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Muzaffarnagar, June 29: A leading Islamic seminary on Monday opposed Centre’s move to repeal a controversial section of the penal law which criminalises
homosexuality saying unnatural sex is against the tenets of Islam.

“Homosexuality is an offence under Shariat Law and haram (prohibited) in Islam,” deputy vice chancellor of the Darul Uloom Deoband Maulana Abdul Khalik Madrasi said.

Madrasi also asked the government not to repeal section 377 of IPC which criminalises homosexuality.

Hyderabad, June 28: Faced with a severe crisis due to the failure of monsoon, the people from different religious faiths in Andhra Pradesh were offering special prayers to seek divine help to invoke the rains.

Thousands of Muslim men, women and children- some of them accompanied by their cattle- gathered at the sprawling Mir Alam Idgah in Hyderabad on Sunday and offered “Namaz-e-Istesqa” for the rains.

Hundreds of Muslims offering Namaz-E_ Istesqa at Idgaah Mir Alam Hyderabad for Rain. Some of them crying during the Namaz

Hyderabad, June 28: The daring daylight attacks on policemen in two separate incidents in the last seven months have forced the city police to arm its men on
patrolling vehicle, Rakshak, with guns.

Surprisingly, till date the policemen on beat duty and in Rakshaks do not carry even a baton. The attack on two counter intelligence sleuths in Santoshnagar in December last year and the shooting down of a home guard in Falaknuma last month have woken the police to the changing realities in the city that has reportedly become a hub for many criminals and terrorists.

Dubai, June 27: As many as 1,365 people converted to Islam from January to June this year as compared to 878 over the same period last year, according to Huda Khalfan Al Kaabi, head of the New Muslims Section in the Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department in Dubai.

“This is basically due to the tolerance, modesty, transparency and greatness of Islam which meet people’s needs in all places and times,” she said.

Los Angeles, June 26: One day after Michael Jackson’s sudden death, speculation was already turning on Friday to what killed the 50-year-old ‘King of Pop’ just weeks before his long-awaited series of comeback concerts.

Jackson, a former child star who became one of the best-selling pop artists of all time before a descending into a strange and reclusive lifestyle, died on Thursday afternoon at a Los Angeles hospital, where he had been rushed in full cardiac arrest after collapsing at his nearby rental home.

Los Angeles, June 26: Pop star Michael Jackson died Thursday following a cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles, officials said. He was 50. The King of Pop, whose life of stardom and scandal kept him permanently in the headlines, was found unconscious at his rented Bel Air mansion and was rushed to the UCLA Medical Centre.

“We were notified by LAPD that Michael Jackson was transferred from his house to the hospital,” said Los Angeles County Coroner Fred Corral. “He was unresponsive and pronounced dead at approximately 2.26 this afternoon.”

New Delhi, June 25: Muslim leaders slammed French President Nicolas Sarkozy for describing burqa as a sign of “subservience”, saying it was a “direct attack” on Islamic identity and meant to “provoke” the community.

“Sarkozy’s statement on burqa is a direct attack on Islamic identity and shows the level of hatred he has towards Islam and Muslims,” Shahi Imam of Delhi-based Jama Masjid Ahmed Bukhari said.

The French President had told a special session of Parliament that “the burqa is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience.”

Washington, June 25: “North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days,” the Associated Press reports.

“If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will … wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all,” the official Korean Central News Agency said.

Cairo, June 24: Germany has more Muslims than it originally thought, with nearly half of them holding German citizenship and thus able to vote in elections, according to a government survey released Tuesday, which found Muslims were religious but tended to be less socially integrated.

Muslims make up five percent of Germany’s 80 million population, two percent more than most common estimates, according to the first survey of German Muslims.

Hyderabad, June 24: The news of a racist attack on yet another city student in Australia has left Hyderabad shocked and saddened.

A large number of people have gathered at the home of Kazim Ali Khan, 20, in the old city to expressed support and solidarity with the family.

Khan, a student of hospitality management at the Victoria Institute of Technology, was attacked by two hooded men in an eastern suburb of Melbourne.

Washington, June 23: Taliban fighters in war-torn Afghanistan have managed to escape US and NATO attacks and carry out painful assaults against foreign forces, thanks to an American state-of-the-art military technology that reached their hands.

Department of Defense told “terrorists have used US uniforms and the infrared patches to get close to US and allied forces on the battlefield and at bases,” Jonathan Meyer, of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told. “This is more of a potential suicide-bomber risk.”

Toronto, June 22: In a major breakthrough for AIDS cure, Canadian scientists have finally found where the HIV virus hides in the human body to become impervious to medical treatment.

This breakthrough could pave the way for a total cure of the deadly disease, claim the scientists who carried out the study with researchers from the US.

The current anti-viral treatment for HIV patients can only subdue, not eliminate, the virus as it hides somewhere to lie low and then attack the system again.

Ahmedabad, June 22: Motherhood makes a woman complete. Now, single men too are staking claim to complete manhood by becoming a parent. Now-a-days single men are hiring wombs in gujarat to become fathers.

Surrogate capital Anand, where infertility specialist Dr Naina Patel has helped hundreds of childless couples from all over the world, is also seeing single men queuing up to father a child with the help of donated eggs and a surrogate mother.

Lords, June 21:Who would have wrote this script that would unfold on 21st day of June in 2009 at London’s Lord’s cricket ground? Pakistan who were rated as the team capable of hardly beating any gully team in Lahore or Peshawar or Rawalpindi were crowned the Badshah of T20 cricket after they chased down the 139-run target set by Sri Lanka.

Courtesy a sparkling innings of 54 runs from Shahid Afridi, Pakistan successfully chased down the target with 8 wickets in hand and set off wild celebrations way back in the streets and gullies Karachi to Peshawar.

Mumbai, June 21: Two-month-old Zoya gets dragged into a dowry harassment case filed by her father’s first wife. Legal experts, child rights activists react in shock at her having to get anticipatory bail to avoid arrest

In a case straight out of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, the Mumbai Sessions court last Wednesday (June 17, 2009) granted anticipatory bail for what must have been their youngest applicant ever a two-month-old baby: Zoya aka Mehak Shamshuddin Khan. Lucky for her, or Zoya could have ended up behind bars.

Mumbai, June 20: SRK clarifies that he has never said anything against the Prophet in an interview.. It is really unfortunate that a section of people are reacting to some interview of mine in the way that is best describeable as an unfounded overreaction.

To clarify…there is a mistake either in the way my statement is printed or misinterpretation on behalf of the writer of the piece.

Quote and misquote: Shah Rukh Khan.

Jerusalem, June 20: Israeli border guards have posted videos online in which they humiliate Palestinians, including ordering a young man to sing and slap himself, reported.

In one video clip posted on YouTube the man is ordered to repeatedly slap himself in the face while chanting “I love the border police” as off-screen border guards laugh and cheer him on.

Rome, June 20: A record one billion people are undernourished around the world, the UN food agency said, blaming the global financial crisis for a surge of more than 100 million hungry since last year.

Deploring “the biggest ever year-on-year increase” in world hunger, Jacques Diouf, the head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told a news conference: “One in six human beings does not have access to food.”

The FAO chief called for a “new world food order” enshrining the “right to food and thus the right to exist,” urging stepped-up investment in agriculture.

Hyderabad, June 19: TRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday quit his post saying he was sad over personal attacks made against him by rebel leaders in the wake of the party’s electoral defeat.

In a three-page letter addressed to the party’s state executive committee, Rao said he was sad over the personal attack mounted against him and his family members by the rebel leaders, who, have “joined hands with those trying to defeat the Telangana movement”.

Washington, June 19: Japanese newspaper the Yomiuri Shimbun is citing officials in the Japanese Defense Ministry as saying North Korea is preparing a launch in early July of a new Taepodong-2 missile over the Japanese prefecture of Aomori, and toward the US state of Hawaii.

Officials believe the missile would have roughly the same range as the rocket used in April’s failed satellite launch by the North Korean government. As such, it is not expected to have sufficient range to hit the Hawaiian islands.

The Dabeerpura police today rescued the one and a half year old girl syeda Rabbab Madani from the maid servant who kidnapped her yesterday.

Inspector Dabeerpura Mr. Prassana Kumar told that the maid servant Parveen
after kidnapping the girl Rabbab Madani from her residence yerterday evening was hiding at her relatives place at shamshabad.

Washington, June 17: After declaring that the United States “cannot afford” the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “financially or spiritually,” Ohio’s Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a staunch anti-war crusader, took aim at Congress for not taking a more active role in any of the war on terror fronts.

Kucinich: ‘Another $106 billion and all we get is a lousy war’

Mumbai, June 17: For Saif Ali Khan getting conversant with the holy Quran to play the jehadi in Rensil D’Silva’s Kurbaan was relatively easier.

But John Abraham belonging to an entirely different religion and culture, learning the tenets of the Quran from the scratch to play the NRI Muslim in Kabir Khan’s New York.

Not knowing a syllable of the Quran John had to study the holy book in translation.

Islamabad, June 16: The Taliban is buying children for 500,000 to 2.5 million rupees to convert them into suicide bombers, and execute barbarous terrorist activities, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik has revealed.

Speaking at an award distribution ceremony, Malik said Pakistan is determined to continue the war against terrorism till the Taliban are flushed out of the country.

“We had two options either to surrender before the terrorists or fight with them and now terrorists were bound to run from Swat, Dir and Buner,” The News quoted Malik, as saying.

Moscow, June 16: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has arrived in Russia to attend a regional security summit.

Mr. Ahmadinejad had been expected to arrive Monday and meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The Iranian leader postponed the trip for one day amid street protests in Iran following his re-election in a bitterly disputed vote. No reason was given for the postponement.

Mr. Ahmadinejad attended Tuesday’s session of the regional security summit in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.