are vying to sit in the lap of the politics of BJP for apparently their own personal gains on one side and on the other the BJP’s Prime Ministerial Candidate Narendra Modi is going miles to woo the sections of dalits. It is another matter that while doing this in his usual trade mark style he has no qualms about misrepresenting the events, speaking lies and putting the blame of all that has not taken place to his political adversaries.

By Dr Wasim Ahmad,

By Dr. Shakeel Ahmad,

By Vatsal Srivastava, IANS, Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), decided to keep interest rates unchanged at the central bank's monthly monetary...

By Amulya Ganguli

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned against high corporate salaries, he didn't seem to have taken into account the fact that there were wealthy people not only in the business world but also in the political establishment.