India has apparently lost its cold war with China, or at least the current phase of it. What is disturbing to India is not only China's superior military power and stronger economy, but also China's intrusion into what was once regarded as India's backyard. The development has rendered the so-called Indira doctrine ineffective or obsolete. The doctrine, formulated during the …

THE London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), is the world’s leading think tank for military affairs. It represents the top echelon of defence experts, retired officers and senior military men, spanning the globe from the United States and Britain to China, Russia and India. I’ve been an IISS member for over 20 years. IISS’s reports are always authoritative but usually …

  The following is a transcript of a talk by New York Police Department (NYPD) Chaplin Iman Khalid Lathif on women’s rights under Islam, aired on Television Maldives. It is said that during the time of the Prophet (pbuh), a man by the name of Sayyid bin Zaid comes to the prophet (pbuh) asking about the status of his father. …

'Papa, Don't Do It'   Pastor Terry Jones: "He seems like a stranger to me." It remains unclear whether Pastor Terry Jones will go ahead with his plan to burn Korans in Florida on Saturday. His daughter Emma has begged him not to go through with it. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, she describes a man who became a …

 The horrible era of anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States yielded a one-day silly season on Thursday, covered wall-to-wall by the US cable news channels. The weird cultist Terry Jones, fired from his church in Cologne, Germany last year for abusing his congregants, preaching hate-filled sermons, and demanding absolute obedience, was favored by an unprecedented telephone call from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates …

Although many an article about the importance of fasting in the Islamic month of Ramadhan are studded in the features or religious columns of the national newspapers, the aspect of Zakathul Fithra which is an essential part of fasting is not discussed at length. Indeed, fasting becomes perfect when this act of essential charity is properly fulfilled. As the religion …