Author: Priya Saha

In 1939, the Nazi regime in Germany under the command of nefarious Adolf Hitler carried out a program called the T4, euthanizing hundreds of thousands of people with autism, down syndrome, or anyone they deemed ‘unfit’ for their society. Under the ‘Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring’ passed in 1933, the Nazi regime mobilized its entire force into a war against the victims of the T4 program. Autistic children and adults were murdered by Hitler’s Nazi forces. Almost 80 years after the defeat of Nazi forces in the Second World War, far away from Europe, their cronies have…

This article was first published in the State of Faith newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Monday night. Democrats and Republicans disagree on a lot these days, including the trustworthiness of religious institutions. A recent Gallup poll found that just 26% of Americans who identify as a Democrat or lean Democratic have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in organized religion, compared to 51% of Republicans and Republican-leaners. When I first saw those figures, I was shocked by that partisan gap. Although I’ve written quite a bit about the growing significance of…

On Wednesday (July 21), a mob of radical Islamists in Bangladesh attacked the Hindu community without provocation at around 9 am in the morning. The incident took place at Kalabari Union Parakata Bazar in Kotalipara in the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh. It must be mentioned that Gopalganj is the election constituency of Awami League supremo and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The Bangladesh Hindu Unity Council took to Twitter to inform that the attack took place on the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha. DD News reported that more than 50 people were injured during the incident, including police officials. The Islamist mob ransacked…

Recently, the government of Bangladesh dropped the infamous phrase “this passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel” from its new passports. Now it has become a national issue of debate. (Image source: Tusharkb2) Recently, the government of Bangladesh dropped the infamous phrase “this passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel” from its new passports. Those words had been prominently inscribed since the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971. Six months ago, when Bangladeshi government introduced a new machine-readable passport with an electronic chip, the “except Israel” clause was quietly erased with…

In 2017, a Pakistani orphanage run by the Salvation Army was shut down due to funding constraints. The building, occupying 4,046 square meters, was sold for 240,000 rupees (US$1,490) this month.“We obtained the no-objection certificate (NOC) from a commission in Islamabad. We were helpless,” Captain Saber Anees, property officer of the Salvation Army, told UCA News.“Ultimately our territorial commander in UK and the local chief secretary signed the agreement in 2019 to sell the hostel. Our leadership has several plans, including building a seminary, to use the money.” A Karachi-based law firm published a similar notice in local newspapers.“All special…

According to SOS Children’s Village, Bangladesh is home to around 4.4 million orphaned children. Adoption can provide a congenial home to these children. Adoption generally refers to take and raise another person’s child into your family. Infertility, inability to have children, and desire to help a child are some of the reasons behind adoption. In Bangladesh, we see many instances of people raising others’ children, more prominently known as Kafala in Islam. But this practice has no legal footing. Guardianship applications in Bangladesh are filed under Section 7 of the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890. However, it does not amount…

A particularly sharp rise in casualties occurred in May when international military forces began withdrawing from the country and fighting intensified following the Taliban offensive to take territory from Government forces. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported in its Afghanistan Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict midyear update, that there were 1,659 civilians killed and 3,254 wounded; a 47 per cent increase compared with the same period last year. Spike in May UNAMA said it was particularly concerned about the acute rise in the number of civilian casualties in the period from 1 May, with almost as many…

Tamil Nadu-based educational organisation has moved the Supreme Court New Delhi: A Tamil Nadu-based educational organisation has moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Centre to issue a notification to identify linguistic minorities, like religious ones, as units for granting benefits in running academic institutions. Citizens Education Society, which runs schools for Malayalam-speaking linguistic minority students in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, has sought to intervene as a party in a pending PIL on grant of minority benefits to Hindus in 10 states including Punjab and Mizoram. The Apex Court, in August last year, had issued notice to the…

How have Muslim attitudes in post-Independence India changed after living in a “secular” country for over 73 years? This question is important, for it was Muslims living in territories that are part of present-day India who voted overwhelmingly for Partition and the creation of a Muslim Pakistan.A recent Pew survey on religion in India throws some light on this aspect, even though some of the numbers are debatable. The most important finding seems to be that overwhelming majorities among Hindus, Muslims and Christians, apart from Indic minority groups like Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, believe that to be truly Indian it…

The Chinese government has long issued laws and statements declaring its respect for minority languages, including regulations requiring all public signs in minority areas to be bilingual. But the latest evidence from the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) indicates Chinese authorities’ real view of minority languages: they come second. Literally. In the TAR, since at least the start of the reform era in the 1980s, Tibetan has always been placed above Chinese on all public signboards, notices, and banners. But a team of researchers consulted by Human Rights Watch has compiled scores of photographs from the official Chinese media over the…

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Wednesday said that the Citizenship Amendment Act will not hurt Indian Muslims, reported The Hindu.At the launch of a book titled Citizenship debate over NRC and CAA-Assam and the Politics of History, Bhagwat alleged that a section of people were spinning communal narrative around the CAA and the National Register of Citizens to gain political mileage.The Citizenship Amendment Act, approved by Parliament on December 11, 2019, provides citizenship to refugees from six minority religious communities from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and…

Faced with a surge of unrest across its border with Afghanistan as the U.S. military withdraws from a two-decade conflict, Iran is seeking to leverage local and regional relationships in an effort to secure the stability of its fellow Islamic Republic.But it is a delicate balance.Tehran must carefully measure its support for Shiite Muslim Afghans mobilizing against forces threatening their very identity, culture and lives, while simultaneously engaging diplomatically with the resurgent Sunni Muslim Taliban movement now in control of most of the country. And for that balance to succeed, they must take into account the interests of top regional…