I was in the UK last month. I could see that despite rising far-right threats, multi-faith is making slow but sure progress. Read more

Muslims, like Hindus and Sikhs, will not like to surrender their personal laws because they are just that: personal. Read more

Every other day, biscuit-maker Abdul Hannan takes groups of curious Muslims on a tour of Ahmedabad’s Gulbarg Society as if it were another mausoleum. Read more

Going by official socio-economic indices, the average Muslim voter is a school drop-out, earns meagre wages, supports a mid-sized family, is self-employed, resides mostly among his ilk, would have not travelled far beyond his birthplace, is remarkably ‘clued in’, unlikely to vote any one party or candidate, but is generally cagey about Hindutva-based politics. Read more

Yakoob Rasool has haunting eyes. They are cold. The man is cautious, unwilling to lower his guard. He will not tell you where he lives. Or what his future holds from him. But you will understand his discretion once you know who he is: the husband of Gujarat riots survivor Bilkis Yakoob Rasool Bano. Read more

To bay for Salman Rushdie’s blood is to let the “absolutism of the pure” fight a gory battle against the “hybridity” and “impurities” of cosmopolitan “mongrelization”. Not acceptable. Read more

Cultural and religious symbols can both be sacred and offensive. Sensibilities surrounding them are so manifest that, often, constitutional law has had to affirm or negate such symbols, mainly to address their attendant social tensions. Read more

On Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or Bibi as he is called, made his speech at the 66th session of the UN General Assembly, speaking into the same microphone as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Read more

What could be the single-most profound fallout of the September 2001 attacks, or 9/11, ten years on? It is the surreal state of permanent war, intermittent peace. In a way, the events wiped out the last remaining vestiges of universal innocence. Read more

Harvard University, the US’s oldest higher-learning institution, has defended Hindutva advocate Subramanian Swamy’s “right to free speech” in response to a petition to oust him as summer instructor for his recent article considered hateful towards Muslims. Read more