On August 12 a sort of chaos prevailed at Jagannath temple in Puri after a Muslim soldier accompanied his brigadier into the 12th century shrine, which is off-limits to non-Hindus. Police said havildar M A Rashid, a bodyguard to Brig. Beda Prakash, was with the army officer who was visiting the temple. Some priests there raised an alarm after they saw the soldier’s name on his badge. Rashid pleaded ignorance about the rule that bars non-Hindus from entering the temple. “I had ab...

For the first time in the country, over 2,500 poor Muslim couples will be married at a mass ceremony in Hyderabad and in other district headquarters by the Andhra Pradesh Government on August 28. Informing this to reporters on August 13, Minorities Welfare Minister Mohd Ali Shabeer said spurred by the success of the mass marriages for Hindu couples performed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy decided to extend the programme to poor Muslim and Christi...

Scholars of Darul Uloom Deoband on August 13 termed the marriage conducted by a woman qazi “illegal”.Four scholars of Darul Uloom have issued a statement condemning the “so-called” marriage between Naesh Hasan and Imran Naeem in Lucknow on August 12 that was solemnised by Sayeda Hamid, central Planning Commission member.

“This kind of marriage under the arc-lights of the media is nothing short of a drama,” the clerics’ statement said. A...

The alleged mastermind of the serial blasts Mufti Abul Bashir Qasmi’s father Abu Bakar Islahi says he was shocked to hear that his eldest son has been charged with terrorist activities. So were the villagers of Bina Para and community members of Saraimir in Azamgarh, a report published in the English daily, Indian Express said on August 18.

“Hang him if he is a terrorist and involved in anti-national activities but do not frame anyone just on the ground that...

Stating that no religion supports terrorism, the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on August 16 said that he did not believe that there was anything called Islamic terrorism. “Terrorism believes in nothing but hatred and destruction,” Mukherjee said while delivering a lecture on Swami Vivekananda’s contribution to India’s freedom struggle at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Kolkata. He said the acts of the terrorists were not just against any ...

Hearing a child custody case recently, the Supreme Court held that these cases could not be decided “solely” by interpreting legal provisions. It even laid out that while dealing with such cases a court “is neither bound by statutes nor by strict rules of evidence or procedure nor by precedents”.

“It is a humane problem and is required to be solved with human touch,” observed a Bench headed by Justice C K Thakker. The Bench, which also compri...

The Principal Secretary of State Welfare Department Bihar, Vijay Prakash, has come up with a new idea to encourage low caste poor people to cope with food shortages – rat meat. He said he was advancing his proposal after “much survey and ground work”. Bihar’s extremely poor Mushar community are rat-eaters by tradition. The Mushar are on the bottom strata of the caste system with the lowest literacy rate and per capita income. Less than one percent of their 2.3 millio...