The latest ruling on the Kamal Maula mosque in Dhar should trouble anyone still invested in India’s claim to secular democracy. A medieval mosque has now been declared a temple by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, with Muslim worshippers told, in effect, to seek space elsewhere. Saffron flags, and police presence followed. Even as such […]
atrocities
Are we losing humanity in the name of Idealism?
‘There is no greater religion than human service and to work for the common good is the greatest creed’ – Woodrow Wilson, an American politician and academic who served as the president of the United States. Do we realize where we are heading to in reverence of ideologies and power? We have failed as ‘humans’ […]
Sudan’s Darfur refugees wonder when their turn will come
‘When we arrived here, there were TV crews and photographers, but now nobody comes,” said Abdallah, amazed to see a journalist turn up at his Sudanese refugee camp in Chad. He fled over the border from Sudan’s western Darfur region in 2004, a year after the armed forces and their allies, the Janjaweed horseback militia, […]
Anti-apartheid activists laid to rest in peace, 50 years on
Pulane Koboekae looked pensively at the seven nooses suspended over a trap door in Pretoria Central Prison where her brother Richard Motsoahae was hanged by South Africa’s apartheid regime in 1964. Then she pulled out a white tissue and sobbed silently. “It has opened up old wounds. I’m feeling mixed emotions. I feel sick, but […]