COMMUNITY ROUND UP

The Midtown Public School here has introduced Digi-Cel programme as a teaching aid. The Programme has been developed by IT giant Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL). The programme introduces multimedia teaching aid in ten subjects taught all across India and immensely facilitates understanding of concepts. Run with a projector and smart board, it can deliver lessons in highly palatable form for the students. For instance, a lesson in Geography can explain glaciers, bay, gulf, mountain ranges, volcano, or can give a demo of virtual dissection of frog or cockroach for biology students. Students can observe and understand animals, natural phenomena and chemical or physical experiments without actually going to a laboratory. With hundreds of features that assist drawing, calculations, preparation of lessons, turning of lessons into objective questions or quizzes, the Digicel programme does away with chalk and boards which are a constant source of pollution and ingestion of dust particles into teachers’ lungs.
Secretary of the School Mr. Syed Amanullah said Midtown Public School was the first Muslim institution to opt for the programme. He said the introduction of the programme would provide students of Midtown Public School exposure to vast amount of concepts that remain from being understood. The School has also organized training of teachers for the implementation of the programme. Journalist Maqbool Ahmed Siraj inaugurated the programme.
HCL’s Academic Consultant Ms. Meanka Handu said the programme was available for all classes from first to 10th standard in all three curriculums viz. CBSE, ICSE and the state syllabus.

Personality trainer from Pune, Sayyed Saeed Ahmed held a one- day personality development workshop for students at the Town Hall here on September 13 under the aegis of Bangalore South West Welfare Trust. Saeed imparted a variety of techniques and mental and physical exercises, activities and games for enhancement of personal attitudes and harnessing the individual potential. Nearly 1,200 students from 13 city schools attended the workshop.
Saeed Ahmed has conducted more than 350 such programmes in more than 55 cities of India for teachers, parents, students and people from different walks of life.
Mr. Shahab Ahmed, treasurer of the Bangalore South Welfare Trust delivered a presentation on challenges for students in modern times.
Moulana Riyazur Rahaman, peshimam of the City Jama Masjid inaugurated the programme. M. G. Khalid delivered a brief lecture on understanding the Quran. Noted educational counselor Dr. Ali Khawaja, Chairman, Banjara Academy, delivered a talk on career guidance. Haji Ateeq Ahmed of Majlis e Millia stressed the importance of personality development. Mohammed Saifullah proposed a vote of thanks.

When villagers see these two young sisters, Fatima and Jainab, teaching at a madrassa in this small village of Rajasthan's Barmer district, they hardly believe it. Only a handful of men can boast of being educated in this village on the western borders of the country.
Despite being women from a minority community, these two have not only completed Aaleema, a religious course considered equivalent to anything from Class 12 to graduation, but also pursue the aim of bringing about cent percent literacy among girls in the area!
As a result, they teach at least 100 girls these days in a madrassa of Kharchi village, around 550 km from the state capital Jaipur. They want every girl here to complete Aaleema like them.
"Literacy rate among Muslim girls is very low in our area. Our father had a rare dream that daughters become graduates. It did not matter to him that we were girls. So he sent us to Jamnagar in Gujarat for getting education," the older Jainab told IANS.
The average literacy rate of Barmer in 2011 was 57.49 %. Genderwise, male literacy was 72.32 % and female 41.03.
"After completing Aaleema, we thought we should share our knowledge with others who are not as lucky as we were. So we started contacting illiterate girls and requested them to join the local madrassa," said Jainab.
Fatima says that they went from door to door to spread awareness. "The parents here are hardly willing to send girls to school, but they were somehow convinced. Now girls from far-off places come to study," she said.
"The course is more on the religious side, but we have made sure that modern education is provided to the girls. So the girls are being taught computers also," she added.
Two girls, Shaharbano and Latifa, come from Junejon ki Basti village to study. The fact that their place is 60 km away has not kept them from pursuing their dream of completing Aaleema.
"I am determined to pursue studies till I am able to complete Aaleema," said Shaharbano, who is about 16 years old.

Advocate R. Abdul Riyaz Khan was elected the Chairman of the Karnataka Wakf Board on September 2. Khan was nominated on the 11-member board as representative of Bar Council. He had represented the Bar Council on the Board twice earlier. In the secret ballot, Khan was elected with a majority of 7-4 votes. Rival candidate Mr. Khusrow Hussaini, sajjada nashin of the Dargah Bandenawaz, Gulbarga received four votes. The Wakf Board was superseded by the Karnataka Government in 2009 following allegation of corruption against the former chairman.

The Muslim Library located in the heart of Shivajinagar is in an advanced state of disrepair. Plasters have peeled off from vast patches of building and water is seeps in when it rains. Several book shelves have been covered with plastic covers to save the books. The historic library was established in 1912 and is now on the verge of completing its 100 years. Member of the Managing Committee Mr. Zia Karnataki has appealed to the book lovers to pay early heed to the pathetic conditions of the Library which treasures a vast amount of books in oriental languages besides English and on Islamic topics. Rare volumes on theology are also preserved by the library.
The existing building was constructed 34 years ago and requires urgent renovation and reinforcement. Zia says the treasure of books would be lost if attention is not paid urgently.

During its probe into the 2006 Malegoan blast case,  the National Investigation Agency has found that nine Muslim youngsters were wrongly implicated in the case and that right-wing groups are responsible for the blasts.

The National Inves-tigation Agency (NIA) is on the verge of completing its probe into the 2006 Malegaon blasts.  The Hindutva face of terror has been bared. Desperate for leads into the whereabouts of 11 right-wing militants who are on the run, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has now made their photographs public. The fugitives are wanted for major blasts, including those in Goa, at Ajmer and Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and on Samjhauta Express.
During its investigation, the NIA found that the accused were wrongly implicated in the case and that right-wing groups are allegedly responsible for the blasts. The Anti-terrorism Squad (ATS) had initially booked nine Muslim youth claiming they were outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) members. The ATS filed a charge sheet only within 54 days, even though it had 180 days to do the same. Later, the case was transferred to the CBI.
Five years ago, these nine Muslim youngsters were accused of carrying out the twin blasts as part of a SIMI plot. There are media reports quoting unidentified sources that the investigation agency will now not oppose their bail pleas when they come up in court. Thirty one people were killed and 312 were injured in the 2006 blasts.
The NIA probe so far gave indications that the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra police and the CBI allegedly acted in undue haste in filing the charge sheet against the accused, the sources said, adding that even the CBI, which took over the  probe from the ATS, can also be questioned.
NIA was handed over the probe after the case took a twist following the confession of arrested Swami Aseemanand, a member of the right wing group Abhinav Bharat, before a magistrate in which he claimed that the 2006 blast in the powerloom town of Malegaon was carried out by Hindu extremists. It is not yet clear whether the agency would investigate the role of police officers who are alleged to have framed the nine Muslim youth arrested for allegedly orchestrating the blast.
The Maharastra ATS, which was initially investigating the blast that killed 36 persons, had arrested nine Muslim youngsters for carrying out the blasts. According to the agency, the main accused, Mohammed Zahid was allegedly present in Malegaon when the blast took place.
The CBI has also submitted an internal report to the NIA stating that only the right-wing Hindutva group activists arrested last year should be probed for the blast. In 2009, the CBI toed the Maharashtra ATS line and charge sheeted the nine Muslim men.
As a result of this error in the terror probe, these nine innocent men had to spend five years in prison. The Hindutva group, on the other hand, has not even been named in this case. The revelation is significant as this is the first time an investigation agency has internally confirmed that the initial Malegaon arrests were wrong and is going to act to set the error right and prepare grounds to discharge them.
The CBI during its probe had hinted that ATS officers in their rush to solve the case named two of the accused without realizing that one of them was languishing in jail, while another person was 700 km away from Malegaon.
CBI officials had claimed that the then ATS officials chose to ignore the eyewitness accounts and stuck to the theory, which was apparently worked out by some senior officers, who apparently wanted to close the case quickly. 
The Maharashtra police has recommended to the state government that two Hindu radical groups – Sanatan Sanstha and Abhinav Bharat – be included in the category of banned terrorist outfits under Anti-terror Law of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The name of Sanatan Sanstha had come up in the Goa blast case of 2009, while Abhinav Bharat figured in the 2008 Malegaon blast case.
Some members of Abhinav Bharat including Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit, Ajay Rahirkar, Ramesh Upadhyay and Sammer Kulkarni were charged by the Mumbai ATS and CBI in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. Similarly, the National Investigation Agency had charged 11 members of Sanatan Sanstha in the Goa blast case.
Meanwhile a fresh bail application has been filed by the accused. “We have submitted all documents to the NIA," said advocate Irfana Hamdani, who is representing the case of the Muslim youth.
A US congressional report recently said that, the recent developments have shown that militant Hindu nationalist groups are intent on launching domestic terrorist attacks. “Even more recent are overt signs that India is home to militant Hindu nationalist groups’ intent on launching domestic terrorist attacks. In September 2008, seven people were killed by two bomb blasts in Maharashtra’s Malegaon, a hotbed of Hindu-Muslim communal strife,” said Congressional Research Service (CRS) in its latest report on India.
The 94-page report was released on September 1, 2011, by the CRS,  an independent and bi-partisan wing of the US Congress that prepares periodic reports on issues of interest to the US lawmakers. A copy of this was made public by the Federation of American Scientists recently.
“Thus did ‘Hindu terrorism’ became a new and highly controversial phrase in India’s national dialogue”, the CRS report said, adding that “never before in the country’s history had the phrase been so widely used and the development had major and continuing effects on India’s national psyche.”
Till date, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad has believed that the main accused in  the Malegaon 2008 blasts case, Lt. Col. Prasad Purohit, had ‘diverted’ RDX from seizures which he may have made during his posting in Jammu and Kashmir.
Even a note summarised by former US consul-general in Mumbai, Paul Folmsbee in December 2008, points to the growing concern among the police over the “military’s lack of control over its explosives”. The note, which discusses the sensitive issue of the source of explosives, is part of a diplomatic cable on the rising Hindu extremism in India, among the latest batch of cables released by Wikileaks.