If he was not attending to needy patients in Lucknow today he would most likely have been a washerman in his birth place, Ballia district of eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Hailing from the ‘dhobi’ caste, which is one of the Scheduled Castes, Manish, as a student of Standard IX in Ballia was not very comfo

Lalitpur UP: The only emotion one feels standing in the neonatal care centre in Lalitpur is of disbelief, as doctors prepare to discharge a newly born baby weighing no less than 750 gms. Barely fitting the size of the doctor's palm, the little girl child is hale and hearty as she is handed over to h

Big fish eat the small fish. Looks like the PML (N) is all set to swallow the tasty and ripe Black Coats. PML (N) couldn’t find a better opportunity than the ensuing Long March to strike with full might. Ever since the return of the exiles from Jaddah, the brothers have been playing their cards astu

Shankar Singh was a tout at the Road Transport Office earlier and used to get people’s work done by paying bribes to the officials and take his own cut. Today he is a right to information activist working with a team in Kanpur to check corruption not just at the road transport office but also at oth

"…I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life giving my time, money and skills to worthwhile endeavours where I could make a difference. I didn’t know exactly what I would do, but I wanted to help save lives, solve important problems, and give more young people the chance to live their dreams" (1)

I introduce myself as the chairman of the Group called 'Goldenagro'. We have two companies at Mongla EPZ (Export Processing Zone). Recently, on 25th August 2008, one of the factories suffered big damage due to a fire and I had to travel to Dhaka for a meeting with the MD of our insurance company. Be

Shortly after Israel began its air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza, one of Boston's Muslim community leaders sent an email to a diverse array of interfaith colleagues in the Boston area to convey his organisation's position on the bombing campaign and indicate that its members would be participatin

It would be an understatement to say that relations between Muslims and non-Muslims have been strained since 9/11. Here in the United Kingdom, a poll found that 26 percent of the population admitted to being “hostile to Muslims”; in the United States, one in five Americans said that they would not w

On 23 January 2009, the Group of Ministers (GoM) in India will again meet to assuage concerns of tobacco lobby on pictorial warnings, health activists apprehend.
This group of ministers (GoM) consists of: Pranab Mukherjee (External Affairs Minister), Kamal Nath (Commerce and Industry Minister), Pri

Late last month, the Islamic New Year, 1430 Hijra, was observed immediately following Christmas and Hanukkah. In a world where conflicts often have a religious spin, these consecutive events should be interpreted as a positive sign, even an opportunity, for Jews, Christians and Muslims to embrace on

The United States and Pakistan have to work together in various areas to improve their chances of success in the campaign against extremism.
There is one issue specifically which, if addressed by the United States, could positively impact all these areas: the missing persons of Pakistan — people p

Can minorities enjoy equal opportunities so long these laws remain?
Campaign against unjust laws
Although Pakistan was founded as an Islamic state when it came into being in 1947, its constitution did not distinguish between Muslims and non-Muslims. Sadly, non-Muslims who once enjoyed a safe and p

International attention has focused on Pakistan like never before in the weeks following the Mumbai attacks. To quote Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, “All of the world’s nightmares come together in Pakistan.”
Assuming the world does not have the optio

As she prepares for her role as Secretary of State, Senator Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Obama foreign policy team should consider how a new American-Iranian relationship might advance American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, and conceivably even the Arab-Israeli peace process.
This will

"I am the first woman farmer in my block who started cultivation 15 years back," said 45 years old Aisha Begum Khatoon of Hridaypur village in Ambedkarnagar district. When she picked up the hoe for the first time, all the villagers rebuked her for treading on a man's domain. However, she decided to