In a setback to Bharatiya Janta Party, Congress candidate Yasmeen Kidwai has won Darya Ganj seat after recounting of votes.
Delhi State Election Commission has earlier declared the Bharatiya Janta Party candidate Meeta Bhambri declared victorious after the first round of counting. Darya Ganj has been a stronghold of Congress for many years.
Former cabinet minister Harun Yusuf also hails from old Delhi. However, the territory of Muslim areas have been snatched by the saffron party. The party has fared well in the neighbouring of Chawri Bazar and Kashmiri Gate. The party is leading on 179 seats in MCD.
In an earlier development, Delhi Congress President Ajay Maken resigned from the post.
Former Cheif Minister Sheila Dikshit had accused him of leading the party in an irresponsible manner. Former Congress Delhi women Chief had accused him of not listening to party workers. She later joined the Bhartiya Janta Party after Arvinder Singh Lovely and Amit Malik embraced the saffron party.
source: http://www.india.com / India.com / Home> News> India / by Ravi Kaushal / April 26th, 2017
Salim Sheiekh, the bus driver of the ill-fated Amarnath bus who saved the lives of yatra pilgrims during a militant attack. FIle photo.
The Gujarati bus driver who saved 52 Amarnath pilgrims from terror attack has been awarded the “Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak.”
A bus driver from Gujarat who drove through a hail of bullets and saved the lives of more than 50 Amarnath Yatra pilgrims last year has been selected for the Uttam Jeevan Raksha Padak, the second highest honour given to civilians for gallantry after the Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak.
The Home Ministry announced this on Wednesday ahead of Republic Day.
Sheikh Salim Gafur displayed rare grit and bravery and continued to drive the bus which came under attack on July 10, 2017 in Jammu and Kashmir, an official said.
Daring escape
Seven pilgrims were killed and 14 injured when terrorists opened fire on the bus near Batengoo in Anantnag district, while 52 passengers escaped unharmed as Mr. Gafur showed presence of mind.
The State government will also honour him with a ₹1 lakh cash prize at a function to be held later.
The Jammu and Kashmir police got 38 of the 107 gallantry medals, followed by the CRPF (35) and the police forces of Chhattisgarh (10), Maharashtra (7) and Telangana (6). Five IPS officers are on the medal list.
The highest number of gallantry awards were won by security personnel involved in counter-terror operations in Jammu and Kashmir.
A total of 35 personnel serving in Naxal-affected areas and three in the Northeast too have won them.
Seven police officials have been awarded the medal posthumously.
Among them six were from Chattishgarh who laid down their lives in anti-Naxal operations at Chintagufa in Sukma district.
Nand Kishore Prasad, assistant sub-inspector, CRPF, has been selected for the police gallantry medal for showing exemplary courage in an operation against terrorists who attacked a bus carrying BSF personnel on June 3, 2016.
Of the 785 police medals announced, 616 are for distinguished service.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Special Correspondent / New Delhi – January 24th, 2018
22-year-old Yusuf Khan (wearing a turban) is a Bhapang player and is using the Internet to digitalise his father & grandfatherâs music
MUNGASKA-based 22-yearold folk musician has brought digital revolution among locals and other folk artists after the area received a high-speed Internet connection in 2014.
Yusuf Khan, a Bhapang player, is on a mission to digitalise dying folk music of Mewat area in Alwar. “I am an engineer but didn’t know how to operate a computer. I went to a computer institute where I realised that Internet can break geographical boundaries. In the last one year, I have opened an account on a social networking site and have also posted my music on YouTube. This has helped me get opportunities to perform in foreign countries,” said Khan, who is also a coordinator at six computer training centres.
Khan sacrificed his professional career to make the ancient musical instrument Bhapang popular. It is an instrument inspired by Shiva’s damroo.
DIGITISE MUSIC
“My grandfather and father are both renowned artists but the art is dying. I wanted to revive it. The first thing I did was digitalise all of their recordings. In order to promote the music we need to improvise. So I started following international and national artists through the Internet and have started doing fusion with Bhapang,” Khan explained.
Khan said that over 100 local and folk artists visit his computer centre to book tickets online, contact international music organisations along with creating their websites and digitalising their music.
COMPUTER LITERACY
His computer centre is famous among the locals as almost every house now has a computer literate.
Digital literacy has brought a significant change in the area as even women of the locality have email ids and social media accounts. Locals, mostly uneducated, have applied for PAN cards, passports and availed other government schemes through this centre.
source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today – Mail Today / Home> News> Mail Today / May 30th, 2016
Rambechi village in Talala region boasts of Quraishi Baagh which has the unique distinction of 23 lakh plants / trees in 4 acre of land with 210 medicinal plants, to their credit the Qureshi couple – Gaffarbhai Muhammadbhai and his wife Zebunnisa provide cheap cure to hundreds of patients on very nominal rates.
With, on an average 25000 visitors every year; the plantation received several awards.
In addition to the prestigious Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Award of the state government, Qureshi has been felicitated twice by the Presidents of India – Gyani Zail Sinh and A. Kalam.
Having visited plantations all over the country Qureshi imbibed on the spot knowledge of plants and medicines though he has no formal education in agriculture nor any diploma in horticulture.
He maintains a nursery from where people buy plants of their choice.
His most cherished desire is to enrich the earth with one crore trees, Allah willing.
source: http://www.milligazette.com / The Milli Gazette / Home> Online News> Community News / Online April 27th, 2013 (Print April 16-30th, 2013)
Break Free: Jameela believes it is every woman’s right to create her own identity. Photo: Nagara Gopal
The journey was anything but smooth for Jameela Nishat, now a ray of hope for victims of domestic abuse.
It’s not easy giving up a secure job to work for women’s rights in an area where domestic violence and discrimination is the accepted norm. But if you dream about change and a world of equality, like poet and activist Jameela Nishat did, the transition is not hard at all.
Originally a teacher at a school for special children with a regular pay package, Jameela decided to give it all up to live for her conviction. What followed was a tumultuous journey filled with hostility, social boycott and accusations. But one thing remained constant – Jameela’s patience and perseverance. Today, not only is she well respected, she is also the person most women in Old City turn to for help.
Over the years Jameela has managed to help several women who have been victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, incest, polygamy and forced marriages to much older men through her organisation Shaheen.
The journey was never smooth though. When she first began her journey as a women’s rights activist, Jameela was met with stiff opposition by not just the men in the locality but even the women.
“Domestic violence was a way of life for these women. I was met with statements like Woh mard hi kya jo aurat ko na maare (what kind of a man doesn’t beat women). When I set up Shaheen in this locality of Sultan Shahi not too many people were open to change. It is only over time that women have begun to realise that they too have a choice,” says Jameela, who is also an executive member of Asmita Resource Centre for Women. On several occasions Jameela and her team have busted fake marriage attempts by Arab men with young city girls.
It took tremendous tact and patience on her part to get her point across. “When I first began coming to this place, I approached the girls saying I could help them with English. Being summer vacations more than 50 girls came forward to learn the language. Gradually a month later I broached the topic of sexuality. Instantly 50 girls stopped coming and I was left with just five who were willing to work with me to create awareness. That is how Shaheen began,” she explains.
Needless to say, there was a lot of resistance. “I remember one particular incident when I was surrounded by more than 25 men, who did not agree with my work. This happened after the 2003 riots in Old City. I decided to hold a workshop for the Muslim, Dalit and BC boys on communal harmony. When our staffers and other girls sat alongside them for the workshop, the boys were livid. They were worried the girls would elope with Dalit boys,” she says.
But the transformation did come about. Slowly women began approaching Jameela for help and numerous cases of domestic violence and incest came to light. “There have been cases of women seeking a divorce after tolerating violence for 25 years. They are slowly beginning to realise that abuse is not a way of life. Most heartrending are the cases of incest. We once had a seven-year-old girl tell us that her 12-year-old sister was covered in cigarette burns by their step-father. When we met the girl we learnt that the man had been sexually abusing her. In another case a mentally unstable girl had been violated for several years by a maulvi under the pretext of treating her. We intervene and try to rehabilitate these girls. But resistance still persists in some people,” says Jameela, recalling an incident where a young woman was tied to the cot and set ablaze by her husband. Yet nobody from the girl’s family wanted to press charges. The girl herself told the police that it was just an accident.
For Jameela these are not mere cases. “I live these cases myself. Victims don’t need our sympathy, they need empathy. And that is what I do,” she says. Quiz her on how her family reacts to her work and she says, “I come from a very cosmopolitan family. My father was a painter and I’m a poet. My husband is an atheist and does not believe in these practices. We are like friends living under one roof. My sons also understand and appreciate what I do. As such I do not discuss my work with my family. My siblings know about what I do through newspaper articles.”
Her true dream though was to become an artist. “However, my father was sceptical about me going to art school since we would have to paint nude models. However, writing was encouraged in Muslim households, so I took to poetry,” she says, adding that she spent her childhood watching M.F. Husain paint on their living room floor. “He was my father’s close friend. He would roll out a canvas on our living room floor, sit on it and create a masterpiece in no time. Sometimes he would just use his hands to spread the colour. I would watch him and paint some pieces myself and pass it off as my brother’s work,” she laughs.
Through all of this, Jameela’s poetry is her constant solace. “I begin my mornings by writing a couplet. I write about the incidents I come across. It helps to channel my feelings through words,” she says, sharing a couplet she recently penned, which she says aptly describes her life.
Iss zindagi ki raah mein
Aese nikal padi
Meri talab sab ko hai,
Mera hisab kucch nahi
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society / by Ranjani Rajendra / Hyderabad – September 26th, 2013
Women are going places, they say. But Mumbai’s Motorwoman, Mumtaz Kazi takes people places by driving them in Mumbai’s local trains. Not only is she one of the few motorwomen the world has seen, but she’s also a first in Asia, to begin with.
In a career span of more than 20 years, Mumtaz has driven various kinds of trains. She is also Asia’s first woman train driver.
Sure that didn’t come easy, did it?
From a very young age, Mumtaz wanted to be in Railways. Her father was a Trunk Superintendent at Churchgate railway station. She grew up in the railway quarters and used to watch the trains pass by.
She was born and brought up in Mumbai and went to Seth Anandilal Poddar High School. In 1989, just after her SSC, she applied for the job of the motorman.
Since that very year there was a change in the railway recruitment board policy in India, Mumtaz could sit for the examinations and applied for it.
She did extremely well in examinations, leaving everyone impressed with her ambitiousness. And, was appointed in 1991 just after her class twelve examination.
While she was extremely happy about the job, she faced a bit of resistance from her father’s side upon her decision. Her father, Allahrakhu Ismail Kathawala, asked her to complete her Diploma in Medical Laboratory Technology (DMLT) course first.
After much convincing, Mumtaz’s father gave in and gave her his blessings. And, she became the first motorwoman. In its 1995 edition Limca Book of Records acknowledged Mumtaz’s success and she became the first woman diesel engine driver in Asia at the age of 20.
Not only that, Mumtaz also went on to become the first train driver to possess the skill of driving both Electric and Diesel engine.
Throughout her journey, Mumtaz was the courageous support system to her family. It was because of her, they could buy a home in Mumbai and she also helped with her brothers’ education. Both her brothers, Imtiyaz and Feroz, are engineers and settled abroad.
But that’s not the only thing for which she makes all look up to her. When she’s not driving trains and being on the job, she is a homemaker and loves spending time with her family.
She got married to an electrical engingeer from Nandoorbar, Maqsood Kazi, in 2002 and is a proud mother of two kids Tausif Ahmed and Fateen.
In the year 2015, she was awarded Railways General Manager Award.
And, in 2017, on International Women’s Day, she was awarded the Nari Shakti Award by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Mumbai’s local train is one of the busiest railway network and Mumtaz, like a boss, pilots the busiest local trains. With her grit and determination, Mumtaz, over the course of more than two decades, has set an example that there’s no job that women can’t do. After all, the levers on the train don’t know if it’s a man or a woman’s hands operating them.
source: http://www.storypick.com / StoryPick. / Home> Culture / by Rachna Srivastava / March 10th, 2017
UTTAR PRADESH / Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA / New York, USA :
Khan designed the dress for Houston Ballet Ball chair Hallie Vanderhider.
Hallie Vanderhider / Photo by Jenny Antill
Black Swan :
Guests at The Houston Ballet Ball were encouraged to don black, white or a mix of both as an ode to Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Swan Lake,” but Houston Ballet Ball chair Hallie Vanderhider took the concept further — much further, enlisting the design prowess of Naeem Khan to create her feather-laden gown.
Vanderhider and Tootsies creative director Fady Armanious flew to New York and met with Khan to discuss a gown that would capture the elegance and dark beauty that Vanderhider had envisioned for the ball. Within a few sketches, the trio had landed upon an all-black gown covered in 3,500 natural black coque feathers, weighing in at 7.25 pounds.
“It was a magical moment. Naeem totally captured the essence of Swan Lake,” Vanderhider said. “He is such an amazing talent and has a great sense of humor.
Khan encouraged Vanderhider to embrace the mysterious elements of the dress, reminding her, “This isn’t a mother-of-the-bride gown.” The gown’s sheer long sleeves and bodice were finished with intricate beading.
source: http://www.wwd.com / WWD / Home> Fashion> Fashion Scoops / by Heather Staible / February 22nd, 2018
Mysuru girl Rifah Taskeen drives into the Golden Book of World Records.
Rifah Taskeen drives a truck in Mysuru on Sunday.
Mysuru:
Amazing though it may seem, seven-year-old Rifah Taskeen at last got permission from the state government to participate in a record breaking event and drove 16 vehicles, in a bid to become the youngest to drive multiple wheeled vehicles at Idgah ground and St Joseph’s school ground at Bannimantap here on Sunday
In her bid to enter the Golden book of world records, the tiny wonder drove a lorry, Mahindra Bolero, Tata Ace, Mahindra Scorpio, Toyota Fortuner, Maruti 800, Maruti van, Maruti Esteem, Maruti Zen, Santro, Ford, an ambulance, a Hyundai Verna, a Tata Indica and a Quad bike among others (Her father had modified and lowered the level of the seats in the vehicles to suit her height).
Mr Santhosh Agarwal of Golden Book of World records, who represents South India, participated as an observer in the event. Rifah aimed for the record after permission was granted by Primary and Secondary Education minister Tanveer Sait and Mysuru city police Commisioner Dr A Subramanyeswara Rao. Her aim now is to become the youngest pilot. Her parents are in touch with a few airlines and a firm has agreed to train her, according to her father Tajuddin.
Tears flooded the eyes of Bibi Fathima, mother of Rifah, a class 2 student of St Joseph’s school at Bannimantap after seeing her feat. Principal of her school Maria Gracilda had no words to express her happiness as Rifah stunned people at the event, with her amazing confidence.
Rifah’s father Tajuddin, a contractor of floor tiles and a former racer who has won several national level contests, has worked as stuntman and dancer in several movies while her mother is a government school teacher. They reside in NR Mohalla here. Owing to constraints, Tajuddin couldn’t fulfill his dream of contesting in races at the international level. He started training Rifah ever since she was a baby. “I used to put her on my lap when I used to drive. She learnt driving at the age of 3,” Mr Tajuddin disclosed.
Rifah has performed stunts at school during Republic Day and Independence Day programmes. She even launched Chinnara Dasara hosted by the department of women and child development, in the presence of chairperson of Karnataka Commission for the Protection of Child Rights Krupa Amar Alva, during Dasara recently. But due to lack of permission from the authorities, the event to break the record was delayed. “My only aim is to drive a Formula 1 car and also become a pilot,” Rifah said.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / by Deccan Chronicle / by Shilpa P / November 06th, 2017
Rokeya Begum was an educationist, writer, social activist and effectively, India’s first Bengali Islamist-feminist.
As a Muslim reformist, her activism was neither half-baked nor exclusionist, yet little is known of her meaningful contributions to society.
Sometimes when wars are long and without any imminent hope of triumph or an end, it’s best to count on the smaller victories. Such as the taking down of Omprakash Mishra’s misogynist cringe-pop video or Uber apologising for their presumptuous and sexist offer on “Wife Appreciation Day” or Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale bagging the Emmy for “Best Drama Series” leaving behind popular shows like Westworldand Stranger Things.
The Handmaid’s Tale is to feminists what the BJP manifesto is to Arnab Goswami. Though Margaret Atwood’s evergreen dystopian thriller published in 1985 was one of its kind, it wasn’t the first. Eighty years before that, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain published her feminist utopian fantasy Sultana’s Dream, a novella investigating the ironies of a technologically advanced, gender-reversed India (one where men were confined to the “zenana” — the part of a house for the seclusion of women, or as Rokeya terms it, the “mardana” — imagined in the dreams of a woman named Sultana.
Born in 1880 to a wealthy Zamindar family in Pairabondh (present Bangladesh), Rokeya Begum was an educationist, writer, social activist and effectively, India’s first Bengali Islamist-feminist. While Savitri Phule and Pandita Rama Bai re-emerged through the obliterating clouds of India’s redacted history-telling, the narrative on Rokeya’s work remains shrouded, at least, in India.
Her father, an orthodox Muslim, persisted that the women maintained purdah and allowed them to be educated in Arabic (only) to enable them to read the Quran. Rokeya and her sister Karimunnesa, learned Bengali and English at the behest of their supportive brothers, who educated them on the sly. Perhaps this phase of her own life contributed amply to her tenacious belief that the lives of Muslim women could not be ameliorated without proper education. Added to that was her own sister who remained a key inspiration for Rokeya’s writings and her social work.
Karimunnesa, a seasoned poet, had been married off before the age of 15, putting what might have been a lucrative future to an abrupt end. This had further consolidated Rokeya’s faith in educational and individual rights for women — chiefly Muslim women, who, in that era, lived like showpieces in a glass casket but with an iron curtain.
With this line of thought and the support of her husband (Sakhawat Hossain, whom she was married to at the age of 16 and who died in 1909) and the money he had set aside, Rokeya went on to establish Sakhawat Girls Memorial High School, five months after his demise.
She started the school in Bhagalpur (a majority-Urdu speaking area in erstwhile East Bengal) with merely five students and was forced to shift the school to Kolkata in 1911 due to property feuds with her husband’s family. It remains one of the city’s most popular schools for girls and is now run by the state government of West Bengal.
Today, Rokeya’s memory is as fleeting — even for her benefactors — as Sultana’s dream. Photo: http://nationalwomansparty.org
In 1916, she founded the Anjuman-e-Khawateen-e-Islam (Islamic Women’s Association), which was her other organisational contribution to Bengali Muslim women. Through this organisation she offered financial and educational support to downtrodden Muslim women, over and above raising public opinion regarding the issue of Muslim women’s rights. That Rokeya was way ahead of her times finds semblance in the curricula of the school she established, which included physical and vocational training in an attempt to arm women with financial independence. She coined the term “manoshik dashhotto” or mental slavery, referring to the absence of individuality that pervaded the entire gamut of Muslim women and attributed it as the root cause for their subjugation. This rings true even today.
A century ago, Rokeya approached her adversaries with a wit and logic that is hard to find in today’s generation (which appears to be self-deprecatingly volatile). Insightfully, Rokeya tapped into the quintessential Muslim male ego and inversed it to men’s disadvantage, instead of directly antagonising them with liberal arguments.
She writes, “The Muslim society is paying a greater price for the lack of any system of education for their women. I have been informed by a reliable source that some educated Muslim youths of well-to-do families are setting conditions that if they can’t find educated Muslim women, they will not marry. They even threaten to become Christians and marry someone from that community if they fail to find educated Muslim women.”
Critics might question the ethic behind this approach, but the truth is, even now, “the threat to minority identity” continues to be the most veritable impediment to the realisation of Muslim women’s rights.
Keeping this in mind and the socio-politico environment of that era, perhaps by playing on their fears was not only ingenious but also the only way out.
In 1926, when she was invited to chair the Bengal Women’s Educational Conference, she said, “Although I am grateful to you for the respect that you have expressed towards me by inviting me to preside over the conference, I am forced to say that you have not made the right choice. I have been locked up in the socially oppressive iron casket of ‘porda’ for all my life. I have not been able to mix very well with people – as a matter of fact, I do not even know what is expected of a chairperson. I do not know if one is supposed to laugh, or to cry.”
Having lost her husband early and her two children who died at infancy, Begum Rokeya was not just subjected to scathing criticisms for her views but also faced unforgiving social exclusion. Despite the variegated hindrances she faced, in lieu of her gender, her community and the very fabric of the milieu that she had set out to change, she worked tirelessly and fearlessly to carve a way out for many Bengali Muslim women like myself.
Begum Rokeya died on December 9, 1932, and up until 11pm on December 8, 1932, she was working on an unfinished article titled, “Narir Odhikar“, which translates to women’s rights. The over-arching principle that governed her literary and social work was feminism and through it she heralded the discourse into Bengal. As a Muslim reformist from that era, Rokeya’s activism was neither half-baked nor exclusionist as the classist and sexist Aligarh movement led by Syed Ahmed Khan, yet little is known of her meaningful contributions to society. Today, Rokeya’s memory is as fleeting — even for her benefactors — as Sultana’s dream.
source: http://www.dailyo.in / Daily O / Home> Variety / by Suman Quazi / September 21st, 2017
Martial arts exponent Pathan Jameel Khan represents the other side of Indian sport?
Well, yes, if his ordeal in getting even a decent job or sponsorship to take part in international sporting events is any hint. For this 40-year-old Jameel, winner of 15 gold, 13 silver and 17 bronze at the national and international events including two 2016 World Cup silver in the US is now struggling to meet both ends for want of financial support.
At a time, when cash incentives are being showered on truly deserving outstanding achievers, Jameel gently asks what is that he should do more to get the attention of the powers-that-be.
A native of Mandamarri village in Adilabad district, Jameel, whose father is a vegetable vendor, moved over to Hyderabad to pursue his passion in karate. His diligence and consistency at the highest level have won acclaim including an offer from a martial arts organisation to settle down in US with a chance to represent US. But for the love of the country, he spurned that and came back to India with hope of getting some help. But, as things stand, Jameel, a BA from Dr.Ambedkar Open University, is still staring at an uncertain future – even shunted out from one rented accommodation to the other for not being able to raise even the rental by the first week of the month. His lone source of income – training about 20 karate kids in Mehdipatnam – is always doubtful as it depends on the payment of fee by the students. Still, he has the grace to train about 500 girls of a Government-aided school free of cost to make them good in self-defence daily even now.
It may be recalled here that Telangana Government has been pretty generous in showering cash incentives on some of the deserving athletes in the recent past, running into lakhs but the fact that there are some big achievers like Jameel who are out of its radar is a sorry story of the powers-that-be not getting the right info. “May be, I am paying a price of not having the right connection or Godfathers to take up my cause,” moans a dejected Jameel even as he pursues the dream of representing India at this age in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics where karate is being introduced for the first time.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by V.V. Subrahmanyam / Hyderabad – September 29th, 2016
