A True Vision of Human Rights in Islam

If one accepts the premise of the Old Testament that Adam was created in the image of God, this implies that the divine stamp gives human beings a high value of worth. In similar vein, the Quran says: Surely we have accorded dignity to the Sons of Man. So too, in the Bhagavad-Gita: Who sees his Lord Within every creature deathlessly dwelling amidst the mortal: That man sees truly. Put another way, in a religious context, every human being is considered sacred. Believing in a common universal Divine force, which gives rise to a common humanity and from this flows a universality of certain rights. Since the rights stem from a divine source, they are inalienable by mortal authority. This concept is found not only in the Judaeo-Christian tradition but in Islam in its more advanced and wider perspective. The present study is an attempt to provide an epilogue on human rights given in the Qur’an and Sunnah. It is an in-depth analysis of Human Rights and dignity of person, encompassing its various dimensions. The study is an attempt to understand the true philosophy of human rights in Islam. It aims at providing an ethical and legal basis for the realization of implementation of human rights in the world states in general and in the Muslim states in particular.

Profiling and Characterization of the Micro Rnas and Their Targets in Important Vegetables of Solanaceae

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, endogenous and non-protein coding RNAs that are 18-26 nucleotides (nt) in length. The main function of the miRNAs is to negatively control the protein coding sequences at post-transcriptional level. By nature majority of the miRNAs are evolutionarily conserved. This conserved nature provides the logic to predict the new miRNAs orthologus in a number of plant species. In plants, miRNAs are involved in almost all biological processes from growth and development to biotic and abiotic stresses with metabolism, apoptosis and cell signaling. In the current dissertation, various computational tools were used for the profiling and characterization of new conserved miRNAs and their targets in four important vegetables of Solanaceae viz: tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) and chilli (Capsicum annuum L.). Consequently, a total of 393 miRNAs (belonging to 364 miRNA families) were discovered from the mining of 7,63,564 express sequence tags (ESTs). Of which, 120 miRNAs (110 miRNA families) were from potato, 109 miRNAs (106 miRNA families) from tomato, 88 miRNAs (81 miRNA families) from chilli and 76 miRNAs (67 miRNA families) were from eggplant. In this study, a total of three miRNA genes were found as pre-miRNA clusters, where, two belong to chilli (can-mir-8019 and can-mir-8036) and one is from potato (stu-mir-6164). One potato miRNA family stu-mir-8123 was also found both as an antisense (mir8123a) and sense (mir8123b). A total of thirty randomly selected miRNAs were subjected to reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) validation studies. Furthermore, a total of 1592 protein targets were also predicted for these newly profiled miRNAs. These predicted protein targets were classified as: transcription factor, stress related, disease related, growth and development, hypothetical protein, transporters, signaling pathways, metabolism and structural protein. All of these newly identified miRNAs were reported in tomato, potato, eggplant and chilli for the first time. These results will serve as reference data to improve the regulation, management, and modification of these economically important crops at the molecular level. This will also help us to improve solanum plants for production and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in the near future.