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May 18, 2011 marks four years since a blast at Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid claimed 14 lives. However, there has been no breakthrough in case with the investigation going on at a snail’s pace. Lateed Mohammad Khan, convenor of the Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee, that has been fighting the case of the Muslim youth who were falsely implicated in the blast, says that the Hyderabad police protected Hindu radicals behind the bombing. Vicky Nanjappa reports.

Nobody would contest the fact that the Internet has revolutionized our lives. Terms like Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc have become common parlance. Internet is the common thread that binds together people across the world, people who are separated by millions of kilometres or geographical boundaries or religious faiths, people who would probably never meet each other. It has made the world a smaller place.

As the Western governments add fuel to the fire of Islamophobic sentiments in their societies with inflammatory and rabble-rousing actions and statements, the Western media mischievously try their best to portray a lopsided, biased and prejudiced image of Muslims in an attempt which should be interpreted as an incontestable crusade against more than 25% of the world population.

As India celebrates the emergence for the first time of four woman chief ministers, expectations on major improvement in the lot of fairer sex in the country abound. But if one were to go by the track record on this count of the two incumbent political heavyweight chief ministers-Mayawati and Sheila Dikshit-the performance does not really impress.

Pakistanis are confused like no other nation on earth. Christina Lamb had remarked many years ago in her book, Waiting for Allah, that Pakistan is a country searching for a nation. It is not only striving to find its raison d’être and its purpose, it is even grappling with the issue of its geographical location — South Asia or the Middle East. There is strategic confusion and there is tactical muddle. We do not know what it is that we want and we do not know how to get there. Yet we seem to be sure what everyone else wants from us and from those we call our ‘brothers’.

Every now and then media reports fatwas issued by muftis in India, Saudi Arabia and other countries. One mufti in Saudi Arabia even suggested that if a Muslim woman has to keep a man for household work and interact with him though he is not mehram (from prohibited degree for marriage), she should suckle him from her breast to make him mehram. This fatwa was based on a hadith narrated by hazrat A’isha.

The Supreme Court stay on the Allahabad High Court’s order in the Babri mosque-Ramjanamabhoomi title suit has resulted in a sudden spurt of activity among Ayodhya peace-brokers.

One camp is led by Mahant Bhaskar Das, head of the Nirmohi Akhara and Haji Mehboob, both parties to suit no 3 and the other is represented by Mahant Gyandas, former head of Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, and the oldest surviving litigant in the original title suit, 91-year-old Hashim Ansari.

Mujtaba Husain (humour)

People are often surprised when I tell them that my faith, Islam, has an ecological imperative. In fact, I believe that all faiths have, at their very core, this same imperative.

I wrote a book about this.

We say this statement often when someone dies. Also some of us may say this sentence when they lose something, suffer a setback or harm.  But………..do you know what it means?

Sure, everyone know that it obviously means ‘To Allah we belong and to Him is our return.’
But that’s not what I am talking about.

I mean ….do you REALLY, TRULY understand these words and their implications in a Muslim’s life?
It means …whatever we have is not really ours. It belongs only to Allah alone.

In the United States, a generation of young Muslims has grown up in the shadow of the September 11, 2001 attacks, among them KPCC intern Yasmin Nouh. Part of the discussion she has been privy to during these years is how Muslims, whose patriotism has been under scrutiny since, should identify themselves: as American Muslims, or as Muslim Americans?

Nouh examines arguments for both ways of self-identifying in this guest post, her second for Multi-American.

Participants in last year’s annual Muslim Day parade in New York, September 26, 2010

After chasing personal information of individuals world over, cybercriminals are now targeting the trade secrets of well-known global organizations including those in India as they see greater value in selling a corporation’s proprietary information to competitors and foreign governments, according to a report.

An online tree-planting initiative in the periphery of wildlife dominated areas in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, aimed at reviving the ecosystem and reducing man-animal conflict, has become an instant hit with 1,10,000 plantations in eleven months since its launch.

Grow-Trees.com helps individuals and corporate houses who care for the environment to plant trees for the price of a greeting card through online orders in areas such as Kumbhalgarh Sanctuary (Rajasthan), Satkosia Gorge Wildife Sanctuary (Orissa) and Kanha National Park (MP).

Controversial Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who created a ripple by submitting to the Supreme Court an affidavit saying that Chief Minister Narendra Modi wanted to teach Muslims a lesson, has a shady past. Apart from being indicted by the National Human Rights Commission for planting narcotics in a hotel room to implicate and arrest an advocate of Rajasthan in a drug peddling case, the officer is also an accused in a major recruitment scam that hit Gujarat in 1996.

New Delhi, May 09: The Babri mosque dates back nearly 500 years when it was built in Ayodhya by Mir Baqi, a commander of first Mughal emperor Babur, in 1528. Hence the mosque’s name — Babri Masjid.

1853: First recorded incident of Hindu-Muslim violence over the site with Hindus alleging the mosque was built on the site of a razed Hindu shrine dedicated to Lord Ram.

1859: British rulers erect a fence and allow Muslims and Hindus to worship separately in the inner and outer courtyards.

The death of Osama bin Laden is indeed a notable event: The symbol of Al Qaeda and the most prominent proponent of modern “jihadist” philosophy and thought, was killed by American Special Forces in Pakistan on May 1.

His killing has been met with jubilation all across America, in both government and among the general populace.

Taking A bullet for your husband and agreeing to live in a cave for him are surely the biggest gestures of love a woman can make.

But these are just days in the life of the wife of Osama bin Laden who — until Monday — was America’s most wanted terrorist.

Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah — thought to be bin Laden’s fifth wife — was shot in the calf when she charged at the US Navy Seals who stormed the room she had been living in with her husband for the past five years.

Some six decades ago in August 1953, the Indian air transport industry was nationalised to provide safe, smooth and economic air travel to the people. It involved eight warring airlines with different work cultures, horrendous safety record, disastrous financial conditions because of cut-throat competition and inefficient management in some.

Osama Bin laden lived in just two rooms for during the five years that he and his family occupied a multistory house in the Pakistan cantonment of Abbottabad.

Bin Laden’s wives, who were captured after a US Special Forces raid on May 1, reportedly gave that information to Pakistani intelligence services, ABC News said. A 79-member US Navy SEAL team killed Bin Laden.

Pakistani intelligence officials have questioned Yemen-born Amal Ahmed al-Sadah and two other wives of Mr. Bin Laden. They were not named in the news reports.

Quickly disconnect. Don’t you know the Punjab State Commission for Women thinks mobile phones are marriage wreckers? Pained at far too many newlyweds divorcing, this statutory body’s morphed into a marriage counselor. And its advisory says that in wedlock’s initial two years, the wife must make the “small adjustments”. Such as: not chatting on the mobile with her nosey parents – even if it’s to solicit advice on how to make a marriage work. For, hubby and in-laws can start thinking their bahu’s talkathons are with a paramour! Call it a suspected case of love, cell and dhoka.

The Abbottabad compound, used by Osama bin Laden as a safe house till US commandos shot him dead, will be demolished soon by Pakistani security agencies so that it does not become a “sacred building for jihadis”.

The compound, located about 800 yards from the Pakistan military academy, has been sealed by the army to gather any information that was left after a US special forces team raided it on Monday and killed the world’s most wanted terrorist.

The stereotypical image of Muslim women depicts them as frail and fragile, trapped within the four walls of their homes. But Kaneez Fathima and Rafat Seema powerfully fracture such images. They are not only standing firmly on their feet as professional working women, but also fighting boldly for justice for the oppressed sections of society.

“Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or more attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say, “my Lord! bestow on them Thy Mercy, even as they cherished me in childhood.” (Quran 17: 23,24)

Palestinian unity agreement only first step in long-term movement, according to Palestinian youth.

Israeli officials are worried that the new policy changes in post-revolution Egypt would diminish Israel’s strategic clout in the Middle East.

After years of ‘cold peace’ between the two former foes, relations between Egypt and Israel are growing strained following the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak and Cairo’s policy shift toward the Palestinians.

Last week, Egypt succeeded in bringing together rival groups Hamas and Fatah to sign a deal to close ranks after four years of feud.