Former Karnataka Minority Welfare Haj & Wakf minister and ex-BJP leader Prof Mumtaz Ali Khan passed away at his residence in Bengaluru in the early hours on Monday due to illnesses associated with old age. He was 94 years of age.
Khan, a sociology professor, who had taught at the University of Agricultural Sciences here, had contested the assembly election on a BJP ticket, from Bengaluru’s Jayamahal constituency in 2004. Though he lost the election, he was made the Minister for Minority Affairs, Haj, and Wakf by chief minister B S Yeddyurappa.
After Yeddyurappa quit BJP to form his short-lived Karnataka Janata Party (KJP), Khan joined the new front, only to quit it and join back the saffron party.
In 2013, when BJP announced the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate, Mumtaz Ali Khan joined the Congress party saying he was saddened by his party’s decision.
A self-avowed RSS admirer, Khan was the author of the book ‘Naa Kanda RSS’ (RSS which I have seen) in which he praised the leaders of the extremist outfit as nation builders and blamed the Congress party for allegedly misguiding Muslims towards it.
Under his tenure as the minority affairs minister, the government launched several schemes to provide financial assistance to minority students pursuing UPSC exams and provided overseas scholarships.
Khan and his family were running a free-school for the last three decades from his pension money and personal sources in memory of his late son.
Prof. Mumtaz Ali Khan is survived by his wife, one son, one daughter.
source: http://www.thecognate.com / The Cognate / Home> News / by Shaik Zakeer Hussain / June 07th, 2021
This is the seventh part of the series called `Scientist Says’ where we bring for our readers the significant and commendable research works of young scientists.
Dr. Mohammed Kausar Raza completed his M.Sc. in Inorganic Chemistry from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi and began his Ph.D. in the year 2015 with Prof. Akhil Chakravarthy lab, Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Dept., IISc, Bangalore. After completing his Ph.D in the year October 2019, he joined California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the United States as a postdoctoral research fellow in January 2020. He shares his significant research works with Rashida Bakait of India Tomorrow. Here are the excerpts of the interview.
Q. Please give a brief explanation of your research.
Ans. My research interest mainly focuses on to locate the lesions with the help of [4Fe4S] cluster and their treatment using Pt-based anticancer agents. The research area is divided into two parts: (i) Investigating the chemical role of [4fe4S] cluster in eukaryotic proteins through electrochemical and biochemical studies. (ii) Use of Pt-based complexes for chemo phototherapeutic treatment of cancer.
Cancer is considered as one the deadliest diseases which has been outspreaded in various parts of the human body. Various methodologies have been implemented till date to fight against the proliferation of cancerous cells, namely, Chemotherapy (mainly Pt-based anticancer drugs), Photodynamic Therapy (which involves photosensitizer, light, molecular oxygen), etc. To fill the pitfalls of the conventional chemotherapeutic and photodynamic therapeutic drugs including the NER machinery and less tissue penetration respectively, during my PhD research at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, I combined these two well known modalities, i.e.; chemotherapy and photodynamic therapy (PDT) by tuning the structural properties of Pt-based complexes to kill the cancer cells selectively. The idea was to develop the series of conjugates bearing the structural framework as of the conventional chemotherapeutic anticancer drug, cisplatin and BODIPY dyes for PDT activity. In photodynamic therapy, the growth of cancer cells can be terminated in the presence of light which generates ROS (reactive oxygen species) capable of cleaving the DNA of the tumor cells and in turn causing the cell death. The cell imaging is beneficial to track the anti-cancer drug inside the body. The combination of the Pt metal which encrusted the path for DNA cross-linking and the BODIPY motif attached which aided in cell imaging and killing of cancer cells in the presence of light, comes out as a new scope to design the more efficient photodynamic chemotherapeutic anticancer agents.
Earlier in my PhD, I have made efforts to treat the cancer, now I am exploring my research to detect the lesions through DNA mediated charge transport chemistry. It focuses on assessing the functional role of iron sulfur [4Fe-4S] in eukaryotic DNA replicative and repair proteins. We perform the electrochemical investigation to detect the tumor/disordered sites using DNA mediated electron transfer.
Q. When did you begin and complete your research?
Ans. My research started with my master dissertation work in the year 2014. I started working as a PhD researcher in the January 2015 and successfully submitted my thesis in Oct. 2019. Now, I have been doing research as a postdoctoral fellow in the field of biochemistry since January 2020.
Q. What was the objective of your research?
Ans. Since a variety of anticancer drugs are known to treat numerous kinds of cancers, namely colorectal cancer, breast cancer, oral cancer, and lung cancer etc. My aim was to design and synthesize a drug in such a way which is highly selective towards killing the cancer cells without harming the normal living cells. We intended to approach a dual action mechanism of platinum based anticancer drugs for real time tracking and selective cancer cell death.
Q. What were the findings of your research?
Ans. We prepared a series of mono-functional Pt-based complexes capable of binding with DNA for the treatment against cancer. We have mainly designed the mitochondrial targeting anticancer drugs, as mitochondria is known as the powerhouse of the cell and it lack NER machinery. Major outcome of our studies is in the form of a indigenously synthesized prodrug which have 100-fold better anticancer activity than FDA approved Photofrin drug. Moreover, this drug can be tracked inside the cell which is not the case with any of the FDA approved platinum based anticancer drugs. We have conducted the in-vivo anticancer studies of these drugs in the living mice models using photodynamic chemotherapeutic dual action mechanism and obtained promising results which is turned out to be a patent in this emerging field. This work was done with the collaboration in the department of biological sciences at IISc.
Q. What was the conclusion of your research?
Ans. My work presents a thorough investigation on the Pt-based anticancer drugs derived from cisplatin motif. Appendment of BODIPY moieties as florescent probes aided in cell imaging and production of ROS to kill the cancer cells in presence of light. The in-depth photophysical investigation of our Pt based complexes revealed their properties to absorb visible light and made them suitable for real time tracking. This study provides further scope for combinatorial research that includes photodynamic therapy and DNA cross linking ability of the monofunctional Pt (II) drugs (chemotherapy) against cancer. Finally, the in vivo assay results on mice showed significant arrest of tumor growth and its shrinkage in size thus giving new insights in the chemistry of platinum-based PDT agents.
Q. What kind of challenges did you face?
Ans. In my masters, I have pursued a research project in coordination chemistry. I have learned various synthetic procedures to synthesize a variety of transition metal complexes and carried out an in-depth characterization using various spectroscopic techniques. Then I joined a bioinorganic chemistry lab, where the challenge was to design the metal complexes with a sharp focus on its pharmacology (pharmacokinetics) by implementing a cost-effective methodology. Also, the fluorophore motifs incorporated in the structure must have the significant absorption and emission photophysical properties which can aid the drug in penetrating deep inside the body. It was achieved after studying the UV-Vis properties of the drugs. Developing a drug performing a dual action mechanism in treating cancer cells was itself a challenge. Furthermore, I joined a biochemistry lab at Caltech, moving from bioinorganic to biochemistry was another major challenge, where I had to learn the new techniques and methods prior to performing the experiments and analyzing the outcomes.
Q. Any scholarships or awards for research?
Ans. As the recognition of my doctoral work, I received the prestigious Carl Storm International Diversity (CSID) fellowship for Gordon Research Conference (GRC), Metal in Medicine, USA. I am also a recipient of “Government of India International Travel Research Award (DST), CSIR Travel Research Award, ICMR Travel Research Award, SBIC Student Travel Grants for ICBIC-19 in Interlaken, Switzerland. I received fellowship from MHRD and CSIR for the five year during my Ph.D.
Q. How do you think your research would be beneficial to the society or industry?
Ans.Cancer counts among the second deadliest diseases in the world. Among all types of cancer, about 30% of India’s affected population accounts for oral cancer only. Among the various therapies established for cancer treatment, photodynamic therapy is well known for the treatment of oral cancer. My research on Pt based drugs will provide a new insight and scope to combine the two therapies and kill the tumor with notable potency. Our mice model demonstrated an excellent efficacy of our drug inside the living being. These new findings can lead to investigate the drug-tumor interaction inside the human body. Implementation of our Pt based prodrugs will provide a new way to treat the cancer. Moreover, commercializing these drugs may reduce the cost of treatment. In addition, it’s manufacturing at industrial level will increase the employment for several educated and skilled people in our country.
Q. Any new research you are working on now?
Ans. Currently, I am working on the DNA mediated charge (electron) transfer chemistry. My aim is to investigate the rapid communication among DNA-processing proteins for repairment through DNA-mediated redox signaling. These DNA-processing enzymes bear an iron-sulfur [4Fe4S] cluster which performs common redox switch on binding with DNA and gives rise to DNA-charge transport chemistry. It mainly focuses on the electrochemical investigation of the chemical role of the [4Fe4S] cluster in eukaryotic DNA primase and the polymerase. Importantly, electrochemistry on the DNA-modified electrodes facilitates reaction under aqueous, physiological conditions with a sensitive electrical measurement of binding and activity.
Q. How do you think your research can be carried forward?
Ans. Organelle targeting is an emerging field and needs thorough investigation to study the action of metallodrug inside the biological systems. Introducing selectivity in structural framework of the drugs towards single organelle targeting can make the drug more potent and viable. Other metals are also prominent on anticancer platform, so it is possible to design and synthesize such cost effective and biocompatible metal ligand frameworks which is capable of performing multiple actions with significant potency. The preliminary in vivo results and pharmacokinetics suggested that a detailed study need to perform so that it can be taken to clinical trial.
Q. Give some suggestions to the budding scientists.
Ans. Academia is a never-ending journey full of exciting adventures. It should be spent with utmost pleasure and satisfaction while enjoying science. One should be able to eminence both the personal affairs and professional business. Be clear and rational. Do not hesitate while expressing and talking about yourself, be it stress or mental health imbalance. Also, create another world outside the lab and explore it. Hone your communication skills. In academia, communication is the key to success Always indulge in a teamwork, moreover, in order to be an interdisciplinary scientist, be open to accept and request for collaboration. Do something different which no one thinks is important and invest your efforts and time in it. Learn broadly. Be bold. Be passionate. Establish a name for yourself. Above all, perhaps, to be successful in academia you need to develop your persistence and preserve your creativity no matter what. The key to unlocking the untapped potential is to create and build a path conducive to novelty in science. Make your research plans wisely and execute them in a disciplined way. Always remember, slow and steady wins the race.
source: http://www.indiatomorrow.net / India Tomorrow / Home> Education / by Rashida Bakait, India Tomorrow / May 01st, 2021
Known as the Oxygen Man of Hyderabad, Mohammed Sujathullah has been waging a war against hunger for more than four years. People started calling him Oxygen Man following him providing free oxygen cylinders to more than 1000 persons suffering from coronavirus.
Mohammed Sujathullah has been arranging free breakfast for 1000 people for the last four and a half years without missing a single day, in three government hospitals–King Koti Maternity Hospital, Sultan Bazaar, Niloufer Hospital, Red Hills, and NIMS, Punjagutta. He has also been providing dinner to homeless people on the roadsides for the past year.
Mohammed Sujathullah spoke to siasat.com about his journey to help people. He also spoke about what motivated and inspired him. He also shared his future plans in the fight against hunger.
Journey
Though he studied up to fifth grade, he could learn only the use of English alphabets. “I don’t know whether it was a favor from the school to promote me from one class to another. I crawled up to the fifth standard but hardly learned anything,” he remembered.
Then came the turnaround. But he doesn’t know-how. He suddenly began focusing on studies and worked vigorously to get into B. Pharmacy in Sultan Uloom College. In the third year of the course in 2015, he realized that he has to clear an Organic Chemistry backlog which he was a tough subject for him.
He could somehow clear that subject in one of the re-examinations he wrote. Sujathullah had vowed that if he clears the examination he would feed 10 persons. Following the results remembered his vow and bought 10 food packets from his meager savings and gave them away.
“In 24 years of my life, I had never felt as happy as I did when I fed hungry persons,” Sujathullah said after his experience in charity. He went to distribute food at a railway station and found himself in a situation where he had only 4 packets and there were 15-20 hungry people looking at me expectantly.
“That’s when I realized what hunger is. I realized how privileged I was to have been born into a family where all my wishes were fulfilled by my parents,” Sujathullah added. He said that this was when he decided to start distributing food on a daily basis. That was the beginning of his journey.
Since he lived in a joint family, he told everyone what he was planning to do. His family members decided to pledge a part of their monthly earnings to feed the hungry. In 2015-16 he distributed food four times a week with the help of his friends. We started doing a supper distribution program beginning with 50 food packs and slowly reached up to 200.
During his years in Pharm. D, he wasn’t able to take time out for social service. Later he came up with the idea of organizing breakfasts. “I could benefit more people with a smaller budget,” he said.
He said that he started distributing food packets at a government hospital and later added more distribution points.
Until now he has completed 1700 days. Also, now he has been organizing breakfasts for people at three government hospitals without missing a single day.
Encouraged by the support and success of his work, Sujathullah founded an NGO, Humanity First Foundation. He is now working on various other issues.
He said that he manages the funds with the help of crown funding with a 100% donation system i.e., his NGO. At the same time, he doesn’t take any money for himself.
“Everyone has something special within himself or herself. They should recognize and use it. Pay attention to the life after death, and become a good human,” Sujathullah advises.
Future plans
“Currently we are organizing water camps at bus stops. Since the beginning of the pandemic we have arranged groceries and lunch for the migrant workers,” he informed.
Since the beginning of the pandemic last year his organization has bought 400 oxygen cylinders and 30 concentrators to benefit the people.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News> Hyderabad News / by Usama Hazari / June 21st, 2021
MANUU awards PhD in Journalism to Arif Moin on Monday.
Hyderabad:
The Maulana Azad National Urdu University on Monday declared Arif Moin qualified in Doctor of Philosophy in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Moin has worked on the topic “Socio-Cultural, Political and Religious Impact of Urdu Satellite TV Channels on Indian Muslims” under the supervision of Prof. Ehtesham Ahmed Khan, Dean, School of Mass Communication & Journalism.
The research topic covered four Urdu channels – ETV Urdu, Door Darshan Urdu Channel, Zee Salam and Munsif TV. Arif Moin has extensive experience in TV production and has been associated in various capacities with the programming department of ETV Urdu and News18 Urdu.
Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) has started online admission process for the year 2021-2022 into its various programmes being offered at Hyderabad headquarters, Lucknow and Srinagar (J&K) campuses and colleges of Teacher Education (CTEs) and Polytechnics spread in different parts of the country.
A doting father and husband, a selfless community worker, our dear friend, and a beautiful human being,” is how one message circulating on social media remembers Tippu Adam Khan, a 42-year-old man who volunteered to help many people in different ways during this pandemic. He succumbed to COVID-19 on Friday. Tippu, a former Vice President at J.P. Morgan played an immense role as a community worker leaving a lasting impact on his family, friends, and even on people who had never met him.
Tippu, along with his friends, had set up ‘Oxygen Helpline‘, a volunteer network to help procure and supply oxygen cylinders for free to people in need across the city.
Humer Khan, who started ‘Oxygen Helpline’ with Tippu Adam Khan says they started the service after he saw the crippling health situation in the city and people dying due to shortage of oxygen supply.
The group has helped more than 500 people across the city so far to procure oxygen cylinders, besides educating people and rendering other assistance to patients.
“Tippu bhai was an inspiration to work with. He worked day and night to help people get oxygen cylinders. He had no fixed timings. You could find him on a call with volunteers at 3 in the night trying to procure cylinders. I have not seen another person like him,” he said.
Mohammed Kaif, co-founder of the NGO Small Appeal, and a friend of Tippu says, he was a relentless and an altruistic individual. Days before he was tested positive for COVID, Tippu had arranged for 9000 masks and dispatched them to Lakshadweep. “When he got to know that there was a rise in Covid cases in the islands, and there was a lack of essential medical supply. He jumped right into it and formed a team to procure medical supplies. He got in touch with people in each island in Lakshadweep to try to understand the needs of people there”.
But friends and associates of Tippu say his work goes beyond providing relief during the pandemic.
Abdullah Raj, a revert and a friend describes Tippu as a genuinely loving person, who was passionate about spreading the message of Islam to the world. “He would talk endlessly about Islam to people trying to clear their misconceptions about the faith”.
Raj said Tippu even left his job as a vice president at J.P. Morgan because it wasn’t complying with Islam, which prohibits interest-based banking. “He was committed to Islam, even at the cost of personal loss,” he said.
In an online condolence meet that was organized in Tippu’s memory on Friday by his friend Imtiaz Chowdhry, more than a hundred people gathered to share their memories of him. One friend Aslam, shared an incident of how Tippu had arranged for monthly groceries for a few widows when he heard that they had no one to support them. Aslam said the families wept when they heard of Tippu’s passing away.
From his children’s school teachers to colleagues, there were tens of people who shared their stories of how Tippu had touched their lives and had helped people. One friend mentioned that he was the grandson of Muslim Vellori (Mohammed Abdul Wahid Khan), a freedom fighter, and a prominent social activist of his time, who took part in many anti-colonial struggles and was jailed several times.
The meeting that was started at 11 pm went on till 2 am. His friends said they had to organize another online meeting the next day to accommodate those who couldn’t attend due to Zoom’s participant limitations.
Tippu was admitted to the city’s Shifa Hospital on June 8th, his brother Tippu Ahmed Khan said. But within days, his condition started worsening and his oxygen level started fluctuating. But even in the hospital bed, Tippu did not stop going out of his to help people in need.
“He was texting and calling people to arrange for oxygen cylinders for other patients when his own health was fast deteriorating,” his brother said.
He was put on ventilator on Friday and he passed away in the evening.
Ameen-E-Mudassar, a Covid warrior who started the Covid Helpline Bangalore website said, in his last message to him, Tippu said that he wanted to start a school, as he had seen many people unable to afford school fees during the pandemic.
“If I come back alive, I want you to work with me on a plan for a school,” he had messaged Ameen. He never came back.
For Tippu’s friends, his silent efforts to help people, without letting anyone know about it is an inspiration they say they would carry forward for the rest of their lives. In the online condolence meeting, one constant statement everyone made about him was how despite knowing him for years there were facets of his life they were not aware of. He had touched the lives of many people in so many ways.
His friends are now planning to bring up a biography of Tippu, highlighting his life and contributions. “It will serve as an inspiration to friends and family and it will serve as a memory to his young children on what a selfless and beautiful man their father was,” said Ameen.
Tippu is survived by his wife and three children.
source: http://www.thecognate.com / The Cognate / Home> News / by Shaik Zakeer Hussain / June 20th, 2021
Besides Razia Sultana, 03 other Muslims have also qualified the coveted exam to become Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in Bihar Police
Patna:
Razia Sultana has become the first Muslim female from Bihar to become Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in the state police department.
Razia Sultana, 27, cracked the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) 64th Combined Competitive Exam (CCE) in her first attempt and was recommended for the post of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP).
Raziya Sultana originally hails from Gopalganj district of Bihar. Daughter of Mohammad Aslam Ansari, a stenographer at Bokaro Steel Plant who died in 2016, Razia Sultana completed her education from Bokaro in Jharkhand and Rajasthan.
A total of 1,454 candidates have qualified Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) 64th Combined Competitive Exam (CCE) result of which was declared on Sunday June 6, 2021.
“04 Muslims become DSP”
Of them a total of 28 candidates have been selected for Bihar Administrative Service, 40 for Bihar Police Service, 10 for Bihar Finance Service (Commercial Tax Officer), 02 for Jail Superintendent and 8 for Sub Registrar/Joint Sub Registrar.
Besides Raziya Sultana, 03 other Muslims have also qualified the coveted exam to become Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in Bihar Police. They are: Mohammed Adil Belal, Faisal Raza and Mohammad Shahnawaz Akhtar.
“No Gender Discrimination”
While preparing for the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) exam, Razia Sultana was working as Assistant Engineer at local electricity department.
Razia had passed the 12th board exams from Bokaro and later graduated from Jodhpur in Rajasthan and earned a degree in Electrical Engineering.
“Besides other things, there was no gender discrimination vis-à-vis education and learning in my family. This is why my mother had no objection when I got admission in a Jodhpur college to complete my graduation”, Razia said while sharing her success mantra.
source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> India> Education & Career / by ummid.com News Network / June 09th, 2021
An excerpt from ‘A Map of Longings’, by Manan Kapoor.
Agha Shahid Ali.
In Delhi, Shahid also became aware of the city’s Mughal and colonial history, and was impressed by its architecture. In the early ’60s, the Mexican poet Octavio Paz had visited New Delhi and had been charmed by its architecture. He wrote numerous poems about the city and about all that he had witnessed here. He found Delhi’s “aesthetic equivalent” in “novels, not in architecture”, and to him, wandering the city was “like passing through the pages of Victor Hugo, Walter Scott, or Alexandre Dumas”.
Paz’s gaze, wherever he went, was directed inwards. For him, all the experiences, including the splendour of the Mughal architecture that attracted him, were revelatory and enlightening in one way or the other. In his book In Light of India, he called Delhi’s architecture “an assemblage of images more than buildings”. It was quite the same for Shahid who, after nineteen years, had returned to the city of his birth.
He was a student at Delhi University, which wasn’t too far from Old Delhi or what was once known as Shahjahanabad, the walled city of Delhi constructed by Shah Jahan – the emperor who “knew the depth of stones, / how they turn smooth rubbed on a heart. / And then? Imprisoned / with no consoling ghosts…”
The tomb of Amir Khusro at Hazrat Nizamuddin in Delhi was a place that had attracted Paz. In “The Tomb of Amir Khusro”, he wrote: “Amir Khusru, parrot or mockingbird: / the two halves of each moment, muddy sorrow, voice of light. / Syllables, wandering fires, vagabond architectures.”
The tomb attracted Shahid as well when he visited the dargah in Delhi almost a decade later: “I come here to sing Khusro’s songs. / I burn to the end of the lit essence… / The muezzin interrupts the dawn, calls / the faithful to the prayer with a monster-cry: / We walk through the streets calligraphed with blood.”
In Delhi, Shahid found poetry at each turn. In an interview with First City in 1991, he said: “For me the lanes of Delhi, particularly the ones leading to and from the Jama Masjid, hold a dazzling value. When I used to go to Kareem restaurant or was having nihari or kulfi on the steps of Jama Masjid, I used to imagine that I was living in the days of Ghalib.”
Unlike Paz, who as an outsider in Delhi could only adore the architecture, Shahid also saw history in the city. Although he had been exposed to the historical forces that had shaped Kashmir, it was in Delhi that he discovered, for the first time, history in brick walls, minarets and on the streets. In “The Walled City: Seven Poems on Delhi”, he wrote about Jama Masjid:
Imagine: Once there was nothing here. Now look how minarets camouflage the sunset.Do you hear the call to prayer? It leaves me unwinding scrolls of legend till I reach the first brick they brought here. How the prayers rose, brick by brick?
Shahid’s poetic concerns were largely a constant for most of his life, and are palpable in these early poems. His engagement with history, which he deals with as both an insider and outsider, reflects his tenderness and the experience of a poet who belongs to multiple worlds and none at the same time.
For the next three decades, he wrote about loss and the memory of loss, the burden of history and injustices of all kinds. The seeds of these poetic concerns were sown during his childhood, mostly at home. However, they were nourished in Delhi, by the city’s air and its history, which Shahid couldn’t ignore.
In the poems from Bone Sculpture and In Memory of Begum Akhtar, Shahid emerges as a poet who feels deeply about South Asian culture as well as politics. Both the collections are influenced by Delhi and reflect an understanding of history. From a very young age, he was aware of the historical movements, the revolutions and leaders who had shaped the world he lived in.
In time, he established his position as a poet of witness with the publication of his poem “After Seeing Kozintsev’s King Lear in Delhi”, which talks about the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. In the poem, Shahid makes a conscious choice as he turns from King Lear and looks at Zafar, turning away from fiction towards fact, from the stories of the colonisers to the histories of the colonised.
This turn marks an important moment in Shahid’s poetry, and it is from here that his poems and sensibility come to be defined by a certain post-colonial outlook, where he sheds light on those whom history had ignored:
I think of Zafar, poet and Emperor, being led through this street by British soldiers, his feet in chains, to watch his sons hanged.
In exile he wrote: “Unfortunate Zafar spent half his life in hope, the other half waiting. He begs for two yards of Delhi for burial.”
He was exiled to Burma, buried in Rangoon.
In the late ’60s, when Shahid joined Hindu College, the syllabus was still under a colonial shadow and predominantly included English writers like John Milton, Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy and the Romantic poets. Although he had read all their works and admired most of them, Shahid’s language was very different from the poets that were taught to him.
Shahid once said that he was often aware that the music of his language was different, that he was able to bring certain flavours to English poetry in India for the first time, which he believed was a result of the combination of Hindu, Muslim and Western cultures in him, and the fact that he had a “natural and profound inwardness with them”.
His use of these cultures was not exotic – unlike, say, Eliot importing the word “shantih” in “The Waste Land”. Shahid felt them in three languages and didn’t have to “hunt” for subjects. In an essay written much later, he reflected on English poetry in India and said that Satyajit Ray had accomplished what he had because Ray was using a specifically Indian idiom for the first time on celluloid.
“I can use the Indian landscape, and the subcontinent’s myths and legends and history from within, and I can do so for the first time in what might seem like a new idiom, a new language – subcontinental English.”
Salman Rushdie’s case was similar. Ray, Rushdie (as well as Shahid when it came to English subcontinental poetry) had an abundance of history, tradition and what seemed like an endless river of subjects that they could explore. Shahid had, in fact, acknowledged that if the novel had done it, poetry couldn’t be far behind.
Little did he know that along with poets like Arun Kolatkar and AK Ramanujan, he would become a proponent of English writing in the Indian subcontinent, a poet who had tradition and the flavour of the soil in his bones. In an essay written much later, he reflected on how the English language was changing in the subcontinent:
The colonisers left fifty years ago, and subcontinental writers, particularly poets, can breathe greater confidence into Indian English (as Walt Whitman did into American English) not only because they belong to what, with qualifications, is the international-ism of the English language (in this context, note the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Patrick White, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, and Derek Walcott) but because, by re-creating the language, by infusing into it all the traditions and forms at their command, they can make subcontinentals feel that they do not have to seek approval for any idiosyncrasy in syntax and grammar from the queens, Victoria or Elizabeth (the second, of course). As a matter of fact, for all kinds of reasons, it is gratifying to give an insult to the English language.
By the ’60s and ’70s, some young Indian English poets had started emerging on the literary scene, much of which had to do with Purushottama Lal, the founder of Writers’ Workshop, Calcutta. The publishing house started by Lal, which operated out of the library of his residence in Calcutta, had turned into a platform for publishing Indian writing in English. It published the first works of such poets as Nissim Ezekiel, Vikram Seth, Ruskin Bond and AK Ramanujan. Lal also published Shahid’s first two collections of poetry, Bone Sculpture and In Memory of Begum Akhtar.
Yet, in the ’90s, Shahid wrote in an essay that the “Indo-English scene” during those decades was “thoroughly empty and corrupt” and that “in some quarters” it continued to remain the same, singling out Lal’s publishing house, which he said had been functioning as a near vanity press.
In his essay “Indian Poetry in English”, Shahid wrote, “Educated Indians generally speak three languages, write in two, and dream in one – English.” Although they were written in English at a time when the chutnification, or what he called the biriyanisation, of the language hadn’t taken place, Shahid’s poems were indeed very Indian in nature and in terms of the subjects they dealt with.
The English language came to him naturally, while his ideas were deeply rooted in the culture of the subcontinent. Shahid’s English wasn’t the Queen’s “propah” English but a product of the biriyanisation of the language. Although as a poet he was slowly learning, poems like “Bones”, “Introducing”, “The Walled City” and others not only marked the beginning of a poetic career but also a poetic style that was steeped in a sense of loss, language and the history of the subcontinent. When at last, in the late ’60s, he met Begum Akhtar, his appreciation for the traditions of the subcontinent grew and his poetry changed in unimaginable ways.
Excerpted with permission from A Map of Longings: The Life and Works of Agha Shahid Ali, Manan Kapoor, Vintage.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Book Excerpt / by Manan Kapoor / June 03rd, 2021
The world is in chaos. The pandemic happened when none of us were expecting it. It has been one of the most disastrous and depressing things throughout history. It wasn’t in our plans, but it happened. People have lost their jobs and their loved ones. Moreover, people are losing their will to live. The lower class of society is struggling. They are even lacking the necessities needed to survive. However, the pandemic has given rise to people who have come forward to help poor, needy, and unarmed people to fight the pandemic. These people are the warriors of the nation and Sofia Khan is one such warrior.
Sofia Khan cleared School Service Commission in 2009 and was the topper of her zone as well. Then, she was appointed as a government school teacher. However, she is also a social activist, chairman, and founder of the ‘Sufi Humanity Foundation,’ a no cash or fund transfer NGO. She is a very active participant in the improvement of our society. She has been given the post of secretary in the NGO named ‘Udaan Empowering Women’ in the year 2016 and then in the Rotary Club of Kolkata in 2018. Her performance was remarkable in the two organisations. She then joined the TMC Minority Cell, West Bengal, as a general secretary.
Sofia Khan has organized various literacy awareness campaigns in different states of the country as she is the president of the Sarparast Literacy Awareness Movement in West Bengal. She has also participated in many debates in national media as a panelist from the TMC. She conducted campaigns and rallies for TMC during the 2021 West Bengal elections. She has continuously been a keen supporter of girls, always ready to support and empower them. She helped the girls of the Milli Al-Ameen College for Girls by joining their protest against injustice to the college students. These girls were not being allowed to sit for their exams due to the college’s internal disputes. Sofia fought for them and got them justice.
It’s commendable and worth mentioning how she did not waver from her motive of helping the people even in lockdown. Sofia Khan has helped many people by providing them food amidst the lockdown. She sent back numerous migrant labourers to their native places during the first phase of the lockdown in 2020. This year when second wave was on its peak and people were dying without oxygen she was there to help people across West Bengal with free oxygen cylinders. She later extended the help and converted four cars into free ambulance service with oxygen cylinders for Covid patients. When the state was hit by a deadly tropical cyclone called the ‘Amphan’, Sofia Khan, along with her team distributed tarpaulins and ration to almost a thousand families. She also showed her support during the Yaas cyclone. She sent relief materials like biscuits, cakes, drinking water containers each of 20 litres, clothes, etc. to the affected families. Her works and contributions have also been recognized by the Sanmarg Hindi daily, Echo of India, Awami News, etc.
Life has been tougher than usual for all of us but that doesn’t stop some of us from being an inspiration to others. While our nation and the world are fighting against the pandemic, it is important that we stay alert and be responsible for each other. We need to support and help those who are unable to survive on their own. Warriors like Sofia Khan do not wait for a chance rather they create the opportunity to help others because they realize that ‘Warriors are not born, but self-made’.
(The author of the article is a freelance journalist).
source: http://www.indiatomorrow.net / India Tomorrow / Home> Featured> National Interest / by Meer Faisal / June 18th, 2021
Glossier, more attractive birding books have been published in the 80 years since Ali’s guide first appeared, but it remains indispensable.
The first edition of Salim Ali’s book appeared in 1941. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
It is a small book, my copy of Salim Ali’s The Book of Indian Birds — a hardcover version, bound in green, a mere 187 pages. I have the 1979 edition. The cover is long gone, leaving behind a few tatters of the original, but I am hard put to think of a book I have treasured and used as much. The book and an old pair of Bushnell binoculars acquired some 20 years ago are a part of my essential travelling kit, as essential as a toothbrush and comb.
The first edition of the book appeared in 1941. Jawaharlal Nehru , a keen nature lover, gifted a copy to his daughter while lodged in Dehradun jail.
Ali was quite matter-of-fact in his autobiography, The Fall of a Sparrow. According to him, the book was “acknowledged as largely responsible for creating and fostering much of the interest in birds and birdwatching seen in the country today”. Indeed, for people of a certain generation, no other guide has been valued and loved in the same way, and even among Ali’s other classic works, it is this book that has iconic status among Indian birdwatchers. While setting off on a birding trip, we would ask each other: “Have you taken your Salim Ali?” Or: “Oh, no, I forgot my Salim Ali.” It was always the small green book that we were talking of. It is the essential — the foundational — field guide for Indian birders. It is now in its 13th edition. No other book can take its place.
I came to birdwatching by serendipity. No one on either side of my family was even remotely interested in birds. By a throw of the dice, I was allotted Bharatpur for my district training in the IAS. The Keoladeo Ghana National Park beckoned. I was hooked. Ali, who had done more than anyone alive to create this “Garden of God” out of a Maharaja’s private wetlands reserve, was still alive, and visited a few times while I was there. Two bird guides, Sohan Lal and Bholu Khan, still active today, were being trained by him and other naturalists. They were to mature into fine birding guides, much in demand.
The Book of Indian Birds is where we learned our basic vocabulary of birdwatching. For instance, we learned that “pied” meant black and white, that “rufous” meant reddish-brown as in rust or oxidised iron, and that “fulvous” indicated tawny. Every carefully chosen word signified something. The clarity and the precision of expression meant that in a short half-page entry, we would have all the necessary information about a species. Each write-up was organised around five or six points — size, field characters or appearance, distribution, habits, food, call and nesting. Size was always charmingly described as myna plus, or house crow minus, or with reference to a sparrow, a bulbul or other common bird. Under “field characters”, Ali beautifully and accurately described the appearance: Colour of the feathers, the shape of the bill, silhouette in flight. A crimson-breasted barbet was “heavy-billed”, a blue-throated barbet “a gaudily coloured, dumpy green, arboreal bird” and the common grey hornbill a “clumsy brownish-grey bird”. Birds are described variously as handsome, squat, soft-plumaged, lively, dapper, dainty, spruce, slim, perky, well-groomed. The common roller or blue jay (neelkanth) is described as a “striking, Oxford and Cambridge blue bird”.
People who have always noticed the easy readability of the prose might not be aware that Ali himself gave credit to his wife, Tehmina, for ironing out the “stilted passages” and for “moderating the language”. He did not fail to praise her “remarkable feeling for colloquial English prose style”.
My Salim Ali bears the marks of the trajectory of my life, where I went, what I did. It is not merely well-worn and well-thumbed, with an unravelling spine and precarious binding; it also bears the added signs of pickle stains and tick marks in ink and pencil. Like me, it has seen better days. I know that many bird guides have been subsequently published with much better production values and better colour plates. I am aware that many of the illustrations in the Salim Ali book are decidedly not true to life. For instance, never did a rosy pastor look as pink in real life as it does in the book. But this is mere quibbling. The core and kernel of the book is that it communicates to us so successfully the magical universe of the birds of India.
The international jury which selected Ali for the J Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize of the World Wildlife Fund in 1975 said in its citation: “Your message has gone high and low across the land and we are sure that weaver birds weave your initials in their nests, and swifts perform parabolas in the sky in your honour.”
On his 34th death anniversary on June 20, it is time to remember the book that Ali gave us, which took us on this magical journey to the birds.
This column first appeared in the print edition on June 19, 2021 under the title ‘Birding with Salim Ali’. The writer is a former IAS officer.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Opinion> Columns / by Malovika Pawar / June 19th, 2021
The award is given by a US-based non-profit entity Sir Syed Education Society of North America (SSESNA)
Aligarh:
Twenty-eight students from various departments of Aligarh Muslim University students (AMU) have been selected for the prestigious Sir Syed Global Scholar Award (SSGSA) for the academic session 2021-22.
The award is given by a US-based non-profit entity Sir Syed Education Society of North America (SSESNA).
Announcing the award, Salman Bin Kashif, Chair, SSGSA Programme and a past beneficiary of the programme, said:
“The quality of applications continues to improve each year. In the coming years, it will serve the students well if they go the extra mile in building their overall profiles through projects and internships while being diligent in learning the fundamental concepts of their respective subjects. We will continue to strive for expanding our programme”.
He said a record number of applications were received from the faculties of Arts, Commerce, Humanities, Science, Medicine, Life Sciences and Engineering and Technology.
“Experts from each discipline evaluated the applications independently and the shortlisted students were invited for an online interview as a part of a rigorous selection process”, he said.
Kashif said that several faculty members from prestigious universities in the US, who were on the interview panels this year included Dr Farhan Ahmad (Honeywell International Inc), Prof Abrar Alam (Arkansas State University), Prof Nawab Ali (University of Arkansas), Prof Asim Ansari (Columbia University), Dr Ruchi Dana (Dana Corporation), Dr Shabih Hasan (Delos), Prof Syed Hashsham (Michigan State University), Prof Shakir Husain (Youngstown State University), Dr Afzal Hussain (Aligarh Muslim University), Prof Asad Ullah Khan (Aligarh Muslim University), Dr Sayeed Mohammad (Fractionation Research Inc), Dr Ahsan Munir (Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc), Prof Sultana Nahar (Ohio State University), Prof Bushra Sabri (Johns Hopkins University), Prof Yasmin Saikia (Arizona State University) and Prof Samina Salim (University of Houston).
“SSGSA Merit List”
Kashif said that the Final Merit List was compiled by taking into account various evaluation criteria like the CGPA, projects, internships and extracurricular activities.
“All the selected SSGSA scholars will be provided personalized mentorship, financial aid for the required standardized tests (GRE/GMAT, TOEFL/IELTS), and university application fees for up to five universities. The applicants who could not make it to the final list will be offered mentorship and guidance by the organization so that they can also continue with their academic goals”, he said.
“List of Past SSGSA Scholars”
Kashif said that the list of more than 120 past SSGSA scholars is also available on the SSGSA website: “www.ssgsa.us“. Many of the SSGSA alumni have successfully graduated with Masters and PhD degrees and are professionally placed across the globe, and some of them are currently volunteering for the SSGSA programme.
The selected SSGSA scholars are Aafiya (Physics), Ayush Agrawal (Mechanical Engineering), Sehrish Akhtar (Physics), Danish Alam (Physics), Ayesha Nasir Alavi (Law), Mohammad Anas (Computer Engineering), Bushra Ansari (Biochemistry), Mohd Mushfique Javed Ansari (Architecture), Samina Irshad Ansari (Psychology), Heena Aslam (Electrical Engineering), Mohd Abdul Baseer (Physics), Mohammad Fahad (Electrical Engineering), Aqib Faraz (Commerce), Ifrah Farid (Biochemistry), Harshul Gupta (Physics), Arsalan Hameed (Computer Engineering), Saman Jafri (Biotechnology), Faisal Jamal (Biochemistry), Faraha Javed (Medicine), Shahrukh Khan (Electrical Engineering), Tayyibah Khanam (Electrical Engineering), Yusra Meraj (Electronics Engineering), Madiha Noman (English), Kunwar Muhammed Saaim (Computer Engineering), Saba Sarwar (Computer Science), Md Showgat Jahan Shourave (Economics), Mohd Talha (Physics) and Amber Tanweer (Law).
The SSGSA core team, consisting of the present Chair Salman Bin Kashif (Clemson, South Carolina, USA), founding members Syed Ali Rizvi (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), Dr Saif Sheikh (Chicago, Illinois, USA), Dr Rehan Baqri (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), Dr Shaida Andrabi (Srinagar, Kashmir, India), and former chairs Dr Mohsin Khan (Providence, Rhode Island, USA), Ali Muzaffar (Atlanta, Georgia, USA), and Dr Wasikul Islam (Geneva, Switzerland), expressed gratitude to Prof Asad U Khan, Prof M M Sufyan Beg and Omar Peerzada for their help to SSGSA activities on campus.
source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> Education & Career / by Ummid.com News Network / June 11th, 2021
