Modi told: Reach out to Muslims, dispel fear they won't be sent to detention camps

Firoz Bakht Ahmed, chancellor, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad, has told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that "Muslims of India need a reassurance from you that they are not going to be deposed or stuffed into detention camps with the deprivation of their assets. "In his letter to Modi, Ahmed, who is grandnephew of Maulana Azad and is known to be at loggerheads with the mainstream administration of MANUU, said, he should "lead" a team with his "trusted guards to have a word with the community that they should not worry" about their "safe future in India".

Dubbed as RSS and Modi plant in MANUU by his critics, Ahmed, who lives in the vicinity of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, which has seen huge protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) followed by violent police clampdown, said, Muslims "should go back to their homes and offices".
Offering his "24x7x365" services and seeking appointment for the same with Modi, the letter claimed, the Muslim protests against CAA and NRC are owing to "misinformed and misdirected" propaganda by opposition parties and individuals with vested interests.
The result is "Muslims are scared of the CAA, NRC and the National Population Register (NPR), said the letter, adding, "The country’s largest minority is cajoled and beleaguered owing to vote bank politics of the opposition conglomerate."
Muslims "think" that their "only fate is detention camps or ouster from the nation", the letter says, telling Modi that he has been "so well-meaning to the Muslims of India", one reason why he must "tell them that only illegal infiltrators and immigrants are going to be affected irrespective of their religious affiliation."
Interestingly, major protests broke out against CAA and NRC in MANUU last month in protest against Ahmed's statement on official university letterhead saying “CAA and NRC aren’t against Muslims”. In his statement, Ahmed had said, some people with "vested interest" were trying to vitiate the peaceful and harmonious fabric of India by frightening the Muslim community.

Comments

When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Search This Blog