Day for religious freedom
First of all, I am grateful to God Almighty who, like every year, blessed me to start the new year by facilitating deserving people to initiate a new life and…
Religious prisons
A JIRGA in northern Pakistan bans women from visiting tourist spots. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan continues to deny education to girls as well as freedom to work or go…
Climate and the religious lens
The condition of Pakistani cities shows that we are suffering from an intellectual, professional and moral crisis. There is a sense that the existing government institutions and people cannot be…
Religious minorities’ woes
Amidst all the kerfuffle about general elections looming on the horizon, our attention has been diverted (inadvertently or deliberately?) from the continuing plight of religious minorities in our society. Consider.…
School hijab row highlights India’s religious divide
Facing a choice between her schooling and her religious beliefs, A.H. Almas says she had no choice at all. The 18-year-old Muslim pupil at the Women’s Pre-University College in Udupi…
The pandemic and beliefs
TWO thousand twenty will be remembered as a year of fear and uncertainty. While the Covid-19 pandemic catapulted human beings into a more globalised and digital lifestyle, it also revealed…
Clash of beliefs
BJP-LED Hindutva has turned secular India into a state openly pushing a Hindu identity and abusing its Muslim minority. Till recently in most cases of egregious interfaith abuse, Muslim states…
Child marriage and religious thought
Enactment and enforcement of legislation against child marriage has repeatedly run into resistance that claims religious authority. Overcoming this resistance will require a wider intellectual engagement with the foundations and…
Religious bias okayed
IT’S always been easy for power-seeking Pakistani clerics and politicians to set our simple-minded religious masses on fire. But, as Prime Minister Imran Khan just discovered, jumping on to a…
The Sharifs and the religious right
Political alarm bells have begun to ring after the recent secondary dissection of the rightist vote bank into sectarian divisions after a period of 40 long years. It was in…
