Different strokes: Rafiullah Baig of the Handwriting Institute of India in Yediyur can pinpoint key personality traits based on handwriting. Photo: Karan Ananth |
With only a handwritten paragraph before him, Rafiullah Baig can tell you all about your key personality traits in just about ten minutes.
The words mean little to Baig, founder-president of the Handwriting Institute of India at Yediyur; he finds meaning in the pressure applied while writing, the size of alphabets, the slant, the variation and where a person starts and ends the stroke.
“It is an established science — a branch of psychology called graphology where the handwriting is analysed to gain insight into the subconscious,” said Baig.
Personality types
“The pressure of your writing is a direct indication of the intensity of your emotions. Writing of small size generally signifies a reserved and focused personality. Big writing is an indication of a vibrant personality. A leftward slant is a sign of an introvert. Straight letters indicate logical and analytical behaviour and a rightward slant indicates an emotional personality,” explained Baig.
Further, each letter is linked to a trait. “For example, crossing the ‘t’ at a lower level indicates low self esteem and a high ‘t’ bar indicates high self-esteem,” he said.
He then pulled out handwriting samples of Sir M. Visvesvaraya, Thomas Alva Edison, Mother Teresa and Albert Einstein to point out where they crossed their ‘t’s while writing — right on top.
“The letter ‘t’ alone could give you 22 different interpretations,” he added.
Like the body, alphabets can be divided into three categories: the upper, the middle and the lower. Letters ‘l’ and ‘t’ have upward strokes corresponding to the upper part of the body while ‘y’ and ‘p’ have lower strokes; ‘m’ and ‘o’ fall in the middle order.
It is after years of practice that Baig can judge a piece of writing and talk at length about the person who wrote it. Apart from a basic function of personality assessment, the science, he explained, could also be used in therapy, crime investigation, recruitment and health. “The kind of therapy differs with different age groups. We help children write clearly, legibly and fast. With adults, the focus is on personality development.” Psychiatrists, Baig explained, work closely with handwriting analysts to influence, change, and heal illnesses of the mind. “But what we cannot understand from the writing is sex, age, right or left handedness and it cannot treat a disease completely,” he added.
Prescriptions and personality
So why do doctors have such bad handwriting? Largely illegible and unreadable are doctors’ prescriptions but Baig said it was a misconception that they write illegibly.
“We were wondering the same and did research that involved close to 3,000 doctors. The writing on the prescription is unreadable because first, the names of drugs and their spellings are unknown and second, doctors would like to keep the name of a drug secret to prevent misuse,” he said. “Outside of their profession, doctors write very artistically.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Benglauru / by Archana Nathan / April 18th, 2012
From government school teacher to life coach, Arif has come a long way while training thousands of students in Bengaluru.We trace his journey.
Arif Pasha certified by International Life Coach, Kaushik Mahapatra (pic: Arif Pasha)
A few years ago, when Arif Pasha had to drop out of BCom, he never imagined that he would become a life coach who trained students in soft skills, language and academics. Coming from a humble background, he was forced to drop out due to financial constraints. He later received training to become a medical transcriptionist and joined a multinational company. “My work involved converting all the voice notes sent by selected doctors in the US into transcripts. I earned a handsome salary but my interest was in guiding many young students like myself. One day, when I passed by a government school in Koramangala, I asked the principal if I could volunteer as a teacher. The principal readily agreed. After that, I slowly lost interest in my job, so, I decided to quit and take up teaching full-time,” says Arif.
Though his income was quite low and barely enough to make ends meet, Arif didn’t mind as he quickly became the students’ favourite teacher. “I discovered that innovation was missing in their education. Hence, I would spend two hours on the internet every day to learn innovative ideas to teach children. For example, all my lessons would be in the form of stories and real-life examples. I also do not use a stick while teaching children and it gave me good results in terms of response from students. Soon, even other teachers gave up using the stick,” says Arif, adding, “During my tenure in a government school, I was awarded as an outstanding teacher. The school had got good results in the final exams and they were happy with my efforts.”
Dream Merchant: Arif has trained over 35,000 students till date on the methods of achieving their goals
With that, Arif quickly realised that it was time for him to do more for students than just teach them. That’s when he remembered some of the soft skills he learnt during his corporate days — setting goals, planning time and working to achieve them. He then joined Arham Faraaz Leadership Academy in Bengaluru to groom his speaking skills, body language and storytelling skills, and after the completion of his training, he confidently approached a few schools to conduct goal setting sessions for students.
Narrating the story of his very first session, he says, “In 2010, I charged only `10 for each student. With a broken laptop in hand and a few students in class, I started speaking to them. During these sessions, I would explain to students why they have to attend school and what education can fetch them.” And where is Arif now? “As my work gained recognition, an educational institute in Mumbai gave me a boost to travel from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and work with different schools. Today, I have covered over 35,000 students across India in private as well as government schools. This year, my goal is to help and motivate 5,000 students. By 2025, my aim is to help 5 lakh students achieve their dreams.”
Arif says that these life coaching sessions help students transform themselves and they ultimately start performing well in academics. For example, last year, when he was working with the Rajeev Gandhi Public School in Bengaluru, he came across a girl who was not doing well in her studies and she feared facing the Board exams. Through various sessions of counselling, drawing study plans and helping her realise her potential, she was able to score 86 per cent in her class X exams. What better instance can one state to prove that his sessions have served their purpose?
His smart goal: Arif aims to train five lakh students by the year 2025
Arif has even trained under international speaker and author Syed Habeeb, who wrote the book The Warrior Within You. “I worked as a language trainer in a school called LifeBridge Finishing School. We helped engineering students present themselves in their interview and get placed. It was a 21-day residential training programme. On average, every third day, I conducted sessions to train students and teachers. Currently, I am training under Uday Kumar who is a Limited Liability Partnership coach. Aside from this, I am certified by the Indian Leadership Academy by Koushik Mahapatra as a Life Skills Coach and an LLP practitioner,” states Arif who is the founder and CEO of Live Your Dreams. His friend Abdul Afsar Baig handles the operations of the company.
Apart from training students and motivating them, Arif is specialised in training teachers and parents too. He explains, “During my sessions, I found out that many students are interested in achieving their goals but sometimes, their teachers and parents don’t cooperate. This brings down their motivation level. I designed a programme for seven days which includes training students, helping teachers draw their lesson plans, employing innovative skills of teaching, adopting technology to gel with the present generation and lending a ear to what students have to say. Meanwhile, parents play a key role in this as they learn about their children’s dreams and how they can help in achieving them.”
Here are a few tips that Arif gives students
No matter what people around you say, one should not stop thinking if they want to become a doctor, engineer, IAS officer, astronaut, singer or artist
Thinking alone won’t help. One should have strong will power and commitment to plan and work accordingly
Always tell yourself that you can do it instead of you can’t
Convert everything that you study into an image so that you don’t forget easily.
source: http://www.edexlive.com / EDEX / Home> People> Life Coach / by Rashmi Patil , Edex Live / July 20th, 2019
Baroda, MADHYA PRADESH / Paris, FRANCE / London, UNITED KINGDOM :
If the proposal is passed, it will be the first time that non-white people will be featured on British coins or notes.
Born in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother, Noor’s family moved to London and then to Paris during the First World War. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
British media reported this week that Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is considering a proposal to feature historical figures from the Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community of the country on a set of coins titled ‘Service to the Nation’.
If the proposal is passed, it will be the first time that non-white people will be featured on British coins or notes. The plan has been submitted to the Royal Mint, which is to come up with proposals and designs.
Zehra Zaidi of the advocacy campaign ‘Banknotes of Colour’, along with a group of historians and MPs, had written to the Chancellor proposing some historical figures. Among them were the Indian-origin British spy Noor Inayat Khan, as well as Khudadad Khan, the first soldier of the British Indian Army to receive the Victoria Cross. Khudadad Khan, who belonged to the Chakwal district of Punjab in present-day Pakistan, died in 1971.
The continuing Black Lives Matter protests in the United States , triggered by the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in May, which have put a spotlight on the lack of BAME representation in the UK, and have compelled authorities to take appropriate steps.
Who was Noor Inayat Khan?
Born in Moscow to an Indian father and an American mother, her family moved to London and then to Paris during the First World War. Although Noor started working as a children’s writer in Paris, she escaped to England after the fall of France (when it was invaded by Germany) during the Second World War.
In November 1940, she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, an arm of the UK’s Royal Air Force to train as a wireless operator. She then did a stint at the secret intelligence organisation set up by Winston Churchill called Special Operations Executive (SOE).
A bust of Noor Inayat Khan in Gordon Square, London. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
She became the first radio operator to be sent to Paris to work for SOE’s Prosper resistance network under the codename Madeleine. She was just 29 then, and had signed up for a job in which people were not expected to be alive for longer than six weeks.
Even as many members of the network were being arrested by the Nazi secret police Gestapo, Noor chose to stay put — and spent the summer moving from one place to another, sending messages back to London, until she was arrested in 1943.
She was executed at the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany near Munich. Noor was awarded the highest honour in the UK, the George Cross, in 1949, and the French Croix de Guerre with the silver star posthumously.
What was Noor’s connection to India?
She was connected to India through her father Inayat Khan. He was founder of the Sufi Order of the West, which is now known as the Inayati Order. He had migrated to the West as n Hindustani classical musician, and then moved to teaching Sufism.
Inayat Khan was born in Baroda. His maternal grandfather was the noted musician Ustad Maula Bakhsh Khan, who founded the music academy Gyanshala, which now serves as the Faculty of Performing Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University. Maula Bakhsh’s wife, Qasim Bibi, was a granddaughter of Tipu Sultan of Mysore.
Inayat returned to India in 1926 and chose the site of his burial at the Nizamuddin Dargah complex in New Delhi. The Inayat Khan dargah still stands in a corner of the complex.
Besides being a GC, what other honours has Noor received?
In 2014, Britain’s Royal Mail had issued a postage stamp in honour of Noor as part of a set of 10 stamps in the ‘Remarkable Lives’ series. In 2012, a memorial with a bust of Noor was unveiled in London by Princess Anne. Shrabani Basu, author of ‘Spy Princess, The Life of Noor Inayat Khan’, and Chair of the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust, had campaigned for the memorial.
In February 2019, Noor’s London home at 4 Taviton Street in Bloomsbury, the house that she left for her final mission, was honoured with a blue plaque. She was the first Indian-origin woman to be awarded the plaque.
How has Noor been represented in popular culture?
Various documentaries on women agents and the SOE have featured her story, such as Netflix’s ‘Churchill’s Secret Agents: The New Recruits’. In 2018, a play titled ‘Agent Madeleine’ premiered at the Ottawa Fringe Festival.
In 2012, Indian producers Zafar Hai and Tabrez Noorani obtained the film rights to the biography by Basu. In the film ‘Liberté: A Call to Spy’, an American historical drama, actor Radhike Apte played the role of Noor. The film had its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival last year.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Explained / by Surbhi Gupta / New Delhi / July 29th, 2020
Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha, who heads COVID-19 Task Force for Narasimharaja Assembly Constituency, this morning inaugurated the Comprehensive COVID Care facility set up at Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital (BAMH) on Old Mysuru-Bengaluru Road. The Hospital has been converted into a modern 75-bed hospital and can be extended to 100 beds.
Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital has tied up with Brindavan Hospital for this initiative and the facility will be entirely managed by Brindavan Hospital. It has facilities including Intensive Care Units, Surgery and Haemodialysis, ventilator support and even can handle child birth cases of COVID-infected pregnant women.
The Brindavan Hospital and the Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital will be treated as one hospital and as the State Government has mandated all Private Hospitals in the State to hand over their 50 percent of the beds to COVID care, all the beds at Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital will be reserved for COVID patients and all the non-COVID patients will be treated at Brindavan Hospital.
MP Pratap Simha inaugurating the Comprehensive COVID Care facility at the hospital along with Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital President Iqbal Ahmed.
A team of specialist doctors, technicians and paramedical staff will run the Hospital with utmost precautions to help the District Administration in its efforts to control the pandemic. Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital President Iqbal Ahmed, Dr. M.R. Aiyappa, General Physician and Diabetologist and Dr. Ravindranath, Orthopaedician at Brindavan Hospital, Dr. K. Javed Nayeem, Dr. Mohan, Dr. Imran and others were present.
Disinfectant tunnel
On the occasion, a unique disinfectant tunnel was inaugurated by the MP where liquid is not sprayed on the entrants but are fumigated with thick smoke. The smoke is, however safe to inhale. The tunnel has been installed by S3V Technologies and is called ‘3V Safe Tunnel’. Impressed by the tunnel, MP Pratap Simha asked the company representatives to demonstrate the tunnel to Deputy Commissioner Abhiram G. Sankar so that such facilities can be installed at all the other COVID Care Centres, and hospitals.
MP Pratap Simha seen exiting a unique disinfectant tunnel where people are fumigated at Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital this morning.
Protest held, withdrawn
A group of five to six people claiming to be members of Waqf Board in Mysuru objected to the conversion of Bibi Ayesha Milli Hospital into a COVID Hospital. Claiming to be the owners of the building and the property where the hospital stands, the members protested. They objected for the commercial use of the Hospital and at the same time said that the hospital is located in a thickly populated area and there is a danger of virus spreading.
Narasimharaja Sub-Division ACP Shivashankar, Inspector Shekhar and Pratap Simha intervened in the protest and asked the Waqf Board members to withdraw the stir. They told the protesters that real estate matters could be sorted out in other platforms later.
The Hospital has been taken over as COVID-19 is a national disaster and people who object to such issued can be booked under National Disaster Management Act, they said. The protest was later withdrawn.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Covid-19> News / July 24th, 2020
Wasim and 22 other men are part of NGO Helping Hands and they stay at the burial ground till 10 pm, doing what even family members of relatives are scared to do – burying COVID-19 victims’ bodies.
The team has completed over 100 burials of COVID-19 victims till date. (Photo | Shriram BN, EPS)
Wasim Zubair’s day begins with his prayers after which he heads to the burial ground at Quddus Saheb Edgar at 5.30 am to get a list of the deceased who will be brought for their last rites.
Wasim and 22 other men are part of NGO Helping Hands and they stay at the burial ground till 10 pm, doing what even some family members are scared to do – burying COVID-19 victims.
The task is tiring as they have to sweat it out wearing their PPE kits, which they have to constantly change after each burial. There is no incentive for them to do this, not to mention the risk they run of contracting the infection.
Ask them why they do it and Abdul Muheeb, founder of NGO Helping Hands, says, “In April, we locals would see families struggling to carry the dead body of their relatives as very few people were turning up for the last rites fearing coronavirus. Seeing them helpless, and some of them not in the right state of mind while bidding farewell to their near and dear ones made us want to help. The happiness we get when we help them perform the last rites is unparalleled.”
Photo | Shriram BN, EPS
The team has completed over 100 burials of COVID-19 victims till date.
“We see fear of the virus that has gripped people world over, so much so that I witnessed the son of a dead father not wanting to perform the last rites. We tell one or two family members to join us so they know where the grave is. We give them PPE kits as well,” Muheeb said.
Wasim has seen several instances of brothers, sons and grandsons of elderly COVID-19 victims hesitating at the gates of the burial ground.
A cloth of 10 metres by 10 metres is placed on the ground, one horizontally and the other vertically. With the help of the handles of the body bag, they lift the body from the stretcher on to the cloth.
They then lift the cloth and lower the body into the grave. The stretcher is then sanitised and the last Namaz also done as per religious norms.
The JCB digs 30 pits at the burial ground in advance at the beginning of each day.
Thankfully, none of the volunteers have contracted the virus so far.
Wasim says they take the necessary precautions and avoid getting too close to the body or even the primary contacts of the dead person.
“Most of our team members are youngsters. Our tagline is ‘Making it possible by his grace’. We spend our money on PPE kits but sometimes people donate a few kits to us. We don’t charge the family a single rupee,” Wasim said, speaking to The New Indian Express even as three funerals were taking place on Tuesday afternoon.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by Ranjani Madhavan / Express News Service / July 22nd, 2020
Dubai-based Asad Haque on the “incomparable” fruits of taking his hobby to the next level.
Dubai resident Asad Haque is a CEO. He’s also a date farmer. The two pursuits could not be more different from each other and yet, the Indian expat dons both hats with the ease that can only be born of passion.
Asad’s love for gardening goes back to his childhood, when he would tend to plants and flowers in the large compound around his home in Bangalore. Although he’s been a resident of the UAE for 30 years, it was only when he moved to his villa in the Meadows that he finally had the opportunity to take his hobby to the next level. It’s a mark of his love for Nature that he decided to embark on the intensely challenging pursuit of date farming while at it.
“The date palm is the one tree that suits the local terrain and can survive the terrible summer heat, while also producing a fruit both wonderful and nutritious,” he explains.
Few things are as representative of Emirati heritage as dates, a deliciously sweet fruit that has long been associated with the culture and history of not only the UAE, but also the Arab world. There is a recorded population of over 40 million date palms producing 199 varieties of dates in the UAE alone.
“The date palm has been mentioned in the Quran more than 20 times, and Muslims are well known for breaking their fasts during Ramadan with its fruit, so there is a spiritual and cultural connection too,” he adds.
Asad’s Dubai residence is home to eight of these trees – each one producing eight to 15 large bunches of fruit and up to a total of 1,000 kilograms every year. The bounty is no mean feat, considering the labour-intensive process of nurturing them from pollination to harvest.
Skilled gardeners are required to scale the trees (that can grow up to a height of 20 metres), using rope harnesses hitched around their waists and navigating the thorns that grow to about six inches long, in order to reach the flowers and pollinate the trees by hand. What follows are six to eight months of rigorous care, especially with regard to keeping pests like the red palm weevil at bay. Asad ensures he personally oversees every step of the process and loves giving the trees “baths” every other day. After 15 years, says the entrepreneur, the trees have become “like family” – and, if nourished well, can grow to about 150 years old.
“It’s been a fantastic experience here in the UAE,” says Asad, who is CEO at ICT Consultants. “Although I had a liking for gardening, it is Dubai that gave me the opportunity to nurture this hobby into a full-fledged passion.” With an annual crop so bountiful, the 54-year-old not only gifts the fruits to family and friends, but also distributes them generously among charities, labour camps and mosques, crediting his wife Reshma with “doing a beautiful job of packing them” every time.
There are other intangible ‘fruits’ of his labour that he cannot discount, he notes. “For one to take up date farming, one has to either have a lot of patience or cultivate such a trait. That’s something I’ve learnt after all these years of date farming; it’s given me a lot of patience. It also connects you to the supernatural, to creation and the Creator,” he says. “There is a deeply spiritual satisfaction that comes from seeing something through, from flowering to harvesting, that is difficult to express in words.”
Asad is quick to shoot down any notions that desert lands like the UAE are unsuitable to home farming. “Although the palm tree is the most naturally suited to the local habitat, it is not that nothing else can grow here. We grow a variety of other plants and trees in our garden: moringas, mangoes, lemons, figs, curry leaves, pomegranates and tomatoes are just a few.”
A strong advocate for cultivating a green thumb, Asad says, “Whatever you have at home – whether it’s a garden or even just a balcony – I would strongly encourage everyone to attempt growing fruits and vegetables at home. Not only are there a lot of green benefits to reap from it, but you will find a connection to nature and beyond that cannot be compared.”
karen@khaleejtimes.com
source: http://www.khaleejtimes.com / Khaleej Times / Home> WKND (Weekend) > Interview / by Karen Ann Monsy / July 16th, 2020
“To live like a TIGER for a day is far better than to live like a jackal for a hundred years.” – Tipu Sultan
Today marks the 221th death anniversary of Sultan Fateh Ali Khan Tipu, better known as Tipu Sultan the Muslim warrior-king of Mysore, who died fighting the British today, May 4th 1799. Tipu ruled the kingdom of Mysore, which he inherited from his father Haidar Ali. His bravery, valour and skills were so talked about that French commander-in-chief Napolean Bonaparte once sought an alliance with the ruler of Mysore.
Tipu Sultan was born as Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu on November 10, 1750 in Devanahalli, present-day Bangalore. He was born to Fatima Fakhr-un-Nisa and Hyder Ali, the Sultan of Mysore. Tipu Sultan succeeded his father in 1782. The 18th-century ruler is popularly known as the Tiger of Mysore and Tipu Sahib.
We, as a citizen of India pay heartfelt tribute to Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore on his 221th death anniversary and salute his valour against the British forces. He was considered to be the first Indian freedom fighter, was a great patriot of India, who fought whole life against the British occupation and colonialism. He was glorified as India’s original Missile man by Ex-President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kamal. Tipu Sultan is revered as a pioneer in the use of rocket artillery. Sultan’s rockets were the first iron-cased rockets successfully deployed for military use. He deployed the rockets against advances of British forces and their allies during the Anglo-Mysore Wars. The rockets used during the Battle of Pollilur in 1780 and Siege of Seringapatam in 1799 were said to be more advanced than the British had previously seen.
Tipu’s portrait is in a NASA facility. It shows his passion and willingness towards scientific and technological advancements as well as innovations. It is said that Tipu was fascinated by western science and technology.
Admired by Abdul Kalam, Ex-President of India
After becoming President, in 2006, Kalam sent a top Defence scientist to Srirangapatana in Karnataka to study Tipu Sultan’s efforts to use rockets against the British over 200 years previously.
At the end of his visit to various sites associated with Tipu Sultan’s rocket launching activities at Srirangapatna, then Chief Controller of Research and Development at Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), A Sivathanu Pillai declared, “There is no doubt that this is the birthplace of rocketry.”
“Now, I will report to the President what I have seen here (Srirangapatna). He (Kalam) is a rocket scientist. Naturally, he is interested to know,” Pillai had said.
After this visit, Pillai said he would recommend President Kalam to build consensus in the community of rocket scientists that Srirangapatna was the birthplace of rocketry by holding seminars and other initiatives.(courtesy: The Quint)
Tipu’s startup hubs and rockets
“Tipu Sultan was perhaps the first ruler to understand that there was a marked difference between Europe of the 1700s and 1790s, thanks to scientific innovations,“ says aerospace scientist Roddam Narasimha, who has been studying Tipu’s rockets for many years now. “He realised the power of technology , combined with discipline, and set up four innovation hubs (like modern-day tech parks) in Bengaluru, Chitradurga, Srirangapatna and Bidanur. He called them Taramandalpets.”(courtesy: The Economics Times)
He was the only Indian ruler who understood the dangers the British posed to India, and fought four wars to oust them from India – in that sense, he could be called the first freedom fighter in the subcontinent. He fought four wars against British colonialism with heroism, valour, and bravery, moreover to the last. He sacrificed his life for the nation and martyred a historical and brave death.
Tipu was a generous patron of several Hindu temples, including the Sri Ranganatha temple near his main palace at Srirangapattana, and the Sringeri Math, whose swami he respected and called Jagadguru. The Editor of Mysore Gazetteer Prof. Srikantaiah has listed 156 temples to which Tipu’s regularly paid annual grants. His progressive measures in the administration were equally commendable.
His reign is remembered for many technological and administrative innovations. Among them was introduction of new coin denominations and new coin types. He also introduced a luni-solar calendar. During his rule, he introduced a land revenue system which gave a boost to the Mysore silk industry and helped in establishing Mysore as a major economic power.
In the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War between 1798-99, he was defeated when the forces of the British East India Company, the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad came together. He was killed on May 4, 1799, while defending his fort of Srirangapatna, present-day Mandya in Karnataka.
Md Irshad Ayub, Founding English Editor at Millat Times
http://www.heritagetimes.in / Heritage Times / Home / by Team HT / May 02nd, 2020
Naseer Ahmed who was a minister in S Bangarappa’s cabinet has been a council member three times previously.
Bengaluru :
Two Congress members, B K Hariprasad and Naseer Ahmed, took oath as members of the Legislative Council on Thursday. Speaking to TNIE, Hariprasad said, “After decades in national politics, the party high command has decided to bring me into state politics.’’ Naseer Ahmed said, “The State is facing grim challenges like Covid-19. We will fight to make the lot of the citizen better.’’
Hariprasad, a four-time Rajya Sabha member and who has served as AICC general secretary and state in-charge of 17 states, is expected to add to Congress’ formidable strength in the Council. They already have 32 members. In comparison, BJP’s numbers will go up to 23 after getting four new members.
Naseer Ahmed who was a minister in S Bangarappa’s cabinet has been a council member three times previously. BJP MLC Ravi Kumar said that the party’s Council members will take oath at 12.15pm on Friday.The lone JDS member, Inchara Govindraj, said he would take oath after July 20 depending on the availability of former PM H D Deve Gowda.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by Express News Service / July 03rd, 2020
In Rebel Sultans, Manu S Pillai traces the history of the Deccan from the end of the 13th century to the dawn of the 18th, punctuated by tales of drama, betrayal and murder.
Editor’s note: The Deccan, miles away from the empire of the Mughals, was eyed with envy by rulers such as Aurangzeb, so much so that it is said to have contributed to his downfall. Its kingdoms had much to offer; in their courts were Persians and Marathas, in their ranks were African nobles, and in their treasuries were gold and fortunes.
In Rebel Sultans, Manu S Pillai traces the history of the Deccan from the end of the 13th century to the dawn of the 18th. He tells the story of the Vijayanagar empire, the court of the Bahmani kings, and the Rebel sultans — punctuated by drama, betrayal and murder. The book features characters such as Malik Ambar, Chand Bibi and Krishnadeva Raya, and is published by Juggernaut Books.
The hero of the Deccan had skin the colour of coal. Emperors snarled at him from afar, while enemies at home rattled in fear when he marched into their neighbourhoods. Many were those who despised him, but many more still were the masses who discerned in him a champion. His story was certainly unusual, though he was neither the first of his people to serve in the Deccan, nor extraordinary in his antecedents. And yet he emerged as the strongest of them all, reigning indeed as king in all but name. ‘He has a stern Roman face,’ wrote one traveller, ‘and is tall and strong of stature’ though his ‘white glassy eyes’, it was added, ‘do not become him.’ His charities were legendary, as was the valour of the men who pledged themselves to his service. When at last he died, not on the battlefield but secure in a formidable fortress, the Mughals admitted that this enemy was ‘an able man. In warfare, in command, in sound judgment, and in administration he had no rival or equal… He kept down the turbulent spirits of [the Deccan], and maintained his exalted position to the end of his life, and closed his career in honour. History,’ the obituary concludes, ‘records no other instance of an Abyssinian slave arriving at such eminence.’ It was high praise, coming as it did from the imperial court, where two generations of emperors revealed nothing but spite for the man called Malik Ambar.
The Deccan, as we know, had long attracted foreigners to its shores, offering them wealth and a future in these eastern lands. Persians arrived, as did Arabs and Central Asians. Some graduated to princely ranks, while others soared to gratifying aristocratic heights. But among the legions of men absorbed by the Bahmanis and their heirs were also Africans who came primarily from the land we now call Ethiopia. And they too would thrive in the Deccan far above the stations where they began their lives. Some were associated with tales of treachery – Mahmud Gawan’s confidant, who struck his seal on the forgery that delivered him his death warrant, was a habshi (an African) as was his executioner. When Yusuf Adil Shah died, one of the regents who ruled in the name of his son was a black man from Ethiopia – the latter was stabbed to death for displacing Westerners and favouring the Sunni faith. When years later Chand Bibi was imprisoned, her liberator who briefly stood at the forefront in Bijapur was a habshi, as was the man Ibrahim Adil Shah II rejected after eight years of living under his guard. In Ahmadnagar, during the wars of succession in the 1590s, one ruler, whose reign lasted less than a year, found himself without support from his nobles because his mother was ‘a negress’, though when Chand Bibi was besieged by the Mughals, the man who led Bijapur’s and Golconda’s troops to her rescue was also a habshi called Suhail Khan. And many years later, on the eve of the final Mughal conquest of the Deccan, in Bijapur once again would rise a habshi exercising as a short-lived vizier the full and tragic authority of power.
The habshis had almost all of them begun their careers as slaves. And there certainly was a thriving market for men from Ethiopia in the courts and demesnes of the east. Writing as early as the 14th century, Ibn Batuta reports how habshis were ‘guarantors of safety’ for ships sailing in the Indian Ocean, with such fearsome reputations that ‘let there be but one of them on a ship and it will be avoided by… pirates’. Centuries later a Portuguese missionary noted how ‘all the country of Arabia, Persia, Egypt, and Greece are full of slaves’ who made for ‘great warriors’. In India too, this was true. The favour and affection shown by Raziya Sultan in the 1230s to Jamal al-Din Yakut, an Abyssinian warrior, provoked a rebellion and contributed to her brutal murder in Delhi at the close of that decade. At the end of the 14th century, a habshi servant of the Delhi Sultans had established a near-sovereign state in Jaunpur, in present-day Uttar Pradesh, which sustained itself till 1479. Firoz Shah Bahmani in the early 15th century had habshis in his harem, while in that same century a 1487 coup by Africans in the court of the ruler of Bengal led to the rise of a short-lived ‘Habshi Dynasty’ hundreds of miles away, on the other side of the Indian subcontinent. The exquisite Siddi Saiyyed Mosque in Ahmedabad was built by a habshi in 1572, and generations later the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb would appoint the African lord of the fortress of Janjira his naval commander, allocating to him an annual grant of 400,000 rupees to maintain the imperial fleet. In the old quarter of Delhi there is even an area by the name of Phatak Habash Khan, named, evidently, after a habshi courtier who bid farewell to the Deccan, embracing the cause of the Mughal emperor.
While these are episodes that stand out, where Africans from humble origins arrived at positions of honour and power (and sometimes infamy), the beginning of their journeys on this path were never happy. The habshis were often taken as children and sold at a price to be transported abroad. Ethiopia, at the time, was called Abyssinia in the trading world, and the very word ‘habshi’ is a derivation denoting the origins of these slaves. Malik Ambar, too, emerged from this commercial exchange of human goods. Born around 1548 into the Oromo tribe, he was captured as a boy and sold to an Arab for 20 gold ducats. In Baghdad he passed, temporarily, into the hands of another owner, who then sold him to the man who would bring him to India – and to his destiny. It was this master who educated him, though by now he had renounced his name, Chapu, and converted to Islam. ‘Whether he assumed a Muslim identity at the time as an act of genuine faith or simply as a practical matter of assimilation is not known.’ But it certainly helped him in his life ahead, to share faith with the powerful kings and noblemen of the east, in whose service lay his ascent.
Around 1571, now in his early 20s, Ambar, as he was known, arrived in the Deccan where his long-time master sold him to the peshwa (chief minister) of Ahmadnagar. The sale itself was not unusual – though his master had brought him up, the ‘bottom-line was never in dispute: Ambar was property’ and not ‘an heir or son’. However, the man who had just purchased the slave must have opened Ambar’s eyes to a world of possibilities, for the peshwa was himself black and had arrived in the Deccan under similar circumstances. He would, in due course, be assassinated, but to Ambar it must have been clear that in India it was possible to rise beyond slavery and to come into great power and wealth – he himself was merely one of a thousand habshis the peshwa possessed.
Rebel Sultans by Manu S Pillai is published by Juggernaut Books
source: http://www.firstpost.com / FirstPost / Home>Living News / by Manu S Pillai / June 21st, 2018
The Bengaluru-based Dr. Majeed Foundation, a non-profit institution has contributed ₹10 crore to PM CARES Fund, to help combat the widespread outbreak of COVID-19, according to a press release. The Foundation was set up by Muhammed Majeed, Founder and Chairman of Sami-Sabinsa Group.
It contributed ₹2 crore to the Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority.
The Foundation has been actively supporting people in distress, by ramping up its community outreach programmes to reach out to the poor and vulnerable communities. It helped those who have been most affected by the pandemic in Bengaluru and Hyderabad and provided them with essential food items, protective equipment, hand sanitizers and health supplements.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> State> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Bengaluru – June 19th, 2020
