Claude Alwares, noted environmentalist-educationist and activist launched the official website of Solidarity Youth Movement, Kerala (www.solidarityym.org) at a function held at Hira Centre, Calicut. He said it is useful to have web facility for an active organisation like Solidarity. But many are working only on internet and are keeping way from the streets. It is good to see Solidarity in the streets first and then on internet. He appreciated the organisers in launching such a comprehensiv...

A Lucknow-based lawyer is seeking the transfer from Faizabad of the serial bomb blasts case in Uttar Pradesh that killed over a dozen people after lawyers mobbed him for defending the accused. Mohammed Shoaib said he would file an application in the high court seeking the transfer to any other court in Uttar Pradesh.

Shoaib was reported as saying, “Just when I was pleading before the Faizabad additional sessions judge R.K. Gautam (last week) to allow me to file a transfer ...

The Movement for Peace and Justice (Maharashtra) has protested the unceremonious transfer of Mr. A.R. Shaikh from the office of State Wakf Board CEO. “The transfer comes at a time when the Board was in the process of recovering Wakf properties and after the Joint Parliamentary Committee was presented with numerous cases of corruption in State Wakf Board. In fact the State Government had promised a judicial commission to deal with such cases,” M. Anees, Gen-Secretary MPJ(Maharash...

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has decided to approach Supreme Court challenging AP High Court’s directive on 4 per cent reservation for Muslims. The government will engage prominent lawyer and constitutional expert K Parasaran to file a petition in the apex court. It seeks apex court permission to implement the 4 per cent quota for Muslims in educational institutions, challenging the High court’s order staying the implementation of the quota.

A high-profile IPS officer of the Gujarat cadre was caught cheating while appearing for an LLB exam at the Siddharth Law College in Gandhinagar. Rai holds the post of DIG (State Crime Records Bureau). He has many sensational cases to his credit and was instrumental in the arrest of D.G. Vanzara and two other IPS officers in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. He also raided a state minister’s house without permission of the government.

A Muslim organisation, “Majles-e-Tahafuze Madaris Gujarat” of Jambusar, organised an anti-terrorism conference in the Rangupwan Hall at Nanpura, Surat on April 27. This is the first such seminar to be ever organised in Gujarat.

Giving the highlights of the seminar, Mufti Ahmed Dehalvi, president of Majles-e-Tahafuze Madaris Gujarat said that the Darul Uloom Deoband has decided to organise similar seminars in other states also to convey the message that terrorism is ...

Muslim scholars and organisations on May 10 severely criticised efforts to equate terrorism with Islam. In the anti-terrorism conference thousands of Muslims gathered at Urdu Bagh, Delhi, protesting against countries that use random acts of violence perpetrated by some radical groups as an excuse to damage the popular perceptions of Islam, a religion that denounces such acts of violence.

IPS officer R B Sreekumar has finally gotten his appointment letter as Director General of Gujarat Police. For this cop, however, this well-deserved promotion has come a little too late – almost a year after he retired from service.

Sreekumar has been waging a lonely battle against Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s government since the 2003 post-Godhra riots. He says he has no regrets, however.

“There was a systematic attempt to subvert criminal justic...

About 10,000 Muslims under the banner of Tamilnadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK) on May 9 marched towards the famous Vellore Fort to demand that the 250-year old Nawab Masjid located with the Fort be opened for prayers. Muslims of Tamilnadu have been making this demand but the government authorities have turned a deaf ear to it.

They were however prevented from entering the Fort, as a result of which they offered prayers on the road outside the Fort.