Expressing his grave concern over the ever rising pace of crimes, long pending cases in law courts and disparity in sentences awarded by different judges for similar crimes, Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan was full of praise for the Islamic penal code while addressing a workshop on “Growing Crimes – Deterrent Punishment: Search for Appropriate Theory of Punishment” in Hyderabad on June 27. The workshop was organised by an organisation of Retired Judges and Nationa...

The Muslim and Christian organisations have severely opposed the LDF Government for allegedly trying to indoctrinate students with anti-religious ideas and inculcate communist values in them. The immediate cause of their ire are certain lessons in the Class VII social studies textbook introduced this year in the state syllabus. Representatives of 12 Muslim organisations met Education Minister M A Baby at Thiruvananthapuram on June 23 and demanded that the book be withdrawn.

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Muslims in Kalambar village, about 20 kms from Nanded in Maharashtra, purchased a piece of land and built a mosque on part of it while the rest of the land was used as graveyard. Muslims have been praying in the mosque and using the graveyard for burial purposes for long without any objection. Local hate-mongers however opposed the mosque and the graveyard in the village. Meanwhile a Muslim woman died in the village and as usual she was brought to be buried in the graveyard. But the hate-mo...

Leading activists and veteran journalists, who were holding a state-level conference on freedom of expression at Ahmedabad on June 22, condemned the attacks on the freedom of expression in Gujarat, and urged the middle class people to be vigilant about human rights. The conference was organised by the JP Centenary Committee, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Movement for Secular Democracy and the voluntary organisation Prashant, in the aftermath of the Ahmedabad police commis...

A one-day bandh was organised on June 27 to protest the burning alive of five Muslim youth at Bhukardan Taluka, 80 kms from Aurangabad in Maharashtra, a day earlier. Thousands of people belonging to every religion protested on Bhukardan Tahseel and demanded arrest of the killers along with guilty police officers. Meanwhile, after a lot of persuasion of prominent social and political leaders, relatives of the dead agreed to take the dead bodies and conduct their funeral rites.

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The government of Haryana has announced to reward couples who enter into inter-caste marriages. Those opting for such marriages in the state would be given an incentive of Rs 50,000 each by the state government under a special scheme. Either of the newly-weds has to be from Haryana to qualify for the bounty that they would be entitled to within a year of their marriage. One such couple is Veer Singh of Bachod village in Mahendergarh district and Renu of Ghaziabad of Uttar Pradesh. Coming fr...