'Kashmir is not Syria!' Is The Rise Of Hard-Line, ISIS Supporting Jihadists In The Valley More Myth Than Reality?

Many feel that pictures of ISIS flags in Kashmir are a clear indicator of the Islamic fundamentalists having made inroads into the Valley but police in conflicted area tell a different story. 'Kashmir is not Syria. An organisation like ISIS establishing a base in Kashmir and working the way it does in Iraq and Syria is just not possible. Let us not underestimate our grids', said a top official. The only tangible link between ISIS and Kashmir has been found among youths who were attracted towards the ideology while outside the country. Over the years, only three such cases have come to light.

Animal Rights Activists Face Cattle Smugglers’ Ire

While incidents of violence purported by cow vigilantes hit the headlines, what has gone relatively unnoticed is an ever increasing spate of attacks on animal rights activists who dared to take on the smugglers of cattle and other animals.

Some of these activists, whom INNLIVE interviewed, said there is little organised resistance to the illegal trade of meat, as vigilance at the sale points and at the highways remains lax.

Now, It's Time For Cowpathy - A startup Is Looking To Rule India’s Cow Economy With Dung Soap And Urine Toothpaste

A cow is silhouetted in front of manure at the farm owned by French farmer Franck Pellerin (not pictured) in La Chapelle-Caro, central Brittany, France, September 2, 2015.

You’ve heard of ayurveda, the traditional Indian medical science. So have you about Unani, the Perso-Arabic healing science. Then there is homeopathy.

Now prepare for Cowpathy.

No, it is not a whole new medical system. It is a Mumbai-based company that makes consumer products said to have high medicinal value and completely based on the cow—it uses ingredients such as dung, urine, clarified butter or ghee, and others.

Book Review: How a journalist’s journey to being a secular Muslim in India began at home and in school

Seema Mustafa reveals her first encounters with the need for secularism.

It was the History period for Class IV in the Convent of Jesus and Mary in New Delhi. The topic was the history of Islam. Not a particularly interested student at the best of times, I was delighted to find that I knew something that perhaps others did not and so jumped up to narrate a story about Abraham – except that I had confused him for Prophet Mohammad.

So, according to my version, Mohammad was against idol worship, and spent a great deal of time trying to convince idol worshippers to stop the practice. One day when the elders all left for work, he cut off the limbs of the idols and left an axe near the largest idol.

‘Maybe It Is Time To Change My Son’s Name’: The New Reality Of Being Muslim In India

Rumours, lies, violence and political support for bigotry embolden many Hindus to reveal hidden prejudices.

Saira does not call her son by his name when they are out of the house. “I prefer using J, it doesn’t have a Muslim ring to it,” said Saira, 40, a former colleague whose first name I have changed on her request and whose Muslim identity was never previously a point of discussion. “I cringe as I say this, but it is true.”

Whenever J asked his mother the difference between him and his friends, she always told him there was none. They were all Indian with different names, she said. That explanation, an evidently troubled Saira told me, is weakening at a time of uncommon anti-Muslim prejudice and violence.

'I Saw My Passengers Drenched In Blood, Many Were Weeping': Bus Driver Salim Sheikh Who Powered Through A Hail Of Bullets 'Showed Exemplary Courage'

As the bullets rained down on his bus Salim Sheikh (above, right) kept driving through the darkness. His courage under fire saved the lives of dozens of his pilgrim passengers during a terrorist attack in Kashmir. The Jammu and Kashmir government and Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) separately announced rewards totalling Rs 5 lakh while Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani has said he would recommend Salim's name for a bravery award. Seven of the passengers were killed and more than a dozen wounded in the attack.

No State Is Too Small For The Modi-Shah Grand Plan For The BJP

There's a crucial difference between this BJP and that of yore. A forceful drive to imprint the BJP's presence on unmapped political terrain, displayed by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, was a feature never seen in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-LK Advani era.

Its absence was not for want of ambition because the BJP's principal strategist of those times, Pramod Mahajan, was as obsessed with displacing the Congress as the principal "national pole" of the big guns of today.

Hyderabad's 'Ohri Restaurant' Calls Milkshakes 'Item Bombs' That Are Named After Women Celebs

Hyderabad's Ohri restaurant Hitec City is just about learning this lesson. The restaurant serves milkshakes named after Kim Kardashian, Shakira, Katrina Kaif and Sonakshi Sinha, all listed under a page called 'Item Bombs'. Can someone please explain to them why that's NOT okay?

Over the years, we've seen a lot of dubious advertising under the guise of pinkwashing. Clueless marketeers jumping on the women's bandwagon without really examining what they're trying to say and what's actually being said. But every once in a while comes a marketing ploy so tasteless and brazenly tone-deaf, you can't help but wonder how any sane person could have approved it.

At The Root Of All Lynchings: Vigilantes Don’t Expect To Be Punished, Victims Don’t Expect To Get Justice

Pehlu Khan, a Muslim, was lynched by Hindu criminals, professing to be cow vigilantes. The incident fills one with grief and anger. Around the same time, Farook, a Muslim atheist in Coimbatore, was lynched by Muslim criminals, claiming to be true believers.

Search deeper and you will find the case of a Hindu doctor lynched by a mainly Muslim mob, over a cricket dispute. Hindu rail passengers lynched a Muslim youth, in what began as a dispute over seats.

'Mom’ Film Review: A superb Sridevi headlines a stylish but unconvincing rape-revenge drama

Vengeance functions as a parenting tool in a movie with solid performances but dubious ideas of justice.

Murder is easy but parenting is hard in advertising filmmaker Ravi Udyawar’s debut feature. Mom is the latest in a series of rape and sexual assault revenge dramas, but it tries to rise above its shocking subject matter by looking at the subject from on high (literally so: top-angle shots are plenty).

What After #NotInMyName?

However much sniggers – or opinion pieces – may arise from the #notinmyname gatherings in various metros protesting against the lynch mob attacks on Indians in India, the fact that a very visible number of people are angry and upset is, well, heartening.

At a time when dissent and protest against the State was being seen, at least in some quarters, as an option whose door was being shut for being ‘anti-national’, the mass responses from the ‘usual suspects’ looked reassuringly democratic in a democracy, with the requisite amount of cynicism that they also invited.

Why Indian Liberals Are Falling Into The Hindutva Trap Again With 'Not In My Name' March?

It's disturbing how Muslims are lynched with the "beef" bogey so regularly, it has ceased to shock us. That is why, people in 11 cities will march silently today, black bands on their arms, placards screaming NOT IN MY NAME.

There is little doubt the BJP's rise has emboldened just about anybody to commit violence against Muslims in the name of beef. Those who belong to or support the BJP remain silent over these incidents, or worse, justify them in the name of the holy cow. Their beef is not with meat but with Muslims.

Opinion: Lynching The Diversity Out Of India

The new jungle justice system has obviously been given political imprimatur.

Junaid Khan, 15 years young, had gone for Eid shopping with his brothers to Delhi. He was never to return. On his way home to Ballabgarh, a hate-fuelled group of men pounced on him. He was stabbed during the attack and literally bled to death in excruciating pain. His brothers were assaulted too, but escaped with their lives. Beef eaters, yelled the rancorous chorus. No one in the train compartment helped. Junaid is the latest victim of the rising violent culture of cow-related mob lynching in India. It is a Frankenstein's monster on the loose taking giant strides. The ominous predator is out there as you read this.

Asrar Jamayee: An 80-year-old Urdu poet declared dead by the Delhi government is struggling to survive

Asrar Jamayee’s satire was once awarded by the first Indian President, Dr Rajendra Prasad. Now, even local mushairas don’t invite him.

Asrar Jamayee, 80, an eminent Urdu poet, was declared dead by the Social Welfare Department of South Delhi in 2013, depriving him of his monthly pension of Rs 1,500. Since then, he has been fighting for survival. He lives alone in a rented single room littered with Urdu books (including his newly published ones, which lie under a thick layer of dust) and worn-out shervanis.

Media In The Modi Era: How Did India’s Watchdog Press Become Docile?

The government does not need to impose any kind of direct curb on the media.

India is talking about the 1975 Emergency again even as its 42nd anniversary, on June 25, hovers around the corner. Some people believe that freedom of the press is endangered once again. Yet how many people are really bothered about the freedom of the press?

INNLIVE Explains: The Qatar Crisis And How It Affects India

With four Arab nations cutting their diplomatic ties from Qatar for fostering terrorism, West Asia is headed into a major turmoil in the coming days.

Travel within the region from Doha, the capital of Qatar, is likely to be impossible in the immediate future. Qatari citizens resident in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been given two weeks to return to their home country. Bahrain has also asked Qatari diplomats to leave its territories in 48 hours, though Saudi will continue its services to Qatari pilgrims.

A cafe chain is giving Indians exactly what they want: the perfect cup of chai

Inside a bright green and yellow outlet of Chaayos in Delhi’s Connaught Place neighbourhood, Swati Singh is taking some respite from the heat. But the Delhi University student isn’t sipping the usual cold coffee or lime soda; instead, she’s savouring a cup of saunf (fennel seed) chai, one of the many varieties offered by a chain that has made India’s unofficial national beverage its flagship product.

“…mostly we end up going to the coffee places like Starbucks or Cafe Coffee Day, (but) this place seems worth trying,” the 22-year-old said, adding that she liked the idea of experimenting with all the different tea flavours.

Drought-led migration makes girls prey to trafficking, pushes Andhra Pradesh's Kadiri towards HIV/AIDS

Dr Mano Ranjan has been working at the Institute of Infectious Diseases situated on the Anantapur-Kadiri Road in Andhra Pradesh since 2009. This is the premier institute for the entire Rayalaseema region (southern Andhra Pradesh) for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. Dr Ranjan gets 25 new HIV/AIDS patients every day. "It is a ticking time bomb," he says.

Thirty percent of the cases are from hamlets in and around Kadiri, unarguably the HIV/AIDS capital of Andhra Pradesh. The hospital has 26,000 plus registered cases, 8,000 of whom are widows. It is shocking that most of the victims are in the age group of 25 to 40. Another 3,000 cases are children born most often to an HIV-positive parent.

Cow Politics: Will The New Rules On Animal Markets Result In An Unofficial Ban On Cattle Slaughter?

Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan maintains the sale of cattle for slaughter outside markets is not affected by the rules. But they are ambiguously worded.

There has been confusion ever since new rules under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act were notified on Thursday, May 25.

These rules disallow the sale of cattle – cows, buffaloes, bullocks, calves and camels – for slaughter in animal markets .

Editorial: 'Three Years' Of 'Modi'sm And One Straight Truth Of India

Under the NDA, poverty has disappeared and unemployment is down to zero.

Unlike many of my journalist friends — most of whom are now either ex-journalists or ex-friends, thanks to polarisation — I don’t frequent the Press Club. After work, I go straight home and spend 45 minutes reading the Bhagavad Gita, before going to bed after a light meal of moong dal, steamed broccoli, and watermelon curry cooked in clarified butter for 22 minutes over a low, blue flame.