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How should the Muslims react to the BJP winning state elections in Uttar Pardesh, India?

The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh conducted its legislative assembly elections spanning through a few weeks in February and March this year. The election results for 403 legislative assembly seats were declared on the 11th of March 2017. The Nationalist Indian Peoples party (Bharatiya Janata Party) was able to secure 312 seats out of the 384 seats that it contested, thus making it the single largest contender to form the state government in Uttar Pradesh. It placed much ahead of the incumbent Samajwadi Party led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son, Akhilesh yadav. As is the case with all elections, scores of ‘ promises intended to be broken ’ were made to all sections of the society. Election campaigning included appeasement of people based on promises such as the Ram Mandir construction for Hindus and reservations for Dalits & Muslims, in addition to low level slander against competing parties. Marginalization and polarization of communities, false promises and the commun

European Court of Justice Legalises Discrimination Against Muslim Women for Adorning the Islamic Dress

On Tuesday 14 th of March 2017, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that employers could ban employees from wearing religious symbols, including the Islamic headscarf worn by Muslim women. In a statement, it asserted that an internal company rule which prohibits the visible wearing of a religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination. The judgement came in response to the cases of two Muslim women in France and Belgium who were dismissed from their job for refusing to remove the headscarf. Through this xenophobic discriminatory ruling against foreigners, the ECJ has proven yet again that the secular system is not fit for purpose with regards to protecting the rights of religious minorities. Indeed, such religious discrimination and intolerance is ingrained in the genetic make-up of the secular ideology as evident in the bans on the hijab, niqab, mosque minarets, and other Islamic beliefs in many secular states across the world. This oppressive judgement has widespr