Nishhat Afza, Founder and Director of Curiocity — School of Creative Art and Design, N.R. Mohalla, Mysuru, has bagged first prize in the ornamental terrace garden and 1st prize in waterfalls for the 5th consecutive year in the Dasara Home Garden contest organised by the Horticulture Department.
An active member of Srushti Bonsai Club, she has also participated in women empowerment and other social activities. Besides, she helps people with landscaping and waterfall designing.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Gallery> Photo News / October 07th, 2022
S M Aboobacker (60), resident of Golnadu grama, Suribail passed away due to sickness.
He was the president of the school progress committee at the Suribail government upgraded higher primary school for the last several years. He had grown a flower garden, vegetable plants and areca nut trees in the school premises and was looking after them. The school has bagged national environment award and other awards due to his efforts.
The school received district Rajyotsava award considering his services.
He was the office bearer of the state SDMC committee, secretary of Suribail mosque management committee and was the member of Kolnadu gram panchayat for two terms. He was a well-known philanthropist. He has left behind his wife.
Former minister B Ramanath Rai, district panchayat member M S Mohammed, Congress panchayat committee district president Subhaschandra Shetty Kulala, Sudeep Kumar Shetty and others visited his residence and paid their tributes.
source: http://www.daijiworld.com / Daijiworld.com / Home> Obituary> Karnataka / by Mounesh Vishwakarma / Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (EP) / October 07th, 2022
India Fraternity Forum is organizing an annual “Fraternity Fest” to bring together non-resident Indians through a socio-cultural program on October 20.
The poster launch of “Snehakoota-22″ event was held in Riyadh. A family reunion and expatriates get-together event named Fraternity Fest is being held by India fraternity forum across Saudi Arabia.
Whilst releasing the poster of the event, Tajuddin, president of India Fraternity Forum, Karnataka chapter, Riyadh, invited all NRIs to participate in the event.
Various cultural and social events will be held at the get-together on October 20 at Sa-Ada Istirah in Exit-18, Riyadh. The colorful event will feature different activities like public speaking, sports, quiz, public awareness programs etc.
India Fraternity Forum, Riyadh Karnataka chapter general secretary Muhammed Naveed, state committee members Sabith Hassan, Muhammed Shareef and Nizamuddin were present at the press meet.
source: http://www.daijiworld.com / Daijiworld.com / Home> Middle East / by Media Release / Riyadh, September 18th, 2022
Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world. There is no limit to what they can accomplish. Now, one can learn all about the achievements of Muslim women at a two-day exhibition being organised at the Salar Jung Museum on October 1 and 2 by the Intellectual Learning Methodologies (ILM) Foundation in association with the Shaheen Group of Educational Institutions, Islah and Asli Talbina.
Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, general secretary, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, will inaugurate the exhibition which showcases the achievements of 40 women in different fields. Details of their accomplishment will be explained through posters, said Dr Lateef of ILM Foundation.
The main objective of holding the exhibition is to inform the common man about the achievements of women, particularly Muslim women.
A study of early Islamic history showed that women enjoyed the freedom of movement and took an active part in all walks of life. They excelled as rulers, warriors, nurses, scholars, jurists, teachers, traders and companions of the Prophet (Sahabiat).
In fact, they defined success on their own terms and proved that they are the real architects of society. When he started working on the subject some one-and-half years ago, Dr Lateef said, he stumbled upon the names of at least 10,000 women who had made immense contributions in their chosen field of activity.
These details he accessed through four books. They are Al Muhaddthat written by Oxford scholar of Indian origin, Dr Akram Nadvi, Muslim Women Biography Dictionary of Aisha Bewley, Great Women of Islam written by Mehmood Ahmed Ghazanfar and Achievements of Muslim Women in Religious and Scholarly Field by Maulana Qazi Athar Mubarakpuri.
Some of the well-known names whose exploits and achievements are being showcased include Hazrath Aisha, wife of the Prophet Muhammed, who made an enormous contribution to the cause of Islam through her intelligence and scholarship. Besides being an important narrator of Prophetic traditions (Hadith), she proved to be more learned than many men of her period.
Many male companions of the Prophet used to approach her for clarification of Hadith. Similarly, Hazrath Zainab, daughter of Hazrath Ali, was also a great scholar. Eminent Islamic scholar, Ibn Hajar, is stated to have studied under 53 women while Al Suyuti is under 33 women. All this is history now. Other prominent women are Queen Zubaida, Princess Razia Sultana, Durru Shehvar, and Princess Niloufer.
These women could leave their indelible marks as Muslim society gave them their fundamental rights to education and self-development.
“Lives of early Muslim women represent exemplary models, transcending time and boundaries. And they are a great source of inspiration,” Lateef said.
Organisers plan to take the exhibition to other parts of the country after Hyderabad. The exhibition on the inspiring women achievers is the result of the hard work put in by two talented girls -Juveria Sabir and Zoha Ansari. The latter is working at Edventure Park, a start-up incubator.
The two-day exhibition is being held in the eastern block of the Salar Jung Museum from 11 am to 5 pm. Entry is free.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Featured News / by J S Ifthekhar / September 27th, 2022
Thanks to the painstaking efforts of biographer Yashodhara Dalmia, Sayed Haider Raza: The Journey of an Iconic Artist gives an insight into the global phenomenon
S.H. Raza, Bombay, 1964
Imagine being born in the early 1920s in a small village in Madhya Pradesh amid the lush, inviting Kanha National Park, with quietude all around, only to reinvent the boundaries of contemporary modernist and abstract paintings.
When Yashodhara Dalmia—a renowned art historian and curator in her own right—met S.H. Raza in Paris just a few months before his passing, it was the most extraordinary day of her life for all the right reasons. Of course, she could never have envisioned writing the biography of the man; but the memories are fond and wistful. “His presence itself was so welcoming,” she recollects. “I came out spell-bound. He was strikingly informative and ever so humble.”
pix: harpercollins.co.in
Dalmia was commissioned by HarperCollins to work on Raza’s biography shortly after his passing in July 2016. Naturally, her biggest source—the man himself—was inaccessible. The only way for her to attempt near-accurate documentation of Raza was through his correspondences with other artists, interviewing his loved ones, and tracing his continent-spanning journey of more than seven decades.
Raza, Kathe Langhammer, Rudolf von Leyden (sitting front row) and Walter Langhammer, Ara (standing behind)
But it was an undertaking Dalmia had willingly signed up for. And she was in it for the long haul.
Childhood: The Only Muse
Dalmia observes that almost all of Raza’s works were informed by his childhood in India. He consciously made a point to visit the country annually, meet its burgeoning artists, and travel the interiors. “He grew up in the dense forests of Kanha. And he had more-or-less a happy childhood. Naturally, his relationship with nature which was solidified in his early years, manifested very powerfully on the canvas,” notes Dalmia. Raza channelized the concentrated beauty of Kanha through the funnel of expressionism in works like Saurashtra and Tapovan. His relationship with nature was symbiotic—he sought his creative muses in the spaces between the hushed silences of the night and the stillness of the imposing trees.
When he broke into his legendary bindu paintings it again stemmed from this very distinct memory of his childhood. “As a child, he was quite the wayward kind—easily distracted. He found it hard to concentrate on his studies. His teacher then told him to focus on a single dot and then this dot would go on to become the bindu,” Dalmia explains. Like all of his styles that later evolved—bindu advanced too. “The circle graduated into different spaces. Initially, it was solid, later it became concentric and diaphanous and then even suspended in space,” she says.
Global: Deeper Colours
Raza’s arc of global recognition was running in parallel to his own evolution as an artist. He’d started to experiment with more liberal brushstrokes and his relationship with impasto paintings became only more acute. The year 1956 had proven to be a turning point for the master in more ways than one—he was the first foreign artist to receive the prestigious Prix de la critique award. This would pave the way for his first solo exhibition because with this award he was in the august company of past winners—auteurs like Debre, Kito, and Buffet. “Even when he went to Berkeley in 1960s, he encountered a range of abstract and surreal artists,” notes Dalmia. “It’s not that he learnt anything new from them. But getting acquainted with these experimental art forms triggered the vast reserves of his childhood experiences.”
More than anything, Dalmia credits Raza’s relationship with his partner, Janine Mongillat, as being immensely influential on his liberation and artistic fulfilment.
“She was an artist too but hers was a wholly different style. And yet, the conversations Raza had with Janine deeply impacted his works. He used to look forward to those conversations as he found them intellectually stimulating on multiple levels,” says Dalmia. Mongillat’s unfortunate death due to cancer in 2002 shook Raza to the core. He was confronted with an intense longing for the woman he had deeply loved. It naturally influenced his works, the bindu became more celestial and ruminative.
S.H. Raza, Rajasthan, 1975
Pinnacle: Towards Home
Towards the last phase of his artistic career, Raza grew fonder for the home country that had taught him so much and had shaped him, creatively, to be the master that he became. The longing for his home and his deceased partner was intense. And there was no way he could have reconciled with both. “After the 70s, he became more conscious of his Indian roots. Now, he did not channelise it into abstract expressions. He even explicitly started using verses in Devanagari in his works,” observes Dalmia. For instance, in L’inconnu, he uses a line in Devanagari to convey the dichotomy between sects and identities. The local character of India then formed a bulk of his works. And he captured the verve of India in its fullest spirit. “When you see Bombay or Rajasthan the colours are vivid. With Rajasthan he brings out the searing sensations of the desert so powerfully on the canvas,” elaborates Dalmia.
S.H. Raza, L’inconnu, 1972
Mahatma Gandhi’s influence on his works cannot be understated at all. As a child when Raza first saw him with a singular lathi in his hand a simple white cloth wrapped across his body—the image seared in young Raza’s consciousness. As Dalmia notes in the biography, Raza did not follow the footsteps of his family to choose Pakistan after the partition of 1947 because he simply “couldn’t bear to leave the land of Gandhi” and even during his annual visits to India he would religiously bow before Gandhi’s samadhi in Delhi.
The Ethereal Touch
While the spiritual element in him only became more acute with each work. “Without divine intervention, paintings cannot be made,” he is quoted in the book. And the spiritual elements in his bindu paintings became perfectly attuned with the character of India on his canvas. With these multiple resonations in his works—ranging from the spiritual to the Gandhian and to the personal—for Dalmia, even writing the book and studying him was an “opening up experience” in many ways. She believes that Raza was an artist who lifted you up, he drew from life and made it bigger.
“His journey is simply astounding,” says Dalmia. “I don’t claim to have done total justice to his life because there are a lot of things only his eyes were privy to. But one thing remains unchanged: the story of a little boy who rose from the forests of Kanha to conquer the art world is nothing if not astounding.”
source: http://www.architecturaldigest.in / AD , Architectural Digest / Home> Culture / by Arman Khan / Photography by The Raza Foundation Archives / New Delhi / June 11th, 2021 / Front cover pix. edited in ..harpercollins.co.in
Abdul Wahid Sheikh, who was acquitted in 2015 of all charges in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case. | Photo Credit: Youtube Screengrab
The film, releasing today, is about Abdul Wahid Sheikh’s fight for justice and the pain of a commoner accused in 2006 Mumbai train bombings
For many years, Abdul Wahid Sheikh lived a life of peace and quiet. He would go to school in the morning, teach his students, spend time with them sorting out their issues, come back home in the afternoon to his family. The beautiful bubble burst when the police asked him to report to the local police station and arrested him as an accused of Mumbai train blasts of 2006 which claimed more than 180 lives.
The next nine years were spent proving his innocence. After being acquitted in the case, Sheikh decided to put it down in a book Begunah Quaidi, later translated into English as Innocent Prisoner. This Friday, Sheikh’s story makes it to cinema halls as director Sudarshan Gamare’s film Haemolymph releases at theatres across the country. Sheikh is both a relieved man, and emotional. “The film brought back memories of the prolonged stay in jail, the third degree treatment, false implication,” he shares his experience with The Hindu.
Excerpts from the interview:
You had already penned your experience in Innocent Prisoner. What led to Haemolymph now?
I returned from jail in 2015. A year later my book was published and many filmmakers started approaching me for making a film around my life. I did not say no to any of them. After listening to my story, nobody mustered up courage to make the film. When Sudarshan Gamare approached me, I told him, ‘You are not the first or the last to talk of making a film on my ordeal’. He had read Sunetra Choudhury’s book Behind Bars, which had a chapter on me, and my book too. We had many sittings about the script. Their team went through my chargesheet of 20,000 pages and the judgment of 2,000 pages. They saw the work I had been doing.
The film unit met you in Mumbai?
Yes. They hired space in a hotel in Mumbai and said, ‘You will have to sit with our team for two-three days and discuss minute details of the jail days’.
Didn’t you fear revisiting past trauma?
Yes, every now and then explaining the prison experience, I would get emotional. But I had a larger vision that if the film actually gets made, the world will know about my experience. What the book failed to do, this film has already done; those who watched the film at the premier (in New Delhi this past week), shed a tear. The film overwhelmed the audience and people asked about the 12 other accused too.
How long did it take to shoot the film?
It took two years to complete the film from research to shooting. As soon as the film’s shooting was completed, lockdown was imposed in March 2020. So the release was delayed. It will be screened at nearly 300 theatres from May 27.
How involved were you with the shooting?
I knew all the time where were they shooting in Mumbai. They used to call me regularly, and I attended whenever I had the time as I am also teaching in a school.
Was Riyaz Anwar who plays Abdul Wahid Sheikh in the film your choice?
No, he was the director’s choice. Sudarshan has worked with him in a couple of short films earlier. Riyaz has done a good job. There is a resemblance to my face and voice in the film.
How satisfied are you with the movie?
To a large extent…I understand it is not possible to encapsulate nine years of life in a two-hour film. Whatever the film shows is factually correct; whatever I underwent in jail or court, has been shown with honesty.
Were you arrested from school?
Yes and no. The illegal arrest took place when I was in school. They came and took me along. I came back a little later. For official arrest, they phoned me at home, asking me to come to the police station. I went over and they arrested me there. We have shown it in the film.
Aren’t you worried that the Intelligence Bureau guys who you say have often followed you will see the film too?
No, I am not worried. Let them watch a movie that narrates the life of a school teacher who is falsely implicated in a crime he did not commit.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Delhi / by Zia Us Salam / May 27th, 2022
Raj Kapoor with the editor Yunus Dehlvi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
How the Urdu magazine Shama peaked to popularity and disappeared
In the years gone by, the fountain at the Fawwara intersection in Chandni Chowk seldom worked. Yet, few complained. Most people came to Fawwara for their daily news, for here sat a newspaper seller who sold practically every language newspaper in the country.
Besides English, Hindi and Urdu dailies, one could get Punjabi, Marathi and Bengali papers too. He did not sell many magazines, the sole exception being Shama, the Urdu monthly that presented a heady cocktail of Urdu literature, Indian culture and Hindi cinema. Shama, like water, charted its own course.
Founded by Yusuf Dehlvi in 1939, some bought Shama to read Urdu writers. The who’s who of Urdu litterateurs, including Rajinder Singh Bedi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai and Qurratulain Hyder, graced its pages. There were pieces by connoisseurs of Indian culture as well, talking of traditions, little and large, and values, shifting or timeless.
Shama was appreciated in literary circles at a time when Delhi had a lively literary circuit with its mushairas, book readings, debates and even street theatre. Yet it would have remained a niche publication but for a couple of masterstrokes by Yusuf Dehlvi’s sons – the widely read Yunus Dehlvi and the widely popular Idrees Dehlvi – who turned what was otherwise a haloed literary publication into a family magazine.
Literary love 1960 cover of Shama and editor of the Urdu magazine | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Idrees had strong film connections. In a column he wrote under the pen name of Musafir, he talked of little things in the life of film stars: the films they signed, the films they opted out of, the flops they gave or the jubilee hits they notched up. He talked too of their relationships, their moments of stolen pleasure. He backed it all up with photographs of film shooting, movie storylines and lyrics of popular songs.
Readers lapped it up. Within no time, fans of Meena Kumari and Madhubala, Sadhana and Sharmila Tagore, Sridevi and Jayaprada started collecting the photos of their matinee idols.
Emboldened by the success, Shama started its own annual film awards with a graceful function at Ashok hotel’s convention hall. Soon, the biggest stars of Hindi cinema started frequenting Shama Kothi on Sardar Patel Marg in New Delhi, the residence of the Dehlvis named after the magazine. From Dilip Kumar and Sunil Dutt to Dev Anand, Rajendra Kumar, Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra, they would all come over.
The rise and fall of Shama Shashi Kapoor and Sadia Dehlvi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Once, as Vaseem Dehlavi, son of Yunus, recalls, “Sunil Dutt and Sanjay came shortly after Nargis Dutt had passed away to share their sorrow.” Often, the staff photographer of Shama clicked the pictures of stars here. They were then shared with readers as exclusive photos.
From predominantly abstract illustrations and photographs in the 40s, Shama by the 60s started having film stars on the cover. There were also film quizzes where a hundred cassettes of a new film’s songs were given away as prizes in the 70s and 80s. Every issue sold at least a lakh copies. People went to newspaper stalls to pick up their copy if their vendor delayed in delivering it at their house.
Crossword craze
The other big push was given by Yunus Dehlvi who had joined his father at the magazine as a young boy of 14-15. He started an Adabi Muamma (loosely culture crossword). It was in many ways the first such venture in an Urdu magazine. Men with pretensions to knowledge of varied kind were so hooked to Adabi Muamma that the magazine started getting lakhs of replies to every crossword. They all vied to win the two kilogram of gold bumper prize every month in the 80s.
As Vaseem Dehlavi reveals, “It was a completely honest exercise. When my father started putting the muamma together, he would lock himself in a room for two days and not allow any family member to come in.”
The rise and fall of Shama The magazine crossword | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The newspaper sellers matched its huge popularity with their innovation. They started selling forms for the puzzle and photostat copies of the original crossword separately. There was a time in the 70s and 80s when the magazine’s cover price was ₹5 but the photocopies of the muamma were sold separately by some vendors for ₹10!
There was a pickle seller in Old Delhi who made hay while Shama shined. He started selling the muamma, besides his pickle delicacies. Then there was a bookseller at Nai Sarak who mixed books with the puzzle. Children came for books, their parents for the puzzle. “We used to get at least 2 lakh responses to each muamma. If more than one person got the answer right, the prize money was shared between them. If in some issue, nobody got the right answer, it was carried over to the next issue. The prize money for the following month was added to it. There was that level of integrity to the whole issue,” says Vaseem Dehlavi, who is now based in Mumbai.
All good things, however, do come to an end. By the 90s, Urdu was no longer as popular a language. And the internet provided access to films. The heady days of longing for photographs and interviews of film stars are consigned to history. Add to that the crests and troughs of the family business. By December 1999, Shama, meaning candle flame, was extinguished, leaving many a parvana (moth) with happy memories of the years gone by.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books / by Ziya Us Salam / July 22nd, 2022
The Moti Masjid in Bhopal. | Photo Credit: FARUQUI A. M.
Tracing the history of a city where four Muslim women ruled for over 107 years
As the capital of one of the largest States, Bhopal has flown under the radar. It has little of the financial muscle associated with Mumbai, even less historicity to rival that of Kolkata. It has neither the earthiness of Patna nor the niceties of Lucknow. Yet, Bhopal in its own understated way has enough accomplishments to fill up a mantelpiece.
Among all the States, cities and towns of imperial and modern India, Bhopal has done more for women empowerment than probably all States put together. True, back in the 13th century Delhi had a woman ruler, Raziya Sultan, who ruled from 1236 to 1240, but little else.
Bhopal has been ruled by four Muslim women for 107 years. The Begums of Bhopal did not shy away from calling themselves the Nawabs of Bhopal.
Shaharyar Khan, Shobhan Lambert-Hurley and Vertul Singh have authored or edited books on the city, which on the one hand capture its history, and on the other reveal the streak of women dominance for more than a hundred years.
pix: bloomsbury.com
Khan’s The Begums of Bhopal is the most detailed work. Like an artist fills his canvas with colour, Khan fills his pages with details of the city, its illustrious history, and its formidable Begums, now reduced to a faint memory. Khan’s Bhopal was founded by Dost Mohammed Khan. As the author reminds us, “In 1707, before Dost Mohammed Khan arrived in Malwa, central India, Bhopal was a small village on the banks of the River Banganga. An old fort, lying in ruins, was a testimony to Bhopal having known more prosperous times in the distant past.”
Tales of Bhojpal
The earliest reference to Bhopal though dates back to 640 AD when it was ruled by the Parmar dynasty. Its name is derived from that of Raja Bhoj who, as legend has it, contracted leprosy and was advised to build a lake with water from 365 rivers and bathe in it. Raja Bhoj did as advised. The lake was called Bhoj Tal (or Bhoj’s lake). Over time, it got corrupted to Bhojpal, then Bhopal.
The State was formed in 1715. It was the second largest Muslim princely state in pre-Independence India, wherein 90% of the population was Hindu. Interestingly, the Begum of Bhopal, Nawab Sikandar Begum, as Lambert-Hurley writes in the introduction to A Princess’s Pilgrimage, supported the British during the Revolt of 1857.
After the Revolt had been suppressed, this loyalty was rewarded in the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 in which Sikandar was granted the title of Nawab to rule over Bhopal in her own right as well as given a 19-gun salute, the return of territory lost to a neighbouring prince and the Grand Cross of the Star of India. “This honour made her, at the time, the only female knight in the British Empire besides Queen Victoria, a position that underlines her unique status, as well as her close relationship with the British,” writes Lambert-Hurley.
The story of Bhopal though began not with Sikandar Begum’s rise or the reign of her mother Qudsia Begum or her own daughter Shah Jahan Begum, but with an intrepid young man called Dost Mohammed Khan. As Shaharyar Khan writes, “The story of Bhopal begins with Sardar Dost Mohammad Khan, founder of the state and of the Bhopal dynasty. Born in 1672, Dost was a strapping, handsome, brash and ambitious young man. Like all Pathan noblemen, he had been brought up in the warrior tradition of his clan…Dost’s only ambition was to enlist in Aurangzeb’s army and make his future in the service of the Mughal Empire. Around 1697, Dost was in his mid-20s and a brash, dare-devil, buccaneer of a character. He was restless and ready to seek his fortune by crossing the Khyber Pass into India.” Head to India he did, but it was far from an easy ride.
As he traversed through Jalalabad, Karnal and Delhi, on more than one occasion, he almost kissed death, but he proved a survivor, qualities which came in handy when he got to play a pivotal role in Bhopal.
Though he arrived in Bhopal practically a brigand, he worked his way up, working with a number of local kingdoms and fiefdoms — Rani Kamlapati is said to have sought his protection after the death of her husband Nizam Shah and even tied a rakhi on his hand.
He built the famous Fatehgarh Fort in 1716, including the famous Dhai Seedi ki Masjid, as Vertul Singh writes in BhopalNama: Writing a City. Incidentally, Fatehgarh was probably named after Fateh Bibi, a Rajput princess he married. Fateh was no ordinary woman; she paid ransom for her husband’s release when he was held captive by his own troops in Gujarat, Singh writes.
Khans to Begums
How did Bhopal transition from the Khans to Begums? After Khan’s death, Bhopal was attacked by many mercenaries when Mamola Bai, said by some to be the first Begum, took the help of British General Goddard to repel such forces. Then came Qudsia Begum whose perseverance and wisdom saved the “state from being gobbled up by the Scindias and the Bhonsles”, as Singh states. Her daughter Sikandar took statecraft to another level. Sikandar’s daughter Shah Jahan Begum added fine touches of poetry, art, music to turn Bhopal into a throbbing centre of the arts. Yet, the most maternal approach towards the subjects was displayed by the fourth Nawab, Sultan Jahan, known for administrative reforms, including several measures for the welfare of her subjects. So much so that she came to be addressed as Sarkar Amma.
This succession of matrilineal rulers gave Bhopal a unique identity. They did what a man could never have dreamt of.
For instance, Sultan Shah Jahan Begum initiated the building of a hospital exclusively for women, with women doctors, nurses and other staff. The facility came to be known as Sultania Zenana Hospital.
Likewise Sikandar Begum started the practice of schools for girls, inviting scholars from Yemen, Turkey and Arabia.
Incidentally, she penned her own experience of Hajj to Mecca and Medina in ‘A Pilgrimage to Mecca’ which now forms part of Lambert-Hurley’s A Princess’s Pilgrimage. Sikandar Begum’s was no ordinary trip as Hajj those days was a life-challenging exercise with possibilities of being robbed, injured or killed by marauders along the way.
After Sikandar, Sultan Jahan concentrated on girls’ education. As Singh writes, “Sultan Jahan’s contribution to women’s education is in no way lesser than that of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.”
Incidentally, she was the only woman chancellor of Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College which was to become the Aligarh Muslim University.
All the Begums worked well and lived long. Once, all the four queens of Bhopal were alive at the same time with Qudsia living to breathe alongside three of her successors. That’s an interesting footnote in the history of a city where male heirs have been few and far between. Their absence was seldom felt.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / Hindu / Home> Books / by Ziya Us Salam / book cover pix: by bloomsbury.com / September 12th, 2022
Hoovakuvakallu (Belepuni Village, Bantwal ),Mangaluru, KARNATAKA :
Mangaluru :
Ismail Kannathur (50) is the finest epitome in the society who has proven that being not educated is not a curse, but there is a scope to share knowledge.
Ismail, a scrap dealer by profession, has a collection of over 2,000 books at his residence. He runs a scrap shop at Hoovakuvakallu in Balepuni village in Bantwal. Ismail is not well-educated and studied only up to the first standard. But, he knows the importance of education and knowledge. Knowing the importance of books, Ismail has built a small library at his residence. He has been in the scrap dealing business for 25 years. When he gets good books in his business, he collects and preserves them. Initially, Ismail was a fruit vendor, but due to his helping nature, his business incurred loss. Later, he turned into a scrap dealer as per the suggestion of one of his friends. In the beginning, though he had no experience in scrap dealing, later through hard work, he gained experience.
Ismail is an active social worker. He has helped several people in distress. Whenever an accident occurs in the vicinity, Ismail has rushed several victims to the hospital. Moreover, he has helped poor girls in their marriage by raising funds.
Speaking to daijiworld.com, Ismail said, “I have collected several good books. My intention is to set up this library. I am not educated, but let others be educated by reading books. In the past, I have given over 2,000 books to several people. Some take it by paying a small amount, and though I refuse, they thrust a few currency notes into my shirt pocket. But, many take books free of cost. Some teachers and students also take books from me. As I am not well-educated, I have educated my five children.”
He also said that a person had motivated him to set up a library with the books available.
Ismail has arranged books on wooden shelves at his residence. The public can borrow them.
Ismail is also known as ‘Gandhi’ for his social service. He has been felicitated by many organizations and institutions for his active cleanliness drive. Ismail, for several years, has been involved in the cleanliness drive in the locality. He has helped several poor and downtrodden people. Ismail also actively works for various social causes including helping the police department in tracing thieves who rob offering boxes of temples and masjids.
source: http://www.daijiworld.com / DaijiWorld.com / Home> Top Stories / by Deekshith DV / by Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru / September 22nd, 2022
Telangana and Iran entered for the repair, conservation, digitalization and cataloguing of Urdu and Persian historical manuscripts and documents.
Hyderabad:
The Telangana State Archives and Research Institute on Wednesday entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Noor International Microfilm Centre, Culture House of the Islamic Republic of Iran, New Delhi for the repair, conservation, digitalization and cataloguing of Urdu and Persian historical manuscripts and documents, a common heritage between India and Iran.
The Telangana State Archives and Research Institute has a collection of rare and historical records dating back to 1406 A.D. pertaining to the Bahmani, Qutb Shahi, Adil Shahi and Mughal dynasties that ruled over the region.
The Institute houses more than 43 million documents, of which eighty percent of the records are in the classical Persian and Urdu languages owing to them being the official languages of the erstwhile dynasties of the Hyderabad Deccan region.
The records also include the original copies of GOs, gazettes etc of unified Andhra Pradesh from 1956 to 2014.
India and Iran have enjoyed a shared history which has influenced both cultures and civilisations. The documents housed in the Telangana State Archives are important historical artefacts of both countries.
This initiative, carried out by the Noor International Microfilm Centre which is housed in the Culture House of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in New Delhi, will bring millions of historical documents to life, and give future generations a glimpse of the state’s rich heritage.
It will also be a valuable asset for scholars from other countries who collaborate with Telangana State Archives for their research on the medieval and modern history of India and Telangana.
The entire process will be done at no cost to the state and will be entirely borne by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The MoU exchange ceremony took place at T-Hub Phase 2.0, in the presence of Telangana IT minister K.T. Rama Rao and Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Dr Ali Chegeni
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News> Telangana / by News Desk / September 07th, 2022
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