Category Archives: World Opinion

5 Things to Know About Lt Col Sophia Qureshi – First Woman to Lead an Army Contingent

Amazing Feats, Leaders, World Opinion, ,

GUJARAT :

Lieutenant Colonel Sophia Qureshi has become the first woman officer to lead an Indian Army contingent at a multi-national military exercise. Named ‘Exercise Force 18’, this is the largest ever foreign military exercise hosted by India, and Lt Col Sophia Qureshi is the only woman leader amongst the 18 participating contingents. The Field Training Exercise started in Pune on March 2 and will continue till March 8. The Indian contingent, which will play a key role in the training with other troops in Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs) and Humanitarian Mine Action (HMA), has 40 members.

‘   “On these missions, we monitor the ceasefires in those countries and also aid in the humanitarian activities. The job is to ensure peace in the conflict affected areas,” Sophia Qureshi told The Indian Express while talking about the role of peacekeeping missions in conflict areas around the world.  ‘

Here are five things to know about her:

1. 35-year-old Sophia Qureshi was selected from a pool of peacekeeping trainers to lead this contingent.

source : PIB
source : PIB

2. Presently, she is an officer from the Corps of Signals of the Indian Army.

source: Twitter
source: Twitter

3. In 2006, she served in United Nations Peacekeeping Operation in Congo and has been associated with PKOs for the last six years.

4. She hails from Gujarat and holds a post-graduate degree in bio-chemistry.

source: Twitter
source: Twitter

5. Her grandfather was in the Army and she is married to an Army officer from Mechanised Infantry.

Members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), including India, Japan, Korea, China, Russia, United States, Australia, and New Zealand are participating in the exercise. The opening ceremony was held at Aundh Military Station.

‘  “In the Army, we believe in equal opportunity and equal responsibility. In the Army, there is no difference between male and female officers. She has been picked not because she is a woman but as she has the abilities and leadership qualities to shoulder the responsibility,” said Lt Gen Bipin Rawat, Army Commander of Pune based Southern Command. ‘

source: http://www.thebetterindia.com / The Better India / Home> Quick Bytes / by Tanaya Singh / March 04th, 2016

Muslim to head India’s domestic spy agency in historic first

Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, World Opinion, , , ,

Kanpur, UTTAR PRADESH / Bhopal, MADHYA PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

AsifIbrahimMPOs07sept2017

For the first time in the history of India, a Muslim officer has been selected to head the country’s domestic intelligence agency.

The Intelligence Bureau (IB), one of India’s most powerful intelligence organizations, will be led by Syed Asif Ibrahim, one of relatively few Muslim senior officers serving in the country’s predominantly Hindu security and intelligence apparatus.

It will be the first time that the IB, which was formed in 1877 under British colonial rule, and today operates under the Ministry of Home Affairs, will be led by a Muslim.

Formerly a senior officer in the Indian Police Service, Ibrahim, 59, has served for years in the IB’s Directorate of Operations, and recently served as the Bureau’s Chief of Station at the Indian High Commission in London, United Kingdom.

His supervisory experience includes roles in the IB’s counter-cyberespionage and counterterrorism units. IntelNews hears that Ibrahim is widely seen by Indian intelligence officers as someone with a “crystal-clear understanding” of Islamic-inspired militancy inside the country.

Ibrahim’s appointment was announced late last week by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, a senior government body lead by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Following the announcement, observers noted that at least four IB officials, who had been tipped for the job of director and were above Ibrahim in terms of seniority, were assigned to positions outside the Bureau, ostensibly to clear the way for Ibrahim’s appointment.

Mumbai-based news portal Rediff spoke to an unnamed Indian intelligence official, who said that, although Ibrahim is widely seen as a “professional and an outstanding officer with the widest range of experience […], there could be a debate on the issue of seniority”. Specifically, some in the IB believe that the criteria for seniority were used “selectively” in Ibrahim’s appointment.

But India’s Muslim community appears to have welcomed the news. Rediff quoted Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan, president of the All-India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (the umbrella body of Indian Muslim groups), who sees Ibrahim’s appointment as “a new beginning” and hopes “it will help alter the image f the IB, which is normally seen as a bastion of upper-caste Hindus”.

Ibrahim’s appointment is expected to be officially announced today, Monday. Ibrahim will formally succeed the IB’s outgoing Director, Nehchal Sandhu, on December 31. He is expected to remain on the post for at least two years following his appointment.

source: http://www.intelnews.org / IntelNews.org / by Joseph Fitsanakis / November 26th, 2012

Air Marshal Jaffar Zaheer: Principled Indian Air Force officer

Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, World Opinion, , , , ,

Lucknow, UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

News, Obituaries 

Jaffar Zaheer’s impish irreverence hid a steeliness that emerged in the unusually principled stand he took against India’s omnipotent political establishment during the premiership of Indira Gandhi. As the first Indian Air Force (IAF) officer to head the country’s chaotic Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Zaheer refused, despite relentless political pressure, to withdraw the case against Gandhi’s unruly son, Sanjay, for flying a commercial airliner with passengers without a valid licence.

He also declined to apologise to Sanjay, an unforgiving thug who drew authority from being his mother’s political heir, for the “inconvenience” of charging him with the offence. The unrelenting Zaheer then further banned Sanjay Gandhi from flying a stunt plane and from executing dangerous aerobatics over the capital, Delhi, in violation of all safety norms. Sanjay ignored the veto and continued; Zaheer quietly resigned in June 1980.

On 23 June, Sanjay, unable to exit from a complex loop in his single-engine two-seater plane, crashed and died, changing the course of Indian politics. Zaheer was asked to withdraw his resignation, offered palliatives like ambassadorships and state governorships. But he declined, preferring instead the anonymity of running the small, private Khambatta airlines in the western port city of Bombay for the next five years.

But Zaheer’s impetuosity as a newly commissioned officer in the then Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) in the early 1940s had almost ended his budding career after he poured a bottle of wine on his instructor whilst raising a toast during his “dining in” at an RAF mess in England. As the stunned senior officer glowered under the onslaught, Zaheer declared with aplomb to a speechless, but secretly pleased, audience of English fighter pilots that the drenched gentleman had needed a spring cleaning.

The only Indian cadet at the RAF base undergoing an aircraft conversion course, Zaheer had found the chief instructor’s behaviour racist, an assessment the commanding officer possibly shared, as he merely demanded to know whether the offending wine had been white or red. And, instead of the court martial that was under serious consideration, Zaheer’s eventual punishment was merely to reimburse the officer for the cost of dry-cleaning his uniform.

Zaheer was born in 1923 into an aristocratic Muslim family in Lucknow in northern India, the son of a renowned politician who after independence became a government minister and later a diplomat. Schooled locally, he joined the prestigious Allahabad University but left before graduating to join the RIAF in 1942. Soon after, along with other Indian cadets, he was dispatched to Canada to undergo flying training and was commissioned into service in September 1943 in the rank of Flying Officer.

The Second World War ended during Zaheer’s journey home by boat, but he did see some action strafing restive Pashtun tribesmen in the North West Frontier Province – now in Pakistan – in the region bordering Afghanistan that remains in ferment even today, having changed little in over a century.

Zaheer was one of a handful of IAF fighter pilots to graduate from the Institute of Armament Technology, a discipline that helped him formulate the Weapons Planning Directive of 1963 that remains the template for all such activity at Air Headquarters even today.

From 1964 until he retired 15 years later as IAF’s deputy chief in the rank of Air Marshal, Zaheer held various staff and operational appointments in which he oversaw the air force’s modernisation and streamlined its Byzantine financial procedures. During the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to the formation of Bangladesh, Zaheer commanded the critical Agra air force station near Delhi and was decorated for his services.

After retiring in 1979 he was appointed to head the Civil Aviation Directorate and almost immediately earned the ire of corrupt politicians by refusing to acquiesce to their demands to acquire a particular aircraft for which they were doubtlessly receiving backhanders. Zaheer’s scrapes with Sanjay Gandhi eventually led to his resigning in 1980, two years before his term expired.

His droll sense of humour and self-deprecation never left him. When Zaheer was suffering from the early ravages of Alzheimer’s, a youngster once asked after his health. “Never felt better,” Zaheer quipped. “Don’t remember a thing.”

Kuldip Singh

Jafar Zaheer, air force officer: born Lucknow, India 14 June 1923; Director, Air Staff Requirements, Indian Air Force 1973-74; Director-General of Civil Aviation 1979-80; married (three sons); died New Delhi 23 January 2008.

source: http://www.independent.co.uk / Independent / Home> News > Obituaries / by Kuldip Singh / Tuesday – April 08th, 2017

Barefoot footballer Ahmed Khan no more

Amazing Feats, Leaders, Sports, World Opinion, , , , , , , ,

Bengaluru, KARNATAKA  / Kolkata, WEST BENGAL :

Ahmed Khan. | Photo Credit: Handout E Mail
Ahmed Khan. | Photo Credit: Handout E Mail

Ahmed Khan, the last of India’s glorious generation of barefooted footballers who made a mark on the 1948 Olympic Games, passed away here on Sunday.

He was 90 and died due to age-related issues. Khan, who was also part of the Indian sides that won gold at the Asian Games of 1951 and went to the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, will be remembered as a gifted inside-left who mesmerised spectators with his ball control.

He played for East Bengal for a decade, and formed part of a feared five-member forward-line — Sale, Dhanaraj, Appa Rao and Venkatesh the others — nicknamed the ‘pancha pandavas’.

“His close control was so good that they called him the snake-charmer, for he could make the ball do his bidding,” recalled I. Arumainayagam, who turned out for India at the 1962 Asian Games.

“We used to call him paambati. His death is a big loss to Indian football.”

Khan was born in 1926 into a family of footballers. His father, Baba Khan, was captain of local club Bangalore Crescent, while two of his uncles turned out for Mohammedan Sporting in Kolkata.

Ahmed’s three brothers — Amjad Khan, Sharmat Khan and Latif Khan — all played football at various levels.

As early as 1938, Ahmed joined Bangalore Crescent, where he played alongside his father.

He is best remembered, however, for his role in the 1948 Olympics in London, where India lost its first-round match in heartbreaking fashion to France but made a deep impression on the public.

In a report for The Hindu dated September 25, 1948, A. Ramaswamy Aiyar wrote: “Raman and Ahmed, the left-extreme and the left-inside, hail from Bangalore. They showed uncanny control over the ball and had perfect understanding.

“It was a treat to watch them move with the ball, interchange positions and run rings round the defence. They kept the audience spellbound and moved with such ease that they were described as a pair of wizards.”

“After winning the Rovers Cup with Bangalore Muslims, he joined East Bengal in 1949 and played for the club for the next 10 years.”

In a statement, East Bengal general secretary Kalyan Majumder hailed him as a “barefooted genius” and perhaps the greatest player the club had ever seen.

“With outstanding individual brilliance the barefooted Khan was capable of deciding the fate of any match all by himself. Even after boots were made mandatory I recall his outstanding performance in the 1958 IFA Shield final when he along with Balaram destroyed Mohun Bagan to win the Trophy,” he said.

“One also recalls the spectacular goal he scored against Yugoslavia playing barefooted in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.”

Khan’s death was condoled by the Karnataka State Football Association. He is survived by his wife, Rabia Begum, and children Majid Khan and Parveen Begum.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport> Football / by Special Correspondent / Bengaluru – August 28th, 2017

Life at a funeral

Amazing Feats, Leaders, Sports, World Opinion, , , , , , ,

Bengaluru, KARNATAKA / Kolkata, WEST BENGAL  :

AhmedKhanMPOs29aug2017

As Ahmed Khan is laid to rest, kin feel blessed to belong to the same family as the football great; contemporaries remember him as a humble man who loved the game

Amjad Khan sat quietly sipping chai, unmindful of the cacophony raised by a line of four-wheelers jostling for space on the narrow, single-laned Mackan Road. His brother Ahmed, arguably India’s greatest footballer who passed away on Sunday, had just been laid to rest and the mourning — for now — was over. The multitude, that had turned out to pay their respects and attend the funeral, had departed and house #75 — the house of ‘Ahmed, the Olympian’ — was slowly returning to ‘normal’.

A smile spread across Amjad’s face when he was asked about his brother. With every sip of chai that he took, Amjad’s eyes took on an even more vacant look as his mind went back in time. “What makes a man great? This is how I analyse it,” Amjad, also a former India international, said. “You could say Ahmed played up to 1958, right? Public memory is generally short. We watch a good movie and don’t remember it a month later. But if people remember this man, after 60 years of his playing career, then he must have done something extraordinary.”

There was pride in Amjad’s every breath. It was the predominant feeling shared by those in house #75. A feeling that stemmed from simply being associated with the bloodline of India’s greatest dribbler, fondly nicknamed ‘the Snake Charmer’ by the English media. Even Mannan, a grandson who was born decades after Ahmed hung up his boots, said he was “proud to just be born in the same family as Ahmed”.

Inside the house, Mannan proudly pointed to Ahmed’s trophies, a collection that was put on display just above the freezer box that contained Ahmed’s remains only hours ago. Numerous tributes by East Bengal, Ahmed’s club in Kolkata, were laid out. “The Padmashri has lost a bit of its sheen today because it was never awarded to Ahmed,” Amjad remarked on the conspicuous lapse of the Central government’s attention to a man who had bagged the gold in the 1951 Asian Games.

Among India’s greatest football heroes, Ahmed is right up there. As an inside-left (withdraw striker), Ahmed played in two Olympics (1948 and 1952) and won every domestic trophy that was up for grabs with East Bengal. “You know the thing about cotton? Whatever you throw on cotton, it never bounces back. That was Ahmed’s dribbling prowess,” Amjad said. “My father used to say that if Ahmed had not become a footballer, he would have become India’s best athlete. You know, when he was studying in the St Aloysius School in the city, he never used to carry books to the school. Instead, he used to take a small ball, a tennis ball, and practise dribbling on his way to school and back. That explains his gift.”

Ahmed was part of the deadly ‘Panchapandavas’ of EB, a forward line also comprising P Venkatesh and PB Saleh on the flanks, Apparao as the inside right and Dhanraj in the centre. When asked whether the gold medal was Ahmed’s top moment as a player, Amjad laughed. “That was just okay,” he said. “Have you heard of Sahu Mewalal, the guy who scored the winner at the 1951 Asian Games? Every year in Calcutta, where he used to play for Railways, he was the top-scorer of the league. Dhanraj wanted to overthrow Mewalal and asked Ahmed to do something for him. In one game, this gentleman (Ahmed) dribbled past everyone, even the goalkeeper, and called Dhanraj to the post to tap it in. That year, Dhanraj became the top-scorer. Scoring goals was Ahmed’s wish when he was playing.”

I Arumainayagam, the 1962 Asian Games gold medallist from the other time that India ruled globally, called Ahmed an inspiration. “We used to learn from watching him play,” he said. “We used to name ourselves ‘Ahmed’, ‘Dhanraj’, ‘Basheer’ and emulate their style. We, of course, couldn’t play as well as they did, but they influenced us greatly.”

More than anything, Ahmed was a fine human being. The 1952 Helsinki Olympics showed that. India were humiliated 1-10 by Yugoslavia and Ahmed repents that he was able to score only one goal in that game. Outside the Olympics, he often used to skip practice sessions while playing for East Bengal which made people wonder at his talent. He also preferred to play barefoot, shunning boots when the occasion afforded it. He was also fond of playing cards and often drew players from rival club Mohun Bagan into a round after a football game. During one such game, he was up against Sailen Manna, Bagan’s top defender of that era. “Manna was trying to convince Ahmed to play for Bagan,” SS Shreekumar, a former journalist and Ahmed’s friend, said. “This was in a room packed with footballers from Bagan and their supporters who were watching them. Eventuall, Ahmed agreed to play for Bagan. The entire room was stunned on hearing it. But Ahmed had one condition.

Manna asked him what it was. He told Manna that he will have to play for EB and the room burst into laughter.”

Shreekumar wonders what could have been had Ahmed accepted an offer to play for Swedish club IFK Göteborg. “He was named East Bengal’s best forward of the millennium,” Shreekumar said. “But when IFK Göteborg contacted Ahmed, his father asked him to consult his club, East Bengal. Jyotish Chandra Guha, a former secretary of EB who had scouted Ahmed, was worried about losing him. He downplayed Ahmed’s future in Sweden by suggesting it would be too cold and that the locals might put him down because he would be the only Indian there.”

While the tributes kept pouring in, Amjad’s tea was done. But the smile remained. “There are two things which makes football interesting – scoring goals and dribbling,” he added. “Ahmed found it interesting because of the second reason.”

Today, Ahmed Khan is no more. But ‘Ahmed Khan Olympian’ will live on forever.

source: http://www.bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Sports> Football / by Aravind Suchindran, Bangalore MIrror Bureau / August 29th, 2017

AMU Alumni made to toppers in Boston University School of Dental Medicine

Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Education, NRI's / PIO's, Science & Technology, World Opinion, , , ,

Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH / Boston, USA :

Dr Mohammad Abbas Khan
Dr Mohammad Abbas Khan

Aligarh :

Aligarh Muslim University Alumnus, Dr Mohammad Abbas Khan has brought laurels to his Alma mater after graduating, among the top of his class at the Boston University School of Dental Medicine, USA for Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD).

Khan has scored a 100 percent in Pharmacology besides scoring the highest marks in Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology in his exams at the Boston University School of Dental Medicine.  He has also been felicitated during the award ceremony of the Dental School. Meanwhile, he has also been awarded by the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, USA for being among the top of the Dental School’s merit list.

Khan, who has been in the Boston University for over two years, has made remarkable contributions to the student bodies. As the elected President of American Association of Public Health Dentistry for the Boston University, he generated awareness about Public Health and spearheaded new initiatives. Due to his good academic record and passion to contribute to the students, he was appointed as the teaching assistant for the subjects of Pharmacology, Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Endodontics and Removable Prosthodontics.

Before beginning his journey at Boston University for his DMD, he did his MPH from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) and graduated in 2015. Even at JHSPH, he was among toppers and contributed to the student community as the elected Vice-President for Johns Hopkins Student Assembly and Student representative for Committee on Academic Standards.

Khan’s mother, Dr Zebun Nisa Khan teaches at the Department of Education, AMU while his father Professor Huzoor H Khan teaches at the Department of Mathematics, AMU.

source: http://www.twocirlces.net / Two Circles.net / Home> Indian Muslims> Lead Story / TCN News / May 29th, 2017

Involvement by fans a big factor in my playing days – Muneer Sait

Sports, World Opinion, , , , ,

Chennai, TAMIL NADU :

Sportstar caught up with distinguished former India hockey goalkeeper Muneer Sait, who was part of the Indian team that won the bronze in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. He had arrived at the launch of Sportstarlive.

'During my time, when hockey was popular, we played in front of packed stadiums and having fans chant your name really gave me a kick', said Muneer Sait (seated centre). - R.RAGU
‘During my time, when hockey was popular, we played in front of packed stadiums and having fans chant your name really gave me a kick’, said Muneer Sait (seated centre). – R.RAGU

One of the outstanding hockey goalkeepers of his time, Muneer Sait was part of the Indian team that won the bronze in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. For his work on field hockey, the International Hockey Federation awarded Sait the President’s Award in 2005. Hockey India inducted Sait as part of the five-member selection committee in 2009 and he is also associated with Squash Rackets Federation of Tamil Nadu. We caught up with the Olympian for an informal chat during the launch of Sportstarlive.

Edited excerpts:

What’s your impression of Sportstar? We are going live with our website…

The launch party was very well organised. It is nice to see a variety of sportspersons attending this event. Good representation from tennis, cricket, squash, snooker and also chess. I’ve been a regular reader of Sportstar and The Hindu. Actually, I’ve been recognised by The Hindu and have been getting complementary issues of the magazine.

What is the best part of being a sportsman in India?

I’ve loved sports every since my schooldays. We never had the distraction of the television, Twitter and Facebook so we had plenty of time to play. I have played hockey since my Loyola college days. During my time, when hockey was popular, we played in front of packed stadiums and having fans chant your name really gave me a kick. As a matter of fact, I played the 1966 national championships in Madurai in front of a full house. Everyday my photo would come in The Hindu as the outstanding goalkeeper. That boosted my image all over the country and got me selected for the Indian team.

What’s the flipside of being a sportsman?

The negative side, especially with respect to hockey, was the lack of money and encouragement from the associations. Those days we had to make our own arrangements for travel and accommodation for different national tournaments. I paid from my own pocket to go to Jalandhar via New Delhi for different competitions. It was a difficult time but we got through thanks to the love for the sport.

source: http://www.sportstarlive.com / SportsStar Live / Home> More  Sports> Hockey / by Amrit Ramakrishnan / Chennai – February 06th, 2017

Book on Ghadar hero Rehmat Ali Wajidke released in Surrey

Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, World Opinion,

Wajidke, Barnala : PUNJAB :

“Today when the Hindu nationalists are in power in India, we need to remind our younger generation that men like Wajidke and not the RSS played a significant role during the freedom movement. This has become important as the Hindutva forces continue to question the patriotism of Muslims,” he said.

Sarwan Singh Aujla.
Sarwan Singh Aujla.

A Punjabi book on Rehmat Ali Wajidke, a Ghadar Party activist who was hanged in 1915, was released at a public event held in Surrey on Sunday.

Authored by Sarwan Singh Aujla, a retired school principal from Barnala, the book is written in the form of a long poetry and throws light on Wajidke and his struggle.

Wajidke was hanged for sedition by the British government in March 1915. He was among the Ghadar Party members who had returned from foreign countries to India to launch an armed rebellion against the British occupation. This year marks the centenary of Wajidke’s martyrdom.

Aujla, who is a freelance writer, has authored many books. He had served at the government public school in Wajidke, the native village of Rehmat Ali. He was instrumental in getting the school renamed after the Ghadar hero and had also traced his descendants in Pakistan and brought them to India where they were duly honoured by the Punjab government in 1970s. Wajidke’s relatives had migrated to Pakistan after the partition in 1947.

Aujla has been highlighting the story of Wajidke through his columns in the local newspapers as well. He told HT that his story needs to be amplified to challenge the communal forces which are inimical to peace and people’s unity.

“Today when the Hindu nationalists are in power in India, we need to remind our younger generation that men like Wajidke and not the RSS played a significant role during the freedom movement. This has become important as the Hindutva forces continue to question the patriotism of Muslims,” he said.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Punjab / by Gurpreet Singh, Hindustan Times / October 13th, 2015

Now Frontier Gandhi’s descendant to urge Modi to stand by Pakhtunistan

Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, World Opinion, , , , , , ,

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL :

Yasmin Nigar Khan will organise a rally at Shahid Minar in the heart of Kolkata’s business district after Durga puja.

Yasmin Nigar Khan is the president of All India Pashtu-Jirga-e-Hind, an organisation that is spearheading the movement for secession of Pakhtunwa area of North West Frontier Province from Pakistan.(HT Photo)
Yasmin Nigar Khan is the president of All India Pashtu-Jirga-e-Hind, an organisation that is spearheading the movement for secession of Pakhtunwa area of North West Frontier Province from Pakistan.(HT Photo)

India-Pakistan relations may have more twists in store than meets the eye. Yasmin Nigar Khan, great granddaughter of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, better known as Frontier Gandhi, now plans to meet Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi to urge him to stand by the Pashtuns as he did in the case of Balochistan.

The Kolkata-based 45-year old leader of the Pashtuns living and working in India told HT that she also plans a rally in the city against atrocities of Pakistan on the people of North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

“We are happy that Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of Balochistan. Similar atrocities are regularly being committed by Pakistan on Pashtuns in NWFP. We want Modi to highlight the plight of Pashtuns and help in their struggle to get freedom from Pakistan. The Pashtun people are equally oppressed by Pakistan,” said Khan on Friday.

Yasmin Nigar Khan stays in Park Circus area in south Kolkata and runs a school. (HT Photo)
Yasmin Nigar Khan stays in Park Circus area in south Kolkata and runs a school. (HT Photo)

Yasmin Nigar Khan president of All India Pashtu-Jirga-e-Hind, an organisation based in Kolkata that has been spearheading a movement for secession of Pakhtunwa area in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan and its merger with Afghanistan. The area is situated near the border of Afganistan and Pakistan.

She claimed there are about 10,000 Pashtuns living in Bengal, mostly in and around Kolkata.

“NWFP were given on lease to the British for 100 years. But more than 120 years have passed by,” she claimed, adding “NWFP has no business staying in Pakistan.”

“Our leaders are holding meetings in Kolkata to press our demand. We are planning to organise a rally against Pakistan in Kolkata after the Pujas at Shahid Minar. By the end of the year we will meet the Prime Minister,” said Khan.

The Pashtun community comprises basically the Pathans who are from Afghanistan and also from the Pakhtunwa area. In Kolkata, a section of them who have settled more than 100 years ago, are better known as Kabuliwalas (money lenders).

File photo of Khan (fifth from Left) attending a ministry of culture programme in Delhi to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Frontier Gandhi. She appealed for a university to be set up in Bengal in the name of her great grandfather. (Facebook)
File photo of Khan (fifth from Left) attending a ministry of culture programme in Delhi to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Frontier Gandhi. She appealed for a university to be set up in Bengal in the name of her great grandfather. (Facebook)

Khan alleged that the condition of the Pashtuns living in NWFP is appalling and the Pakistan government is not keen on any development in the region.

“Like Balochistan, Pakhtunistan too is deliberately neglected. the Pakistan government is keeping the mass uneducated so that they do not demand their rights. The area is used for breeding terrorists Pakistan is using Taliban to spread terror in the region. We will soon hit streets over the issue,” added Khan.

Many of the Pashtuns living in Kolkata have relatives there and they worry about Taliban threats.

“We want to highlight Pakistan’s atrocities in NWFP and condemn attacks on India. Pakistan should be declared a terrorist state by the international community,” she added.

The Pashtun leader stated that during a programme at the union ministry of culture on May 20 this year (to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Frontier Gandhi), she appealed for a university to be set up in Bengal on the name of her great grandfather.

In 1996 after the death of her father Lala Jan Khan, Yasmin took over the mantle of the organisation that looks after the interests of Pashtuns.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Ravik Bhattacharya, Hindustan Times / September 30th, 2016

This professor’s Unani medicine for diabetes is all set for clinical trials

Amazing Feats, Education, Leaders, Science & Technology, World Opinion, , , , , , , ,

Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH :

Professor Naeem Ahmad Khan
Professor Naeem Ahmad Khan

Four years back, Naeem Ahmad Khan,  professor  at faculty of Unani Medicine, Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College, Aligarh Muslim University, set a goal for himself– he wanted to find a cure for diabetes.

It was possible only if he could regenerate the primary function of beta islet cells of the pancreas to store and release insulin.

Four years on, he claims to have succeeded in his mission. He has developed a medicine that, he says, will not only improve the function of pancreatic cells, but also protect them. Besides, it will regenerate beta islet cells and improve their health by giving them required nutrition.

“My medicine will regenerate the natural process of the pancreas. This medicine will help diabetic respond to fluctuations in blood glucose concentrations quickly by releasing stored insulin,” says Dr Khan.

He believes that the medicine, if clears clinical trials, will be a better alternative to the existing drugs. “Modern diabetic medicines stimulate beta cells to produce and release more insulin. If a person develops diabetes at a younger age, these medicines stop working after a few years. Then the alternative before the patient is to take insulin supplement, which is an expensive as well as painful treatment,” he says.

The clinical trial  of the medicine, he believes,  will help standardise traditional medicine system in India and bring it at par with modern medicine

“Apart from  restoring the normal functioning of beta cells, I believe that this medicine will also bring down the number of pancreatitis cases in diabetes,” he says.
Khan says that his medicine has already been tested on animals and has gone through the  necessary toxicological studies to rule out any heavy metal impurities and other toxic effects. It has been passed by the Government of India’s Institutional Ethical Committee, he adds.

The drug will soon be tested clinically before it is available in the market. “We will study it in a controlled environment where we will monitor its effect on diabetes in non- insulin dependent patients.  We will also compare it with other existing popular modern drugs,” says Khan.

The clinical trial  of the medicine, he believes,  will help standardise traditional medicine system in India and bring it at par with modern medicine. “Evidence-based traditional medicine is the need of the hour. We need to exploit their potential to help people deal with various lifestyle diseases,” he says.

Khan says that this medicine has been developed from eight different medicinal plants, some of which were used by ancient Unani practitioners. “These medicines are as scientific as allopathic drugs. We need to validate their worth and that’s what I have been trying to do all these years, ” he says.

source: http://www.healthpost.in / Healthpost.in / Home / by HP Correspondent / Saturday – January 28th, 2017