Latest sreelatha-menon news, Today's Top sreelatha-menon news Headline | Awaz the voice

Top Stories

A Muslim bride in Kerala

Kerala weddings mired in Insta-culture are taking sheen off gold

A quintessential Indian joint family AI-generated image)

Family Values: Is it crisis of values or the wheel turning full circle?

Nurses with a Palliative care patient (Left) and Nurse Selvy (Right)

Kerala Palliative nurse Selvy recounts experiences of tending to people in pain

Sreelatha-Menon

changemaker-news

Sharifa Khanam: the fairy godmother of battered Muslim women

Sreelatha M D. Sharifa Khanam’s story is inseparable from the stories of the women she has spent her life trying to help. Like many women around her, Khanam, 62, grew up watching male dominance and patriarchy and accepting them as part of the natural order. That acceptance cracked at a moment of realization that a woman, too, has an identity of her own, and is not merely meant to comply with the expectations of a male-dominated socie...

changemaker-news

Mahmood Akram: the boy who knows 400 languages

Sreelatha M Is linguistic diversity chaos or cultural wealth, especially in a country like India, where languages change every few hundred kilometres? For 19-year-old Mahmood Akram of Tamil Nadu, however, the question barely exists. Akram can read and write around 400 languages and understand 46 of them. He is fluent in ten languages - Tamil, English, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean...

changemaker-news

Mahmud Akram: the boy who knows 400 languages

Sreelatha M Is linguistic diversity chaos or cultural wealth, especially in a country like India, where languages change every few hundred kilometres? For 19-year-old Mahmud Akram of Tamil Nadu, however, the question barely exists. Akram can read and write around 400 languages and understand 46 of them. He is fluent in ten languages - Tamil, English, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. His journ...

changemaker-news

Mohammad Usman’s Madrassa Imdadiya is illuminating the lives of the blind

Sreelatha M Ashraf Khan teaches Tamil at a private college in Chennai. Blind since childhood, he learnt Braille at a small madrassa for the visually impaired in Melvisharam near Ranipet in Tamil Nadu. Born to poor parents, he once had little hope of formal education. Today, he earns around ₹50,000 a month. Khan attributes his journey to Mohammad Usman, founder of Madrassa Imdadiya, a trust that supports blind and disabled student...

changemaker-news

Mohammad Usman’s Madrassa Imdadiya is illuminating the lives of the blind

Sreelatha M Ashraf Khan teaches Tamil at a private college in Chennai. Blind since childhood, he learnt Braille at a small madrassa for the visually impaired in Melvisharam near Ranipet in Tamil Nadu. Born to poor parents, he once had little hope of formal education. Today, he earns around ₹50,000 a month. Khan attributes his journey to Mohammad Usman, founder of Madrassa Imdadiya, a trust that supports blind and disabled student...

changemaker-news

Nawabzada Mohammad Asif Ali shows the humble side of royalty

Sreelatha M Who doesn’t like a good prince or a Nawab? It is romantic to think of fairy stories with princes and princesses, provided the princes behave themselves and do not turn into tyrannical monsters, as they are likely to do in real life. Here is a prince who has not only been a symbol of charity and compassion, but is surrounded by music and melody wherever he is. Heard of the Prince of Arcot? He is Nawabzada Mohammad ...

changemaker-news

Nawabzada Mohammad Asif Ali, who is changing the lives of commoners

Sreelatha M Who doesn’t like a good prince or a nawab? It is romantic to think of fairy stories with princes and princesses, provided the princes behave themselves and do not turn into tyrannical monsters, as they are likely to do in real life. Here is a prince who has not only been a symbol of charity and compassion, but is surrounded by music and melody wherever he is. Heard of the Prince of Arcot? He is Nawabzada Mohammad ...

changemaker-news

Mohammad Usman's Madrassa Imdadiya Is rewriting the lives of the blind

Sreelatha M Ashraf Khan teaches Tamil at a private college in Chennai. Blind since childhood, he learnt Braille at a small madrassa for the visually impaired in Melvisharam near Ranipet in Tamil Nadu. Born to poor parents, he once had little hope of formal education. Today, he earns around ₹50,000 a month. Khan attributes his journey to Mohammad Usman, founder of Madrassa Imdadiya, a trust that supports blind a...

changemaker-news

Nikhath Fathima Suhail's mission has empowered girls, poor kids through education

Sreelatha M Can a single person reach out to so many people, and see them rise to a life of respect, dignity and financial freedom? It may be possible with money, but for an ordinary woman to lead teams on education in many centres for three decades and reach goals and create a template for effective and efficient social engineering is an extraordinary feat. Nikhath Fathima Suhail heads the MWA Matriculation School in Chennai; she is c...

changemaker-news

Author Jakirraja's stories seek to free Muslim women from shackles

Sreelatha M Keeranur Jakirraja is a name to reckon with in the Tamil literary scene. Men, women and children from the marginalised sections of the Muslims in Tamil Nadu and sometimes Kerala breathe and find new lives in the pages of his novels. His writing is bold, honest and provokes criticism from the conservative and orthodox sections of the Muslims. By his own admission, he is a kind of Salman Rushdie of Tamil Nadu. He says i...

changemaker-news

Nikhath Fathima's mission has empowered girls, poor kids through education

Sreelatha M Can a single person reach out to so many people, and see them rise to a life of respect, dignity and financial freedom? It may be possible with money, but for an ordinary woman to lead teams on education in many centres for three decades and reach goals and create a template for effective and efficient social engineering is an extraordinary feat. Nikhath Fathima Sohail heads the MWA Matriculation School in Chennai; she is c...

changemaker-news

IUML's Fatima Muzaffar Ahmed is the epitome of Muslim woman leadership

Sreelatha M Fatima Muzaffar Ahmed represents the changing face of the Indian Union Muslim League as she became the first woman office bearer of the party at the national level last year. She is one of the two women national assistant secretaries of the IUML. A native of Chennai, she is the national president of the women's wing of the League. Last year, she was the sole IUML winner in the Chennai corporation and was among a han...

changemaker-news

Dancing against the odds, Zakir Hussain shifts from stage to social justice

Sreelatha M Imagine a little boy joyfully dancing on his own, quite to the surprise and even concern of his parents. As the boy grew up, so did his love for dance. This was tricky for young Zakir Hussain growing up in a very traditional Urdu-speaking Muslim family in Salem. Today, Zakir Hussain, 55, is a well-known Bharat Natyam exponent and honorary director of the Tamil Nadu Department of Art and Culture. Recalling his childhood,...

changemaker-news

Sofia Ashraf: From burqa rapper to an agent of change

Sreelatha. M Sofia Ashraf rapping the streets of Chennai in a kind of music activism protesting in song against V.K. Sasikala stepping in as chief minister temporarily after the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha marked the rise of a new rap star on the music horizon of Tamil Nadu and India. Today, she is much more than just a rapper. Her rap feels like a tongue lashing against the tendencies that rile her as a woman...

changemaker-news

Sofia Ashraf: From burqa rapper to change agent

Sreelatha. M Sofia Ashraf rapping the streets of Chennai in a kind of music activism protesting in song against V.K. Sasikala stepping in as chief minister temporarily after the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha marked the rise of a new rap star on the music horizon of Tamil Nadu and India. Today, she is much more than just a rapper. Her rap feels like a tongue lashing against the tendencies that rile her as a woman...

changemaker-news

Mohammad Saleem watches over birds, endangered animals and trees

Sreelatha M/Coimbatore He is also a Salim, and a bird and animal conservation activist like the more famous bird man of India, Salim Ali. However, Mohammad Saleem never attended a course in conservation biology or simple biology. He did what everyone else of his age was supposed to do those days - took a degree in computer science. However, his heart was always wanting to take care of the speechless species -- birds, snakes, dogs and o...

changemaker-news

Saleem watches over birds, endangered animals and trees

Sreelatha M/Coimbatore He is also a Salim, and a bird and animal conservation activist like the more famous bird man of India, Salim Ali. However, Mohammad Saleem never attended a course in conservation biology or simple biology. He did what everyone else of his age was supposed to do those days - took a degree in computer science. However, his heart was always wanting to take care of the speechless species -- birds, snakes, dogs and o...

Another birdman, another Salim

Sreelatha M/Coimbatore He is also a Salim, and he has been a bird and animal conservation activist like the more famous bird man of India, Salim Ali. Mohammad Saleem never attended a course in conservation biology or simple biology. He did what everyone else of his age was supposed to do those days - took a degree in computer science. However, his heart was always wanting to take care of the speechless species -- birds, snakes, do...

Visiting Lord Ayyappa’s Muslim friend Vavar during the Sabrimala pilgrimage

Sreelatha M I had waited to go to Sabarimala, a hilltop shrine dedicated to Lord Ayyappa in Kerala's Pathanamthitta district, for a long time. Lord Ayyappa, the deity of truth and righteousness, is described as the son of Shiva and Mohini (the female avatar of Vishnu). He was said to have been adopted by the local king of Pandalam. Unforgettable Experiences As a youngman, Ayyappa abdicated the crown and renounced the palace to ...

At Sabrimala divine lullaby embraces all faiths to put Lord to sleep

Sreelatha Menon My recent pilgrimage to Sabarimala was an emotionally fulfilling and rewarding experience. Spiritual fulfilment is beyond my understanding, and perhaps I may never fully grasp it. However, for lesser beings, the only wish is to see joy around, to see that people care for one another, and not fight. Unforgettable Experiences Here, I witnessed something that pleased me to the core of my being. After walking four k...

Show more

In the times when negativity is becoming a USP in the news business, Awaz -The Voice (www.awazthevoice.in) has been bringing out positive stories of human resilience, cooperation, mutual existence, and peaceful living from across India.

We believe that across the fault-lines of faith, caste, region and language, many of our common concerns, shared challenges, and visions for the future, hold a lot of potential for bringing people and communities together. Read More