Reports emanating from states in western Africa make a disturbing reading. Extremist outfits like Boko Haram in Nigeria and Ansar Deen in Mali and Niger have rendered the region a huge magnet for Islamic militants from all over the Middle East and AfPak region. Internal strife and perpetual famine had long sapped the vitality of the people here.…
Arab Spring and overthrow of autocratic regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya has heralded the democratic era in the three states. Islamists having been the leading opponents of the erstwhile regimes were generally seen as the main alternative. Consequently, they have won scrapethrough to modest majorities in the three countries. The past rulers have left no stable institutions…
Old”be they things, formulas, methods, or patterns” always looks comfortable. It is so because it is known, seen, tested and tried. New, stranger as it is, is viewed with doubt, received with skepticism and adopted”if it comes to that”with fear. Continuing with the old is easy, smooth and effortless. Embracing the new involves challenges, entails effort and is full of…
Saudis’ penchant for craziness knows no end. The Saudi Arabian government’s decision to officially ban use of English and Gregorian calendar is one more grand step towards looking most stupid and absurd. It is suicidal for any underdeveloped state to reject languages and calendar of the developed nations in a world so dependent on ever evolving technology whose flow…
Fresh and crippling US sanctions against Iran seeking to prevent it from being a nuclear weapon-capable state have almost blown the bugle for a new war in the Gulf. Sanctions are least likely to work in the case of Iran when they failed to cow down a much weaker Iraq for over a decade. The support of 401…
Frustration is building up into desperation in the ranks of the right wing Hindutva extremists. They are increasingly demonstrating their restiveness over absence of a worthwhile cause capable of lighting the communal fuse. The throwing of a piece of beef by one of their activists in the Pochamma Temple in Hyderabad serves as an index of their anxiety…
The Muslim Personal Law Board has once again proved that it is loud on rhetoric and short on fulfilling its own responsibility of initiating reforms within the Muslim society. In its recently concluded session at Mumbai, the Board warned the Government against interference in the Muslim Personal law. The Board would have carried more conviction had it shown…
