Agenda

CONVENTION 2003 AGENDA

Religious fanaticism poses a grave and imminent danger to the survival and safety of India and its citizens and will have a drastic effect on world peace. The brutal Gujarat pogrom conducted as "an experiment" was a success in the eyes of the Hindutva ultranationalists, which they plan to repeat all over India.

To counter this trend the only way is to:

1) Organize

2) Increase awareness of the danger posed by religious fanaticism to India's democracy, secularism, pluralism and religious minorities and its global implications

3) Form effective coalitions with groups representing India’s different religions, ethnic minorities and US-based human rights organizations.

The IMC convention will do all of the above. This is the first time that Indians of all religious affiliations and political orientation will have assembled together in the US. This is itself a towering and crucial achievement and will go a long way towards building an effective coalition.

India's communal woes should be viewed alongside concerns of poverty, economic development, and universal human rights. We must find hope in the darkness. That hope is the cooperation that can emerge from all faiths that see an injustice to one as an injustice to all.

Hence the agenda of the IMC National Convention is two-fold:

1) Generate a wide discussion and conduct debate on India's drift towards religious extremism.

2) Build a broad based coalition to stop this drift and revive the character of India that can serve as a model of pluralism, diversity and tolerance for the rest of the world.

From Innovative sessions by best minds in Indian Journalism, research and academia to invigorating discussions from Human Rights and Secular groups, the IMC National Convention has something that will inspire, invigorate, and renew your commitment. You'll be able to contribute new ideas, volunteer, build alliances and work towards promoting and safeguarding the pluralistic and tolerant ethos of Indian Society. We hope that you will be able to attend, benefit and contribute.

Please check back again for the schedule and sessions information.

IMC-USA CONVENTION THEME

India after Gujarat: Democracy or Religious Fanaticism

The events during the past year, particularly the pogrom in the Indian State of Gujarat, in which more than two thousand Muslim civilians were brutally killed and hundreds of women and girls raped by the Hindutva ultranationalists, reveal a dangerous trend that is challenging the pluralistic and tolerant ideals that sustained India for so long. The pogrom helped them to win the elections in Gujarat at a time when their political fortunes were in a decline. Emboldened by the world's silence and intoxicated with the electoral victory in a polarized Gujarat, Hindutva leaders are now calling for a repeat of this "successful experiment" in other Indian states to win the national elections.

Gujarat 2002 was a turning point where there was state complicity in the pogrom. Gujarat also stands apart in its brutality and stands apart in the way that civil society chose to respond with silence and claims of neutrality. The poison of hate filled ideologies had not only reached alarming proportions in India, but had also insidiously infiltrated many institutions and individuals in the USA, particularly those related to India.

Indian human rights activists and International human rights organizations have expressed alarm over this trend. They point to the increasing attacks on Muslims, Christians and Dalits all over India. The Hindutva supporters who glorify Hitler and Mussolini are also infiltrating the power centers of the US society and pose a great danger to the US and its democratic institutions.

Hence the theme of this convention is focused towards the rise of religious fanaticism in India and the danger it poses to millions of Indians and to world peace.

CONVENTION SCHEDULE (Tentative)

Saturday, June 28th 2003

The Convention begins Saturday, June 28th 2003 @ 9:00 AM with a press conference and lasts through Sunday, June 29th until 12:00 PM. Workshops and meetings of organizations are held on Sunday, June 29th with the highlight of the convention being the banquet dinner on Saturday, June 28th from 7:00 PM onwards. Please check back again for an updated schedule.

SESSIONS INFORMATION

Sessions will be held in the Ballroom of the Santa Clara Marriott.

Inaugural Session - 9:00 to 9:55 AM
Imam Tahir Anwar (SBIA)
Razi Mohiuddin (Welcome address)
Khaleel Rahman (Inaugural Remarks)
Mirza Baig (House keeping)

India After Gujarat - 9:55 to 10:55 AM
Dr. Satchit Balsari
Nishrin Hussain
Bhashwati Sengupta
Manzoor Ghori

Problems & Solutions - 11 to 12 :30 PM
Anant Krishna
Prof. Hari Sharma
Dr. Angana Chaterjee
Prof. Raka Ray
Dr. Aslam Abdullah

Lunch Activities - 12:30 to 2:30 PM
(Lunch on your own)
Audience Speak - 1:15 to 2:15

Experiences in Multi-Culturalism - 2:30 to 4:15 PM
Dr. Omar Afzal
P D John
Kulmit Singh
Dr. K. P. Singh
Raju Rajagopal
Dr. Rahul Deepankar

Break - 4:05 to 4:15 PM

Coming to Democracy's Aid - 4:15 to 6:00 PM
Smita Narula
Khalid Griggs
Dr. Ahmadullah Siddiqui
Asim Ghafoor
Dr. Lise McKean

Q & A for Panelists - 6:00 to 6 :45 PM

Banquet 7:00 - 8:35 PM
Awards Presentation
Jameel Johnson
Fr. Cedric Prakash

Key Note Session 8:45 to 9:45 PM
Praful Bidwai
Shaik Ubaid (Presidential address)
Vote of Thanks
Closing Prayer

Poetry Recital 9:45 to 10:30

For more information E-mail: program@imc-usa.org or call (408) 219 1433 or (408) 980 9130.

FAQs

FAQ'S

WHY CONVENTION?

Religious fanaticism poses a grave and imminent danger to the survival and safety of India and its citizens and will have a drastic effect on world peace. The brutal Gujarat pogrom conducted as "an experiment" was a success in the eyes of the Hindutva ultranationalists, which they plan to repeat all over India.

To counter this trend the only way is to:

1) Organize

2) Increase awareness of the danger posed by religious fanaticism to India's democracy, secularism, pluralism and religious minorities and its global implications

3) Form effective coalitions with groups representing India’s different religions, ethnic minorities and US-based human rights organizations.

The IMC convention will do all of the above. This is the first time that Indians of all religious affiliations and political orientation will have assembled together in the US. This is itself a towering and crucial achievement and will go a long way towards building an effective coalition.

India's communal woes should be viewed alongside concerns of poverty, economic development, and universal human rights. We must find hope in the darkness. That hope is the cooperation that can emerge from all faiths that see an injustice to one as an injustice to all.

Hence the agenda of the IMC National Convention is two-fold:

1) Generate a wide discussion and conduct debate on India's drift towards religious extremism.

2) Build a broad based coalition to stop this drift and revive the character of India that can serve as a model of pluralism, diversity and tolerance for the rest of the world.

WHY ATTEND?

The convention and its speakers will increase awareness, not only among the delegates and attendees but also through the media, to the broader audience outside. The Convention offers attendees the opportunity to participate in workshops, interactive sessions and discussions on a variety of topics of interest.

From Innovative sessions by best minds in Indian Journalism, research and academia to invigorating discussions from Human Rights and Secular groups, the IMC National Convention has something that will inspire, invigorate, and renew your commitment. You'll be able to contribute new ideas, volunteer, build alliances and work towards promoting and safeguarding the pluralistic and tolerant ethos of Indian Society. We hope that you will be able to attend, benefit and contribute.

You can make a difference.

WHEN & WHERE?

The Convention begins Saturday, June 28th 2003 from 9:00 AM and lasts through Sunday, June 29th until 12:00 PM. Workshops and meetings of organizations are held on Sunday, June 29th. Sessions will be held at the Ballroom in the Santa Clara Marriott.

WHO?

According to pre-convention surveys, the attendees are of diverse faiths and backgrounds. Muslims, Hindus, Dalits, Sikhs, Christians and Secular groups are among the many participants. Many of the attendees will be from the host city and surrounding areas.

The convention will also give us an opportunity to share ideas with Indian Muslims living all across the US allowing us to better organize and train our volunteers. It provides a forum for activists to gather and share ideas, reflect on the latest policies and research on issues related to communalism in India while listening to renowned speakers.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

The cost of the registration is $30.00 per person for the entire day, which includes banquet dinner. The deadline for early registration is June 24, after which the ticket prices may increase. There are limited seats, so register early and save.

For more information call (408) 219 1433 or (408) 980 9130 or e-mail: program@imc-usa.org. You can register online by clicking here

EXHIBITORS

Exhibitors can sell products or offer services. For a complete listing of exhibitors, please click here.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

In addition to the incredible sessions led by leading scholars, researchers and journalists, the Convention features luncheons and general sessions with speakers and a banquet dinner. Click here for a complete list of speakers.

MEETINGS OF ORGANIZATIONS/GROUPS

In addition to the sessions and speakers of the IMC-USA Annual Convention, a number of groups, assemblies, caucuses and other organizations will also meet and/or hold special events for their members

Photos

Speakers

SPEAKER/GUEST PROFILES

Please check back again for more information on Speakers and their Bio

Invited Speaker/Guest Profile

Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy, born in Shillong, India, is the author of “The God of Small Things”, which won the Booker Prize in 1997, and has since then been translated into several languages.

Her prominent non-fiction works include the books, “The Cost of Living” and “Power Politics” (also published together under the title “The Algebra of Infinite Justice”). Her latest work is the non-fiction book “War Talk”, released in April 2003.

Roy is one of the most sought after speakers on the international circuit, and is a truly original voice on human rights and social issues, not just in India but across the globe.

Links and Resources
Instant Mix, Imperial democracy, buy one get one free
The algebra of infinite justice
Confronting Empire
'I do what I do because I have to'
http://www.arundhatiroy.org.uk/
http://aroy.miena.com/

Romila Thapar
An internationally renowned authority on Indian history. Professor Emeritus at Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi, and earlier visiting professor at Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania. She has held many positions in Europe, United States, and other part of the world, including Honorary Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her publications on Indian history are considered seminal works and have formed the basis for several Indian textbooks.

Professor Thapar has recently been named as first holder of the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at Library of Congress.

Links and Resources:
http://www.altindia.net/documentation/rtthpar.htm
http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2003/03-068.html

Rep. Mike Honda
Honorable congressman Mike Honda representing the 15th District of California. Mike has been a public servant for decades during which he has been lauded for his work on education, transportation, civil rights, the environment, and the high-tech community.

Links and Resources:
http://www.house.gov/honda/
http://www.mikehonda.org/

Biju Mathews
Professor, Rider University. Member of the 'Stop funding hate' campaign.

Links and other resources:
http://www.stopfundinghate.org
http://www.reachouthyderabad.com/newsmaker/nm3.htm

More
Maulana Mohammed Naseem, Dr. Muzzammil Siddiqui, Leaders and representatives of Hindu, Muslim, Dalit, Sikh and Christian communities.

Confirmed Speaker/Guest Profile

Fr. Cedric Prakash
Fr.Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit Priest, has committed himself to the service of faith and promotion of human rights, communal harmony, justice and peace, for the last 30 years.

Presently, Fr.Prakash is Director of “Prashant” - a centre for human rights, justice and peace, and is also the Coordinator of the Province Office for Integral Social Development (POISD) - an organization dedicated to coordinate developmental, justice and peace works of the Society of Jesus in Gujarat, India.

Fr. Prakash was Director of St. Xavier’s Social Service Society, (SXSSS) - an organization involved in social work in the slums of Ahmedabad and in the rural areas of Gujarat State through a focus on education, health, organization and environment for over fourteen years. He also founded SHANTI - an initiative to promote communal harmony, justice and peace.

Born in November, 1951, Fr. Prakash studied Economics, Philosophy and Theology, and has been consistently engaged in development activities and social work. He has served on several committees / commissions, held Directorships / memberships, and continues to be involved with various local and national associations and groups.

He is currently also the Director of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Baroda Diocese and the Secretary for Social Communications for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) for 14 Dioceses of the Western Region of India. He is a liaison for the Local Capacities for Peace Project out of Harvard University and is also the Spokesperson of the United Christian Forum for Human Rights.

Praful Bidwai
TNI Fellow and former senior editor of The Times of India, Praful Bidwai is one of the most widely read journalists in India. He is a regular columnist for several leading newspapers and journals in India.

He is a fellow of the prestigious Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Museum and Library and an associate editor of Security Dialogue, published by PRIO, Oslo. He is also a member of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists against Proliferation (INESAP) and co-founder of the Movement in India for Nuclear Disarmament (MIND) and South Asians Against Nukes. His latest book, co-written by Achin Vanaik, is New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament (Interlink 1999).

Links and other resources:
Click here for complete bio.
http://www.tni.org/fellows/bidwai.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/bidwai.htm

Dr. Lise McKean
Dr. Lise McKean is a scholar, researcher, and activist. Her research on Hindutva began in 1988 when she was conducting doctoral research in Haridwar and Delhi. Her book, Divine Enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement was published by the University of Chicago Press and is one of the first studies to document the grassroots operation of the Hindu Nationalist Movement. Her research pays particular attention to the role of Hindu religious leaders and the Vishnu Hindu Parishad in popularizing the ideology of Hindutva among diverse sections of the population.

Dr. McKean has presented the findings of her research in many scholarly and public policy forums. In the aftermath of the destruction of the Babri Masjid by Hindu militants in 1992, she went to Washington, D.C. to participate in a conference sponsored by the U.S. State Department. Last summer she spoke at the Symposium on South Asia held at the U.S. House of Representatives. The Symposium was an opportunity for religious and military leaders as well as scholars and activists from India, Pakistan, and the U.S. to inform U.S. legislators and policy makers about the riots in Gujarat and the criminal activities of the Sangh Parivar and its supporters in the Indian government.

Dr. McKean received her B.A. from the University of Chicago, M.A. from the University of Hawaii, and Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Sydney. She is currently Deputy Director of the Center for Impact Research, an independent community-based research organization working on issues of social and economic justice.

Smita Narula
Senior researcher for the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch and author of a number of prominent HRW publications, including “Caste Discrimination: A Global Concern” and “We Have No Orders to Save You: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat.”

She has also been a distinguished speaker at various forums on human rights issues. Her first hand knowledge of the Gujarat violence in 2002 makes her one of the most sought after voices on the issue.

In August 2003, Smita will join the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School as its Executive Director and human rights clinical instructor.

Links and Resources:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/

Dr. K.P. Singh
Ph.D. University of Washington, USA. Chairperson, International Dalit Conference Organizing Committee. Convener International Association for the Advancement of Dalit people. Dr. Singh is a professor of Sociology and South Asian Studies. He teaches courses such as Race, Caste And Ethnicity, Modern Indian Social Thoughts: Post-Colonial Literature, Dalit Literature, South Asian Diaspora, and several other courses on Indian Language and Literature. He has organized many panels on Dalit issues at International and National Conferences. Dr. Singh has been honored with many other awards for his outstanding and dedicated services to the Dalit community. His strongest passion is to empower Indian Dalits economically, politically and socially. Besides teaching, Dr. Singh devotes his resources to advocacy for Dalits and accounts of his activities have been reported by many national newspapers and radio stations.

Links and other resources:
Racism commentaries on NPR (Listen)
Extremism threatens South Asia
http://www.dalitconference.org

Dr. Angana Chatterji
Professor, Social and Cultural Anthropology. California Institute of Integral Studies. Angana P. Chatterji has integrated scholarship, research, and activism in linking the roles of citizen and intellectual. She has been working with advocacy and research within postcolonial social movements in India and internationally since 1984, toward enabling participatory democracy for social and ecological justice. Her work focuses on issues of globalization, identity politics, sustainable development, cultural survival, religious fundamentalism and nationalism.

Professor Chatterji has been working in Orissa with issues of land rights and policy reform. In response to September 11, 2001, she has convened the Dialogues for Peace at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Dr. Chatterji is on the Board of Directors of Earth Island Institute and International Rivers Network, Director of Research, Asia Forest Network, and serves on the editorial board of Journal of Peace and Democracy in South Asia. She has a B.A. and M.A. in Politics, a Ph.D. in the Humanities, and has published extensively.

Links and other resources:
http://stopfundinghate.org/resources/news/
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles5/Chatterji_Narmada
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Chatterji_Gujurat.htm
http://electroniciraq.net/news/90.shtml
http://www.earthisland.org/news/new_news.cfm?newsID=332
http://csf.colorado.edu/envtecsoc/2002/msg00365.html
http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2003/1903.html
http://webactive.com/pacifica/peacewatch/
http://www.spaef.com/IJED_PUB/3_2/3_2_chatterji.html
http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/chatterji.html
http://elxr.com/dfp

Nishrin Hussain
Nishrin Hussain is the daughter of former Member of Parliament, Ahsan Jafri. Her father's secular values and involvement with social issues had a profound influence on her formative years. Following her marriage to Dr. Najid Hussain, she lived in England for four years before relocating to the US.

In the aftermath of Gujarat massacre and brutal killing of her father, she has worked with several relief and advocacy groups including AIM, IMRC, IMC and EKTA increasing awareness on the Gujarat violence and raising funds for providing relief and rehabilitation to the victims. She was one of the NRI-SAHI delegates who went on a Sadbhavna mission and visited several dignitaries and political leaders in India urging them to stop communal polarization and take steps to address the issue of justice to the victims of Gujarat violence.

Hussain currently works as Controller for a printing company. She has been spreading the message of communal harmony in the US and has also described her feelings about the tragic and brutal death of her father in a recent article in several papers, "Coping with Pain".

Links and other resources:
http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2002/sep02/
http://lists.cs.columbia.edu/pipermail/ornet/2002
http://www.onlinevolunteers.org/gujarat/reports/uscirf/
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/NishrinHussainTestimony

Dr. Satchit Balsari
M.B.,B.S., M.P.H. Satchit Balsari is a Research Associate in the Program on Humanitarian Crises and Human Rights based at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is the Founding Director of Professionals for Human Security, a non-profit coalition of young professionals in India, who use their respective skills to formulate and implement sustainable solutions to socio-developmental issues influencing human security. He has been the Charter President of the Rotaract Club of the Caduceus, a five-year old organization of medical students, interns and young physicians form over 11 institutions in Bombay, committed to community health service.

He is a physician and humanitarian worker by training, and holds academic degrees from Bombay University and the Harvard University School of Public Health. His field experience in community medicine is based in rural India, and in the slums of Bombay. He has served the communities of Kutchch, India affected by the earthquake in 2001, and those affected by the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002. Dr. Balsari has conducted independent investigations on child protection issues in the areas of child labor, and children in humanitarian crises. He has recently been writing and speaking across university campuses, about the need for religious pluralism in India.

Links and other resources:
To bhaijaan with shame

Ananta Krishna
Anantakrishna Maringanti is a graduate student in Geography at the University of Minnesota. He returned to academics after over 15 years of work as a journalist and human rights activist in different parts of India. After graduating in engieering from Osmania University in Hyderabad, he tried his hand at
a variety of careers including industrial design, documentary film making and environmental research. Between 1992 and 1997, he worked as a journalist in Visakhapatnam, Jaipur and Hyderabad. He quit daily journalism when he was special correspondent for the indian Express in Hyderabad to escape real politik, and devote more time to the committee of concerned citizens a group of civil servants, journalists, academics and advocates whose mission was to mitigate the escalating political violence in rural Telangana.

Continuing with freelance writing during this time, he was also involved in housing rights campaigns in the Old city of Hyderabad. All in all, his career is one of episodic anti careerism. It is from these experiences that his academic interests emerge. He studies international labor migration, transnational politics and transformation of Old Cities in India. He is associated with the Stop Funding Hate campaign.

He will speak on "Gujarat: The blindspots of Indian secularism".

Links and other resources:
http://www.stopfundinghate.org

Imam Khalid

Griggs Khalid Griggs was the former chairman of the Television Access Corporation of Winston-Salem. A Political Science and English graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., Griggs has been active in the Muslim and African-American communities. He was part of the anti-Vietnam war movement in the late 1960s. Griggs co-founded the Institute for Islamic Involvement in the early 1980s and edited its journal, Vision, for six years. More recently, he served as editor of The Message magazine. Currently Khalid Griggs is the imam of the Community Mosque as well as a public school teacher in Winstom-Salem, North Carolina.

Manzoor Ghori
Founder and Chairman, Indian Muslim Relief Committee. Providing educational, Human & Health Care services. Assistance to children and destitute women, has supported more than 75,000 children in past 21 years. Also provides medical and emergency aid to 100's of thousands of needy persons in emergencies like Droughts, floods, riots etc., now working in Gujarat to rebuild the community.

Member of International Action Center delegation to Iraq Sanction Challenge Team. Visited Iraq in 1998 with Ramsey Clark, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, and Representatives from 90 different countries.

One of the founding members of Muslim Community Association of Santa Clara, CA. One of the founders and past President of Ameen Housing Co-operative Inc. Provides interest free homes for low and medium income families in S.F.Bay area.

Links and other resources:
http://www.imrc.ws

Education/Profession
M.S in Management & Supervision, Health Care Administration & Finance, Central Michigan University, May 1980
B.S in Medical Technology, Eastern Illinois University, 1971
B.Sc in Chemistry and Zoology, Osmania University, India, 1976

Senior Clinical Scientist, Kaiser Permanent Medical Center, Redwood City, CA, (1974 - Till Date), in Clinical Laboratory.

Asim Ghafoor
Asim Ghafoor is the founder and Managing Director of AG Consulting Group. Prior to starting the firm he served in various capacities in federal, state and local government for over ten years, most recently with Congressman Ciro D. Rodriguez (D-TX). In this position, he advised the Congressman on a variety of issues, including international affairs, banking, civil rights, transportation, armed services and veterans' affairs. Before relocating to Washington, Asim served in various capacities as Acting Chief of Staff to legislative assistant in the Texas House of Representatives. Additionally, Heads of state, ambassadors, members of Congress, community leaders, and Administration staff often call upon Asim for advice and counsel on South Asian policy issues.

Links and other resources:
http://www.agcgweb.com/wAG/aboutus.asp

Raju Rajagopal
Mr. Raju Rajagopal is an erstwhile San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneur, whose professional career in the Unites States has spanned over three decades. He retired in 1998 as the Chief Operating Officer of MECON, Inc., a public healthcare consulting company, after it was acquired by GE Medical Systems. Since then, Mr. Rajagopal has devoted all of his time to grassroots development projects and communal (religious) harmony issues, primarily in the Indian subcontinent.

Mr. Rajagopal graduated with an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India in 1968 and obtained his Masters degree at Wayne State University, Detroit in 1970. Subsequently, he worked for a number of multinational firms, including Bechtel Corporation, which took him on assignment to various parts of the world, including Saudi Arabia, and provided him with the opportunity to observe and value different cultures and lifestyles.
Read Complete bio here

Dr. Shaik Ubaid
Founding President of Indian Muslim Council-USA, Dr. Ubaid is Assistant Professor of Neurology at Wiell Medical College of Cornell University and is Director of Intraoperative Neurophysiologic Monitoring at the New York Presbyterian Hospital of Cornell University.

He was born in Hyderabad, India and moved to the US in 1986 after completing his medical school at the prestigious Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad. He has served in leadership positions with many local and national Muslim organizations along with handling media relations and mass mobilization work for them.

Dr. Ubaid has always had a passion for human rights and civil rights issues. He is very well informed on Indian and Muslim history and occasionally writes political commentary.

FORMER organizations:
Founder IMANNET (http://www.imannet.com)
Associate Editor The Message (monthly newsmagazine)
National spokesperson for Islamic Medical Asociation of North America
Board member and Spokesperson Islamic Centre of South Shore, Valley Stream, NY
Board member and Director Outreach (Dawa) Islamic Society of Milwaukee, WI
Secretary General, Islamic Circle of North America
National Media Secretary, Islamic Circle of North America
Founding member Dawanet.

Links and other resources:

http://www.imannet.com/press
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ubaid1.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/
http://iviews.com/articles/articles.asp?ref=IV0306-2001&p=1

Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi
President, Islam and Media Working Group, International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). President, Islamic Center of Macomb. Treasurer, World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations (WMCIR)

Member, ISNA, IMRC, AFMI, AMSS.
Member, ICNA National Shura, 95-98;

Education:
M.Sc. Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh India
M. A. Mass Communication, University of Illinois, Chicago
Ph. D. International Communication, Temple University, Philadelphia.

Current profession:
Professor of Journalism and Public Relations, western Illinois University, Macomb, Il. Has been teaching here since 1987.

Publications
Islam, Muslims and Media: Myths and Realities (1997)
Islam: A Contemporary Perspective (1994)
More than 20 acamedic papers in refereed journals
Numerous articles in The Minaret, The Message, Muslim Observer etc.

Member Editorial Advisoy Board:
(1) Journal of International Communication
(2) The Minaret
(3) Muslim Observer

Dr. Rahul Deepanker Read complete bio here
Date of Birth: January 1, 1953

Place of Birth: Village Unchagaon
District – Buland Shahr, U.P., India
Citizenship: India

Education: Master, Liberal Arts , University of Chicago, U.S.A. 2002
Diplomate American Board of Internal Medicine (M.D.) U.S.A. 1984
L.L.R.M. Medical College, MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery)
Meerut University, U.P. India 1975

Professional Work

Experience: Currently practicing as Internal Medicine

Consultant at both Provena St. Mary’s and Riverside Hospitals in Kankakee, Il., U.S.A (Chicago Surburb) since 1984

Professional Leadership: Chief of Staff Provena St. Mary’s Hospital

Experience: Kankakee, Il. U.S.A. 1994-1995

Chairman, Internal Medicine Department, St. Mary’s Hospital, Kankakee, Il., U.S.A. 1989-1990 & 1999-2000

Indian Administrative Services: Successfully competed for I.A.S., however, renounced in favor of further education in medicine in U.S.A. 1979-1980 & Social Work

Activism: Thirty Five years experience as Social Activist for the cause of down trodden worldwide. For last 22 years while in America, the work of social activism with main emphasis on world peace through interfaith dialogue, social justice and human rights.

Positions held

President, Internal Medicine Group, S.C.

President, New Republic An association of social activists from all segments India, International of N.R.I. community, with a focus on justice, peace and harmony in India. .

President, Indian Buddhist Association of America

Member, Board of Trustees, Parliament of the World’s Religions

Vice President, Association of Indians in America (Il. Chapter.) 1996 - 2000

Awards Received

Honor of Distinction, Aug., 2002 by Consul General of India, Chicago, Il. U.S.A.

Commendation for, by Counsel for Parliament of World’s Religions, Commitment to Inter Religious Harmony

Religious Harmony, 2000

Community Activist Award, 2000 Award by A.I.A.

Humanitarian of the Year Award 1999 By Indian Catholic Association of America.

Dr. D.R. Ambedkar Award, 2001 By Guru Ravidas Sabha of New York & Trust

Founder, “Deepankar Kanya Inter Established this exclusively girls Inter College on College Uncha Gaon,” Dist. Buland family land with personal resources. No help sought

Shahr, 1997 from government resources and high quality education being given to about 400 girls from 6th to 10th grades, soon to start the intermediate classes. (A matter of great personal pride and gratification to see the success in real work for empowerment of rural women.)

Prof. Hari Sharma
Professor Emeritus, Master's degree from the University of Delhi, Ph.D. from Cornell Univ.

Taught at Delhi University. Then at Univ. of California, Los Angeles (department of Sociology) from 1966-1968. Moved to Canada in 1968, and joined Simon Fraser University and retired in 1999 as Professor Emeritus of Sociology.

Published books and articles on political economy, imperialism, people's social movements. Published short stories in orginal Hindi with translations in many languages. Also published albums of photographic studies and poetry.

Organizationally: President and founding member of Indian People's Association in North America (IPANA) in 1976, which had chapters in many cities of North America. Under the auspices of IPANA, organized a major 3-day conference, in 1987, under the title of "Centralized State Power, and
Threat to Minorities of India". Sayed Shahbuddin, MP, was the Chief guest for that conference.

President and Founding member of SANSAD (South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy). After the destruction of Babri Mosque, formed in Vancouver an organization called, Non-Resident Indians for Secularism and Democracy (NRISAD)in 1993, and carried out many activities to oppose the growing threats of Hindutava Fascism in India. In 2000, NRISAD's name was changed to SANSAD .

President of INSAF (International South Asian Forum), formed in 1999 in Montreal, as an attempt to provide a vehicle of coordination between concerned members and organizations of South Asian Diaspora in many cities of North America.

Member of the International Coordination Committee, International League of People's Struggles, formed in the Netherlands in 2001.

Dr. Omar Afzal
Education: Ph.D. Cornell University, M.A. Delhi University , M.A. Aligarh Muslim University

Honors: University Gold Medal 1971 Delhi University, Order of Merit Aligarh Muslim University

Language Proficiency: English (M.A.), Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, German, French, Persian, and Sinhala

Research Interest: Cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic violence in South Asia. Islamic law, Islamic history, Contemporary Islamic resurgence, Islamic astronomy

Publications:
Suniye to.. 1958-1965 Hindi (Short stories in Hindi monthly Kanti)
Aaap ki Uljhane.. 1972 Urdu (Gender issues in Old Delhi)
Duur Samundar paar se.. 1992 Urdu (Anecdotes from American life)
Ruyat-e Hilal ke Masaael.. 1992 Urdu (Astronomical aspects of lunar calendar)
The Life of Muhammad.. 1973 English (Biography of the Prophet of Islam)
Sources of Islamic Shariah.. 1974 English (A large number of articles, papers, and commentaries in English, Hindi and Urdu 1958-2001)

Literary Activity:
Editorial Board - The Message (Monthly) New York - 1982
Sp. Correspondent - The Radiance (Weekly) New Delhi - 1992

Research in Progress:
Issues in Islamic jurisprudence, including banking, dietary laws and gender, Astronomical aspects of Islamic lunar calendar

Professional experience:
Cornell University - 1973
Delhi University - 1972-1973

Guest Lectures: Columbia Uni, Cornell Uni. Temple Uni., Rutgers Uni, SUNY, Albany, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Binghamton and many other Universities

Thesis Supervision:
Ph.D. Education/Islamic Studies - Cornell University 1988
Ph.D. Islamic Studies/Religion - NYC University 1989
M.A. Islamic Architecture/Reg.Planning - Cornell University 1989

Dr. Aslam Abdallah Dr. Aslam Abdullah is the editor of two prominent Muslim American papers. He edits monthly Minaret published from Los Angeles and the weekly Muslim Observer published from Detroit. Dr. Aslam Abdullah is well known for his community work, published books and involvement in relief activities. He is a speaker, journalist, writer and author of several books. He has published 11 books, and more 400 papers on issues pertaining to Muslims and Islam. He was vice chairman of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, former President of the American Muslim Federation of Muslims from India, a board member of the North American Association of Professional and Scholars. He was vice president of the American Islamic College in Chicago. Prior to that he edited the Arabia magazine published from London. In addition to that he has worked for the International Youth Center in New Delhi.

Dr. Aslam Abdullah is affiliated with several youth related activities in the country. He is part of the Muslim Student Network, a Washington based student group devoted to provide policy related training to Muslim students. He is also involved in youth camps as a youth trainer. Dr. Aslam Abdullah, a naturalized U.S. Citizen was born in India.

Publications:
Books published
1971 A Short History of Muslim Rulers
1973 A History of Palestinian people
1979 Youth Work in India
1980 A Short Survey of Religious Youth Movements in South Asia
1982 Youth Movements in India
1983 Youth organizations and Work in South Asia
1984 Youth Unemployment in India
1993 Babri Masjid
1996 Communal Violence in India
1999 A book of selected prayers
2000 A Chronology of Muslim World History
2000 A Book of Islamic terminology
2000 A History of the Quran
2001 Basic Concepts of Islam
2003 A history of the Compilation of the Quran
2003 An Encyclopedia of the Quran

Educational Status:
1992 Advanced journalism, Los Angeles
1988 Ph.D. in Journalism, London
1983 International Diploma in journalism, London
1979 Masters, Sociology, India
1973 Masters, Arabic, India
1971 Bachelor of Arts, English, Political Science, Arabic

Awards

IMC-USA AWARDS 2004

Indian Muslim Council Awards

Indian Muslim Council-USA has instituted awards named after the below
mentioned Indian Muslim heroes, for the following categories:

Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali: Service towards the upliftment of
Muslims in India.

Bahadur Shah Zafar: For promoting pluralism and communal harmony
in India

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: Best Muslim high school student from
the Indian Diaspora in the US.

Maulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar: Best in-depth coverage of the
Indian Diaspora in the US media.

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai: Selfless service rendered to uplift the
oppressed and the disadvantaged segments of the Indian society.

Tipu Sultan: Services that safeguard and promote India's
interests.

Awaredees

Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali
Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali, one of the greatest social reformers of India
was born in Panipat. He was also a great poet and his collection of verses
was published under the title, Deewan-e-Hali.

Hali came into prominence during one of the darkest hours of Indian Muslim
history. The Muslims had taken lead in India's first war of independence
against the British in 1857, and after losing the war had to face the
brunt of the victor's revenge. Muslim mutineers and their supporters were
murdered in the thousands by the British and a policy of systematic
discrimination was instituted against the Muslims.

Hali used his pen to bring about social and educational reforms among
Muslims. He heralded a new movement in Urdu prose and poetry free from
jargon and verbiage. He wrote the famous "Musaddas-e-Hali", a narrative on
the rise and fall of Muslims that was published in 1879. Hali reviled "the
rich for their selfishness, the aristocracy for their degeneracy,
religious leaders for their bigoted ignorance, and poets for their foolish
triviality." Extracts from Musaddas are still being taught to Indian
Muslims in schools and in religious and educational functions.

Hali blazed a new trail and used the poetic genre of the long Urdu nazm as
an instrument of social and moral reform. Maulana Hali's ghazals reflect
his command over the form of poetry but later on in life, he focused more
on nazm as a means of expression. Hali also used the nazm for interpreting
the beauties of nature, a theme that was more or less neglected, or
treated marginally by the poets of classical ghazal.

In his prose treatise, "Muqaddam-e-Shair-o-Shairi", one of the earliest
texts in Urdu literary criticism, Hali underscored the limitations of the
classical ghazal and pointed out the hollowness of its hackneyed themes,
thus putting the nazm on a surer path of progress.

The ghazal has been primarily used as an instrument of aesthetic and
intellectual pleasure, and a source of courtly entertainment, while a nazm
combines pleasure with purpose, in service of society. It is a more
earthbound form of poetry, with a moral and a message. His patriotic nazm
like Hubbe Watan went a long way in fostering Hindu-Muslim unity that was
being undermined by the British.

Hali was a pioneer in Urdu literature, the first major poet to put forward
the theory that "literature should be harnessed into the service of the
community, and made to advance the cause of social welfare and
betterment."

To Hali also goes the credit of being the first to introduce the genre of
biography in Urdu. He authored Heyat-e-Saadi, Heyat-e-Javed and
Yadgar-e-Ghalib.

Altaf Husain Hali, until his death in 1914, served the Aligarh movement
with considerable dedication, validating Sir Syed Ahmad's call for change
among Muslims. Like Sir Syed Ahmad, Hali found the existing Muslim society
to be decadent and static, but he arrived at that view not by comparing it
with the modern western civilization, but with the history of Islam.
Indeed, by presenting Islam as a modern religion, in accord with science
and rationalism.

In his novel, Majalis-un Nisan (Assemblies of Women), Hali, emphasizes the
need of educating women. The heroine, Zubaida Khatun, is taught the
Qur'an, Arabic, Persian and Urdu as well as mathematics, geography and
history by her father. This was at a time, when studying "British"
subjects such as geography and mathematics was a taboo even for Indian
Muslim men.

Hali passed away on 30th September 1914 in Panipat, but the movement for
reformation and renaissance he helped start continues to this day.

Indian Muslim Council-USA has instituted the Maulana Altaf Hussain Hali
Award to recognize service towards the upliftment of Muslims in India.

Bahadur Shah Zafar
The last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah, better known as Bahadur Shah Zafar,
was born in 1775 at Delhi. He was the son of Akbar Shah from his Hindu
wife Lalbai. Bahadur Shah, after the death of his father, was placed on
the throne in 1837 when he was little over 60 years of age. He was last in
the lineage of Mughal emperors who ruled over India for about 300 years.

The British had curtailed the power and privileges of the Mughal rulers to
such an extent that by the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the Mughal rule was
confined to the Red Fort. Bahadur Shah Zafar was obliged to live on
British pension, while the reins of real power lay in the hands of the
East India Company.

During the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Urdu poetry flourished and reached
its zenith. He himself was a prolific poet and an accomplished
calligrapher. He had acquired his poetic taste from his grandfather and
father who were also poets. He passed most of his time in the company of
poets and writers and was the author of four diwans. Love and mysticism
were his favorite subjects that found expression in his poetry.

Most of his poetry is full of pain and sorrow owing to the distress and
degradation he had to face at the hands of the British. He was a great
patron of poetry and literary work and some of the most eminent and famous
Urdu poets like Mirza Ghalib, Zauq, Momin and Daagh Dehlvi were of his
time.

It was at the time of Bahadur Shah that the War of Independence in 1857
started. The war started out as spontaneous and independent upsisings led
by leaders of diverse faiths. For the war to have any chance of success,
it needed a central figure to rally around. In Bahadur Shah Zafar the
freedom fighters -both Hindus and Muslims- found that symbol of freedom
and therefore nominated him as their Commander-in-Chief. In the initial
stages, the freedom fighters were successful, but later on the strong and
organized British forces defeated them. Bahadur Shah, who had been
proclaimed as an emperor of whole of India, was overthrown.

He was arrested with his three sons and a grandson. Captain Hodson killed
his sons and grandson and their severed heads were brought before him.
Bahadur Shah Zafar himself was tried for treachery. He was exiled to
Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma (now Myanmar), in 1858 where he lived his last
five years and died in 1862 at the age of 87.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958)
Maulana Abul Kalam Mohiuddin Ahmad Azad, one of the greatest sons of
modern India was the president of the Indian National Congress during the
most crucial period in the Indian freedom struggle, from 1940 to 1946. Yet
Lord Mountbatten, the last British viceroy of India, excluded him from the
final discussions on the partition, choosing instead to call only the four
lawyers: Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, and Patel for consultations. The reason
for this was that Maulana Azad was the only Indian leader of stature who
opposed partition till the very end; he was probably the only Indian
statesman with a guilt-free conscience while all the others looked on in
horror at the bloodbath that followed the partition.

Abul Kalam Mohiuddin Ahmad was born in Mecca in 1888. His father, Maulana
Khairuddin, was a scholar and spiritual guide.

Abul Kalam was bestowed with prodigious intelligence, and completed the
course of higher Islamic studies, Arabic and Persian by the age of 16 and
became an established Islamic scholar and a powerful writer before he even
turned 20. He learned English secretly and on his own since it was
considered a taboo to learn the language by conservative Muslims of that
time.

In 1906, in an unusual move for a Muslim, Azad joined one of Bengal's
Hindu revolutionary groups, and persuaded them to start including Muslims,
and expand out from their traditional operating zones of Bengal and Bihar.

In 1908 Azad visited Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Turkey and returned to India
"more convinced than ever" that Indian Muslims must cooperate in the work
of political liberation of the country. In 1912, he started Al-Hilal, an
Urdu religious weekly, with the aim of politically and religiously
awakening the Muslim masses. In it he urged a joint Hindu-Muslim struggle
against the British. He later began the publication of a second magazine,
Al-Balagh.

He also started a Quranic college, Madrassa Al-Irshaad, before the British
expelled him from Calcutta.

When Mohandas Gandhi returned from South Africa and started his nonviolent
non-cooperation movement, Azad instantly saw its significance and became
one of the first prominent Indian Muslims to be allied with Gandhi.

Azad joined the Khilafat movement under the dynamic leadership of Maulana
Mohammed Ali Jowhar and Shaukhat Ali, and convinced Gandhi and the
Congress to support it as a means of fostering Hindu-Muslim cooperation
against the British.

In 1923, the thirty-five year old Azad was elected president of Indian
National Congress for the first time. Azad played a crucial part in the
1932 Salt Satyagraha launched by Gandhi, and consequently made another one
of his frequent trips to jail.

When the 1935 Government of India Act was passed, Azad became a key member
of congress' parliamentary board, formed to regulate its entry into
legislature. In 1940 Azad was elected president of the INC for a second
time.

The Congress party adopted the Quit India resolution on 9th Aug 1942; Azad,
along with most Congress leaders was arrested the next morning and
imprisoned in the Ahmednagar fort. It was here that he wrote a series of
letters, describing his days in prison that later were published as "Ghubar-i-Khatir."

When news of the critical condition of Maulana Azad's ailing wife was
brought to him in jail, he asked for permission to visit her. But the
British rulers, who had earlier escorted bGandhi to visit his wife's
deathbed, did not care even to reply to him.

While he was in the prison, twice the British destroyed the manuscript of
his commentary on the Quran, Tarjumanul Quran. Azad did not give up and
when he was finally able to publish it, the commentary was accepted as a
great scholarly work by the Islamic scholars.

Azad did not let his personal grievances against the British come in the
way of national good. After his release from the prison, he led the
Congress delegation in its negotiations with the British Cabinet Mission
in 1946. That same year he joined the interim government and became the
education minister.

Azad tried his utmost to prevent the partition of India and after
partition, Azad strove to protect Indian Muslims against the onslaught of
the horrible communal frenzy that engulfed vast tracts of North India. He
teamed with his old friend Gandhi in trying to bring the crazed masses
back to their senses, and to save India from being washed out in the flash
flood of blood that followed partition.

In his book India Wins Freedom, Azad poured out his grief at the
partition, its aftermath, failure of the political class, pettiness of
personal ambition, rashness of passion, and craftiness of the British. It
is considered by many to be a definitive documentation of the final leg of
India's journey to Independence and sovereignty.

As India's first education minister, Azad laid emphasis on technical,
adult and women's education. Abul Kalam Azad died on February 22, 1958 at
the age of seventy.

Indian Muslim Council-USA has instituted the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Award
to recognize the best Muslim high school student from the Indian Diaspora
population in the US.

Maulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar (1878-1931)
Maulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar was a dynamic national political leader, a
courageous journalist and a poet par excellence.

He was born in Rampur and was educated at Aligarh Muslim University and
the Oxford University (1898-1902).

He launched his famous English weekly "Comrade" from Calcutta in 1911 and
his Urdu weekly "Hamdard" from Delhi in 1913.

He became a principal leader of the Khilafat Movement. He was the younger
of the famous 'Ali Brothers' and led the Indian Khilafat delegation to
London in 1920.

He played a crucial role in establishing Mohandas Gandhi as a national
leader after Gandhi returned from South Africa.

In 1923, Mohammad Ali served as president of the Indian National Congress.
He was imprisoned at the time and after his release, he went straight from
prison to Kokannada to make his Presidential address to the Congress. In
spite of his extremely busy schedule, he found time to write his
autobiography 'My Life a Fragment'.

In 1930, he became the president of the Khilafat Conference and attended
the first Round Table Conference, where he delivered a memorable and fiery
oration against the subjugation of India and in favor of immediate
independence. He was in ill health and demanded in his speech, "Give me
freedom or give me a grave in a free land"

After giving a soul-stirring speech at the First Roundtable Conference in
1930, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jowhar died in London. He was buried in
Jerusalem since he did not wish to return to an India that was not free.

H.G. Wells, the celebrated English novelist proclaimed: `Muhammad Ali
possessed the pen of McCauley, the tongue of Burke and the heart of
Napoleon'.

Indian Muslim Council-USA has instituted the Maulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar
Award to recognize the best in-depth coverage of the Indian Diaspora in
the US media.

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (1894-1954)
Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, who grew up to serve India as a brave freedom fighter,
a visionary reformer and an excellent administrator, was born on 18
February 1894 in a middle class Zamindari (landlord) family at Masauli in
the Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh.

He obtained his BA degree from Aligarh University, but soon after joined
the Indian freedom struggle. At the time of the historic joint session of
the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League at Lucknow, where the
Congress-League Pact was signed in December 1916, he participated in the
meetings with his Uncle Vilayat Ali. He also became a regular member of
the Khilafat Movement in 1920.

He was the main force behind the Non-Cooperation Movement in Barabanki
district. He was jailed and sentenced to six months in June 1930 for
spearheading a no-rent campaign by farmers and villagers, in the Rae
Bareli district.

Kidwai became a minister in Pandit G.B. Pant's cabinet in United Province
when Congress governments were set up in many provinces under the
Provincial Autonomy Scheme in 1937. He was given the revenue portfolio and
under his stewardship, UP was the first province to enact land reforms to
amend some of the ills of the Zamindari system. In April 1946, he became
the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh. He introduced many reforms in jails,
which aimed at making prisoners better citizens.

Kidwai became the minister for communications after India gained its
independence. He was later entrusted with the portfolio of food and
agriculture at a juncture when there was a severe shortage of food.
Undaunted, Kidwai set out to apply his administrative skills to the
problem and soon turned man-made scarcity into abundance.

Kidwai was a man of considerable learning, which was not confined to
scholarship alone. People, not books interested him. His strong point was
a bold and imaginative approach with a human touch. He was a man of action
and lent excellent support to Prime Minister Nehru and India.

Ceaseless strenuous work shattered his health and he died on 24 October
1954. To honor this great man, who worked tirelessly, first to free India
from foreign occupation and then to ensure its self-sufficiency in food
production, the premier cancer hospital in South India was named after
him.

Indian Muslim Council, USA has instituted the Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award to
be given as recognition for selfless service rendered to uplift the
oppressed and the disadvantaged segments of the Indian society.

Tipu Sultan (1750-1799)
Tipu Sultan, one of the greatest heroes of India was born on November 21,
1750 at Devanhali, a small town near Bangalore. He was the eldest son of
Haider Ali, the ruler of Mysore and was named after Tipu Mastan, a Sufi
saint of Arcot.

Tipu Sultan was an outstanding general and the hero of many battles in
which he inflicted crushing defeats on his enemies. The British forces
suffered some of their worst military defeats in India at his hands. He
employed the military tactics of swift movement and sudden surprise
against his enemies, who would either surrender or retreat in panic.

His primary aim was the expulsion of the British from India and for this
purpose he sought assistance from wherever he could. But the two other
important powers of southern India, namely, the Marathas and the Nizam,
had shut their eyes to the impending danger of foreign domination and the
British used them as tools to achieve their objects. His maxim was that
"it was far better to live like a tiger for a day than to live like a
jackal for a hundred years."

Tipu Sultan was an outstanding administrator, an enlightened ruler, a
great reformer and a patron of learning. He was endowed with great vision.
He was the only Indian ruler who understood the changing world and foresaw
the dangers of British imperialism. He was the first Indian ruler to have
understood the importance of building an effective navy. He was the first
Asian ruler to support the American Revolution and recognize the United
States of America as an independent nation. He tried to form alliances
with Napoleon and Ottoman caliphate of Turkey to expel the British from
India.

Despite spending most of his life engaged in wars, he introduced great
reforms in almost all departments of the state administration, which
brought unprecedented peace and prosperity to his people. He treated all
his subjects, irrespective of their religious beliefs, equally and fairly.
He developed agriculture and industry in his dominion and initiated
progressive agricultural reforms beneficial to the peasantry. The Sultan
took effective steps towards the promotion of trade and industry in his
country. He established several factories and built an Armada to protect
his marine commerce from pirates and to fight the British navy. This led
to the development of international trade with several countries,
especially of the East. He set up trading agencies in several coastal
towns and established large factories for manufacturing watches,
ammunition, cutlery and paper. Cottage industries also thrived. His state
was surplus in food grains, sugar, glassware, paper, silk and cotton
cloth.

Tipu Sultan was killed on May 4, 1799 by the treachery of some of his own
ministers and generals during a siege of his capital Srirangapatnam by the
British during the fourth Mysore war. The Sultan chose an honorable death
to a life as a vassal to a foreign power. One of the British commanders,
who took part in the battle, was reported to have declared that "the World
will soon forget us but will always remember Tipu Sultan." The commander,
Arthur Welsley was proven to be partially correct. He too became famous,
as the Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon in the battle of
Waterloo.

Indian Muslim Council-USA has instituted the Tipu Sultan Award to
recognize services that safeguard and promote India's interests.

Convention 2003 Awards

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award in Humanitarian work
For self-less service towards the upliftment of the poor and the oppressed
classes in India
Fr. Cedric Prakash
Santa Clara – June 28th, 2003

Father Cedric Prakash
Fr. Cedric Prakash, a Jesuit Priest, and the spokesperson for the United
Christian Forum for Human Rights, India, has committed himself to the
service of faith and promotion of human rights, communal harmony, justice
and peace, for the last 30 years. Presently, Fr. Prakash is Director of
“Prashant” - a Centre for human rights, justice and peace, and is also the
Coordinator of the Province Office for Integral Social Development (POISD)
in Gujarat, India.
Fr. Prakash was Director of St. Xavier’s Social Service Society, (SXSSS) -
an organization involved in the slums of Ahmedabad. He has founded SHANTI
- an initiative to promote communal harmony, justice and peace.

Born in November, 1951, Fr. Prakash has studied Economics, Philosophy and
Theology, and has been engaged in development activities. He has also been
on several committees / commissions, held Directorships / memberships, and
continues to function as Trustee in various governing bodies at both local
and national levels. He is also a liaison for the Local Capacities for
Peace Project out of Harvard University. .

He was awarded:
• The Kabir Puraskar - an award by the President of India in 1995 - for
promotion of Communal Peace and Harmony,
• The Anubhai Chimanlal Nagarika Puraskar - an award by the Mayor of
Ahmedabad in 1996 - for his contribution to the city of Ahmedabad

In the wake of the communal carnage, which engulfed Gujarat from February
2002, Fr. Prakash has been involved in works related to communal harmony,
justice and peace. He is part of a seventeen-member committee called
‘Citizens for Justice and Peace’ which constituted the Concerned Citizens’
Tribunal whose findings have been put together in a voluminous report
entitled “Crime Against Humanity”.

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Tipu Sultan Award
For courage in serving India and India’s interests
Praful Bidwai
Santa Clara – June 28th, 2003

Praful Bidwai
Praful Bidwai is a journalist by profession. He is a columnist and
political commentator with The Hindustan Times, Frontline, The Tribune,
The Kashmir Times, Siasat Daily, Loma, rediff.com, Rashtriya Sahara, and
20 other English and Indian-language newspapers since 1993. He has
contributed to The Nation (New York) and The New Statesman and Society
(London). He was Senior Editor from 1981 to 1993 for The Times of India;
earlier he was Senior Assistant Editor and Assistant Editor of the paper
in Bombay and New Delhi. He was also the Special Correspondent, Financial
Express, Bombay. Prior to that he was Assistant Editor with Business India
in Bombay.

Praful Bidwai has been a Senior Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Studies,
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He has served on a number of
learned societies and bodies including the Indian Council of Social
Science Research and International Network of Scientists and Engineers
Against Proliferation (INESAP). Praful Bidwai is a National Coordination
Committee member of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP),
India and a founder member of the Movement in India for Nuclear
Disarmament (MIND), New Delhi.

Bidwai read philosophy, economics, science and technology at the Indian
Institute of Technology, Bombay. He then pursued development studies,
political science and research in the labor movement and environmental
issues.

Praful Bidwai (with Achin Vanaik) received the Sean MacBride International
Peace Prize, 2000 of International Peace Bureau, Geneva. Bidwai
co-authored a book with Achin Vanaik, called South Asia on a Short Fuse:
Nuclear Politics and the Future of Disarmament. The international edition
is New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament. He has also
co-authored with Vanaik, Testing Times: the Global Stake in a Nuclear Test
Ban and Something in the Wind: Politics after Chernobyl.

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Altah Hussain Hali Award in Humanitarian work
For self-less service towards the upliftment of Muslims in India
Mazoor Ghori
Santa Clara – June 28th, 2003

Manzoor Ghori
Manzoor Ghori is the Founder and Chairman of Indian Muslim Relief
Committee. He is Senior Clinical Scientist at Kaiser Permanent Medical
Center, Redwood City, CA. He has completed M.S in Management &
Supervision, Health Care Administration & Finance from Central Michigan
University, B.S in Medical Technology, Eastern Illinois University and
B.Sc in Chemistry & Zoology, Osmania University, India.

He founded Indian Muslim Relief Committee, which provides education,
health care services, and assistance to children and destitute women. It
has supported more than 75,000 children in past 21 years. IMRC also
provides medical and emergency aid to needy persons in emergencies like
droughts, floods, riots etc. IMRC is currently helping the effort in
Gujarat to rebuild the lives of the victims of last year’s violence.

He was a member of International Action Center delegation to Iraq. He
visited Iraq in 1998 with Ramsey Clark, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, and
Representatives from 90 different countries.

He is one of the founding members of Muslim Community Association of Santa
Clara, CA; he is the founder and past President of Ameen Housing
Co-operative Inc., which provides interest free homes for low and medium
income families in S.F. Bay area.

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Moulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar Award in Journalism
For best in-depth coverage of Indian diaspora in the US
Rukmini Callimachi of Daily Herald for her series “The Passage From
India”.
Santa Clara – June 28th, 2003

Rukmini Callimachi
Romanian-born Rukmini Callimachi joined the Daily Herald as a staff
reporter in 2001. She previously covered India as a freelance reporter for
Time magazine and National Public Radio. She graduated from Dartmouth
College in 1995 and received her masters in linguistics from the
University of Oxford in 1999, where she also studied Sanskrit, the ancient
language of India. In 2000, she co-led the Royal Geographical Society's
expedition to Tibet.

Convention 2004 Awards

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award in Humanitarian work
For self-less service towards the upliftment of the poor and the oppressed
classes in India
Dr. A.R. Nakadar
Chicago – August 7th, 2004

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Tipu Sultan Award
For courageously serving India and India’s interests
Prabhudass D. John
Chicago – August 7th, 2004

PD John
John Prabhudoss is a human rights activist in Washington for the past 12
years. He has worked with various US and International lobby organizations
including the Apostolic Coalition and Council for International religious
Freedom since 1991. For 7 years, he worked as a Director of the
International Wing of the Apostolic Coalition. During his association with
the Coalition he spearheaded many campaigns on behalf of the Christian
church in many countries including the Christian church in India.

Later in 1999, he helped launch the Policy Institute for Religion and
State, a bi-partisan, pro-active think tank in Washington DC. The
Institute particularly studies the way in which majority faith in a nation
affects the policies and laws enacted by a particular government.

After the violence against the Christians in India increased dramatically
in 1998, PD John, along with many Indian American Christians, helped
organize the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of
North America. He has played a crucial role in bringing all like-minded
Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Muslims of Indian origin together
to fight the religious bigotry in India.

He has traveled extensively inside and outside the US to highlight the
issue of Religious violence against the religious minorities in India by
the Hindutva forces. He has organized numerous conferences, workshops,
discussion groups, symposiums and seminars in Washington DC to discuss
issues that affect all religious minorities in India. He also joined the
Interfaith Sadhbhavana team to visit the riot-affected places in Gujarat
last year and meet the victims.

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Altaf Hussain Hali Award in Humanitarian work
For self-less service towards the upliftment of Muslims in India
Kaleem Kawaja
Chicago – August 7th, 2004

Kaleem Kawaja
Kaleem Kawaja is a nationally-known social activist in the American Muslim
community. He obtained an MS degree in Engineering Management from the
Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, New York. Mr. Kawaja, is an engineering
manager in the
Sun-Earth-Connection program at the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. Mr. Kawaja
has been active in various South Asian community activities in Washington
DC for over 15 years. In recent years he has been president of The Muslim
Community Center, The Association of Indian Muslims of America, The
Organization for Universal Communal Harmony, and Maryland Chapter of the
American Muslim Council. Besides, Mr. Kawaja has been a member of the
Adabi Markaz for several years.

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Moulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar Award in Journalism
For best in-depth coverage of Indian diaspora in the US
Jerome McDonnel and Andrea Wenzel of Chicago Public Radio
Chicago – August 7th, 2004

Jerome McDonnell
Host, Worldview Chicago Public Radio

Jerome has been with Chicago Public Radio since 1984. He has served in
almost every capacity at the station beginning as an intern-volunteer.
He's stuffed envelopes, dubbed tapes, produced call-in shows plus a
weekend magazine show, had a number of technical functions, and a
management fling as well. Jerome was also the producer of Chicago Public
Radio's Midday with Sondra Gair, a international news analysis show. He
has hosted Worldview since 1994.

Jerome has been awarded the Peter Lisagor Award and the Illinois
Broadcasters' Association for Best Public Affairs Program in a series.
Andrea Wenzel
Producer, Worldview

Prior to becoming a producer of Worldview in July of 1999, Andrea was a
free-lance producer and intern for Worldview and an intern for Chicago
Public Radio's Mara Tapp Show. Previous internships included the
U.S./China Policy Foundation, CNN, and the White House Office of Political
Affairs.

Andrea has a B.A. and M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of
Chicago.

Indian Muslim Council – USA
Bahadur Shah Zafar award for Communal Harmony
For promoting pluralism and communal harmony in India
Shri Kumar Poddar
Chicago – August 7th, 2004

Indian Muslim Council - USA
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Award
For excelling in education. To be given to a Chicago area student of
Indian origin.
Chicago – August 7th, 2004

Commendations

Letter from Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson, National Advisory Council, India

Letter from the Consul General of India, IL, Chicago

Letter from Hon. Senator Peter Fitzgerald, IL, Chicago

Letter Letter from Hon. Congressman Nick J. Rahall, II, West Virginia

Letter from Hon. Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich, IL, Chicago

Letter from the Mayor of Chicago Hon. Richard M. Daley, IL, Chicago

Letter from Indian Cricketer Irfan Pathan, Gujarat, India [Auctioned Bats]

Letter from the Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, MI

Letter from the International Association for the Advancement of Dalits [IAAD]

IMC-USA Press Releases

Various IMC-USA Press Releases

Initiatives

Indian Muslim NGO Network
An Initiative of Indian Muslim Council - USA

Email: ngos@imc-usa.org

IMC-USA 2nd Annual Convention (2004)
Participants:

* Indian Muslim Relief & Charities (IMRC)
* Association of Indian Muslims of America (AIM)
* American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (AFMI)
* Gujarati Muslim Association of America (GMAA)
* Indian Muslim Educational Foundation of North America (IMEFNA)
* Indian Muslim Education Support Group (IMESG)
* Iqra International Education Society (IIES)

Contact Information:

* Indian Muslim Relief & Charities (IMRC)
800 San Antonio Road, Suite 1
Palo Alto, CA 94303
Phone : 650-856-0440
Fax: 650-856-0444
Email: info@imrc.ws
Web: www.imrc.ws

* Association of Indian Muslims of America (AIM)
P.O. Box 10654
Silver Spring, MD 20904
Email: Info@AimAmerica.org
Web: www.aimamerica.org

* American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin (AFMI)
29008 West Eight Mile Road
Farmington, MI 48336
Phone: 248-442-2364
Fax: 248-476-8926
Email: afmi11@aol.com
Web: www.afmi.org

* Gujarati Muslim Association of America (GMAA)
Lombard, IL

* Indian Muslim Educational Foundation of North America (IMEFNA)
950 75th Street
Downers Grove, IL 60516
Phone: 630) 852-0520
Fax: (630)-435-1429
Email: imefna@yahoo.com

* Indian Muslim Education Support Group (IMESG)
7524 N Kenton
Skokie, IL 60076
Phone: 847-329-7105

* Iqra International Education Society (IIES)
7450 Skokie Blvd.
Skokie, IL 60077
Phone:

Photos

Press Coverage

IMC-USA 2nd Annual Conventional coverage in the National

IMC-USA 2nd Annual Convention coverage in India Abroad

Theme

India's Muslims: Past, Present and Future will be the theme of IMC-USA's second annual convention.

Meet interact and network with Indian and Muslim leaders, professionals, NGOs, business owner and families.

Learn and share ideas with NRI's (non-resident Indians) of all religious backgrounds who are interested in safeguarding India's pluralism and are working towards a pluralist, prosperous and peaceful India.

Indian Muslims are the second largest community in India and the second largest community amongst the Muslims worldwide (over 150 million and around 12-15%).

Active in American Muslim scene at all levels, Indian Muslims are poised to help themselves and their counterparts in India who are facing severe challenges and left to defend themselves on their own.

* Share a unique, rich and enhancing experience
* Listen to eminent scholars, intellectuals, historians, journalists, community and human rights leaders
* Learn about the glorious past and great contributions of Indian Muslims to Islam and to India
* Learn of the dangers of Hindutva-fascism in the US and in India
* Learn about the challenges that over 150 million Muslims and other oppressed groups face in India
* Network with leaders and representatives of many different religious groups
* Network with charitable institutions working in India
* Enjoy a cultural program at the end - Bring Family & Friends

Focused Activities:

* Networking with other Indian Muslim organizations
* Professionals and Business Owners
* PIO’s / NRI’s
* NGO's
* Annual Recognition Awards
* Human Rights and Inter-Faith groups

About

The IMC-USA convention has become an annual tradition for scholars, activists and others concerned about the brutal siege of India's pluralist and democratic ethos by the Hindutva ultra-nationalists. The annual convention is a platform for social activists and members of the Indian Diaspora to share ideas on issues of concern including political and economic corruption, the continuing persecution of Dalits and the marginalized lower castes in India.

Eminent personalities will be addressing the delegates during the day long sessions and the evening banquet. In addition, they will hold consultative meetings with participants on topics related to strengthening India's secular democracy and promoting social justice and economic prosperity.

The scheduled sessions will deal with coalition building for protection of Human Rights in India, networking for Muslim NGOs and Business initiatives by Muslims in India, among many others.

M. A. Khan, President of IMC-USA Greater Washington D.C. chapter and member of the convention program committee, elaborated on the achievements of the previous conventions stating, "The IMC-USA annual convention held last year, was a huge success in terms of bringing together for the first time several different groups and communities that constitute India's impressive diversity, and enabling them to work together to protect India's pluralist ethos". He further added, "This led to the formation of the Coalition to Build Better India (CBBI). This coalition in turn became the launching pad for the Coalition Against Genocide (CAG) which successfully thwarted the US visit of Narendra Modi, a pogrom politician. Narendra Modi is the architect-in-chief of the 2002 Gujarat pogroms.

Awards

Maulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar Award in Journalism
For best in-depth coverage of Indian Diaspora AND India-related issues in the US
Ruth Morris, Sun-Sentinel, Florida

Bahadur Shah Zafar Award
For promoting pluralism and communal harmony in India
Raju Rajagopal, Promise of India, CA

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award in Humanitarian work
For self-less service towards the upliftment of the poor and the oppressed classes in India
Gujarati Muslim Association of America, Chicago

Altaf Hussain Hali Award in Humanitarian work
For self-less service towards the upliftment of Muslims in India
Syed Salman, Michigan

Tipu Sultan Award
For courageously serving India and India's interests
Biju Mathew, Campaign to Stop Funding Hate, NY

Brief Biography of Maulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar (1878-1931)

Maulana Muhammad Ali Jowhar was a dynamic national political leader, a courageous journalist and a poet par excellence.

He was born in Rampur and was educated at Aligarh Muslim University and the Oxford University (1898-1902).

He launched his famous English weekly "Comrade" from Calcutta in 1911 and his Urdu weekly "Hamdard" from Delhi in 1913.

He became a principal leader of the Khilafat Movement. He was the younger of the famous 'Ali Brothers' and led the Indian Khilafat delegation to London in 1920.

He played a crucial role in establishing Mohandas Gandhi as a national leader after Gandhi returned from South Africa.

In 1923, Mohammad Ali served as president of the Indian National Congress. He was imprisoned at the time and after his release, he went straight from prison to Kokannada to make his Presidential address to the Congress. In spite of his extremely busy schedule, he found time to write his autobiography 'My Life a Fragment'.

In 1930, he became the president of the Khilafat Conference and attended the first Round Table Conference, where he delivered a memorable and fiery oration against the subjugation of India and in favor of immediate independence. He was in ill health and demanded in his speech, "Give me freedom or give me a grave in a free land"

After giving a soul-stirring speech at the First Roundtable Conference in 1930, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jowhar died in London. He was buried in Jerusalem since he did not wish to return to an India that was not free.

H.G. Wells, the celebrated English novelist proclaimed: `Muhammad Ali possessed the pen of McCauley, the tongue of Burke and the heart of Napoleon'.

Brief Biography of Bahadur Shah Zafar The last Mughal king

Bahadur Shah, better known as Bahadur Shah Zafar, was born in 1775 at Delhi. He was the son of Akbar Shah from his Hindu wife Lalbai. Bahadur Shah, after the death of his father, was placed on the throne in 1837 when he was little over 60 years of age. He was last in the lineage of Mughal emperors who ruled over India for about 300 years.

The British had curtailed the power and privileges of the Mughal rulers to such an extent that by the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the Mughal rule was confined to the Red Fort. Bahadur Shah Zafar was obliged to live on British pension, while the reins of real power lay in the hands of the East India Company. During the reign of Bahadur Shah Zafar, Urdu poetry flourished and reached its zenith. He himself was a prolific poet and an accomplished calligrapher. He had acquired his poetic taste from his grandfather and father who were also poets. He passed most of his time in the company of poets and writers and was the author of four diwans. Love and mysticism were his favorite subjects that found _expression in his poetry. Most of his poetry is full of pain and sorrow owing to the distress and degradation he had to face at the hands of the British. He was a great patron of poetry and literary work and some of the most eminent and famous Urdu poets like Mirza Ghalib, Zauq, Momin and Daagh were of his time.

It was at the time of Bahadur Shah that the War of Independence in 1857 started. The war started out as spontaneous and independent upsisings led by leaders of diverse faiths. For the war to have any chance of success, it needed a central figure to rally around. In Bahadur Shah Zafar the freedom fighters -both Hindus and Muslims- found that symbol of freedom and therefore nominated him as their Commander-in-Chief. In the initial stages, the freedom fighters were successful, but later on the strong and organized British forces defeated them. Bahadur Shah, who had been proclaimed as an emperor of whole of India, was overthrown. He was arrested with his three sons and a grandson. Captain Hodson killed his sons and grandson and their severed heads were brought before him. Bahadur Shah Zafar himself was tried for treachery.

He was exiled to Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma (now Myanmar), in 1858 where he lived his last five years and died in 1862 at the age of 87.

Brief Biography of Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (1894-1954)

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, who grew up to serve India as a brave freedom fighter, a visionary reformer and an excellent administrator, was born on 18 February 1894 in a middle class Zamindari (landlord) family at Masauli in the Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh.

He obtained his BA degree from Aligarh University, but soon after joined the Indian freedom struggle. At the time of the historic joint session of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League at Lucknow, where the Congress-League Pact was signed in December 1916, he participated in the meetings with his Uncle Vilayat Ali. He also became a regular member of the Khilafat Movement in 1920.

He was the main force behind the Non-Cooperation Movement in Barabanki district. He was jailed and sentenced to six months in June 1930 for spearheading a no-rent campaign by farmers and villagers, in the Rae Bareli district.

Kidwai became a minister in Pandit G.B. Pant's cabinet in United Province when Congress governments were set up in many provinces under the Provincial Autonomy Scheme in 1937. He was given the revenue portfolio and under his stewardship, UP was the first province to enact land reforms to amend some of the ills of the Zamindari system. In April 1946, he became the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh. He introduced many reforms in jails, which aimed at making prisoners better citizens.

Kidwai became the minister for communications after India gained its independence. He was later entrusted with the portfolio of food and agriculture at a juncture when there was a severe shortage of food. Undaunted, Kidwai set out to apply his administrative skills to the problem and soon turned man-made scarcity into abundance.

Kidwai was a man of considerable learning, which was not confined to scholarship alone. People, not books interested him. His strong point was a bold and imaginative approach with a human touch. He was a man of action and lent excellent support to Prime Minister Nehru and India.

Ceaseless strenuous work shattered his health and he died on 24 October 1954. To honor this great man, who worked tirelessly, first to free India from foreign occupation and then to ensure its self-sufficiency in food production, the premier cancer hospital in South India was named after him.

Brief Biography of Khwaja Altaf Hussain Hali

Khwaja Altaf Hussain Hali, one of the greatest social reformers of India was born in Panipat. He was also a great poet and his collection of verses was published under the title, Deewan-e-Hali. Hali came into prominence during one of the darkest hours of Indian Muslim history. The Muslims had taken lead in India's first war of independence against the British in 1857, and after losing the war had to face the brunt of the victor's revenge. Muslim mutineers and their supporters were murdered in the thousands by the British and a policy of systematic discrimination was instituted against the Muslims.

Hali used his pen to bring about social and educational reforms among Muslims. He heralded a new movement in Urdu prose and poetry free from jargon and verbiage. He wrote the famous "Musaddas-e-Hali", a narrative on the rise and fall of Muslims that was published in 1879.

Hali reviled "the rich for their selfishness, the aristocracy for their degeneracy, religious leaders for their bigoted ignorance, and poets for their foolish triviality."

Extracts from Musaddas are still being taught to Indian Muslims in schools and in religious and educational functions. Hali blazed a new trail and used the poetic genre of the long Urdu nazm as an instrument of social and moral reform. Maulana Hali's ghazals reflect his command over the form of poetry but later on in life, he focused more on nazm as a means of expression. Hali also used the nazm for interpreting the beauties of nature, a theme that was more or less neglected, or treated marginally by the poets of classical ghazal.

In his prose treatise, "Muqaddam-e-Shair-o-Shairi", one of the earliest texts in Urdu literary criticism, Hali underscored the limitations of the classical ghazal and pointed out the hollowness of its hackneyed themes, thus putting the nazm on a surer path of progress.

The ghazal has been primarily used as an instrument of aesthetic and intellectual pleasure, and a source of courtly entertainment, while a nazm combines pleasure with purpose, in service of society. It is a more earthbound form of poetry, with a moral and a message. His patriotic nazm like Hubbe Watan went a long way in fostering Hindu-Muslim unity that was being undermined by the British.

Hali was a pioneer in Urdu literature, the first major poet to put forward the theory that "literature should be harnessed into the service of the community, and made to advance the cause of social welfare and betterment."

To Hali also goes the credit of being the first to introduce the genre of biography in Urdu. He authored Heyat-e-Saadi, Heyat-e-Javed and Yadgar-e-Ghalib. Altaf Hussain Hali, until his death in 1914, served the Aligarh movement with considerable dedication, validating Sir Syed Ahmad's call for change among Muslims. Like Sir Syed Ahmad, Hali found the existing Muslim society to be decadent and static, but he arrived at that view not by comparing it with the modern western civilization, but with the history of Islam. Indeed, by presenting Islam as a modern religion, in accord with science and rationalism.

In his novel, Majalis-un Nisan (Assemblies of Women), Hali, emphasizes the need of educating women. The heroine, Zubaida Khatun, is taught the Qur'an, Arabic, Persian and Urdu as well as mathematics, geography and history by her father. This was at a time, when studying "British" subjects such as geography and mathematics was a taboo even for Indian Muslim men.

Hali passed away on 30th September 1914 in Panipat, but the movement for reformation and renaissance he helped start continues to this day.

Contact

Convention 2005

CONTACT

Michigan Chapter
michigan@imc-usa.org
Phone: 1-800-839-7270

Office of the President
info@imc-usa.org
Shaik Ubaid, IMC-USA president president@imc-usa.org
265 Sunrise Highway, Suite 1-355
Rockville Centre, NY 11570
Phone: (516) 567-0783

Other Departments
IMC-USA Media Team media@imc-usa.org

Register

Convention 2005

Due to Limited Seating, tickets are likely to sell out. Register today!

For Tickets and Registration you may do one of the following:

1. Send an e-mail to: convention@imc-usa.org
2. Call: 800.839.7270

Registration Includes:

Adults $50 per person: All day conference, Banquet Dinner, Lunch, Free Parking

Children 12 & Under $15 per person: Supervised program includes lunch & dinner

(Meals catered by Muslim restaurant)

Hotel Information

Holiday Inn Fairlane - Dearborn
5801 Southfield Expressway,
Detroit, MI 48228
Phone: (313) 336-3340
Room rate: Concessional rate of $99 (reg. $149) is available by mentioning IMC-USA Convention

Schedule

Convention 2005

10:00 am to 11:00 am Registration & Networking
10:30 am to 11:00 am Inauguration
11:00 am to 1:00 pm Parallel Session I
1:00 pm to 1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 pm to 1:45 pm Prayer Break
2:00 pm to 3:30 pm Parallel Session II
3:30 pm to 5:00 pm Parallel Session III
5:00 pm to 6:00 pm Prayer Break
6:00 pm to 7:20 pm Plenary Session
7:20 pm to 7:40 pm Prayer Break
7:40 pm Banquet Session

Parallel Session I
11:00 - 12:45 -- Coalition Building Session Hall A
# Speakers: Shrikumar Poddar, Hindu Vaishnav Center for Enlightenment, USA
# Dr. Rahul Deepankar, Community Activist, Buddhist Leader
# Raju Rajagopal, Chair, Promise of India, USA
# Manzoor Ghori, Indian Muslim Relief and Charities, USA
# Kaleem Kawaja, Association of Indian Muslims, USA
# Francis Muthu, Community Activist
# Ranjit Singh, Indian National Overseas Congress, USA
# Steve Spritzer, National Conference for Community and Justice, USA
# Jim Dorsey, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, USA
12:45 - 1:00 -- Interactive Q & A

11:00 - 12:45 -- Indian Muslim NGO’s Networking Hall B
# Speakers: Imam Achmat Salie, Detroit MI
# Ubaidur Rahman, Global Media Publications, India
# Munaf Zeena, Council of Indian Muslims, UK
# Manzoor Ghori, Indian Muslim Relief & Charities, USA
# Kaleem Kawaja, Association of Indian Muslims, USA
# Imtiaz Uddin, Indian Muslim Education Foundation of North America, USA
# Mohammed Yousuf, HelpHandicap Foundation, USA
# Ghulam Rasul Mansuri, Gujarati Muslims Association of America, USA
# Quaid Saifee, Muslim Youth Awareness Alliance, USA
# Dr. Altaf Ur Rahman, Association of Indian Muslims, USA
# Rizwana Khan, AMU Alumni Association of Michigan, USA
# Mohammed Qamruzzaman, HelpDeserving, USA
# Azher Qazi, Detroit MI
12:45 - 1:00 -- Interactive Q & A
1:00 pm to 1:30 pm -- Lunch
1:30 pm to 1:45 pm -- Prayer Break

Parallel Session II
2:00 - 3:15 -- Activism for Better India Hall A
# Speakers: P.D.John, Policy Institute for Religion and Peace, USA
# Fr. Cedric Prakash, Jesuit Priest; Director, Prashant, India
# Ghalib Begg, Comminity Activist
# Munaf Zeena, Council of Indian Muslims, UK
# Omar Khalidi, Author, Scholar at MIT
# Hyder Khan, Supporters of Human Rights in India, USA
# Dr. Biju Mathew, Campaign to Stop Funding Hate, USA
3:15 - 3:30 -- Interactive Q & A

2:00 - 3:15 -- Women’s Networking & Activism Hall B
# Speakers: Dr. Sania Zainuddin, Community Activist
# Dr. Lise McKean, Center for Impact Research
# Pushpa Iyer, Community Activist
3:15 – 3:30 -- Open Discussion, Q & A

Parallel Session III
3:30 – 5:00 -- Human Rights & Justice Session Hall A
# Speakers: Dr. Jawahar Nesan, Dalit Leader & Activist
# Swami Agnivesh, Renowned Hindu Spiritual Leader, India
# T. Kumar, Advocacy Director, Amnesty International, USA
# Jaswant Kaur, Sikh Human Rights Group, UK
# Rasheed Ahmed, Vice-President, IMC-USA
# Pushpa Iyer, Community Activist
# Kulmeet Singh, Sikh Coalition, USA
4:45 – 5:00 -- Interactive Q & A

3:30 – 5:00 -- Indian Muslim Business Networking Hall B
# Moderators: Quaid Saifee, IMC-USA
# Shafaquat Khan, IMC-USA
# Ghalib Begg, Comminity Activist
3:30 – 5:00 -- Networking & Interactive Discussion
5 pm to 6 pm -- Prayer Break
6:00 pm -- Plenary Session Hall C
# Quran Recitation
# Welcome
# IMC-USA Presentation (Mission, Achievements & Future Projects)
# Fr. Cedric Prakash, Jesuit Priest; Director, Prashanth, India

7:20 pm to 7:40 pm -- Prayer Break
7:40 pm -- Banquet Session Hall C
# Introduction of the Keynote Speaker
# Honorable John Conyers, Jr. (Keynote Speech)

8:15 pm to 8:45 pm -- Dinner Hall C
# IMC-USA Annual Awards Presentation
# IMC-USA Project Releases

8:45 pm -- Banquet Session Continues… Hall C
# Ubaidur Rahman, Global Media Publications, India
# IMC-USA President’s Message
# Fundraiser
# Closing Remarks (Banquet Session Ends)
10:00 pm -- Cultural Program

* Profiles of speakers/panelists are enclosed in the registration folder.

Speakers

Convention 2005

Speakers

Keynote Speaker:

• Congressman John Conyers from Michigan

Other Speakers:

• Munaf Zeena, Chairman of Council of Indian Muslims (UK)