Joomla! site syndication http://theindianmuslims.com Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:51:45 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://theindianmuslims.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://theindianmuslims.com Joomla! site syndication http://theindianmuslims.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=9 Welcome to theIndianMuslims.com. The site aims to be a credible one-stop reference on Muslims of India, Muslim Achievers and eminent Indian Muslims from the historical times to the present. You can see updated news of interest for Indian Muslims, including features, articles and editorials. A complete data-bank on Muslim achievers, Muslim organisations and institutions would also be available on the site. TheIndianMuslims.Com would also illustrate the contribution of Indian Muslims towards India's Freedom Struggle, besides in various other fields like Art Culture, Architecture, Cinema, Theatre, Literature, Education, Economy, Polity, Judiciary and Science and Technology. affiliate program lt;/a gt; Your views and suggestions are most welcome and can be emailed to the Webmaster. How to use the site? Features - Editorials Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:30:00 +0100 http://theindianmuslims.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1021&Itemid=2 Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal on Thursday held out the categorical assurance that madrasas would be kept out of the purview of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Mr. Sibal, who was addressing a large congregation of Muslim Ulema and educationists, said the exemption to madrasas and other minority educational institutions would be specified in a set of guidelines to be incorporated soon in the RTE Act. Mr. Sibal said the Muslim fear that the Act would endanger madrasa education was unfounded in the context of the constitutional guarantees available to the community to establish and run their own educational institutions. “Door door se hamara koi irada nahi hai (we will not dream of interfering in your rights),” he said. The Minister's promise was met with deafening applause from the assembled Ulema and Muslim leaders who, through the morning, had kept up the chant of “threat to madrasas.” Speaker after speaker denounced the Act as an assault on the minority right to run educational institutions guaranteed by Article 30 of the Constitution. Many saw it as part of a world-wide design to target and subdue the community. Not against the Act However, a small section of speakers — among them the former Delhi State Minorities Commission chairman Kamal Farooqui, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind leader Mahmood Madani and Islamic scholar and Jamaat-e-Islami Hind leader Maulana Syed Jalauddin Umari — clarified that while they had serious misgivings about the Act's impact on Muslim religious education, they were not against the Act per se. Nor did they want to convey the impression that Muslims opposed universalisation of education. Mr. Sibal drove home the point that the RTE Act with its emphasis on quality education did not come a day too soon. For far too long, schools had got away with offering poor quality education. It was the right of every child not only to get education but to get good quality education. He said the quality prescriptions in the Act applied to all schools, including government and aided schools, and school managements could no longer hope to get away with lame excuses. In an indirect dig at the audience which repeatedly invoked Article 30, the Minister said, “The emphasis in Article 30 is on administration, not on maladministration.” Muslim News - National News Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:46:33 +0100 http://theindianmuslims.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1019&Itemid=2 NEW DELHI: In a sudden outpouring of concern for the Urdu language, Lok Sabha members, cutting across party lines, on Thursday spoke in one voice about making a concerted bid to promote the language through academies, scholarships and advertisements in Urdu newspapers. Though nearly every member peppered their speech in Urdu, politics clearly topped the agenda as senior Cabinet ministers, including Mamta Banerjee, Farooq Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad, jumped on the bandwagon. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav raised the issue in the Zero Hour, demanding that the language is in dire need of a greater push for promotion and protection. BJP deputy leader Gopinath Munde made a common cause with Yadav. Ditto for RJD's Lalu Prasad and BSP's Dara Singh Chauhan. Azad singled out Munde for praise for taking up Urdu's cause. NC's Abdullah eulogised actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha for the contribution of the Indian film industry in keeping the language alive. CPI and CPM, too, were all praise for the language, while the Left's archrival Banerjee played to the gallery by reciting several Urdu couplets, delineating her love for the language. Azad recounted his meeting with some editors of Urdu newspapers last week. They briefed the minister about the sorry plight of the Urdu media, which has been facing severe advertisement cruch for long. Though Urdu newspapers are being brought out from across the country, including the southern states, unfortunately the language cannot claim any state as its own, Azad explained. Speaker Meira Kumar urged the government to pay heed to the overwhelming sentiments of the members about the pitiable condition of the language and its media. Responding to the discussion, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee noted that PM Manmohan Singh had already instructed I B ministry to ensure that Urdu media get due share of government-funded advertisements through DAVP. Urdu is an integral part of our rich national heritage, and the government will take all steps to strengthen it. I can assure you all appropriate steps will be taken, he added. Muslim News - National News Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:39:49 +0100 http://theindianmuslims.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1020&Itemid=2 Three prestigious Pakistani universities have started outsourcing evaluation of dissertations on Urdu literature to Indian experts. The exercise underpins the unusual ways in which the two countries -often tethering on the edge of war -continue to connect. India is where Pakistan's official language -Urdu -was born and many of its men of letters had migrated to Pakistan after the Partition, such as Saadat Hassan Manto. The Karachi University, Qaide-Azam University, Islamabad, and the Alama Iqbal National Open University, Karachi, have tied up with Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu-e-Hind (Organisation for Progress of Urdu in India), a 110-year-old Delhi-based institution, to have it examine, guide and assess Pakistani students pursuing M.Phils and PhDs. Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu-eHind has historical linkages with its Pakistani counterpart, Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu-ePakistan. The outsourcing is notable, since Pakistan continues to be a chief Urdu-speaking nation, though many ethnic languages abound. Indian scholars appear so taken in that they wanted to keep the original manuscripts as trophies. Almost taking the cue, the Pakistan universities let them do so. A section on these dissertations, Gosha-e-Ibne Insha, inside Tarraqui's Shibli Memorial Library is to be launched by Pakistan's high commissioner in New Delhi Shahid Malik, on August 6. The research areas often focus on politics, history, afsana (a fiction genre) and personalities. “The manuscripts give me a unique view of current Pakistani politics and life,“ said Khaliq Anjum, an 80-year-old Indian Urdu expert, who heads Tarraqui Urdu. Indian scholars in demand include S.R. Kidwai and Aslam Parvez. “I think the collaboration shows Pakistani academia's trust of competency and objectivity of Indian Urdu expertise,“ Shibli Memorial Library's librarian Shahid Khan said. Muslim News - International News Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:42:26 +0100 http://theindianmuslims.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1018&Itemid=2 The news that girls have scored over boys in madrasa exams in Uttar Pradesh shows that change does not always have to be dramatic to be useful. Rather, it is more important that change is sustainable and long-lasting if it is to be effective. There are several feel-good cliches about the importance of the education of women which share the same underlying thought process — when you give the power of knowledge and free thought hitherto denied to any group of people, you empower them and that betters us all. Uttar Pradesh is home to not only India’s poorest and backward people, it also contains most of India’s poorest Muslims. This madrasa news is, therefore, heartening on two counts. It shows that education is bringing light not just to Muslim homes but also to the girl child, who is traditionally neglected and denied by most communities in India. Girls — from a total of over 1.34 lakh students who sat for the UP Madrasa Board’s exams — have scored an overall pass percentage of 90% compared to 86% for boys. Moreover, more girls have secured first division compared to boys. The number of girls who sat for the exam has gone up from about 28,000 last year to 35,000 this year. Many of these girls are from small towns and villages and this means that they have defeated several odds to achieve so much. Muslims in India suffer not just from social discrimination, which affects many minority groups in our society, but also from a widespread insularity and backwardness within the Muslim community itself. Girls, therefore, have to fight a double prejudice — from within and without — and have to show great courage and determination if they want to break free. But this is how change comes. Education breaks barriers as it blows away the cobwebs of fear, false beliefs, ignorance, prejudice, misplaced conservatism, shibboleths of stifling tradition and everything else which holds us back as humans. By giving children a taste of the spirit of adventure and enquiry, it is as if new life is being breathed into them. Muslims in India have long been pawns in a number of political games, played by both the right and the left. As a result, religious leaders have had a field day in asserting their authority over the Muslim masses. The madrasa results are a pointer that people are quietly willing to strike out on their own. Muslim News - National News Mon, 19 Jul 2010 22:20:22 +0100