Javaid Iqbal Bhat

While the Arabs and the Muslim World in general may prefer to conveniently ignore or wish to cover it up with some other sweet fragment from his speech, Donald Trump’s selection of Saudi Arabia as the centre for fighting global extremism has in fact stated frankly that it is the Muslim world which has to […]

On the face of it, any suggestion of a change from Kashmir to Kaesheer sounds immature, and one which seems to bump on our inherited and established sensibility of names. We are so used to switching from Kaesheer to Kashmir that any argument for standardising and normalising Kaesheer is not taken seriously. Rather, people uninitiated […]

When the British arrived in the Indian Sub-continent as colonisers they changed the names of places according to their own convenience. Anyone having a basic common knowledge of colonialism will be aware about this. So Vadodara became Baroda, Thiruvanthapuram was converted into Trivandrum, Kochy became Cochin, and a host of other names witnessed interesting transformations. […]

  The fate of the Rohingya Muslims in the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir hangs in the balance. From Myanmar, where even tonsured monks in sacred garbs participated in their chase out of their homeland, they have moved out to several countries. The figures vary from 2 to 3 lakhs. One of the destinations […]

The circle of communalism is now complete in Uttar Pradesh (UP). The desire to see saffron installed with full force inside the highest corridor of power has been met. Now the saffron is literally there, at the top, to guide, control and to supervise over the cherished goals. No matter how much attempt the intellectual […]

Even if Trump takes media as an opposition party, and does not mind launching blistering attacks against all hues of American media, including ‘fake news,’ there are plenty of lessons which we can learn living here in our part of the world. The dramatic clash between news and views, and the Presidential power, is at […]

Enclosed in their small world of opinions and arguments, many people believe — and sometimes try to argue — that Trump and Modi are of the same breed. They are same as chalk and cheese. No doubt, both have faced stiff resistance in the run-up to the elections. Once they had come to hold the […]

If Donald Trump had been a poem, its title would have been “Get the Hell out of Here.” The new US President has unsettled opinion makers with his braggart conduct. A new raucous chorus has started. And the refrain of this chorus is “Donald Trump, Donald Trump and Donald Trump.” Even his own party men […]

With the kind of steps that the new US President, Donald Trump, is taking, ‘Discovery Channel’ or some other ‘Man versus Wild’ Channel has a job cut out for him. Instead of showing the adventurers the techniques of survival in wild deserts, deep forests and unplumbed oceans, they will have to show Muslims the art […]

Ever since I overheard a fragment of a conversation between two Indians at an International airport, I have been both wondering as well as questioning myself about the toilet seats especially and the import of western construction generally, into our society. The two sounded uneasy. One Indian was telling the other that the white masters […]