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Time of India
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Paramasivan Fathima Movie Review: Not all spirits are worth summoning
Paramasivan Fathima Movie Synopsis Two feuding villages, one Hindu and one Christian, face a series of murders that lead to the revelation of spirits seeking justice for past religious conflicts. Paramasivan Fathima Movie Review: Written By: Abhinav Subramanian Just when you thought Kollywood had exhausted its quota of caste-and-religion films, along comes Paramasivan Fathima to prove there's always room for one more. Set in feuding villages of Subramaniapuram (Hindu) and Yokopuram (Christian), the film opens with wedding night murders that have both communities pointing fingers. Director Esakki Karvannan (who also plays the police lead) handles religious themes with heavy-handed obviousness, reducing believers to caricatures who might as well be living in medieval times rather than modern first half establishes the murders with attempted comic sequences that fall flat. A man is lured to his death by following a singer he's attracted to into the forest - hardly the stuff of suspense. The police investigation aims for laughs that never land, making the whole enterprise feel tonally inevitable flashback reveals childhood sweethearts Paramasivan (Vimal) and Fathima ( Chaya Devi ) separated by religious conversion, Fathima's father's death and his dying wish to be buried as a Hindu, and the resulting burial ground disputes. Both Paramasivan and Fathima are murdered, and their grievances manifest as vengeful spirits. The film drags you through 140 minutes of village squabbling only to resolve everything with supernatural intervention - it's like watching grown adults argue over whose imaginary friend is and Chaya Devi do what they can with roles that require them to be both earthly teachers and ethereal avengers. MS Bhaskar's Father character is a collection of tired pastor clichés. The visuals are serviceable, though the sound design assaults you with unnecessary Fathima is the kind of film that thinks adding ghosts to rural conflicts automatically makes them interesting. It doesn't.
The Print
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Print
As IUML appoints Dalit woman to its leadership, a look at Muslim women's representation in party
Jayanthi Rajan, a local leader from Kerala, and Fathima Muzaffer, a local councillor from Tamil Nadu, were made national assistant secretaries at the party's national committee meeting in Chennai Thursday. Thiruvananthapuram: The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has appointed two women, including a Hindu Dalit, to its national leadership for the first time in a bid to project a more progressive image amid criticism about the poor representation of women in Kerala politics. 'I am very happy. This is a historical moment. My entire family belongs to the Congress. But I have seen politics rooted in social service in the IUML, unlike in other parties,' Rajan told ThePrint. Rajan, from Irulam village near Wayanad's Sulthan Batheri, joined the IUML in 2008 after a local IUML leader approached her father-in-law. She was working at a church-led charitable organisation then. She says the IUML leader noted that her family, though Congress supporters, had a close relationship with the IUML. Actively involved in various party-affiliated social service initiatives since 2010, she has risen through the ranks from a local women's leader to its state leadership. Locals from Wayanad told ThePrint that Rajan is a crowd-puller with excellent oratory skills. Fathima is a local body councillor representing a ward in Chennai Egmore. She is also a member of the All India Personal Law Board and the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board. She has written several books, including Living in Harmony and Peace Voice. The IUML youth wing's national secretary, Najma Thabsheera, said the inclusion of women at the national level follows years of grassroots efforts to increase female participation. 'Fifty-one percent of IUML members are women. We have seen women rise to leadership roles in state and student wings, too,' she said. Najma too emphasised that Rajan's presence shows the diversity within the League, while Fathima is an inspiration to women. IUML leader Siddhique Ali Rangattoor told ThePrint the League has always embraced other castes and religious groups, as it had supported B.R. Ambedkar during his selection to the constituent assembly. The leader said the party has close to 10,000 non-Muslim members. 'Over time, women have been involved in areas that were dominated by men. So, the political and religious sphere realised that their involvement in politics would benefit the party politically,' Rangattoor told ThePrint. 'Jayanthi has proved her talent in managing the organisation and public speaking. If we have chosen her when there are many other women leaders, that shows political decency in representation,' he added. Political analyst Joseph C. Mathew, however, said the IUML has always tried to reflect diversity in its leadership positions but it's 'just symbolic'. 'They always showed this diversity as they had non-Muslim MLAs in the past. But it's just symbolic. Just because they are including non-Muslims, it will not take away the party's structure and practices that are rooted in religion,' he said. In the 2001 and 2006 assembly elections, the IUML fielded U.C. Raman as an Independent in Kozhikode's Kunnamangalam constituency, which was reserved for Scheduled Castes. Raman won the seat both times. Political representation of Muslim women in Kerala According to the 2011 Census, Muslims account for 26.56 percent of Kerala's population. Though the number of Muslim women is not available, the sex ratio in Kerala is 1,084 females for 1,000 males. But the 140-member Kerala assembly only has 12 women, and just one Muslim woman, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s Kanathil Jameela. The IUML, which positions itself as the political voice of the Muslim community, has only fielded two women candidates in its entire electoral history, both of whom were unsuccessful. In 2021, it won 15 out of 25 contested seats in 2021, mostly from Malappuram, which has never had a Muslim woman MLA candidate. Its only woman Lok Sabha candidate was the Left Democratic Front's (LDF's) P.K. Zainaba in 2014, who lost to the IUML's E. Ahamed by nearly 2 lakh votes. In 1996, the IUML fielded its first female candidate, Khamarunnisa Anwar, from Kozhikode II constituency. She lost to the CPI(M)'s Elamaram Kareem. In 2021, Noorbina Rasheed, a senior IUML leader, was fielded from Kozhikode South. She lost to the LDF's Ahamed Devarkovil by over 12,000 votes. 'Noorbina was chosen after so much pressure. I've heard she was given a seat with the least chance of winning, and even party cadres didn't support her campaign,' author Khadija Mumtaz said. She said that while the state's major political parties also hesitate to field women, particularly from the Muslim community, the IUML has always opposed it openly. 'The party has a policy not to have women in politics. Even the leadership controls how they dress and behave,' Mumtaz said, adding the 2009 decision by the then Left government to reserve 50 percent of seats in local body elections for women has played a pivotal role in creating political representation of women, including Kanathil Jameela. 'Discussions are going on. We are expecting some seats this year,' said Najma. She acknowledged, however, that change must come from within the community as well, which is slowly happening. 'There was always disagreement about fielding women until reservations forced the conversation,' she said, adding that there might be opposition from the community against the current decision. (Edited by Sugita Katyal) Also Read: How Left is trying to breach IUML-Congress's Muslim support base in Malabar
The Hindu
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Sofia Qureshi Is the Face of Indian Nationalism—But Fathima Was Left to Die Unseen
Published : May 08, 2025 19:57 IST - 6 MINS READ When Indian Army officer Colonel Sofia Qureshi stood in the heart of Delhi, legitimising the Indian strikes on terrorist training cells in Pakistan as a valid response to the terror killings in Pahalgam, Fathima, living in a corner of India in Uri, was asking the Indian government and its people where she should go with her three children when her village was being pounded by the Pakistan Army's bombs. Sofia Qureshi is a symbol, while Fathima from Uri is plain reality carrying no symbolism. She shatters the aesthetic of Sofia's symbolism. Her question is that of a citizen questioning her government, asking for its accountability to its people. But she must know what we know—that there is no space for her question in this national moment. Sofia Qureshi is being used to aestheticise and thus justify Hindu Indian nationalism. Fathima, with her three children, wears no military cap. Before a confident Sofia, she comes across as a worried, insecure woman. Sofia is extraordinary; Fathima is utterly ordinary. Also Read | India vs Pakistan: Why 'settling the score' still decides the fight Sofia Qureshi is currently the mouthpiece for Indian nationalism. Hence, she is welcome. The Indian nation, which has been transforming into a Hindu nation over the last 10 years, has chosen Sofia as its face—along with Vyomika Singh. Sofia Qureshi's voice is very soothing to our excited nerves. But the question of an ordinary woman, Fathima, leaves us bewildered. She is asking the government why it did not take measures for her safety. Government's elementary duty Fathima's question reminds the government of its responsibility to perform its elementary duty: making its people secure. That is uncomfortable for all of us. This is a time only to stand with the government, not to question it. Don't we know the etiquette of wartime? '15 people killed in Pakistani shelling on an Indian village near the border.' This is just ordinary news. We don't want to hear this right now. This news won't make headlines. No TV channel will scream for justice for them. Their deaths lack the theatre of the April 22 killings of tourists in Baisaran. Those who died were Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus—children, men, women. Is an attack on them an attack on India or not? All these people could have been saved if the government had done its basic duty. This is what Fathima from Uri is saying, as is Ranveer Kaur from Poonch. They are asking: 'We are just 7 km inside the border, within range of Pakistani shelling. Why were no safety arrangements made for us? Why were no warnings issued? Why were no evacuation drills conducted? Why were no bunkers built? Why weren't we moved to safer places like Jammu?' Ranveer is asking the same questions as Fathima. Could the government not have anticipated that Pakistan would shell these areas? These drills were happening in Delhi, in cities of north India—not where they should have been done. Why did this simple logic escape the government? 'How can a government obsessed only with dividing society, solely focussed on controlling Muslims, and crafting policies solely to create chaos and disruption worry about the safety of any section of society?' Fathima and Ranveer are asking: 'Why doesn't the government do even its basic job?' You do not need to be extraordinarily intelligent to anticipate that Pakistan could shell these areas. You need just basic administrative alertness. An efficient government, vigilant everywhere, could not have ignored these regions. While preparing to strike Pakistan, it should have remembered that shelling places like Uri and Poonch would be easiest for Pakistan. It could have anticipated and made safety arrangements for the people of these areas. It did not, leaving the people there to die. What do we want—governance or valour? The display of valour always overwhelms us. Imagine security personnel guarding Pahalgam: either the terrorists would not have entered, or they would have been confronted. Then, it would have been very difficult for them to identify Hindus and kill them. If simple, effective administrative measures had been taken in Pahalgam, the need for Operation Sindoor would not have arisen. But then there would not have been a spectacle. No Hindu wounds. No cause for Operation Sindoor. No need for the dramatic imagery of Sofia Qureshi standing with Vyomika Singh. But how can a government obsessed only with dividing society, solely focussed on controlling Muslims, and crafting policies solely to create chaos and disruption worry about the safety of any section of society? Whose India is it? Many of our friends are cheering the image of Sofia and Vyomika together, claiming this is their India. This image has been crafted by a government whose leader recently called Muslims puncture-walas. Also Read | What a war with Pakistan could really cost India They all know, however, deep in their hearts, that this is not their India. Their India, the real India is where, until this image of Sofia and Vyomika in a single frame emerged, a Hindu woman—Himanshi Narwal—was verbally lynched merely for daring to appeal for peace, for saying the revenge for her soldier husband's killing in a terrorist attack could not be violence against Muslims and Kashmiris. The same government that made Sofia its face did not stand with a soldier's wife—because she stood with Muslims and Kashmiris despite her grief. A Hindu is not allowed to feel sympathy for Muslims. To be humane. They are only permitted to be Hindutvavadi nationalists. If it were a civilised government, it would have said what Himanshi Narwal said spontaneously. But it allowed its people to insult and kill Muslims and Kashmiris. It stayed silent during attacks on Muslims and Kashmiris. Do these abuses and insults hurled at Muslims include Sofia and her family or not? Or did the Hindutvavadis spare them since they were nationalist? We applauded Vikram Misri when he said, 'The manner of the attack was also driven by an objective of provoking communal discord, both in Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of the nation. It is to the credit of the government and the people of India that these designs were foiled.' We know what he said was only a half-truth. For India's government itself made no efforts to stop attacks on Kashmiris and Muslims. We saw a drive to evict Muslims in Ahmedabad, watched them detained and paraded through cities, we heard a BJP leader issuing a death threat to a Muslim lawmaker without any consequence, we heard about attempts to profile Kashmiri students in Delhi University. We know what Misri said was not the entire truth. The truth is that the objective of the attack in Baisaran was to provoke communal discord and that matched the objective of the Hindutva forces as well. Imagine an impossible scenario: Fathima and Ranveer holding a press conference. To ask some ordinary questions to the government. Would our TV cameras crowd before them? Would they frame them the way they framed Sofia and Vyomika from different angles? Would we look at Fathima and Ranveer and say, This is our India? We know the answer. Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at Delhi University and writes literary and cultural criticism.
The Hindu
23-04-2025
- The Hindu
Court sentences 16 persons, including Sivagiri Jamin legal heirs, to one day in prison for land grab
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) court convicted and sentenced 16 persons, including legal heirs of Sivagiri Jamin, to one day in prison for forging land documents with the intention of grabbing the vast property of Ispahani in Nungambakkam. Syed Ali Akbar Isphani, a trader from Iran came to India for selling spices and horses, and settled down in Chennai in late 1800. He bought 45 grounds of the property in the name of his wife Katheeja Sultan and his daughter Fathima Sultan in June 1929. This property is situated in prime locality in Chennai, adjacent to the Taj Coromandel Hotel. His wife Katheeja settled her 50% share with Fathima, and Fathima became the absolute owner of the property. In 1973, she executed a registered settlement deed to the Tamil Nadu Real Estate Private Limited, a family firm, and was also shareholder of the firm which was established to build and run a hospital in the hospital. Her nephew Syed Ali Ispahani was the director of the firm. In 2006, while checking encumbrance records in the registrar office, the firm employees came to know two entries were made in the encumbrance illegally. They found the legal heirs of Sivagiri Jamin claiming that the late Jamin had also bought property on the eastern side of the road in 1911. Though the property was sold off in 1915 itself, they gave a power of attorney based on forged documents to one Sulaiman Khan for the property, and got registered in Vasudevanallur, Tirunelveli district. Subsequently they entered three sale agreements with one P. Nazeer of Chennai. Then in 2006, P. Kesan, General Manager, Tamil Nadu Real Estate Private Limited, lodged a complaint with then the City Police Commissioner that the illegal attempt was made to grab their property. Based on which, the Central Crime Branch arrested the suspects in the case. Seventeen persons, including the legal heirs of Rani Balakumari Nachiar, were cited as accused. At the conclusion of trial, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate N. Kothandaraj pronounced the verdict convicting 16 of them for offence under sections 465 (forgery) and 467 (Forgery of valuable security, will) of the Indian Penal Code and sentenced to undergo one-day imprisonment until the close of the court for the day. The CMM said that the accused had not benefited from the general power of attorney. Moreover, they had cancelled the power of attorney and the property was not transferred. 'Facing the criminal case itself for the last 16 years is a fitting lesson to them', the CMM said. The court also imposed a fine of ₹30,000 each on them.
Khaleej Times
26-02-2025
- Health
- Khaleej Times
UAE: New drug saves 21-year-old with rare disease who once 'struggled to get out of bed'
For the last four years, 21-year-old Muhammad, an Emirati student, battled a mysterious illness that left him in pain and fatigue. What started as occasional discomfort soon became a suffering for him with diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, palpitations, and exhaustion. His mother, Fathima, watched as her son's health declined. 'At first, his symptoms weren't frequent,' said Fathima. 'He would feel discomfort after eating, sometimes have diarrhea, and then nausea. But over time, it became worse. Even mild activities left him exhausted, and he needed to rest all the time.' For years, Muhammad and his family sought medical help, treating his symptoms as they appeared. But the episodes kept coming back and sometimes once or twice a week. 'We did not have any answers for his condition.' 'Then, in the last two years, his condition worsened. The attacks became more frequent, forcing them to rush him to the hospital at least once a month. It began to take a toll on his academics, social life, and daily activities. Some mornings, he struggled just to get out of bed,' said Fathima. The turning point came last year when they met Dr Niyas Khalid at Burjeel Medical City (BMC). After careful evaluation, Muhammad was diagnosed with Acute Intermittent Hepatic Porphyria (AIP), a rare genetic disorder affecting the liver. The disease, which impacts only five in one million people, causes a buildup of toxic metabolites, leading to severe complications such as neuropsychiatric disorders, renal failure, paralysis, and even liver cancer. Fathima was shocked but relieved to finally have an answer. 'We had been searching for so long. It was a difficult journey, but now we knew what we were dealing with,' she said. With the support of the Department of Health (DoH), Muhammad became the first patient in the UAE to receive Givosiran, an innovative treatment designed for AIP patients. The drug is administered as an injection every month. The medication works by reducing toxic metabolite levels, preventing further attacks and complications. The Department of Health's Research and Innovation Centre ensured the medication's approval and inclusion in the health insurance network, making it more accessible for those in need. After his first dose, the results were remarkable. 'We noticed a significant decrease in his attacks,' Fathima said. 'Now, he is almost living a nearly normal life.' Dr Niyas Khalid, who led Muhammad's treatment, highlighted the worthiness of this medical breakthrough. 'His case represents a milestone in treating rare diseases in the UAE. With Givosiran now available in the country, more patients will have access to life-changing treatment,' he said. Muhammad is now continuing his treatment and his family remain hopeful for a healthier future. 'He will need the medication for life, but Inshallah, he will keep improving,' said Fathima.
