By IANS,

Patna : Five more campuses of the famed Aligarh Muslim University
(AMU) are to open in five states in a bid to provide scope for more
Muslims to get into institutions of higher learning.

Central Minister of State for Human Resource Development M.A.A.
Fatmi Sunday said the campuses would come up in Bhopal, Pune, Katihar
in Bihar, Mallapuram in Kerala and Murshidabad in West Bengal.

“This move will provide an easy opportunity for Muslims and others (to get) higher education,” Fatmi said here.

According to AMU spokesman Abrar Ahmed, while there is no
reservation based on religion in AMU, located at Aligarh in Uttar
Pradesh, there is a 50 percent quota for the alumni's children,
irrespective of their faith. Most students in the university are
Muslims.

http://www.twocircles.net/2008jun22/amu_campuses_come_five_states.html

Rugged mountains and fertile valleys slide past our windows as we near Swat, Pakistan's most famous tourist destination.

In the past year this scenic paradise in the north-west of the
country has become infamous for violent conflict with Taleban
militants.

But the fighting has ended, and we've come to see what's changed.

It's a fragile peace, judging by the size of the security escort
we pick up outside the main city, Mingora. Two police vehicles,
sometimes three, keep us inside city limits.

'We're worried'

On the outskirts, we catch a glimpse of the seminary that had
served as the Taleban base. From here local militants imposed their
version of Islamic rule: they torched girls' schools, and beheaded
their captives.

NEW DELHI: Indian counter-infiltration action may have precipitated
a clash between a jihadist group and a Pakistan army unit, which left
four of its soldiers dead and three more injured.

Speaking to journalists in Islamabad on Thursday a Pakistan army
spokesperson said the troops died in a clash near the town of Hajira,
east of the Line of Control, in the district of Poonch, with “unknown
miscreants.” He offered no explanation of how the fighting had broken
out.

However, highly-placed Indian military sources stationed in the area told The Hindu that the deaths were most likely the outcome of an accidental clash between Pakistani troops and a jihadist group.

DEAR SIR, 

Reference the Article " Instant divorce is alien to Islam's spirit "- (TNIE-17 Jun).

The
writer deserves compliments for his well intentioned scholarship.
However,one wonders whether he has not put himself at risk of a  '
Fatwa ' from the ' ulema '? 

Scholarships by learned Muslim and
also non-Muslims,on the subject have unequivocally stated that a
woman's problem in Islam is more ideological than legal. Here depressed
social position derives from her depressed theological position, the
apologists stand to the contrary notwithstanding!!

As the intellectual Ram Swarup, a multi-lingual scholar, puts it succinctly in his " Woman In Islam " :