Malala’s Autobiography in Kannada: Nobel Peace Prize co-winner for 2014 from Pakistan (along with India’s Prakash Satiyarthi) Malala Yusufzai’s autobiography ‘I am Malala’ has been translated in Kannada by Jaya Prakash Narain on October 19. Titled ‘Nanu Malala’, it was released by noted Kannada litterateur Dr. Siddaliangaiah. Kannada writer Mohammed Kunhi spoke at the occasion.
Nahid Hassan Wrests Kairana seat: Nahid Hassan, Samajwadi Party candidate wrested the Kairana Assembly seat from BJP in the byelection held along with those in Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly on Oct. 13. He defeated the BJP candidate Anil Singh Chauhan by around 1,000 votes. The seat was consistently won by BJP’s Hukum Singh during the last four Assembly election. He vacated the seat after getting elected to Lok Sabha in May last. Curiously, Nahid Hassan’s uncle Arshad Hassan too contested the election but trailed far behind his nephew. Kairana falls under the Muzaffarnagar region which was rocked with communal riots in 2013.
Syed Mudassir has been appointed Estate Officer for the Tipu Shaheed Waqf Estate Development Committee at Srirangapatnam by the Karnataka State Board of Wakfs. He being the Waqf Officer of the Mandya District Wakf Advisory Committee, will hold additional charge of the Tipu Waqf Estate.
Woman to head Mosque Committee
The Islamic Society of Orange County (ISOC), a major Los Angeles area Muslim institution and probably one of the biggest mosques in America, has selected Duaa Hana Alwan to be its new president. She succeeds Hassan Siddiqi.
Duaa was born in the UK and raised in Madinah and moved from New Jersey to Garden Grove as a teen. She has a BA in Film Production from CSULB and MA in Film Studies from Chapman University. She was associated with several committees overseeing education and cultural affairs of the ISOC. She is married to Yaman Kahf and has three sons.
Rafi Ahmed among 70 Leading US Scientists
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) in the United States, has elected Rafi Ahmed, PhD, to its new class of 70 leading health scientists and 10 foreign associates. He is recognized as a world renowned immunologist.
Rafi Ahmed is director of the Emory Vaccine Center, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, a scientist at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and Charles Howard Candler Professor of Microbiology and Immunology in Emory University School of Medicine.
Election to the IOM is one of the highest honours in the fields of health and medicine, and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.
Under Ahmed’s continuing leadership, the Emory Vaccine Center is now one of the largest, most comprehensive academic vaccine research centers in the world, with more than 30 faculty and a research staff of nearly 250, laboratories in New Delhi as well as Atlanta, and more than $650 million in research funding over the past 18 years. The Vaccine Center’s research spans the entire spectrum from fundamental laboratory science, to nonhuman primate studies, to clinical trials through the Hope Clinic, to public policy initiatives.
Ahmed did his B.Sc from Osmania University, Hyderabad and later studies for his MS at Idaho State University and PhD from Harvard University in 1981. He joined the Emory University in 1995.
Makkah: Key-bearer of Holy Kaaba, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheibi died in the third week of October. A descendant of Osman Abi Talha, who was asked to retain the keys of the Kaaba at the time of conquest of Makkah (despite he having opposed the Holy Prophet), Al-Sheibi had 17 children. He was buried in Jannat al Malla cemetery in Makkah. He was the official key-bearer for the last 16 years.
The key of the Kaaba does not change with the change of its door. During the time of King Khaled, the door was changed but the key remained the same. The Holy Kaaba is cleaned twice a year; once in the middle of the lunar month of Shaaban and the second in the middle of Zul Qaada.
Died: Maulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari, senior leader of the People’s Democratic Party and noted Shia leader from Jammu and Kashmir died after prolonged illness on September 30 in Srinagar. Ansari represented Patan constituency in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. He was president of the Jammu and Kashmir Shia Association and Chairman of the Imam Hussain Hospital located in the Hamdania Colony. He escaped three attempts on his life during the militancy in the State. He was buried in Jaddi Bal graveyard.
COMMENTS