-The Hindu   Respondents given four weeks to respond to mother's plea Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Assam government, the Board of Secondary Education, Assam (SEBA), and the managing committee and Principal of Kristo Jyoti School in Bokakhat, upper Assam, asking them to show cause in four weeks as to why a petition, which challenged an order of the school authorities - debarring a four-year-old nursery student,...

-The Hindu     ‘We have nothing against Fathima, but cannot make a special case for her' Guwahati: The mother of a four-year-old Muslim girl has moved the Gauhati High Court after the authorities of a Catholic Mission-run school, Kristo Jyoti School, near Bokakhat in upper Assam's Golaghat district refused to allow her daughter Fathima Beevi to wear a ‘Hijab' (headscarf) along with the school uniform. The school's authorities have given the girl's parents 15...

-The New York Times   New Delhi: Yasmeen Khan dons her burqa and steps out of her house in the Nizamuddin neighborhood of Delhi every evening to walk a short distance to a 10-foot-high stone wall. Behind the wall is paradise - a place where she can remove her burqa and Hijab, enjoy cool fresh air in her hair, exercise and gossip with friends. Hundreds of women regularly visit the "Pardah Bagh," a...

As the commons come under increasing assault, academics, practitioners and policymakers come together to devise ways to protect shared resources On a cold January night in Hyderabad, a fortnight ago, Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Environment and Forests, was led to an open-air dinner by folk drummers and body-painted tiger dancers as an appreciative audience of international academics and grassroots workers cheered and milled around him. Ramesh had become the toast of...

As soon as the Rajya Sabha passed the women’s reservation bill, ensuring 33 per cent reservations for women in Parliament and state legislative assemblies, the issue of backward and Muslim women jigged to the centre of the debate. Earlier, whenever Muslim women managed to come into the limelight, it was all grabbed by the Imranas and the Gudias, not to forget the Shahbanos — supposed to be living in the...