Habib Siddiqui

Amid protests from the Opposition members, the 126-member Assam Assembly on Wednesday passed a Bill to convert State-run madrasas into regular schools . The Assam Repealing Bill, 2020 seeks to abolish the Assam Madrassa Education (Provincialization) Act, 1995 and the Assam Madrassa Education (Provincialization of Services of Employees and Re-Organisation of Madrassa Educational Institutions) Act, 2018. The Bill also seeks to convert 97 provincialised Sanskrit tol s (learning centres) into study and research centres affiliated to a university of Sanskrit and ancient studies in western Assam’s Nalbari from January 2022. State Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the Bill was for government-run madrasas and there will be no steps to close down or regulate the private madrasas in Assam. “All government madrasa institutes will be converted into upper primary, high and higher secondary schools with no change of status, pay, allowances and service conditions of the teaching and non-tea...

T HE AFAQ KHOJA mausoleum in Kashgar is one of the holiest places in Xinjiang, a region in the far west of China. The site is politically charged, too. Several 19th-century uprisings against Chinese rule began with rebels making a pilgrimage to the shrine, and its tomb of Afaq Khoja, a divisive figure revered by some locals as a Sufi Muslim saint, and scorned by others as a traitor. It is beautiful, with stately domes and minarets rendered as exquisite as a jewel box by tiles of green, blue, yellow and brown. To one side lies an ancient cemetery fringed with poplar trees. Its mud and brick tombs were capped with snow when Chaguan visited. As remote as it is lovely, the shrine lies closer to Baghdad than to Beijing. Not all Muslim sites are as protected. In recent years China has worked to stamp out any hint of religious fervour in Xinjiang. Perhaps a million of the region’s ethnic-Uyghurs have been accused of radical Islamic thinking and sent to re-education camps. Domes and minarets,...

Donald Trump’s fantasy election victory in the final weeks of his unorthodox presidency undermines Joe Biden’s forthcoming term in office and should be met with punishment by the incoming administration. The outgoing president must be held accountable for his creeping autocratic actions during the past four years in which he tried to overturn American democracy. Impeachment accomplished nothing. The repeated failures of Trump’s attempts to overthrow the election results in the courts, including the Supreme Court, and with the help of appointed allies and elected officials has led to more desperate measures. One of the more surreal suggestions expressed in a contentious Dec. 18 meeting in the Oval Office — once the heart of the free world – reportedly was for Trump to declare martial law in the swing states and have the military run another election there. That bright idea emerged from Gen. Michael Flynn, a fired national security adviser whom Trump pardoned from prison following hi...

It is convenient to surmise that Israel’s current political crisis is consistent with the country’s unfailing trajectory of short-lived governments and fractious ruling coalitions. While this view is somewhat defensible, it is also hasty. Israel is currently at the cusp of a fourth general election in less than two years. Even by Israel’s political standards, this phenomenon is unprecedented, not only in terms of the frequency of how often Israelis vote, but also of the constant shifting in possible coalitions and seemingly strange alliances. It seems that the only constant in the process of forming coalitions following each election is that Arab parties must not, under any circumstances, be allowed into a future government. Decision-making in Israel has historically been reserved for the country’s Jewish elites. This is unlikely to change anytime soon. Even when the Arab parties’ coalition, the Joint List, imposed itself as a possible kingmaker following the September 2019 election...

E-mail: info@rohingya.my or secretaria.crom@gmail.com www.rohingya.my “ A call to End Inhuman Atrocities against Ethnic Rohingya and Other Minorities of Burma”   20 December, people around the world remark as International Human Solidarity Day with some core objectives to celebrate unity in diversity, to remind governments to respect their commitments to international agreements, to raise public awareness of the importance of solidarity, to encourage debate on the ways to promote solidarity for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, including poverty eradication and as a day of action to encourage new initiatives for poverty alleviation.   Burmese Government has not been respecting human values even being a member state of the United Nations which was created to draw the peoples and nations of the world together to promote peace, human rights and social and economic development with basic promise of unity and harmony among its members, expressing ...

For innovation to flourish, enable a creative culture throughout your organization In today’s hyper-competitive landscape, innovation is essential for an organization to thrive. We live in a fast-paced world, where even the biggest companies can be disrupted, rest in peace… Blockbuster and Kodak. Making a company innovative from the roots up is no easy task. To lead like an innovator means investing in the right mindset, culture, incentives, and support throughout your organization. It means looking beyond a single brilliant idea and instead creates an iterative system focused on the creation of value and scalable growth. It’s a company culture where innovation is welcomed as part of the work, rather than as an interruption of it. If everyone isn’t on board with innovation then the resistance to change won’t allow for true success. Many established organizations have a status quo culture that causes one to prefer avoiding loss over winning. This attitude is a barrier to change and ...