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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Educated Muslims being hounded: Owaisi

Mumbai: AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi has flayed what he termed as a ‘media trial’ in the alleged TCS Nashik conversion case and claimed that educated Muslims youth are being deliberately targeted as part of planned ‘hate campaign’, here on Saturday. Reiterating full faith in the judicial process, Owaisi said that justice cannot be handed out through media narratives or television debates and the law must be allowed to take its own course. “We are seeing a very dangerous trend… Now,...

Educated Muslims being hounded: Owaisi

Mumbai: AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi has flayed what he termed as a ‘media trial’ in the alleged TCS Nashik conversion case and claimed that educated Muslims youth are being deliberately targeted as part of planned ‘hate campaign’, here on Saturday. Reiterating full faith in the judicial process, Owaisi said that justice cannot be handed out through media narratives or television debates and the law must be allowed to take its own course. “We are seeing a very dangerous trend… Now, educated Muslims are being picked out for orchestrated allegations and media campaigns. This doesn’t augur well for society and justice itself with the media playing the role of the judge and jury,” said Owaisi sharply. Flanked by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen state President Imtiaz Jaleel, Owaisi also emphatically said that it was wrong to link his party with the TCS case prime accused Nida Khan, “who will be ultimately proven innocent in the courts”. He expressed concerns over the slur campaign driven by malice and political motives against his party as well as Nida Khan in some sections of the media even before the investigations were completed or a judicial scrutiny. “Merely because some allegations have been hurled at a young woman professional, attempts are being made to paint her ‘guilty’ through media trials, even before judicial scrutiny. But, we have complete faith in the judiciary and are confident that the court will eventually exonerate her,” asserted Owaisi. Public Discourse Raising questions on the probe and accompanying public discourse with stress on the alleged recovery of certain ‘evidence’ from Nida Khan’s home, he sharply questioned: “Since when have a burqa, a niqab or religious literature become objectionable… Is wearing a hijab now regarded as evidence of a crime?” He said that these details along with baseless allegations are sensationalism in the media to create further prejudice against the minority community and reflected a deep-rooted hostility aimed at harassing educated Muslim men and women. Owaisi pointed out that a complaint in the TCS Nashik case was filed by a leader linked with the ruling party, and as per the software giant’s statement, Nida Khan was not with its HR Department and transferred even before the controversy erupted, contradicting several media reports. Of the nine cases lodged in the matter till date, in one case, she was accused of hurting religious sentiments, but nobody can comment on it before the court pronounces its verdict, he pointed out. Court Fight Dismissing attempts to drag and link the AIMIM into the row, he referred to a party Municipal Corporator Matin Patel who was booked merely on the basis of certain allegations and vowed to contest the matter in the court. Here Owaisi cited multiple examples of educated Muslims being scrutinised – including in Delhi when some educated youths were arrested for possessing a book by the legendary Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib and they were later released. There was another one from Allahabad where some Muslim boys were targeted for writing an Urdu ‘sher’ (couplet) prompting judicial intervention, and predicted that even in the Nashik TCS case, the truth will ultimately prevail as no criminal charges against Nida Khan may stand. AIMIM to set up voter help-desks AIMIM President and Hyderabad MP, Asaduddin Owaisi said his party is developing a digital application containing electoral records of all 288 Assembly constituencies in Maharashtra for 2002-2024, to help voters in the SIR process. For this, the AIMIM will set up help desk centers in its strongholds to facilitate the process and ensure proper utilisation of voter data. Alleging discrepancies in electoral records, he said such errors create huge problems for the voters, especially the poor or illiterates. Owaisi mentioned how of the nearly 27 lakh names placed in the adjudication list in West Bengal, “90 pc were poor Muslims.” These centers would be open for all Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Dalits, Adivasis and the general public needing assistance with the electoral records.

Third Horizon

Mumbai has always grown by shedding its skin. From the original seven islands to the sprawl of Navi Mumbai, the city’s history is one of outward leaps to relieve inward pressure. The proposed ‘Third Mumbai’ project, the brainchild of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, is perhaps most ambitious of these expansions. Spread across more than 320 sq. km in Raigad, it promises to turn 124 villages in Uran, Panvel and Pen into a new economic frontier. The question is not whether Mumbai needs such an outlet. It plainly does. The question is whether it can be built without repeating the mistakes of the past.


On paper, the project is alluring. Anchored by the Navi Mumbai International Airport and the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, and bolstered by plans for a parallel Pune-Mumbai expressway and water transport, Mumbai 3.0 aims to create a logistics and services hub with global ambitions. The blueprint reads like a planner’s wish list and includes data centres, fintech clusters, an ‘Edu City,’ mixed-use neighbourhoods and transit-oriented development. In a region where congestion chokes productivity and real estate prices exclude all but the wealthy, the promise of a planned, polycentric city is hard to resist.


Yet Indian urbanisation has often stumbled not in vision but in its execution, especially where land is concerned. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority’s (MMRDA), which recently announced a land acquisition blueprint, is offering landowners a menu of options: cash compensation, Transferable Development Rights (TDR), Floor Space Index (FSI), or a 22.5 percent of developed land.


The rhetoric, emphasising “participatory” and “people-centric” development, reflects a shift away from the heavy-handedness that has marred earlier projects. If done in this spirit, it will be eminently sensible politics. It is also sound economics.


Still, voluntariness in land acquisition is a delicate claim. Social pressure, information asymmetry and unequal bargaining power can blur the line between consent and compulsion. Farmers, asked to submit Aadhaar-linked documents and navigate online consent systems, may find themselves at a disadvantage against a well-oiled bureaucracy.


Officials say mangroves, forests and Coastal Regulation Zone areas will be avoided. In a region as ecologically fragile as coastal Maharashtra, that is necessary but not sufficient. The cumulative impact of large-scale urbanisation on water tables, flood patterns and biodiversity rarely respects neat administrative boundaries. Mumbai’s own recent history of flooding offers a cautionary tale of what happens when development outruns ecological prudence.


Then there is the familiar risk of speculative urbanism. Grand plans often promise inclusive growth but deliver enclaves for the affluent. That said, the inclusion of both luxury and affordable housing, and the emphasis on transit-oriented design, are encouraging.


Mumbai’s economic gravity demands new space. Third Mumbai could, if executed well, relieve pressure on the island city, deepen regional integration and create a template for more rational urban growth in India. 


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