By Soma Mandal
The term ‘chowkidar’ is not a marker of social respect because of its positionality in the lower orders of job profiling. As employment surveys indicate, it is mostly the uneducated, poor, rural, Dalit, OBC, minorities, the Gorkha community, and people from the lower classes who become chowkidars in metropolitan cities and towns.
By Sabyasachi Nag
You can shred me into million pieces,
Throw my ashes to nor’westers,
Bury me in the dead river bend
I promise I shall return, new and fierce –
I am Azadi.
By Mujeeb Jaihoon
Every modest home today commands a kitchen to fulfil hunger and prayer rooms for offering ritual worship, living rooms for entertaining guests, and bedrooms for enjoying sleep. Yet, one wonders how many modern Muslim homes have a Reading Room to honor the primordial command of the Quran?
By Sabzar Ahmad Bhat
The idea of letting “the Kashmiri people decide their future” comes from a speech, made by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952, in which he said that he would give the Kashmiri people a chance to decide their political future. For this approach to ever become a reality, both Pakistan and India would need to significantly change their attitudes to allow Kashmiri people to play a role in resolving the Kashmir conflict.
By Amol Ranjan
For a healthy democracy, freedom of speech and press is non-negotiable. In India, they derive power from Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. However, today journalists are increasingly made to shut down, harassed and even killed for their critical views of the ruling government.
By Asma Anjum Khan
Look, when you are trapped, do they ask you which sect you belong to while if you raise your hands up to your shoulders (or not – doing Rafiuddin) as you mischievously pray your Jumma in a park? Or do they ask if you practise the typical Islamophobic Islam that the world loves to fear or are you a teetotaler?
By Rashid Askari
Really the Hindu girls were sweeter than the Muslim ones. He claimed to be a devout Muslim. He disliked everything of other religions except for women. He loved to graze in others’ fields leaping over the fence. He became the right producer of Angurbala.
By Puja Roy
We chatted over cups of tea and gradually the emotional doors opened. From a lighthearted discussion the mood slowly turned towards a somber and painfully nostalgic recount of an era long forgotten yet very much fresh in the minds of its victim. Mr. Choudhury started speaking, as his wife looked on.
By Favas Sulaiman
This potential mismanagement of water had prompted the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) to say, “Do not waste water even if you are at a running stream.” ‘Active Organic Spring’, an Australian water company, has tagged their water bottles with the above mentioned quote (hadith) of the Prophet.
By Debarun Sarkar
words that eventually formed
were found scribbled across
walls of the cities by slackers hackers
junkies whores and ganglords
By Murtaza Ali Khan
In this interview, Rakesh Chaturvedi talks about his character in Anurag Singh’s Kesari and how he prepared for it, his experience of working with Akshay Kumar, and his upcoming projects.
By Javid Pandith
When a society starts taking sides and stops to call a spade a spade, it opens itself to anarchy and lawlessness. Time and again we as a society have failed Kashmiriyat by being hypocrites. We claim to be champions of human rights by highlighting the human shield act of Major Gogoi and the pelleting of baby Hiba. But what is holding us back from condemning Atif Mir’s death and observing a shut down on a number of such other cases?
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 