Television corrupts, and corrupts completely. So believes the Imam of a local mosque. Unshakeable in his belief, he orders (sic) that residents sell their television sets or snap cable and satellite connections. The 400 families grumble but follow the order. (This) happens in Taloja village, a predominantly Muslim area about 50 kms from Mumbai ... What's more, the villagers reportedly paid the cable operators Rs. 60,000 as compensation.

It began a fortnight back, when the Imam noticed that the attendance for the daily namaz - especially youth - was on the decline (as they) preferred to stay at home and watch television programmes ... Enquiries also revealed that the youngsters, both boys and girls, were spending hours watching sitcoms and Bollywood flicks ... Convinced that the television with countless channels was "spoiling the youth" and was a culprit they needed to attack immediately ...

... About 400 families ... sold their sets to the workers in the Taloja MIDC area or the nearby villages ... Some preferred to snap off the cable connection ...

.The local police confirmed the turn of events in the village but said that nobody had come forward to register a complaint ... The Imam ... denied that he had issued any 'fatwa'. The villagers had decided to stop watching and exposing their children to the 'dirty programmes' voluntarily (Source: The Indian Express, 3 October, 2000)

Venu Abraham On Kamala Das in Muslim Society

It has been eight months since poetess Kamala Das became Kamala Suraiya renouncing Hinduism in favour of Islam. In those heady days immediately after her conversion, she was not only the toast of Kerala's Muslim world, but flush with the excitement of her impending wedding to a middle-aged Indian Union Muslim League leader.

The wedding remained a pipe dream. And, despite the initial euphoria with which Muslim social, cultural and political organisations greeted Suraiya, it was soon apparent to them that for Suraiya donning the burkha did not imply the surrender of her high-spirited nature to be remoulded according to Islam's moral tenets ...

Today, although Suraiya . stands practically excommunicated from Kerala's Islamic fraternity, she is unperturbed ... "Kamala Suraiya has only a changed name", says Prof. Hameed Chennamangaloor, a prominent progressive Muslim intellectual in Kozhikkode. "She cannot change her real self which is still Kamala Das, and the fellow travelers of her new religion cannot accept her real self". Suraiya is all too aware of the criticism ... (Source: The Week, 24 September, 2000)