NOWHERA SHAIK LAUNCHES PARTY
Dr. Nowhera Shaik, Founder and CEO of Heera Group of Companies who also runs schools and colleges for girls in Tirupati entered politics and launched a new party named ‘All India Mahila Empowerment Party (MEP)’ in New Delhi on 12 November.Among others who were present for the Mahila Empowerment Party (MEP) organised at The Lalit in New Delhi included cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin, tennis star Sania Mirza, film stars Sunil Shetty, Bobby Deol, Aftab Shivdasani, Zeenat Aman, Poonam Dhillon, choreographer Farah Khan and Urdu Poetess Lata Haya. “The All India Mahila Empowerment Party is a result of realizations in the past of engagement in issues concerning women. Ultimate change can be made possible only through organizing as a movement making things clear and be demanding from the authorities to ensure women rights and gender justice. Working under the banner JUSTICE FOR HUMANITY, this party leaves no little room for doubts and questions”, Nowhera Shaik while addressing the launch event.”A sound society which recognizes equality of all its members can only build a healthy and strong nation. Empowering women is a means towards the empowerment of the larger society and the nation”, she added.”It is the concern towards the issues of women that led into forming the All India Mahila Empowerment Party. The indispensability of politics in addressing social concerns is what prompted into forming of the party, MEP devoted to the course of gender justice and empowerment of women. Realized how the male oriented social set up is limiting the development of faculties of women making them unaware and unable of self-recognition and independent existence”, she said.
AMU RESIDENT DOCTORS WIN PRIZES IN NATIONAL CONFERENCE
A team of two resident doctors of Department of ENT, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University has won the first prize in Quiz competition held at the 35th annual conference of Association of Otolaryngologists of India, UPCON-2017, which was organized by the UP Chapter of the Association in Gorakhpur. The team comprising Dr Mohd Anas, junior resident-II and Dr Abu Sayeed, junior resident-III won the prize in a tough competition with three other teams out of which, the Banaras Hindu University team was judged second. Prof H Vijayendra, President of Indian Society of Otolaryngology, Dr Saurabh Varshney, Chairman, Department of ENT, AIIMS, Rishikesh and Prof S A Hasan, former Dean, Faculty of Medicine, AMU gave away prizes to the winners. In the event related to paper presentation, Dr Aby Sayeed got the third prize. Dr Rajesh Yadav, organizing secretary and an alumnus of JNMC, congratulated the AMU team on the achievement.
MUSLIM WOMAN IN INDIA DENIED JOB FOR WEARING HIJAB
A social worker has claimed that she was denied a job at an orphanage based in New Delhi because her recruiter felt that her hijab made her look “like a Muslim lady”. “Everything was going smooth, we exchanged many emails,” Nedal Zoya, a graduate from Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, told Al Jazeera.”But a few days ago, I got an email stating that ‘I am sorry to inform you that even [from] a distance of one kilometer you look like a Muslim lady due to your external Muslim gears’.” This comment was referring to her hijab, a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion.After being short-listed by the Delhi Orphanage for Girls in October for the post of social worker, Zoya was asked, by Harish Varma, the president and CEO of the orphanage, to give an online test and send a picture of herself to. Varma suggested Zoya remove her hijab as one of the pre-conditions to proceed with the recruitment process.
ANOTHER MUSLIM MAN MURDERED BY COW VIGILANTES
With cow vigilantism seemingly on the rise and hardline Hindu nationalism taking root in India, hooligans calling themselves “Gau Rakshaks” (“Cow Protectors”) shot a Muslim to death who they accused of smuggling cows. The murder of Umar Mohammad in Rajasthan’s Alwar district on November 10 was yet another instance of India’s Muslim community facing targeted violence.
Several states in India have regulations prohibiting either the slaughter or sale or migration of cows. The Indian state of Rajasthan bans both cow slaughter and export or migration of bovine animal for the purpose of slaughter is also prohibited. However, according to reports, Rajasthan, especially the cities Alwar and Bharatpur, are one of the biggest contributors of smuggled cattle to slaughterhouses in different states of India. Umar Mohammad’s wife told the media that she had asked her husband to purchase the cows not to slaughter, but to have a regular supply of milk to feed their eight children and aging parents — which is legal. Many Hindus consider the cow sacred and a symbol of life, and therefore do not eat it. India also has a significant population of other religions whose adherents generally do eat beef, including Muslims. In the current climate, this fact has increasingly become an excuse for communal attacks against Muslims. ‘Gau Rakshaks are a collective blot on our country, history and memory’ While the culprits have been arrested, as reported by international newswire Reuters, the ground realities remain unchanged. Since 2015, after right-wing Narendra Modi became prime minister, there has been a surge in cow vigilante violence attributed to the rise of Hindu nationalism in the country, ushered in by his election victory.
CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN HYDERABAD AFTER 40 YEARS
The tenth national conference of the All India Muslim Educational Society (AIMES) will be held in Hyderabad after almost 40 years as reported in the media.The conference committee’s chairman and former Andhra Pradesh law minister Asif Pasha, stated that after almost four decades, AIMES will organise the national conference for two days in Hyderabad.“The agenda of this conference is to discuss the Muslim communities’ educational, financial and social problems. The conference will be inaugurated by Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao on November 4,” he said.SA Huda, the former director general of police said,”the Muslim community has many issues. Their problems and issues can be discussed by holding such a conference”.
MAKE AMU CO-ED: UGC
New Delhi: The University Grants Commissions, UGC, has asked Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) to abolish separate male and female colleges and make them co-ed. UGC has further asked AMU to merge Shia-Sunni departments. The above suggestions have come through a government audit, UGC had audited AMU in April this year. HRD ministry had directed a committee that had professors from IIT and other educational institutions.As per their report, the approach pursued by the University is not helpful in exchange of the ideas.“The segregation of boys and girls up to the undergraduate courses in separate boys-only and girls-only college is considered a legacy of the past especially when the workplaces and activities in the real world are gender-neutral,” said the audit.
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INDIA’S CONTRADICTORY STANCES ON ROHINGYA REFUGEES
During his visit to Myanmar in early September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed support for the Myanmar regime’s fight against “extremist violence” perpetrated by the Rohingya rebels but failed to mention the suffering inflicted on innocent Rohingya civilians who have been subjected to violence, including torture and rape, and displacement by the Myanmar security forces in the course of their clearance operations against extremists. While supporting the Myanmar regime, the Chinese Government officials are reportedly concerned about the persecution of the Rohingya, but that feeling does not appear to be shared by their counterparts in New Delhi.The Rohingya Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar has suffered decades of discrimination and violence at the hands of the Buddhist majority and security forces in Myanmar. However, the magnitude of the recent violence against them is unprecedented. UN Secretary- General Antonio Guterres and UN Human Rights Council chief Zeid ra’ad al-Husein have described the August attacks on Rohingya villages as a systematic effort amounting to “ethnic cleansing”. Satellite images released by Human Rights Watch on September 19 showed massive swathes of scorched landscape and the near total destruction of 214 villages.