The Myth of an Intolerant Islam
Islam is a massive faith with 1.6 billion followers spread across the Islamic world that stretches over 15,000 kilometers. A considerable section of the community lives as a minority community…
Moin Qazi
India’s Native Grass Root Health Revolution
Women are not dying because of diseases we cannot treat…They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving – Mahmoud Fathalla, Chair…
A Madrasa That Promises Both Heaven And Earth
The South Indian city of Bidar -the northernmost part of Karnataka, 145 km from Hyderabad-is a placid habitation where Hindus and Muslims peaceably coexist to the eternal rhythms of…
Uniform Civil Code Neither Necessary Nor Desirable, Says Law Commission
In a strong setback to the backers of right wing ideology, the Law Commission of India has said that a uniform civil code “is neither necessary nor desirable at this…
New Frontiers In Development
Poverty is humanity’s cruellest affliction and India is home to the largest absolute number of poor people on the planet. People who are trapped in a cycle of poverty can’t…
India Needs To Fix Its Flawed Water Equation
World Water Week August 26-31, 2018 India has long undervalued one of its most precious resources—water. The country’s chronic mismanagement of water is staring at it now. The country…
India’s Tryst With Independence
15th August is the most cherished date in the Indian calendar .it was on this momentous day, more than seven decades back, that we were born an independent and free…
Why Development Agencies Love Quality Cows?
The penchant of development agencies for high-yielding cows has never abated. Whenever relief measures are planned for drought-affected families in villages, free quality cows are considered an important element in…
De-jargoning the development discourse
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere. -Lee Iacocca We live in an age where noisy posturing often substitutes…
India’s Civil Service Needs To Reinvent Itself
The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility -Brooks Atkinson The Indian Civil Service represents the crème de la crème of…
India’s Arid Land, Thirsty Crops
We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one -Jacques Cousteau While the world has significantly improved food security, it is now faced with a mounting challenge…
A Need For Reliable Micropension
India is home to one-fifth of the world’s population which includes a third of the world’s poor and one-eighth of the world’s elderly. Most of them spend their whole lives…
India’s Water Woes
Water is the driving force of all nature. – Leonardo Da Vinci India has long undervalued one of its most precious resources—water. The country’s chronic mismanagement of water is staring…
What Ramadan Teaches Me Every Year
O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may attain Taqwa [God-consciousness] – (The Qur’an, Al-Baqarah: 183) Religious…
Corruption: India’s Worst Curse
India’s eager quest for economic dynamism has been severely stifled by chronic corruption. The country needs to urgently modernize its institutions and end the culture of rent seeking and cutting…
Rag Pickers To Entrepreneurs: How Women In This Maharashtra Village Are Empowering Themselves
I vividly remember my moment of epiphany. It was a balmy afternoon in early 1996 in Warora, a small township in northern Maharashtra. I was posted as a manager of…
Zakat: Reawakening A Spirit Of Camaraderie
By no means shall you attain righteousness, unless you give of that which you love. (Q 3: 92) The idea that helping others is part of a meaningful life…
How A Mumbai Couple Is Helping To Change The World
Historians will tell you that a burst of creativity occurs when we start believing that the search for solutions to complex problems has come to an end. This explosion is…
India’s Public Banks Are Its Lifeline: Privitisation Will Ruin Them
The world’s investment leader, Warren Buffett, once said, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you realise who has been swimming naked”. When the banking system hit the rocks…
Baba Amte’s Legacy Ignites Granddaughter
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. -Eleanor Roosevelt The world is witnessing a new breed of women leaders and game-changers who are gate…
The Message Of Ramadan
This is the holy month when Muslims, about one fifth of the world’s population, undergo a rigorous fast (not even a drop of water or spittle passes their throats). Muslims…
Malnutrition: India’s Silent Catastrophe
Despite the spectacular strides made in economic growth and having a technological boom, India still continues to struggle to attain freedom from hunger. It is bearing witness to a triple…
India’s Sanitation Revolution
Sanitation is the key to proper hygiene, which is essential for a health and safety of the public. India’s record, especially when it comes to sanitation, has been abysmal so…
Aamir Khan Shepherds New Water Revolution
Historians will tell you that an explosion of creativity occurs the moment the world starts complaining that there is nothing left to invent, or that the search for solutions has come…
India’s Public Health Crisis
Indian economy has made rapid strides in recent year but its abysmal health system remains an Achilles heel has impeded millions of people from sharing the gains of India’s…
India’s Schools Are Letting Down Their Students
The true teachers are those who help us think for ourselves --Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan India’s education sector has expanded rapidly in the last decade but the quality of learning remains…
Moneylenders Still Rule The Roost
“In general, the rural moneylender as a species has proved surprisingly resilient, even in countries such as India and Indonesia where it has been a declared objective of…
Fixing India’s Broken Education System
India’s education sector is one of the largest sunrise sectors in the economic and social development of the country. With more than 1.5 million schools — 1.1 million of them…
The Great Financial Exclusion Drive Of Banks
The country’s largest bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), has closed as many as 41.16 lakh savings accounts between April-January in the current fiscal year for not maintaining the…
India Needs To Fix Its Water Woes- World Water Day -22 March 2018
India has long undervalued one of its most precious resources—water. The country’s chronic mismanagement of water is staring at it now. Over 600 million Indians rely on the monsoon…
India Reins Ponzi Kingpins
In 1919 Charles Ponzi, a clerk in Boston, suckered Americans with a scheme that is now identified with his name. At a time when interest rates stood at 5…
How Civil Is India’s Civil Service
Does a career in the Indian civil service mean a life of ‘public service’? It is a puzzling question given the sloth and the thickets of red-tapism that have…
Wasting Food In A Hungry World
India produces enough food to meet the needs of its entire population yet, it is unable to feed millions of them, especially women and children. India ranks 100th among…
Can India Stop It’s Epic Bank Scams?
The world’s great philanthropist and investment leader, Warren Buffett, once said, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you realise who has been swimming naked”. Well, it’s the…
Pension For The Poor
India is home to one-fifth of the world’s population which includes a third of the world’s poor and one-eighth of the world’s elderly. Several million of them who spend…
Microfinance or Debt Trap? What The Poor Don’t Know
Microfinance continues to thrive despite being under fire from legions of critics. One plausible reason for the lingering faith in the power of microfinance is that it provides a convenient…
The Threads Of Gloom
India has been home to a variety of arts and crafts which have won it a coveted place in the cultural heritage of the world. Handloom is one of the…
Media On Trial
Much is said, and rightly so, about the excesses of the press. Despite press codes and press laws ,partisan journalism continues to rule with an untrammeled pen. The press,…
Himroo: A Dying Art
A dignified aura of its rich past cloaks every corner of Aurangabad, a bustling city in Maharashtra. The crowning minarets that dot the city landscape and the villages around…
The Marquee Harbingers Of India’s Development Spring
Historians will tell you that an explosion of creativity occurs the moment the world starts complaining that there is nothing left to invent or that the search for solutions to…
Faiz Ahmed Faiz: The Fiery Conscience Of Our Times
Faiz Ahmed Faiz—the poet, teacher, editor, freedom-fighter, dramatist, critic, progressive writer and Lenin Peace Prize recipient—is one of the greatest poets of the Indian subcontinent. He was not a…
Why Indians Are Averse To Repaying Loans?
Most people have a psychological aversion to repaying bank loans. In several cases, they have sufficient assets and capital to redeem their debt but they use every possible means…
Budget Shines A Flashlight On India’s Poor Women
Gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. India has a larger relative economic value at stake from advancing gender equality…
When The Poor Are Made Guinea Pigs
India has long been a testing ground for several western products, particularly in agriculture and medicine—making the most of loose regulations and genetic diversity of a huge population. It…
Can Cows Help The Poor?
The penchant of development agencies for high-yielding cows has never abated. Whenever relief measures are planned for drought-affected families in villages, free cows are considered the best aid. I…
Development Landscape Needs A Fresh Lens
One of the most dispiriting features of modern development discourse is the strong influence of elitism. One of the pitfalls of elitism is that it places a disproportionate value on…
Women Head India’s Village Republics
Not long after Nirmala Geghate took over as sarpanch in Wanoja, a remote hamlet in northern Maharashtra, groups of young men stopped hanging out in front of the shop…
Why Muslims Need A Fair Media
(And if your goal be truth, Is this the right road— Europe’s faults all glossed, and all Islam’s held to so strict an audit?) -Sir Muhammad Iqbal Too often…
Vibrant Villages Are Key To India’s Success
The Indian village has, for long, been viewed as a convenient entry-point for understanding Indian society. At the beginning of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi had emphatically declared: “The…
When Women Succeed, We All Succeed
In an ashram perched high on a hill above the city of Guwahati is a small exhibit commemorating the life of India's most famous son. Alongside a bed where Mahatma…
Social Programmes Need More Empathy
A development professional’s career demands not just technical skills but empathy; not a form of empathy that comes from superiority, but one born from a profound humility. l’ve learned hard lessons…
The Hold Of Moneylenders Grows To A Record High
A recent report by IndiaSpend states that professional moneylenders, who can charge up to four times more interest than the government’s banking system, hold more rural debt than ever, from…
How The First Lady Of Islam Set An Example For The Generations To Come
The public perception of Muslim women is one of stubborn stereotypes: supposedly powerless and oppressed, behind walls and veils, demure, voiceless and silent figures, discriminated and bereft of even basic…
The Triple Talaq Conundrum
Of all the lawful acts the most detestable to God is divorce. – Prophet Muhammad [This an authentic saying recorded by Abdullah ibn Umar, a highly respected companion of…
The Madrasa Myth
The silhouette of the large mosque, brick-like but for a bulbous dome, looks blurry in the downpour past the minarets as the imposing wide red brick gates, herald you into the…
Tackling Poverty, One Meaningful Step At A Time
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have…
Humanitarianism: The Greatest Art
Henry Thoreau, the 19th century American poet, naturalist and philosopher once remarked: “It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to…
Malnutrition Ravages India’s Children
We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait.…
The Healing Touch Of Love
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another. -Thomas Merton, Love and Living Henry Thoreau, the…
The Sufi Path To Bliss
What a relief to be empty! Then God can live your life -Rumi In the chaos that prevails around us, there is a growing feeling of desolation and misery.…
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