Author: Priya Saha

“Our law is very clear on this issue. As per the Citizenship [Amendment] Act, 2019 passed by the Parliament on 11 December 2019 Indian citizenship will be granted only to persecuted religious minorities [non-Muslims] such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh,” the VHP national spokesperson Vinod Bansal speaking to The Statesman said here. Ultra Hindu outfit and an RSS affiliate VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) on Wednesday urged the Central government to reconsider its decision to grant non-Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist Afghan national permission to enter India in the wake of the occupation of…

The nun was returning to the convent. The man who stole her bag injured her eye. The episode adds to discrimination and violence against Bangladeshi Christians.     Dhaka (AsiaNews) – A nun of the Catechist Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was attacked and injured by a thief. The attack took place in recent days in Sreeghonti, in the diocese of Rajshahi. Sister Scholastica Jopomala Gomes, who teaches at St. Joseph’s Haigh College in Bonpara, just six kilometres from the convent to which she was returning, got out of her rickshaw and was walking along the street when a…

It is possible that we are now in the process of similarly altering our conception of whiteness again. Many Hispanics identify as white, and marriages between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites make up more than 40 percent of recent interracial marriages. That may be enough to artificially postpone America’s majority minority milestone again and reassure the millions of “white” Americans who feel threatened by the increasing status and power of today’s ethnic minorities.Stoking fears of white decline reinforces the myth that this whiteness always included all who now identify with it — as if the Irish had never been demonized, as…

Hundreds of mostly Christian indigenous villagers from the Garo and other communities joined a protest rally to denounce what they said was the attempted eviction of five families from their homes and agricultural land by the Forest Department in north-central Bangladesh.About 300 people joined the demonstration in Sherpur district town on Aug. 23 organized by Bangladesh Garo Student Council (BGCS).Protesters and activists alleged that forest officials cut down and destroyed 2 hectares of vegetable gardens and betel nut plantations belonging to five Garo families in Balijuri Christian Para village in the Shreebordi area of Sherpur on Aug. 12, causing a total loss of 250,000 taka…

A leading Uyghur entrepreneur who returned from a visit to the United States in 2016 and vanished without a trace has been confirmed detained by authorities in an internment camp in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China, sources familiar with the case told RFA. Mahmutjan Memetjan, 35, was picked up by authorities in 2017, the year authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) launched a vast network of internment camps that has incarcerated some 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” ideas, RFA has learned from a source in the…

Dayabhaga and Mitakshara are two schools of Hindu inheritance law. Hindus in India’s West Bengal, Assam, and Bangladesh mainly follow the Dayabhaga school. Non-Bengali society, on the other hand, i.e., Mumbai, Madras, Punjab, Benares, Maharashtra, and other locations, follow the Mitakshara doctrine. These two schools were established in response to Hindu scriptures and Samhitas that chronicle the practices that Hindus must follow in their personal lives. In imitation of the Hindu inheritance distribution system, daughters are not usually given a share in the father’s property while the sons are still alive. Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the commentary,…

Social norms, religious narratives and religion-based family laws are responsible for discrimination against women, says its general secretary Human rights activists have emphasized on the need to formulate a uniform family law to ensure equal rights for all in the family.They made the demand at a virtual meeting organized by Bangladesh Mahila Parishad on Monday afternoon.They observed that educated girls were still accepting male supremacy and deprived of basic rights or respect due to family orientation.Maleka Banu, Mahila Parishad general secretary, said: “Social norms, religious narratives and religion-based family laws are responsible for this kind of discrimination.”She also said: “In…

The Hindu Ain Pronoyon e Nagorik Udyog Coalition has issued a statement protesting the propaganda against a number of individuals and organisations that are not involved in the formulation of the Hindu inheritance law. The coalition recently formulated a draft of the Hindu inheritance law for equal rights of Hindu citizens to the property of their parents. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. It’s the Hindu citizens who have demanded formulation of the law. And Hindu citizens from various human rights organisations are involved in the process. It involves not only Manusher Jonno Foundation, but…

Leaders of the Catholic Church in Bangladesh have expressed deep concerns that the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan will spark a revival of Islamic extremism in their own country. “Bangladesh has struggled against religious extremism and militancy, which came from mujahidin and the Taliban of Afghanistan,” said Father Liton Gomes, secretary of the Bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission. “Now, the victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Bangladesh government’s support for a Taliban regime have potential for a major boost and rise in militancy in Bangladesh again.” The priest was reacting to a recent statement by Bangladeshi Foreign Minister A.K.…

When Ali Karimi was young, he had to bury his books in the backyard.In 1996, when the Taliban first came to power after years of civil war in Afghanistan, his family feared that fighters from the strict Islamist militant group would harm their family if they found the works of fiction in Persian.Earlier this month, Karimi, now an academic at the University of Pennsylvania, got a call from his father in Kabul, asking what to do with his Persian and English books again.”I told him Kabul will not fall. Like everyone else, I thought the government would last for at…

Dragged into a conflict not of their making, members of Ethiopia’s Qemant ethnic group say their only choice was fleeing to Sudan – marking another bleak turn in a widening war. “Houses were burned and people killed by machetes,” said refugee Emebet Demoz, who, like thousands of others, ran from her village last month. “We couldn’t even take the bodies and bury them.” Thousands have been killed since fighting erupted in November in Ethiopia’s northernmost Tigray region, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent in troops to topple the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the regional ruling party, saying the move came…

The recent appearance on the BBC’s Newsnight programme of Stanley Johnson, the prime minister’s father, as an “environmentalist” caused quite a stir. After all, the UK’s universities are full of academics admirably well qualified to comment on the climate crisis. Why hadn’t the BBC given one of them a call? But even if it had, it is likely that the figure the producers plumped for, while better qualified than Johnson to advise on how to avert catastrophe, would not have looked or sounded vastly different from him. Too often, the voices we hear on the airwaves aren’t representative of the…