Thanks to Sh Krishen Kak for alerting me to this extraordinary report of how Muslim women are being denied their freedoms…and the right to development by their own. Excerpts from Swaminathan S Aiyar’s  Anjumans deprive Muslim women of microcredit:
The government seeks inclusive growth and access to credit. The Sachar Committee is dismayed by the relatively low access of Muslims to bank credit. Yet, neither the government, Sachar Committee members nor intellectuals are raising an outcry against a massive drive to deny millions of Muslim women access to microcredit. This is …

Start this weekend reading about “Maccha Yantra” – which might have been the precursor to the mariner’s compass of today…
Next, read former Governor of J&K, Jagmohan’s account of  his trek to Amarnath…
…and finally, ponder over Chandan Mitra’s provocative piece on the purpose of history
Excerpts from all the three articles below, as always.

Thanks to Sh KSV Subramanian for alerting me to this. In a comment yesterday, he asked:
Kerala government has announced writing off loans upto Rs.25,000 to converted Christians. Is this not discrimination on the basis of religion?”
I decided to dig further. Here is what I unearthed…courtesy the Budget Speech of Dr Thomas Isaac, Minister for Finance, Govt. of Kerala:
8 (iv). The penal interest and loan amounts up to Rs.25000/- in regard to loans drawn by scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and converted Christian communities from government departments, corporations and co-operatives will …

A few weeks ago, I came across Sanjeev Sabhlok’s article on how (and why) the ideas of liberty – so celebrated in the western world today – may actually have had their origins in India.
Sanjeev has lucidly argued for the case and there is really nothing much I can add – except to say that this aspect is certainly worthy of further research and will help us shape the pieces defining the extraordinary civilisation and culture that flourished milleniums ago in this ancient land.
Below, excerpts from Sanjeev’s article on …

Yesterday morning, while reading Jamiat has undone its past good work by Javed Ansari, I got stuck at the very first sentence:
The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind is one of countless organisations that claim to represent Muslims in India. However, unlike most others, the Jamiat stands out because of its track record. It was at the forefront of the freedom movement and vehemently opposed the country’s partition
This was not a *new* statement. Hon Sh Chidambaram had said something similar at Deoband last week:
The Home Minister lauded the role played by Jamiat during …

More than two years ago, in a post dealing with politics and corruption, I wrote:
This is a subject with such rich pickings (pun unintended)…that I am seriously considering a series on “How to earn Rs XYZ crores in X years” focused on politicians (- feel free to write in with tips and information).
That post was about earning Rs 10 crores+ a year (give or take a few)…so my eyes naturally popped when I read this bit from Shantanu Guha Ray’s “The Rise and Fall of King Koda” in the lastest …