A bill passed the state legislature that will require state-funded institutions to provide halal and kosher meals on request

As a student at Sullivan high school in Chicago, Ridwan Rashid frequently skipped lunch and was distracted by hunger, even though his school offered free meals to all students. Rashid is Muslim, as are a growing number of students at Sullivan. But until recently, none of the meals served at the Sullivan cafeteria were halal, which meant they were off limits for most of the school’s Muslim students.

“We go to school and it’s like, OK, some of the kids can eat and none of the Muslim kids can eat,” Rashid said. “It’s not fair.”

The controversial film championed by the BJP is an Islamophobic fantasy

Two weeks after I was born in the curfewed town of Aligarh, in Uttar Pradesh, the Aligarh riots of 1990 broke out. What began as skirmishes exploded into widespread bloodletting after three leading Hindi daily newspapers published front-page headlines reporting the targeted killing of Hindus inside a hospital run by Muslims. Those killings turned out to be the fevered imaginings of two Hindu “eyewitnesses”. But the actual massacres ignited by this fake news eventually left about a hundred people dead , the vast majority of them Muslims.

A fortnight ago, I watched the new Bollywood hit The Kerala Story , in a rundown cinema in Delhi. The sluggish air conditioning seemed to have given up against the sultry May heat. A group of (largely) young Hindu men packed out the theatre. Occasionally, they broke out into passionate chants of “Jai Shri Ram”, the cry that often accompanies videos of “vigilante violence” committed against Muslims. Yet when they streamed out of the theatre, they looked more horrified than enraged, like sports fans numbed after their side has taken one beating after another. The rolling spectacle of an all-round “Hindu humiliation” – including graphic scenes depicting Hindu women being violently raped by Muslims – had lasted for more than two hours.

Asim Ali is an independent political researcher and columnist based in Delhi

Unrest breaks out in Muslim town of Nagu in Yunnan as people object to removal of dome and minarets

Hundreds of police have clashed with protesters in a Muslim town in south-west China over anger at plans to partially dismantle a 14th-century mosque.

The unrest broke out on Saturday, seemingly in response to attempts by the authorities to dismantle parts of Najiaying mosque in Nagu, a town in Yunnan province. In 2020, a court ruled that recent additions to the mosque, including a domed roof and minarets, were illegal and should be removed.

Different faiths were once able to celebrate together in Karnataka. Now Hindu vigilante groups are targeting those who don’t share their beliefs

For 800 years, Bappanadu Sri Durgaparameshwari temple had stood as a symbol of India’s cohesive religious past. It is said that the Hindu temple, which sits on the bank of the Shambhavi River in India’s southern state of Karnataka, was built by a Muslim merchant, Bappa Beary, after a goddess came to him in a dream. The land to build the temple was donated by a local Jain ruler.

Over the centuries, its unique origins were regularly honoured and the annual festivals, celebrations and buffalo races that took place at Bappanadu temple were attended by Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Jains alike.

‘I wanted to shoot them outside of their studies – at a moment of joy. They patiently waited so that I could capture the moment with the low-flying plane’

This shot was taken in Istanbul a year into my work on Hafiz, the photo series that would launch my career as a photographer. Between 2017 and 2021, I travelled across Turkey documenting the lives of young Muslim schoolgirls enrolled in religious Qur’anic schools and studying to obtain “hafiz” – an ancient rite of passage that requires the memorising of all 604 pages – or 6,236 verses, or 77,430 words – of the Holy Qur’an.

Hafiz, which translates as “guardian” or “memoriser”, is a custom following in the footsteps of the prophet Muhammad, who – between the 6th and 7th centuries, when most people in the Arabic world were illiterate – spread religious scripture by word of mouth. Still today, thousands of students study to memorise the holy book. From the age of 12, my twin sister and I began the process, too. Every day we woke at 5am with the morning call to prayer, before chanting lines alongside 600 classmates at Qur’anic school. In the afternoon we attended secular school. There were moments of freedom at home, when we watched TV, ate what we liked and were normal teenagers. But in those moments I found myself missing hafiz school, and in particular my classmates. They became my sisters, too.

Muslims are marginalised by being made to feel they have to frequently renounce terrorist acts, according to faith review

Senior politicians must stop stigmatising Muslims by making them feel responsible for Islamist terrorism, according to a report which aims to reset the government’s entire approach to dealing with religious groups.

Muslims are being marginalised in a number of areas of British life, according to the report by the government’s faith adviser Colin Bloom, including by being made to feel they frequently have to renounce terrorist acts. Bloom also urged ministers to develop Sharia-compliant student loans to help more Muslims into university, and to conduct an outreach programme to increase their representation in the armed forces.

Giving every public servant, including doctors, teachers and police officers, mandatory religious training

Regulating unregulated faith schools

Introducing Sharia-compliant student loans

Conducting a review of radicalisation in prisons

Launching a campaign to recruit more Muslim soldiers

Cracking down on religiously motivated white supremacists

Investigating Sikh extremism

Using the online safety bill to crack down on material that promotes religious hatred

Funding a new programme to help people who are leaving coercive religious environments

Reforming and properly resourcing the government’s forced marriage unit

Hindu nationalism in India is writing an epitaph for the country’s experiment with multi-ethnic secular democracy

Becoming the world’s most populous nation allows India to burnish its credentials as a global economic and political heavyweight. With a population that is much younger than those of China, the US and the EU, there will be renewed interest in India’s potential to be a beacon of liberal values. The west is eager to draw a democratic giant into its orbit. China and India will together account for about half of all global growth this year. But India risks emulating its bigger northern neighbour’s economic ascent under tight political control by a dominant authoritarian party.

Hindu nationalism in India is writing an epitaph for the country’s experiment with multi-ethnic secular democracy. Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has weakened institutions meant to keep the state both transparent and accountable. Information is censored, civil society hounded and protests suppressed. It is absurd that opposition leaders have been targeted to the extent that Mr Modi’s main rival – Rahul Gandhi – is currently disqualified from parliament. Such is the polarisation in politics that India’s last parliamentary session was the least productive since 1952.

Under Guardianship, broadcast during Ramadan, highlights the issues faced by women and children after the death of a father

Two Egyptian MPs have called for a review of the country’s guardianship law , prompted by the success of a TV drama broadcast during Ramadan.

On thursday, House representatives Amira El Adly and Mohamed Ismail submitted separate requests to the speaker of the house and to the justice minister to examine the impact of a law that critics say unfairly targets women and harms families.

Labour and Lib Dems voice concerns over MP’s role as honorary president of group accused of misogynist and anti-Islam views

Opposition parties have called on the Conservatives to cut ties with a rightwing student group that has described drag artists as “groomers”, called UK schools “Maoist indoctrination camps” and held protests alongside an anti-Islam pastor.

While Turning Point UK (TPUK) says it has no formal links to the party, a Conservative MP, Marco Longhi, is the group’s honorary president, and it has previously been praised by former ministers Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg, as well as deputy party chair Lee Anderson.