Accra, Ghana: State Funeral for Maulana Abdul Wahab Adam

Sikhs deserve the dignity of being a statistic

In the aftermath of the mass shooting in a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wis., a sea of reporters have asked many Sikh leaders and activists to quantify how many Sikhs had been targeted in hate crimes and murders since Sept. 11, 2001. Although I have helped chronicle hate crimes against the Sikh American community for more than a decade, I could not tell them. Even as the White House, U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation express their commitment to protecting Sikh Americans in response to the massacre, there is one glaring problem with how the federal government monitors hate crimes against Sikhs in America: It doesn’t. The FBI tracks all hate crimes on Form 1-699, the Hate Crime Incident Report . Statistics collected on this form allow law enforcement officials to analyze trends in hate crimes and allocate resources appropriately. But under the FBI’s current tracking system, there is no category for anti-Sikh hate crimes. The religious...

HIGGS BOSON AND DR. ABDUS SALAM

There are four fundamental forces in nature, namely, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force and gravity. Electromagnetism can be observed in daily life experience. For instance, lighting is a natural phenomenon. Weak nuclear force is manifested in radioactivity, which is used to cure cancer. Strong nuclear force, on the other hand, is responsible for keeping the nucleus (protons and neutron) together. Whereas, the gravity is observed in everyday life, for example, the planets of solar system rotate around the sun due to gravity. It is important to note that electromagnetism and gravity are long range forces, i.e., these forces can act for longer distances, whereas, weak and strong nuclear forces are only manifested at very short distances, i.e., of the size of a nuclei which is about 10 -15 m . Gravity is very weak as compared to other three fundamental forces and it only manifests itself on massive objects. Since the mass fundamental particles like...

'People of other religions busy in useless activities during religious festivals': So say Pakistan's school books

LAHORE: National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) has conducted a content analysis of the revised curriculum of Punjab and Sindh textbooks for 2012-2013 for inclusion of biased and discriminatory content against religions other than Islam. The findings reveal excessive use of the words Hindu, Christian and Jew while discussing the history of Pakistan and Islamic Studies, which portray the said faiths in a negative light. For example, an Islamic Studies book of Sindh board for class 5, in a chapter on Eid (religious festivals), includes a line saying, “People of other religions usually stay busy in useless activities during their religious festivals. There is no concept of God or submission among them.” The chapter “Pakistan, an Islamic State” in the same textbook of Punjab board includes this line: “Hindus harmed Muslims in every way.” The content analysis has been published in Urdu to generate a debate on how the inclusion of discriminatory content in curric...

Zafar views

Search This Blog