Varun Gandhi has succeeded in getting all the attention by his outrageously communal tirade. While he has enraged Sikhs and Muslims, every right thinking person has been shocked. Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have openly expressed disapproval of this style of communal campaigning. One BJP leader has even threatened to disassociate himself from Varun’s campaign. Apparently a “highly objectionable slang used by Varun in his reference to Muslims could just spark off a violent comm...

Thank you for bringing out an issue (Radiance, 8-14 March, 09) focused on microfinance as an instrument of poverty alleviation. This humble scribe has been writing about this, in the context mainly of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, recommending to the Indian Muslim community leadership to take it up on a large scale but after ridding it of the element of interest. This issue of Radiance, however, clarifies the differences between the GB model and other models such as Self...

I have read the article “Interest is cancerous for society” (February 15-21, 2009). Through this article I came to know about Islamic financial System, which is a very good system. But I have an inclination to help the poor Muslims, who are not able to manage their finances. In this context I have read about Mr. Yunus from Bangladesh who has applied the micro system and helped the poor to build their houses. Our government has a policy to give insurance to the poor. They ha...

Shock, anger and outrage. These words are the least I can use to describe the appalling revelations of the Israeli army’s war crimes.

Civilians – women, children and the elderly – were  murdered ruthlessly without any reason. An Israeli squad leader said that a commander had ordered an elderly Palestinian woman shot as she walked on a road about 100 yards from a house that troops had taken over. He did not know whether she was...