OBITUARY: SHAMSHAD BEGUM (1919-2013): THE ‘TEMPLE BELL’ WILL TOLL FOR LONG

Ziya Us Salam

 

I heard about the passing away of Shamshad Begum, quite appropriately, on ‘telephoon.’ After all, Shamshad was the one who sang into the nation’s collective memory with Mere Piya gaye Rangoon, Kiya Hai Wahan Se Telephoon, deliberately pronouncing telephone as ‘telephoon’ just as people were prone to doing in the late 1940s. The duet with C. Ramachandra in Patanga became a whole generation’s second most identifiable point with Rangoon, the other obviously being the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who was buried in the Burmese capital. Read more…

OBITUARY: HENRY A. PRUNIER (1922-2013)

Douglas Martin

 

Henry A. Prunier taught Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese general who withstood the armies of France and the United States, how to throw a grenade. Read more…

EDITORIAL

 

Implications of the Assaults and Killings of Shias (and other minorities) by Sunni-terrorist groups for the State in Pakistan

 

In recent months, an unprecedented wave of killings of Shias in Pakistan by terrorist groups who identify themselves as Salafi or Wahabi (extremist Sunni sects) has taken place in Quetta, in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province, and in the metropolis of Karachi.  Read more…

SOME NOTES ON THE SHIA-SUNNI CONFLICT IN PAKISTAN

Dr. Omar Ali

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” (Karl Marx) Read more…

DESTINED TO FAIL

(Editorial in Dawn on Shia-Sunni Conflict in Pakistan, March 5, 2013)

 

We can go on talking about the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi till we`re blue in the face. Or about the specific forms that sectarian violence takes in flashpoints such as Quetta and Karachi. But as long as we continue to pretend that Pakistan`s militancy problem is that limited in scope, innocent civilians will continue to die. Read more…

EXCHANGE BETWEEN FEROZ MEHDI, VINOD MUBAYI, AND ARSHAD KHAN

On Mon, Feb 25, 2013, Feroz Mehdi wrote:

 

This article (i.e. Item No. 1 above) gives us an impression that there is a popular war between Shias and Sunnis. The Islamic history sure points out the origins of differences between Sunnis and Shias but the killings today are done by terrorist methods. The killings are not done by organized groups of Sunni citizens with connivance of police and administration.

Feroz Read more…

FORUM FOR SECULAR PAKISTAN CONDEMNS ATTACK ON CHRISTIANS

(Supplied by Irfan Engineer, March 10, 2013)

The Forum for Secular Pakistan strongly condemns the attack on the Christian Community of Joseph Colony, Badami Bagh Lahore, in which 178 houses of the low-income community, as well as shops and 3 churches were looted and burnt to ashes, the Pastor was attacked and the father of Savan Masih, the youth falsely accused of blasphemy, was beaten up and subsequently arrested. Read more…

MUSHAWARAT CONDEMNS STATE TERROR AND VENDETTA IN BANGLADESH

Published Online: March 2, 2013

New Delhi, 2 March 2013: President of the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, the umbrella body of Indian Muslim organisations and eminent personalities, Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan, condemned here today the unjust verdicts being passed by the controversial “International Crimes Tribunal” in Bangladesh and the daily toll of dozens of protesting civilians being mowed down by the trigger-happy Bangladeshi security forces.

Read more…

PAKISTAN: THE MISSING DEMOCRATS

Christophe Jaffrelot

On Saturday [March 16, 2013], the Pakistan National Assembly was dissolved after completing five years. This is an unprecedented achievement. Even under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, no democratically elected legislature had lasted for a full term. And the work accomplished by this legislature is in many ways truly remarkable. Not only have Pakistan’s MPs restored the parliamentary character of the 1973 Constitution, but a whole series of constitutional amendments — starting with the 18th — have promoted federalism at the expense of Punjabi domination, significantly upgraded the independence of the judiciary, created a powerful Election Commission and introduced a procedure for conducting elections the democratic way, a procedure that implies the designation of a caretaker prime minister during the time of the campaign. Read more…

‘I WAS DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BECAUSE I AM MUSLIM’

( Express news service <http://m.indianexpress.com/columnist/ens/ Supplied by Sukla Sen)
(As told to Irena Akbar)

In 2008, a youth was arrested from my neighbourhood in Hubli for alleged links with the Student Islamic Movement of India. He was studying to be a doctor and had no history of indiscipline or run-ins with the law. His family was traumatised, and still is, for he continues to languish in jail.

 

If that could happen to a young, educated Muslim like him, it could happen to me, too, I thought then. Five years later, that passing thought became an ugly reality. Read more…

INDIA’S FANTASY OF DISLOYAL MUSLIMS MAY COME TRUE

Pankaj Mishra

 

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is fond of boasting that not one of India’s almost 180 million Muslims has been discovered to be a member of al-Qaeda.

 

He could underscore an even more remarkable fact: None of the foreign jihadists caught fighting alongside the Taliban has turned out to be from the country with the world’s third-largest Muslim population. Read more…

INDIA VOTES AGAINST SRI LANKA AT UNHRC, DMK SLAMS GOVT FOR DILUTING RESOLUTION

(Supplied by P. V. Srinivas [pv.srinivas@gmail.com; PTI | Mar 21, 2013)

 

 

Geneva: The UN Human Rights Council on Thursday adopted a US-sponsored resolution on human rights violation in Sri Lanka with 25 countries, including India, voting in favour of the document in the 47-nation strong body. Read more…

DMK, AIADMK SLAM CENTRE FOR STAND ON LANKAN TAMILS ISSUE AT UN

AIADMK and DMK on Thursday accused the UPA-led government of “diluting” the US-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council by not moving any amendments demanded by it. Read more…

FILM ON MN ROY “THE KOMINTERN BRAHMIN”

An award winning  Film on M.N. Roy (Manabendra Nath Roy 1887-1954) “The Comintern Brahmin -The Untold Story of M.N.Roy” (128 minutes)  made by French  Director Vladimir Leon was shown at 6.30 PM, 19^th March, 2013 at Auditorium, India International Centre, 40, Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi (near Lodhi Road). Read more…

DELHI GOVERNMENT ACCEPTS CERTAIN DEMANDS OF SLUM DWELLERS

(Circulated by Ramendra Kumar, Secretary General, Delhi Shramik Sangathan: Abridged)

 

The Delhi Government has accepted most of the demands of the Sangathan & amended policy has been notified on 25^th ‘February’2013. The benefits of amended slum policy of Delhi will reach to the hundreds of slum clusters and lakhs of slum dwellers of Delhi.

Read more…

CONSOLIDATING THE DISCOVERY OF THE HIGGS BOSON

Atul Gurtu

 

“4 July 2012: The most expensive and painstaking hunt in fundamental science is over and a new chapter is beginning. The Higgs boson is finally pinned down; the so-called ‘God Particle’ unveiled. Elation, not only among the practitioners of particle physics, but headlines the world over.” (Atul Gurtu: INSAF Bulletin 125 September 2012). Read more…

THE IRAQ RETROSPECTIVE WE DESERVE

Anthony DiMaggio

 

 March 19, 2003 marked the 10^th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.  For those who remember those polarizing days, it doesn’t seem like so long ago, although I’m constantly reminded of how much time has passed every day when I lecture with my 18 year old students who were just eight years old at the time of the invasion.  Sadly, the youngest generation of American adults remembers little about this war in light of the failure to promote critical awareness in our K-12 educational system.  University professors have hardly fared any better from what I’ve seen, as most seem preoccupied with esoteric research of limited practical utility.  When it comes to teaching, most professors avoid controversy or engagement in real world politics like the plague. Read more…

IRAQ: LIVING WITH NO FUTURE

Dahr Jamail

 

26 March, 2013 (TomDispatch.com)

 

Back then, everybody was writing about Iraq, but it’s surprising how few Americans, including reporters, paid much attention to the suffering of Iraqis. Today, Iraq is in the news again. The words, the memorials, the retrospectives are pouring out, and again the suffering of Iraqis isn’t what’s on anyone’s mind. This was why I returned to that country before the recent 10th anniversary of the Bush administration’s invasion and why I feel compelled to write a few grim words about Iraqis today. Read more…

NEW CHINESE LEADER FACES TOUGH CHOICES IN SEEKING BREAKTHROUGH REFORMS

Manoranjan Mohanty

 

General Secretary of the CPC (Communist Party of China) Central Committee Xi Jinping’s early performance has created positive vibrations in China and abroad. However, on some crucial issues, the extent of Xi’s new policies has yet to be evaluated. Read more…

BASKETBALL IS NOT PING-PONG

Sam Noumoff

 

The recent visit of Denis Rodman and members of the Harlem Globetrotters to North Korea raises the spectre of Ping-Pong diplomacy in the normalization of relations between China and the U.S. Tragically, this is an unlikely parallel. Ping-Pong was known internationally as the premier Chinese sport, while basketball has never been associated with North Korea. More importantly the China-US rapprochement was always driven by the US wanting to take advantage of the Sino-Soviet dispute as part of its cold war strategy. Read more…

OBITUARY: HUGO CHAVEZ (1954-2013)

Sam Noumoff

 

Much has been written about Hugo Chavez in recognition of his devoted commitment, not only to Venezuelans, but to all those fighting against imperialism and exploitation. Affectionately known as El Comandante, Chavez reminds us how powerfully important leadership is in any struggle. It is not leadership, in the Latin American context of the Caudillo, but rather that disenfranchised masses require a skillful and articulate spokesperson to mobilize their voice. This they found in a military officer, who while he taught at the Military Academy found his own platform for his early political career and an audience who echoed his own reality. As it has turned out, Hugo Chavez, as a Paratrooper officer spent two years in prison built his own network within the military, which aided him in any blocking and coup attempts from within the military after founding his 5^th Republic Movement. Read more…

OBITUARY: CHAVEZ AND TCDC/ECDC

Vinod Mubayi

 

[Hugo Chavez was an inspiring leader in many ways as was his companero from an earlier generation, Fidel Castro.  His untimely death from cancer is a setback in some ways but if his successors can consolidate the Bolivarian project he began, it could be a landmark in Latin America’s struggle to sustain a progressive future for its countries and peoples, hitherto in the shadow of the superpower colossus to their north]. Read more…

OBITUARY: V.B. CHERIAN (1945-2013)

V. B. Cherian, Vice President of the NTUI and President of the NTUI Kerala State Council passed away after a long fight with ill-health in Kochi yesterday evening. He was 68 and is survived by his wife, a daughter and a son and several thousand comrades in Kerala and throughout the country. Read more…

EXECUTION OF AFZAL GURU: A SHAMEFUL ACT

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

Compounding its shameful act of executing Mohamed Afzal Guru on February 9, 2013, the Government committed a series of equally shameful (and shamefully petty) actions before and after the execution – refusing to let Afzal’s family meet with him before his death, sending the notice of execution to his family via Speed Post instead of a phone call, burying the body in a secret grave inside the jail instead of returning it to the family – and behaved, in general, with a complete lack of transparency so that the condemned man was given no chance to challenge the President’s rejection of his mercy petition, which was constitutionally open to judicial review. Read more…

LET NOT AFZAL GURU EXECUTION BECOME AN EXCUSE TO DISMISS THE JUSTICE VERMA COMMISSION REPORT ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

As stated above, the execution of Afzal Guru was not only a mockery of justice but also a display of inhuman conduct on the part of the government towards the family, especially the wife and the son, of the victim. It was natural and justified that voices against Guru’s execution were raised by the democratic strata of India. Read more…

A MAN WAS HANGED WHO WAS NOT GUILTY BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT

Anjali Mody

 

After the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on Parliament, the government said it was an attack on India’s sovereignty, and those involved would be shown no mercy. Read more…

FAMILY SEEKS PERMISSION FOR PRAYERS IN JAIL

(Delhi: The Hindu, February 10, 2013, day after the hanging of Afzal Guru) (The file photo of Tabassum, wife of Mohammad Afzal Guru not produced)

 

Hours after the news of his death by hanging broke, Mohammed Afzal Guru’s lawyers Nandita Haksar and N.D. Pancholi made their way to the Tihar Jail here, carrying with them a letter from his family seeking permission to say a prayer at his grave. Guru, who was convicted for the December 2001 attack on Parliament, was hanged and buried inside the heavily fortified Tihar Jail on Saturday morning. Read more…

PUCL STATEMENT ON THE HANGING OF AFZAL GURU

The PUCL condemns the hanging of Afzal Guru in Tihar Jail early in the morning of February 9, 2013.

 

The tearing hurry with which Afzal Guru was hanged, accompanied by the flouting of all established norms by not giving his family their legal right to meet him before taking him to the gallows, clearly indicates that there were political considerations behind taking this step. Read more…

ON THE MURDER OF 12-YEAR OLD SON OF LTTE LEADER PRABHAKAAN NDMLP

Statement to the Media on the Channel-4 photographs

 

No lies or distortions can cover up the wicked deeds of the military action carried out by the defence forces of Sri Lanka in the name of “humanitarian war” during the final stages of the war in 2009. Information and evidence about them have already been released by international democratic and human rights organisations. As a continuation of such information, the TV channel, Channel-4 had recently release photographs relating to the killing of the 12-years old son of Prabakaran. Read more…

MY NAME IS KHAN AND… Pain of a celebrity being an Indian Muslim

Ram Puniyani

 

Shah Rukh Khan is no ordinary celebrity. Being the lead actor with a very vibrant presence on big and small screen makes him to be very much on the top. Recently the communal elements asked him to produce his patriotism certificate. Khan in one of his articles in The New York Times- Outlook Turning Points ((January 2013) suggested that India has a bias against Muslims and goes on to say that “Political leaders have made me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India.” Read more…

VICTIMS AND VICTIMHOOD (SALMAN RUSHDIE)

Jawed Naqvi

 

Salman Rushdie, a much-feted victim of intolerance, was vigorously promoting his memoir recently when I asked a friend in London to send me a copy of The Rushdie Letters. Read more…

ANTI-MODI PROTESTERS AT DELHI UNIVERSITY ALLEGE MANHANDLING

(The Hindu New Delhi, February 7, 2013

 

The Hindu Protesters raising slogans against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Shri Ram College of Commerce in New Delhi on Wednesday. Read more…

THIRTY-FOUR PERCENT OF CHILDREN IN GUJARAT ARE UNDERNOURISHED: NGO

(February 7, 2013)

 

NGO ‘Wada Na Todo Abhiyan’ said it has analysed the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) data of Gujarat and found that 34.05 per cent children in the state fall under various categories of under-nourishment. Read more…

DHULE VIOLENCE: CHANGING ANATOMY OF COMMUNAL VIOLENCE

Ram Puniyani

 

The violence in Dhule Maharashtra seems to be the new face of communal violence in India. As per the report of a major national daily (Jan 26, 2013), the evidence with the newspaper shows the evidence of police looting and destroying the property. The video clips in possession of the civil society groups also show one police official exhorting the rioting mob to move on. So far even if it was there it was not so blatantly clear. One sensed the partisan nature of police as discerned through different inquiry commission reports, but this type of role of police is a new and downhill chapter in the history of communal violence in India. Read more…

DRUG RESEARCH RIDDLED WITH HALF TRUTHS, OMISSIONS, LIES

Excerpted from Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients (2012) by Ben Goldacre

 

Sponsors get the answer they want.

 

Before we get going, we need to establish one thing beyond any doubt: Industry-funded trials are more likely than independently funded trials to produce a positive, flattering result. This is our core premise, and one of the most well-documented phenomena in the growing field of “research about research”. It has also become much easier to study in recent years because the rules on declaring industry funding have become a little clearer. Read more…

ISRAEL MUST WITHDRAW ALL SETTLERS OR FACE ICC, SAYS UN REPORT

Alternatives International Journal (Friday 1 February 2013)

 

Harriet Sherwood

 

Israel must withdraw all settlers from the West Bank or potentially face a case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for serious violations of international law, says a report by a United Nations agency that was immediately dismissed in Jerusalem as “counterproductive and unfortunate.” Read more…

RAVI SHANKAR (7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012)

T.K. Raghunathan (Kabir Cultural Center, Montreal)

 

“I still remember the first time I saw him. He was coming down the stairs, he was so handsome and godlike that I was just frozen to the spot.” – Sukanya Rajan, Wife as told to Kavita Chhibber Read more…

LINE OF CONTROL (LOC ) ON THE BOIL AGAIN – TRADE AND TRAVEL AFFECTED

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

Once more, when better relations between India and Pakistan were on the horizon, expected to be anchored by significant easing of the onerous visa requirements on the citizens of the two countries and a major expansion of cross-border trade, a series of tit-for-tat attacks across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has plunged relations back to the murky depths from which they were due to emerge. Read more…

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CAN BE PREVENTED BY GOOD GOVERNANCE

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

The fatal rape of a young aspiring woman in Delhi evoked massive protest by civil society. It is a heartening development because this is the first protest of this scale on an important social and cultural issue. The deceased woman might well prove to be the saviour of thousands upon thousands of girls and women and the forebear of a more civilized India. Read more…

WHO IS AFRAID OF JUSTICE VERMA COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS?

(Liberation News Service:  Forthcoming : ML Update editorial)

The Justice Verma Committee Report marks a milestone in the struggle for women’s rights in India. The Report is a powerful vindication of the central demands of the ongoing movement against sexual violence, and is also an equally powerful challenge to the Government and the political establishment. Read more…

THE CHAUTALA FORMULA: MEANWHILE ACROSS THE BORDER

Garga Chatterjee

 

It has been more than a month since the serial rapes in the Indian state of Haryana shot to the headlines. Now that our eyeballs have moved to newer headlines of the year in this holy land, and the urban liberal condemnation brigade has moved on to newer issues, let me spoil the momentum and bring back the issue. Read more…

PREVENTING CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN: ARE STRINGENT LAWS THE ONLY SOLUTION?

Ram Puniyani

 

The death of the Delhi gang rape victim in Singapore (Dec 28, 2012) has created a massive wave of anger and protest. As such after this ghastly act, which took place nearly two weeks ago, the anger and protest of the people came to the streets and one witnessed the unfortunate police action. This gang rape was so horrific that the attention of the people from all the sectors of society was drawn to it, and the rage amongst people was limitless. Read more…

RISING SHADOW OF TRIDENT: MODI’S VICTORY IN GUJARAT

Ram Puniyani

 

The recent electoral victory of Narendra Modi, his third consecutive one (Dec 2012), has drawn lot of applause from a section of society and he is being projected as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate. It’s another matter that BJP, itself is in shambles as far as electoral arena is concerned and its NDA allies are unlikely to endorse Modi, given his aggressive communal politics and the authoritarian style of his functioning. One knows that this victory of Modi was predicted by many exit polls, one also knows his victory was not a smooth sail, as by now the dissatisfaction from his policies, his style of functioning is adversely affecting a large number of Gujarat population. The people of Gujarat turned out in big numbers to cast their vote. Read more…

JOINT PUBLIC STATEMENT ON HINDUTVA TERROR

24 January 2013

 

While one may or may not agree with the terminology employed by the Home Minister in his recent speech at Jaipur, we feel that for long prejudice has ruled investigations, obscuring the role of organizations and their multiple affiliates in planning and executing of attacks and bombings in the country. The veneer of ‘nationalism’ — narrow, exclusionary and based on hatred for minorities as it is– cannot hide the violence that Sangh and its affiliates beget and peddle. Read more…

COMMUNAL RIOTS -2012

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

Like other years in the post-Gujarat era, this year too witnessed several riots and riot-free India remained just a dream. India is a too vast and complex a country and one cannot expect uniform development all over the country. North, Central and Western India is far too sensitive to communal politics. South, it must be said, is less prone to communal violence though Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are more communally sensitive than Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Read more…

CUBA SHOWS THE WAY

Don Fitz

 

Furious though it may be, the current debate over health care in the US is largely irrelevant to charting a path for poor countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. That is because the US squanders perhaps 10 to 20 times what is needed for a good, affordable medical system. The waste is far more than 30% overhead by private insurance companies. It includes an enormous amount of over-treatment, creation of illnesses, exposure to contagion through over-hospitalization, disease-focused instead of prevention-focused research, and making the poor sicker by refusing them treatment. Read more…

ISRAEL ADMITS ETHIOPIAN WOMEN WERE GIVEN BIRTH CONTROL SHOTS

Talila Nesher

A government official has for the first time acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera. Read more…

OBITUARY: Padma Shri Prof. Mahdi Hasan (1936-2013)

Abbas Ali Mahdi

 

Padma Shri Professor Mahdi Hasan was  born in 1936 in village Gadayan, Akbarpur, then in Faizabad, now Ambedkar Nagar, U.P.). He  was a Senior/Honorary Scientist of the Indian National Science Academy and Honorary  Professor of the Department of Anatomy, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow and formerly Principal and Chief Medical Superintendent (1983-87), Dean (1992-94), Professor (1972-96) and Chairman of Anatomy (1983-87,1990-93), Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh Muslim University. Read more…

THERE IS LITTLE  CHANCE THAT THE NEW YEAR WILL GET ANY BETTER BUT LET US  STILL HOPE!

CULTURAL DEGENERATION OF INDIA NO ANSWER

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

The existence of feudal cultural values in a society where mass poverty exists together with a boom in upper middle-class wealth exacts a horrific social cost. The main victims are the minorities and women. Read more…

CAN HORROR OVER RAPE PROMPT CULTURAL CHANGE IN INDIA?

Stephanie Nolen

 

Women demand justice at a vigil in New Delhi Thursday after a young student was raped and left near death in the city Sunday. (photo by Associated Press not reproduced) Read more…

A RAPE CHARGE IS NO BAR FOR POLITICIANS

260 MLAs and MPs contested polls while facing sexual assault charges

 

Political parties may have joined the entire nation in expressing outrage over the gang rape of a 23-year-old girl in the Capital, but they have never shied away from fielding in elections the candidates facing charges of crimes against women. Read more…

DEMAGOGUES AND DEMOCRACY

Vinod Mubayi

 

Two demagogues, whose actions and words transformed Indian polity for the worse, have been in the news recently.  One of them, Bal Thackeray, who ruled Maharashtra and Mumbai, particularly, as a Mafioso Godfather, is, fortunately, no longer around although his poisonous legacy will likely foul the political atmosphere in the metropolis for many more years.  The other, unfortunately, is going on strong; Narendra Modi, the orchestrator of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, has completed a hat trick by winning the state elections for a third successive time.  He can take full credit for transforming Gujarat from a “laboratory of Hindutva” when he began his career 15 years into a full-fledged “factory of Hindutva” it has become today. Read more…

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS OF MINORITIES: Effects and Repercussions

Ram Puniyani

 

There is a need to introspect about the status of Human rights in India as we observed on more Human rights day, this December 10th. Human rights is a concept which is founded on the democratic norms. Last many decades, after the coming into being of United Nations in particular, the concept of human rights has been picking up in a strong way. The global community through UN has tried to evolve the norms for these rights for all the people of the world. Many a countries, including India are signatories to the norms, charters prepared by UN. Though India is a signatory to these charters, it needs to be seen as to what is the status of human rights of minorities in India? Read more…

SIR SYED DAY AND ITS UTILITY

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

Seventeen October happens to be Sir Syed’s birth day and every year all those who have studied at Aligarh Muslim University celebrate it with great enthusiasm and arrange dinner on that occasion. Read more…

CASTE, RELIGION AND UNTOUCHABILITY

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

 

Ashaq Ali Wattal hails from a community which has the sole ‘right’ to clean the toilets in Jammu and Kashmir. Hailing from Doda, Wattal moans at the continuous negligence by the state government and its authorities towards the community of manual scavengers in Jammu and Kashmir. Read more…

BABRI MOSQUE DEMOLITION: TWO DECADES LATER

Ram Puniyani

 

Twenty years ago (December 6, 1992) on this fateful day, Babri Mosque was demolished. This demolition remains a major blot in the history of India. It was the act of demolition by communal forces which reflected the changing polity of India and it in turn further changed the polity in a very adverse direction. Read more…

PERSISTENCE OF A SORE: COMMUNAL VIOLENCE TODAY

Ram Puniyani

 

The events taking place in different parts of the country in October-November 2012 have been very disturbing to say the least. It is the continuance and recurrence of communal events, communal violence in different parts of the country, in UP, Assam and Hyderabad in particular. Read more…

THE TWELFTH FIVE YEAR PLAN: TAKING “INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT” FROM MYTH TO REALITY

Mazher Hussain

 

The Planning Commission of India posted the draft Document of the 12th Five year Plan on its website in the first week of December 2012 for feedback from the public before it is adopted by the National Development Council (NDC) on 28 December and declared the Five Year Plan for the country from 2012 to 2017. The stated vision of the Plan Document is “of India moving forward in a way that would ensure a broad-based improvement in living standards of all sections of the people through a growth process which is faster than in the past, more inclusive and also more environmentally sustainable”. This mantra of “faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth”’ is indeed ideal and laudable, but the question is how can we make it possible? More importantly, what could be the consequences if we fail? Read more…

COORDINATION OF DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS (CDRO)

Press Release 19 December 2012

 

Police kills unarmed villagers and terms it ‘encounter with Maoists’ in Odisha.

 

Following an outcry against the alleged killing of five tribals/Maoists in an ‘encounter’, near Bhaliaguda village of Gajapati district of Odisha, a six-member team of individuals representing CDRO and Women against Sexual Violence and State Violence (WSS) visited Odisha from 8 December to 9 December 2012. Our purpose was to understand what had actually unfolded and who the people died were. Read more…

ALL INDIA PEOPLES FRONT

(Supplied by Akhilendra Pratap Singh)

 

New Delhi, Nov.24. 2012, In a two day meeting cum workshop in GPF organized by the National Campaign Committee where the constituents of NCC and some other democratic organizations resolved to launch All India Peoples Front, retaining NCC. Read more…

WHAT THE AMERICAN MEDIA WON’T TELL YOU ABOUT ISRAEL

Noam Chomsky

 

The savage punishment of Gaza traces back to decades ago. Read more…

SOVIET INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan Was Not a Grand Design But a Grand Entanglement Resulting from Faulty Intelligence, Excessive Secrecy, and a Paralyzed Leadership, According to Conference of Former Decision-Makers. Read more…

CANADA FORMALLY JOINS THE AXIS OF EVIL

Feroz Mehdi

 

So here we are. It is November 29 2012. November 29 is the international day in solidarity with Palestine. It is also the day when the UN passed the resolution for partition of Palestine in 1947. It is today in 2012 that the World Social Forum-Free Palestine was launched in Porto Alegre, Brazil. It is today that the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of giving a non-member state status to Palestine. Read more…

CELEBRATING THE PRINCE OF PEACE IN THE LAND OF GUNS

Michael Moore

 

Moore writes: “After watching the deranged, delusional National Rifle Association press conference on Friday, it was clear that the Mayan prophecy had come true. Except the only world that was ending was the NRA’s.” Read more…

WHEN RAVI SHANKAR WAS COMRADE ROBUDA

Sankar Ray

 

One of the maestro’s greatest contributions, the music for Saare Jahan se Achchha, brought him to the Indian People’s Theatre Association. Read more…

EULOGY

 

“Momma Loves You, Little Man”

 

The mother and uncle of 6-year-old Noah Pozner delivered a messages at his funeral reflecting on the life of the little boy killed on December 14, 2012 school shooting at Newton, Connecticut, USA. Read more…

BAL THACKERAY – SELF-PROCLAIMED HITLER ADMIRER PASSES AWAY

Vinod Mubayi

 

Since independence, there have been two examples of what can be termed the authentic face of Indian fascism.  The first, Bal Thackeray, Shiv Sena leader, Marathi chauvinist par excellence and self-proclaimed admirer of Hitler who dubbed himself “Hindu hriday samrat” (emperor of Hindu hearts) died, thankfully, a few weeks ago; the other, Narendra Modi, coordinator of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 is, unfortunately, still around. Read more…

AN AUTHENTIC INDIAN FASCISM

Praveen Swami

 

The Shiv Sena chief gave voice to a Nazi impulse in Indian politics — one that poses an ever-growing threat to our Republic. Read more…

LEADER (Thackeray ) WHO BROUGHT ETHNIC POLITICS TO MUMBAI MELTING POT

Meena Menon

 

 

Bal Thackeray, the man who could bring Mumbai and the entire State of Maharashtra to a standstill by a single command and whose ethnic and communal rhetoric added a strain of perpetual menace to an already fraught metropolis, died on Saturday, November 17. He was 86. Read more…

STRUGGLE TO ERADICATE CASTE: HIDDEN AGENDA OF SAMAJIK SAMRASTA

Ram Puniyani

 

Caste is a phenomenon deeply entrenched in Indian society and the struggle against it began in the late 19^th century. Despite the social movements, initiated around the ideas of Phule, Ambedkar, Periyar and many such legendary figures, it continues to pervade in the Indian society like a malignant cancer, refusing to die easily. Read more…

GIRISH KARNAD ON NAIPAUL

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

In a literary festival organized by Times of India Group in Mumbai Girish Karnad, a theatre celebrity and a secular activist attacked, in his speech the committee which decided to give award to Naipaul on the grounds that Naipaul had communal attitude and did not deserve this award. Some people objected to Karnad attacking Naipaul on this occasion. He could have spared his remarks for some other occasion. Read more…

DRONES: THEIRS AND OURS

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

Vocal as they are about being bombed from the sky, most Pakistanis – including many on the Left – suddenly lose their voice when it comes to the human (Muslim) drone. Read more…

CANADA’S MISSING DAUGHTERS

Murtaza Haider

 

It is taking place even in Canada. Parents are aborting female fetuses because they prefer sons instead. The practice, however, is more pronounced amongst immigrant parents from India. Read more…

2012 US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: RELIGIOSITY LOST, LEFT WON

Rajasekhar Ramakrishnan
It is an understatement that my family is happy with the  election of Barack Hussein Obama as the President of the United States for the second term in November 2012. Read more…

JOINT APPEAL OF INDIAN MUSLIMS ON AUNG SAN SUU KYI VISIT

The Milli Gazette Online

 

New Delhi, 14 November 2010: Myanmar opposition leader Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is visiting our country and getting the treatment of a head of state as a result of her long struggle and suffering for democracy in Myanmar which also won her a Nobel Peace Prize. But we are pained to see that Ms. Kyi has disappointed many by her continuous silence and ambivalent attitude towards a section of her compatriots known as “Rohingyas” who mainly live in Rekhine province, formerly known as Akyab. The Rohingyas, who are Muslims, have been termed by a UN report as the most persecuted religions community in the world. Read more…

NEW DELHI PROTEST AT ISRAELI EMBASSY AGAINST ATTACK ON GAZA

Hundreds of protestors, which included students, youth, teachers, trade unions and women raised slogans at the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi on November 19, 2012, protesting Israel’s assault on civilians in Gaza, and US support for this aggression. Read more…

MUSLIMS POSE AS HINDUS TO GET JOBS (IN INDIA)

Radio Australia (31 October 2012)

 

Muslims in India are adopting Hindu identities to avoid discrimination. Read more…

WELL-KNOWN PAKISTANI JOURNALIST MARVI SIRMED SHOT AT

(Press Trust of India <http://www.ndtv.com/search?q=Press+Trust+of+India>; November 02, 2012) 22

Islamabad: Unidentified gunmen today attacked prominent rights activist Marvi Sirmed in the Pakistani capital. She escaped unharmed. Read more…

SYMBOL OF COMMUNAL HARMONY IN FAIZABAD ATTACKED

Sandeep Pandey

 

We remember visiting the office of Sayed Manzar Mehdi, who was the Bureau Chief of Urdu periodical ‘Sahafat’ then in Faizabad just before the Godhra incident in 2002. He was vividly describing how Muslims in trains leaving Ayodhya for Gujarat were being troubled by the Kar Sewaks who had ostensibly come to build the temple. Read more…

A VISIT TO BHAGAT SINGH’S VILLA

Haroon Khalid

Amongst the numerous Punjabi patriots that have been borne over centuries, arguably, Sardar Bhagat Singh’s personality stands as the tallest in stature, fame, and sacrifice. However, a strange event occurred after the death of this son of Punjab. The land that he called his mother got divided into two parts. This partition not only divided land but also mentalities, families and heroes. A strong sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ were forged, to invoke patriotism, justifying the partition, or the betrayal, fueling nationalism. What is Indian is anti-Pakistani and vice-versa. Read more…

DISENCHANTING INDIA: ORGANIZED RATIONALISM AND CRITICISM OF RELIGION

Author: Johannes Quack

Reviewed by Dilip Simeon (Published in H-Asia, November 2012; supplied by Sukla Sen) Read more…

THREATENING IRAN, BOMBING GAZA

Vinod Mubayi

 

To any rational, fair-minded person with no stakes in the outcome, the current fuss over Iran would seem puzzling indeed.  Iran is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; it allows inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear facilities; and, under the rules of the treaty, it is allowed to enrich uranium to produce fuel for use in civilian nuclear facilities, such as power reactors or reactors for producing medical isotopes.  There is another state in the Middle-East, however, which is known to possess hundreds of nuclear weapons, including bombs and missiles, acquired clandestinely, has not signed the non-proliferation treaty, and, of course, does not permit IAEA inspectors entry into the country or into its nuclear facilities.  The latter country is Israel. Read more…

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA (CPC) AND POLITICAL REFORM

William Dere

 

The Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was  held from November 8 to 15 at the Great Hall of People in Beijing. Hu Jintao was replaced by Xi Jinping as the General Secretary. A significant issue discussed at the Congress was Political Reform. Below are two commentaries (Eds.)  Read more…

POLITICAL REFORM IN CHINA: THE WAY TO GO

Hu Shuli

 

In the 18th Party Congress report, the single area that has justifiably generated the most attention is references to political reform. But, in fact, views on this report will rely entirely on initial expectations. Read more…

EUROPE UNITES IN AUSTERITY PROTESTS AGAINST CUTS AND JOB LOSSES

 

Tom Kington in Rome, Helena Smith in Athens, Kim Willsher in Paris and Martin Roberts in Madrid

(The Guardian,  14 November 2012)

Millions take part in strikes, stoppages and marches on day of co-ordinated action as eurozone teeters on return to recession. Read more…

OBITUARY: ASAD REHMAN: ’CHAKAR KHAN’ (1950-2012)

Being Punjabi like Asad

 

Harris Khalique

 

Sheikh Asad Rahman breathed his last in an Islamabad hospital on the night of Monday, October 29. He developed a severe heart condition about two weeks ago and struggled under a ventilator before his body systems finally failed him. I had met Asad a day before his heart attack. Appearing fighting fit, he was in his true element, when speaking of human rights movements in Pakistan, reflective when deliberating on development challenges faced by communities in the length and breadth of the country, and passionate while tracing the history of the struggle for the rights of the Baloch people. Read more…

OBITUARY: SENATOR IQBAL HAIDER (1945 – ,2012)

Kiran Omar

 

On 11 November, 2012 Senator Iqbal haider breathed his last at a hospital in Karachi after a long illness. Senator Haider had a long, and illustrious career as a legislator, human rights activist and lawyer. He was a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, co-Chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan(HRCP), a former Senator, Federal Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs and a former Attorney General. His contribution to the Law, its application and interpretation, was invaluable, and his passion for championing human rights was inspirational. Read more…

OBITUARY: SRIMATI KAMALA PANDEY (1930-2012)

Ashok Choudhary
Lucknow, 26 November. Deep condolence was conveyed in an emergency meeting  of the board of trustees and well wishers of the Anurag Trust on the sudden  demise of Mrs. Kamala Pandey, the chief trustee of the trust, renowned  leftist social activist and chief editor of the children magazine ‘Anurag’. It was resolved to further her life mission through the activities of the  trust. Read more…

FEMALE INFANTICIDE: THE WAY INDIA WILL END

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

South Asia has many political, economic, social and cultural problems. While much is written and talked about the political and economic issues, which can easily be attributed to laxity or failure of governmental policies, less is said about social and cultural issues to which every one is a party in varying degrees. One such issue is the relegation of women to a secondary status. This is true among all religious communities and all castes of South Asia. Female infanticide is the extreme expression of anti-women prejudice. Read more…

INDIA LOSES THREE MILLION GIRLS IN INFANTICIDE

Source: Liberation News Service, October 9, 2012

 

In an alarming trend, girl child numbers in India have shown a sharper decline than the male children in the decade beginning 2001, leading to a skewed child sex ratio. Read more…

THE GIRL WHO CHANGED PAKISTAN: MALALA YOUSAFZAI

Shehrbano Taseer

 

Over the screams and tears of the girls, a teacher instructed the bus driver to drive to a local hospital a few miles away. She stared in horror at Malala’s body, bleeding profusely and slumped unconscious in her friend’s lap, then closed her eyes and started to pray. Read more…

FAITH VERSUS SANITATION

Jairam Ramesh’s Remarks On Temple, Toilets

 

Ram Puniyani

 

The Union Rural development Minister’s remark that “toilets are more important than temples” (October 2012) was met with diverse responses. Ramesh was speaking at a launch of campaign to sensitize people about the ill effects of open defecation, a practice very common in rural areas and city slums, where sanitation facilities are poor or non-existent. Ramesh said that open defecation was the main reason for the hygiene related problems and that there are more temples than toilets in the country. Read more…

LETTER FROM LUCKNOW PRISON

Tarique Quasmi,

 

A prisoner in Lucknow Prison has released the following letter dated 22nd September, 2012. Read more…

THREE THOUSAND SIKHS TO VISIT PAKISTAN ON NANAK’S BIRTH ANNIVERSARY

Sikh pilgrims from India and other countries across the globe will start reaching Pakistan on Tuesday (tomorrow) to celebrate the birth anniversary of the first Sikh Guru, Sri Guru Nanak Devji. The authorities concerned have finalised the arrangements to accommodate the visiting pilgrims, security arrangements and other facilities. Read more…

FOREST RIGHTS RALLY AND MASS EDUCATION PROGRAMME IN BIHAR

October 11-12,  2012 Kaimur Bihar

 

More than 5000 tribal, dalit and other forest dwellers did a historical rally in Adhoura Block of Kaimur district Bihar jointly by Kaimur Mukti Morcha (Jan Mukti Andolan) and National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW). Read more…

INDIAN GOVERNMENT TO ADDRESS DEMANDS OF LANDLESS & HOMELESS

(Liberation News Service; October 14, 2012)

 

Landless and Shelterless Poor to get agricultural land, homestead rights, fast track courts, free legal aid, effective implementation of PESA and Forest Rights Act through a time bound program!! Read more…

POLICE AND COMMUNAL VIOLENCE

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

It seems quite a stale topic as we know how police behaves during communal disturbances or even before and after that. Recently Prime Minister of the country also expressed serious concern about increasing incidents of communal violence in the country during his inaugural address to one-day conference of Directors General and Inspectors General in Delhi along with intelligence officers. The Prime Minister of the country expresses concern and draws their attention to a problem it could be nothing but very serious indeed. Read more…

ATTACK ON FAIZABAD MOSQUE CONDEMNED

On 24 October 2012, when the immersion procession of Durga was going on, a girl was molested by few miscreants. Making this as a pretext few people started stone throwing in the nearby areas. A rumor also spread in Faizabad that Muslims are doing the stone throwing. The mob went on to burn nearly 25 shops of Muslim traders. They also rampaged the office of bilingual (Urdu and Hindi) paper Aap Ki Takat. This paper is continuously giving the message of Peace and calling for Hindu-Muslim unity. They also rampaged the mosque. Read more…

BODOLAND : THE KILLING FIELD

Santosh Rana

 

Santosh Rana was a leading member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) [CPI-ML] formed under the leadership of late Charu Mazumdar. He left CPI-ML in 1971 and constituted PCC CPI-ML in 971. He  contesting as an independent, won the Gopiballavpur seat in West Bengal in 1977. Below he presents a detailed history of BODO people who are recently targeted by Assamese chauvinists. Read more…

JAPANESE MILITARISM & DIAOYUTAI (SENKAKU) ISLAND

Kiyoshi Inoue

 

Based on history, there should be no dispute on the ownership of these islands (they belong to China). Read more…

SIXTY-FOUR COMMUNIST PARTIES OPPOSE ISRAELI THREAT AGAINST IRAN

In the mostly widely supported joint declaration for decades, 64 communist and worker’s parties across the world join forces to declare “We are totally opposed to any military action against Iran!”  Read more…

SWEDISH SHIP TO GAZA

(Press Release Oct. 22, 2012 from Adam Keller Gush Shalom: otherisr@actcom.co.il)

 

The Israeli activists detained on board the “Estelle” were released Elik Elhanan: excessive force was used against us, without any reason. Read more…

HARI SHARMA MEMORIAL LECTURE 2012

Speaker: Jan Myrdal

 

Topic: “Neoliberalism and Revolution: the Task of Solidarity with the Peoples of India”

Time and Place:  November 17, 2012: 2 pm; Simon Frazer University Harbour Centre Room 1900. Read more…

OBITUARY: ERIC JOHN ERNEST HOBSBAWM (1917-2012)

Martin Kettle and Dorothy Wedderburn

 

Had Eric Hobsbawm died 25 years ago, the obituaries would have described him as Britain’s most distinguished Marxist historian and would have left it more or less there. Yet by the time of his death at the age of 95, he had achieved a unique position in the country’s intellectual life. In his later years he became arguably Britain’s most respected historian of any kind, recognised if not endorsed on the right as well as the left, and one of a tiny handful of historians of any era to enjoy genuine national and world renown. Read more…

THE CRISIS IN THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT: INDIA IS CATCHING UP

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

The Indian communist movement is almost a century old.  It began in the aftermath of the Russian revolution as an expression of militant worker struggles against capitalist exploitation during the colonial era.  It maintained a critical alliance for a while with the main anti-colonial freedom movement led by the Congress Party. In 1947-48, the CPI launched the anti-feudal Telengana struggle, which managed to create, at its height, a liberated zone of over 5000 square miles, ousting landlordism in the erstwhile feudal state of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Read more…

NEPAL: LONG MARCH, BACKWARDS

Editorial, The Hindu

 

The churning in Nepali politics has entered a new stage with a split in the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). Read more…

VICIOUS CYCLE OF ISLAMOPHOBIA

Ram Puniyani

 

We are going through strange times. While the science, technology and rationalism has given us physical and intellectual tools to better the lot of humanity, we are witnessing the production of provocative material, literature and films in particular, which demonize the particular religion, Islam to be precise, and the prophet of Islam. On the other hand there is a section of community, feeling threatened and insecure coming to the streets to protest against such humiliation and insult of their religion. There are debates on freedom of expression, but how come the freedom of expression always goes to humiliate and demonize one particular religion only? Read more…

DEVELOPMENT DYNAMICS IN GUJARAT

Summary of the Findings

 

Is Gujarat the lucky star rising on the Indian horizon! Or Is Gujarat a story of Rousing Growth Amidst Raging Disparities?  A recent study, conducted by researchers from the Jawaharlal Nehru University and supported by the Institute of Development Communication, Chandigarh suggests that there is more to worry about Gujarat then some decades ago. Today, 21st century ‘developed’ India is more concerned about ethics, justice, and sustainability of development. Evaluating the experience of development in Gujarat, particularly in the last decade or so, the study tell us that Gujarat is a story where goals like social equality, sustainable livelihoods, access to education and health, justice and peace have been missed by governance in high-speed lane. Read more…

THE LETTER TO NARENDRA MODI ON HIS STATEMENT ON MALNUTRITION

The letter demands apology from Modi for his remarks during an interview with Wall Street Journal.  Modi’s statement  only shows his disrespect to  women and girls of Gujarat the state, but also reveals  his rudimentary understanding of Indian society at large. Read more…

BANGLADESHI’S IN INDIA: MYTH AND REALITY

Ram Puniyani

 

The Assam violence between Bodos and Muslims, alleged by many to be Bangldeshi infiltrators, has a long chain of repercussions. The number of dead is nearly eighty. Killings are continuing and the people who have been displaced have been over 4 lakhs. There is no exact statistics to tell us how many of the displaced are Muslims and how many are Bodos, still roughly some investigators have put the figure of Muslims 80% and Bodos 20%. The few reports which have come out tell us that the condition of the all refugee camps is abysmal, much worse of those where Muslims are living. Meanwhile many a voices have come up to express their own opinions. Read more…

INDIA AND SECULAR DEMOCRACY

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

Till yesterday many were saying that communal temperature has come down in the country and some even questioned wisdom of passing the Communal Violence and Targeted Violence Bill by the Parliament. People thought perhaps Gujarat riots have given enough shock to the country and now no major riots shall take place. And now we are not only witnessing series of riots in U.P. but also very major Gujarat like riot in Assam and now suddenly people from North East are being targeted in Southern states. Read more…

POLITICAL ISLAM IN PAKISTAN

Jan Breman

 

Abandoned by their government, the poor of Pakistan have turned to the Taliban and other fundamentalist groups for support and solace. At the same time, a growing pressure for emancipation presses against fundamentalism. Which force will triumph? A report based on travel in rural Sindh. Read more…

PERSECUTION OF MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN

Faraz Aamer Khan

 

When Jinnah said that “religion and state should be kept separate”, he could not have more appropriately warned the people of present-day Pakistan where the constitutionally supported, man-made religious doctrines issued by fundamentalists continue, to ruin lives. Read more…

BHAGAT SINGH CHOWK

LAHORE, Sept 29: District Coordination Officer Noorul Amin Mengal on Saturday directed City District Government of Lahore officials to rename Shadman Chowk (roundabout) as Bhagat Singh Chowk. Read more…

PAKISTAN: STATE PATRONAGE FOR THE HIJAB? WHY COMPETE WITH FUNDAMENTALISTS?

Tazeen Javed

 

Barring random news items and a few opinion pieces, the hijab debate has never really been part of the national narrative of Pakistan. Those who wanted to wear hijab/niqab/burqa wore it and those who preferred the traditional shalwar kameez and dupatta chose that without any problem. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Iran or Turkey, there never was governmental coercion or pressure on women to wear a particular type clothing or to ban them from wearing a particular type of clothing in state institutions. A woman’s clothing was her own business as it should be anywhere in the world. However, things are changing. Read more…

PAKISTAN: THREE LEFT PARTIES TO UNITE

Statement by the Awami Party Pakistan, Labour Party Pakistan and the Workers Party Pakistan Read more…

DALIT WOMEN AT THE RECEIVING END

Liberation News Service (September 25, 2012)

 

Data and research show how Dalit women are doubly marginalised subjected to a patriarchal set up at home and caste prejudice in society “Would you like to compromise?” That’s the first question a judge asks when a caste atrocity case comes up for trial, says Manjula Pradeep, of the Gujarat-based non governmental organisation Navsarjan. A study done by Navsarjan on atrocity data obtained through RTI for Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu found that between December 2004 and November 2009, “there were convictions in only 0.79 per cent of cases (three cases) of violence by non-Dalits across the three states. In Gujarat there were no convictions at all.” Read more…

LESSONS OF THE QUÉBEC STUDENT MOVEMENT

William Ging Wee Dere

 

 

Through its seven month strike and mass action, the Québec student movement can claim a victory after the newly elected Parti Québécois (PQ) premier Pauline Marois issued an order in council to repeal the university tuition increase for this school year. However she is calling for a summit meeting of the student organizations with the government before the end of the year to try and legitimize her plan to index future increases in tuition fees to the cost of living. Marois also repealed the repressive Bill 78 (Law 12) which was passed by the previous Liberal government to limit mass protests. Read more…

THE MANIFESTO OF CLASSE: We Are Many Youth, But With One Struggle!

 

William Ging Wee Dere

 

During its congress on August 11th and 12th, 2012, CLASSE adopted the Manifesto « We are many youth, but with one struggle ». This text, already endorsed by dozens of student organizations around the world, reminds us that the student struggle in Quebec is also in solidarity with hundreds of thousands of young people and students who are struggling around the world for a quality education which is accessible and public. Read more…

TONY BLAIR SHOULD FACE TRIAL OVER IRAQ WAR, SAYS DESMOND TUTU

The Guardian

 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George Bush to be hauled before the international criminal court in The Hague and delivered a damning critique of the physical and moral devastation caused by the Iraq war. Read more…

WHY THE WESTERN MEDIA ARE ANGRY AT TEHRAN NAM SUMMIT

Kourosh Ziabari

 

The 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran was unquestionably a diplomatic triumph for Iran, and the Western politicians know this very well. Perhaps it’s in this context that the frustration and annoyance of the Western state-run mainstream media at the Tehran summit can be explained. Read more…

CANADA CUTS LINKS WITH IRAN

Gideon Polya

 

Pro-Zionist Canadian Government war crimes exposed

 

Canadian Government has broken off diplomatic relations with remote, peaceful Iran and justified this with a comprehensively false litany of allegations. Read more…

OBITUARY: A.K. HANGAL, ACTOR (1924-2012)

Suhasini Mulay

 

Veteran actor, A K Hangal, faced the camera for the first time when he was 50. At 93, he “walked” the ramp in a wheelchair for the designer, Riyaz Ganji. He faced the cameras for the last time when he was 94, for a Television series, “Madhubala – Ek Ishq Ek Junoon”. Read more…

OBITUARY: ALEXANDER SAXTON, HISTORIAN AND NOVELIST, DIES AT 93

Paul Vitello

 

Alexander Saxton, who would go on to become a prominent historian of race in America, summed himself up in a blurb on the dust jacket of his first novel, “Grand Crossings,” published when he was 24. Read more…

NORTH-EAST TO SOUTH-WEST: REGIONAL DISPARITY AND POVERTY TAKE A VIOLENT TURN

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

The violent incidents in Kokrajhar in Assam, where hundreds of people, most of them Bengalis who happened to be Muslim, were killed by a segment of the Bodo tribals, were sad and scary enough.  But their aftermath, especially in major cities like Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, could be more threatening to the survival of India as a nation, unless some major steps are taken by the government to address the problem. Read more…

A STUNNING VERDICT [WORTH REJOICING]

(The Hindu, August 30, 2012)

 

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and its various affiliates including governments run by its political wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) have committed many crimes and have been let off many a times. Also so far the murderers of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 are roaming free. The conviction of BJP legislator Maya Kodnani and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi along with 30 others for their role in the Naroda Patia massacre in a recent court judgment restores some confidence in Indian proclaimed secularism. Read more…

OUTBREAK OF VIOLENCE IN MUMBAI – ASSAM AND BURMA KILLING OF MUSLIMS

Asghar Ali Engineer

The way things were happening for last few weeks it was not surprising that violence on such scale took place. It was, as if, in store, large scale propaganda was going on that Muslims are being killed all over the world. There is conspiracy to kill Muslims everywhere and on Bodo-Muslim clashes and about Rohingiya Muslims in Burma prayers were being organized in every mosque and SMSs were circulating about it. Urdu papers were carrying articles saying there is world-wide conspiracy to kill Muslims articles simply appealing to emotions, not to reason. Read more…

PREVENTING SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: ROLE OF STATE

Ram Puniyani

The horrific violence in Assam has once again brought our attention to the malaise of communal violence in India. In the recent times one has witnessed such a violence in parts of UP, (Kosi Kalan, Barailly, Pratapgarh) and also in Gopalgargh in Rajasthan. In most of these acts of violence one has to confront the reality that there is a lapse on the part of state, the police and civic administration, due to which the violence sustains itself after the initial spark has been thrown by someone. The present spate (July, 2012) of series of acts of violence reconfirms that there is a lack of accountability, there is state complicity and impunity due to which the innocents are done to death and the culprits generally get away. Read more…

RIOTS & THE BOGEY OF BANGLADESHIS

Banajit Hussain

Many Muslims from erstwhile East Bengal settled in Assam in early 20th century. But vested interests are out to prove that their descendants today are illegal migrants. Read more…

STATUS OF MINORITIES: A TALE OF TWO NEIGHBORS

Ram Puniyani

Pakistan and India, these neighbors got Independence in the mid August 1947. Today 55 years after the Independence where do these two major countries of the subcontinent stand vis a vis their religious minorities, is the question which we need to answer to ensure a better and more democratic area. Read more…

THE STATE OF MUSLIMS IN GUJARAT TODAY

Commentary
Despite the continued ghettoization of Muslims in a polarized Gujarat, the Muslim community in the state has through sheer hard work shown some advances in education and wealth generation. The denial of justice to the victims of the 2002 Gujarat pogroms, despite strenuous efforts by civil society activists and interventions by the higher judiciary, remains a major issue for the community. Read more…

OVER 4,000 WORKERS PROTEST MARUTI MASS SACKING

Times of India, |Aug 18, 2012

 

Gurgaon: Around 4,000 workers from the Gurgaon-Manesar-Dharuhera industrial belt gathered in the city on Friday in protest against Maruti Suzuki’s mass dismissal of over a third of its workforce, who were found to have been complicit in last month’s violence at the carmaker’s Manesar plant. Read more…

INDIA: DOMESTIC DROUGHT LOOMS LARGER THAN GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS

Jason Overdorf

 

Insulated from the international market, India’s massive stockpile of food grains will see it through the crisis.

 

The prospect of a failed monsoon at home poses bigger problems for India than the spike in global prices for corn, soybeans and wheat resulting from America’s worst drought since the days of the dustbowl, agriculture. Read more…

INDIA: FOOD ROTS AS PEOPLE STARVE

Jason Overdorf

 

The Indian government stockpiles grain to prop up prices and prevent a food crisis. The trouble is the crisis is already here — and has been for years. Read more…

HYPE OVER SUBSTANCE: THE MACHINERY BEHIND THE MODI MYTH

Sanjukta Pathak (Ahmedabad)

 

Is Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi really the great achiever he is made out to be or is he a grand myth manufactured by an incredibly efficient public relation machinery? The jury is still out on the first one. There are many ways to interpret `achievement’ and given the extreme irrational excitement any discussion on Modi evokes, it is futile to expect a satisfactory answer. The second question is interesting though. Read more…

KILLING OF INNOCENT SIKHS IN WISCONSIN

Vinod Mubayi

 

Six innocent Sikhs, including two children, were shot down and butchered in cold blood by a white supremacist while they were preparing for religious services at their gurudwara in Oak Creek, WI.  American media explained it as an issue of mistaken identity.  The shooter mistook the Sikhs for Muslims because the Sikh men wear beards, as if killing innocent Muslims would have been any less reprehensible. Read more…

BOOK REVIEW: Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

Reviewed by  Michael D’Alimonte 

Integrating three years of research and reporting, Katherine Boo has streamlined the complex issues and social dynamics of a Mumbai slum into the compelling narrative, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Set in Annawadi, a slum in Mumbai surrounded by modern airports and hotels, Boo recounts the lives and hardships of its many residents in a manner that is both striking and yet very familiar. Despite the fact that the entire plot and its driving factors are based in foreign affairs and cultures, Western readers will find that the tale is surprisingly relatable. Read more…

PRESERVING THE PASSION OF INDIA’S ROOTS MUSIC

Nida Najar
Raneri, India — In this tiny village almost 400 miles southwest of New  Delhi, where women wash dishes in the sand to conserve water, and electricity is scarce, Lakha Khan sat on the floor of a stone hut, legs crossed and white turban in place. There he coaxed a bright, high-pitched, dizzyingly fast melody from his violin-like Sarangi. Read more…

SOUTH AFRICA COMMUNIST PARTY ON ATTACK ON MINERS

 
Statement by General Secretary Blade Nzimande Read more…

HINDUTVA POLITICS ADDING FUEL TO THE FIRE IN ASSAM

Editors

 

The clashes between Bodos and Assamese Muslims have led to an officially estimated 58 deaths, which is widely acknowledged to be a gross underestimate, and over 4 lakhs have been made refugees in the last few weeks. While the violence was sparked by a few incidents that were unfortunately not responded to by the police and local administration, the area has witnessed past episodes of violence, including the ghastly Nellie massacre in 1983 when almost 3000 innocent Muslims were killed.  BJP is now adding a considerable amount of fuel to the fire by raising the slogan of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants as a way of both discrediting the ruling Congress government in the state and creating further cleavage between communities on the basis of religion that suits the Hindutva agenda.  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the area and urged the state government to take steps to counteract the rioting and also provided relief to the victims.  As the accompanying article by Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer indicates, all steps have to be taken to oppose the vicious propaganda by Hindutvawadis and others about migrants from Bangladesh as the cause of this crisis.

ASSAM AND BODO -MUSLIM CLASHES – REASONS AND ANALYSIS

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

Much has been written in newspapers by now about the disaster that occurred in lower Assam, in Kokrajhar and three other districts. About 58 persons have died since 6th July though main clashes occurred from 19th July onwards and now some kind of uneasy situation prevails. More than 4 lakh have become refugees living in 27 different camps of which 3 lakh are Muslims. Newspapers generally narrate events and hardly analyze or give reasons on the basis of in-depth study. Read more…

ON THE ONGOING ETHNIC VIOLENCE IN ASSAM: A STATEMENT

The following is the text of a Statement issued in Delhi on 27 July 2012, endorsed by a number of concerned organizations and individuals. Read more…

FOR RETIRED MAOISTS, REGRET AND ISOLATION

Vivekananda Nemana

 

Since the founding of communist parties the world over, some of the best and most sensitive members of the society have been joining the party and major developments especially setback result in some of them leaving but never with regret. In India, it happened after the great Telangana peasant struggle, after the setback in Naxalbari movement and disillusionment with the Maoist movement. It is perhaps the first time, journalist Nemana has undertaken to document the experience of the Indian Maoists. Read more…

CLASH AT AN AUTO PLANT IN INDIA TURNS DEADLY

Vikas Bajaj and Sruthi Gottipati

 

Mumbai, India — One person was killed and more than 70 others injured during a violent struggle between workers and management at a car factory near New Delhi on Wednesday night, illustrating a sharp escalation in labor tensions. Read more…

MANESAR: CLASS STRUGGLE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Amaresh Misra

 

While right wing sections inside the media, fanatically anti-working class bloggers, vested interest in the Haryana establishment, and other sundry forces are baying for Trade Union/Communist blood in the unfortunate incidents that took place inside the Maruti-Suzuki plant at Manesar, sober assessment reveals a different picture. Read more…

NEW YORK CITY TAXI DRIVERS WIN A VICTORY

Vinod Mubayi

 

Many taxi drivers in New York City are of South Asian origin, Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis. Many struggle to make a living driving cabs leased from owners of large fleets. For several years the taxi drivers have represented by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance NYTWA), a progressive union, led by its executive director Bhairavi Desai, which has consistently fought for a better deal for its members. On July 12 the NYTWA achieved part of its goal when the Taxi and Limousine Commission, a New York City agency, voted to approve a 17% fare hike with almost all of the benefits going to the cab drivers. Read more…

JUSTICE FOR BATHANI TOLA MASSACRE VICTIMS DEMANDED

Mohammad Ali

 

In 1996, armed thugs of Ranveer Sena ransacked the village Bathani Tola in Bihar and massacred  21 poor peasants. Twenty three of the accused were convicted by the Ara Session Court in 2010. However, on an appeal, the Patna High Court acquitted all of them, naturally and appropriately eliciting  the anger of the civil society. Read more…

VIOLENCE AND ‘CLEAN CHITS’: SANGMA BACKS BJP ON KANDHAMAL

Ram Puniyani

 

Purno Agitok Sangma, a former speaker of the Indian Parliament and Chief Minister of Meghalaya as a member of the Congress Party took many turns, the latest being a support for the misdeeds of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which sponsored him for the post of the President of India. Such opportunism is not unheard of in India, but Sangma symbolizes one of the most despicable examples. Read more…

LT. COL PUROHIT: ACTS OF TERROR AND FINDING ESCAPE ROUTE

Ram Puniyani

 

In the wake of the various acts of terror and Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s motor cycle being traced, it became clear that the investigating agencies are acting on the wrong thesis that ‘all terrorists are Muslims’. A Pandora’s box opened and the link of ex-ABVP activist, Pragya Thakur, Swami Dayanand Pandey, retired Major Upadhayay, Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit and Swami Aseemanand came to surface. Read more…

BRUTAL ATTACK ON PRISONERS (IN SRI LANKA) BY ARMED FORCES

The defeat of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) does not seem to have ended the anti-Tamil policies of the Sri Lanka government; brutalization of Tamil prisoners is one expression of such a policy. Read more…

INDIAN MUSLIMS’ MUSHAWARAT DELIBERATES ON NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

The Milli Gazette

 

A major organization of Indian Muslims expresses its views on logistics of travel for Haj, rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pundits, treatment of Muslim prisoners, terrorism, rehabilitation of Muslims in Gujarat  and other issues. Read more…

MUSLIMS HELP IN TEMPLE CONSTRUCTION IN RAMADAN IN BIHAR

IANS

 

Patna: In an example of communal harmony in India, Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan have helped in the construction of a Jain temple in Bhagalpur town of Bihar. Read more…

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: India must ensure prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into Chhattisgarh killings by security forces

Public Statement (AI Index: ASA 20/024/2012 (2 July 2012)

 

India must ensure prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into Chhattisgarh killings of  innocent Adivasis by security forces. Read more…

CARNAGE AND THE MOTIVES: ANTI MUSLIM VIOLENCE AND ANTI SIKH MASSACRE

Ram Puniyani

 

Last few months (June 2012) Narendra Modi has been much in news for his spectacular rise in BJP hierarchy and his projection as the BJP nominee for the future Prime Minister. That there is blood on the hands of Modi, carnage of 2002 Gujarat, cannot be washed off with any amount of pouring the water of ‘myth of vibrant Gujarat’. Modi-BJP is also labeled as Fascist by many social scientists-activists. On many a political debates on TV or other forum, when such charges are labeled against Modi-BJP pat comes the reply, if Modi is fascist for Gujarat carnage, what about the Congress-the anti Sikh pogrom of 1984. Its true murder is a murder, inexcusable, irrespective of who does it. In that sense Congress is also guilty of letting Anti Sikh pogrom take place right under its nose, many of its cadres-leaders instigating the riot, while the police machinery at best looking the other way round. Read more…

SETBACK IN NEPAL

Srinivasan Ramani

 

The split among the Maoists at a time when there is yet another deadlock in the Constitution writing process in Nepal is a major setback for both the democratic process as well as the left movement in that country. Read more…

A CRUEL AND UNUSUAL RECORD [of USA]

Jimmy Carter

 

Although the US has never stood for human rights except when it suites its imperialist interest, it is till significant that a former US President is raising this issue. Read more…

HIGGS-BOSON

[The article below is an unusual piece in INSAF Bulletin but is being produced because of the profound significance of recent proof the existence of Higgs-Boson. The version without photos is included in August INSAF Bulletin and the version with photographs appears as a Supplement. We thank Professor Gurtu for writing this article for the readers of INSAF Bulletin.

 

Professor Atul Gurtu is an experimental particle physicist who recently retired from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai). His name appears among the top particle physicists of the world. From 2003-2011 Prof Gurtu was the Leader and Spokesperson of the Indian team in the CMS Collaboration at CERN, Geneva. He is currently an Adjunct Distinguished Professor at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah. He will be happy to explain and clarify any points on recent discovery of the Higgs-Boson and can be contacted at atul.gurtu@gmail.com

 

Of course some would claim that Higgs-Boson was known to Indians from Vedic times and its properties are mentioned in Rigveda. Editors ] Read more…

OBITUARY: CAPTAIN LAKSHMI SAHGAL (1914 – 2012) – A LIFE OF STRUGGLE

Parvathi Menon

 

“The fight will go on,” said Captain Lakshmi Sehgal one day in 2006, sitting in her crowded Kanpur clinic where, at 92, she still saw patients every morning. She was speaking on camera to Singeli Agnew, a young filmmaker from the Graduate School of Journalism, Berkeley, who was making a documentary on her life. Read more…

OBITUARY: SUNIL JANAH, 1918 – 2102

Ram Rahman

 

Sunil Janah, the seasoned photographer whose searing coverage of the Bengal Famine and vivid political portraiture of the 1940s and 1950s helped chronicle a tumultuous era in the life of India, passed away at his home in Berkeley, California, this past Thursday. He was 94. Read more…

IS THE POLITICS OF PEOPLE’S WAR RELEVANT TODAY?

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

Does people’s war have a future in countries like Nepal and India? Read more…

UCPN (M) FORMALLY SPLITS; NEW PARTY NAMED ‘CPN, MAOIST’

The United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) or UCPN (Maoist), the largest party in the dissolved Constituent Assembly, has formally split with the hardliner Mohan Baidya faction announcing the new party, Communist Party of Nepal, Maoist. Read more…

FORGING A NEPAL FOR ALL ITS PEOPLE

Prashant Jha

 

Ongoing battle over the nature of federalism, is not a battle between political parties, but different social groups. Marginalised and excluded communities have come together to struggle for a federal structure that would break the hegemony of hill Hindu upper castes. Read more…

BJP, MINORITIES AND 2014 ELECTIONS

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

 

Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to woo the Muslim minority to win the 2014 General elections. But can it, given its long record of waging war against Muslims the highlights of which were the demolition of the Babri mosque and Gujarat genocide of Muslim? Read more…

GUJARAT: MYTH AND REALITY

Bhalchandra Mungekar

 

A war of words has erupted between the chief ministers of Bihar and Gujarat. Bihar’s chief minister Nitish Kumar has slammed Narendra Modi for taking pot shots at the state’s slow socio-economic growth. The altercation began with Modi saying that caste politics has ruined states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Hitting back, Nitish has said that Modi should look at the conditions in his own state before criticising others. Read more…

ANGUISH OF KASHMIR AND THE WAY OUT

Ram Puniyani

 

Time and over again while interacting with the youth from Kashmir what comes forth straight and striking is the pain and anguish of the youth, their frustration, their realization about the brutality of the system in which they live in Kashmir. Youth from Kashmir coming to different parts of India for various meetings and interactions generally display a high level of understanding of the issues involved and are vocal about the restlessness over their present and future. What have we done to be labeled as ‘terrorists, is one of the questions on their mind and lips. Why we in Kashmir have to face the torture from different quarters, including the one from Indian army. The restlessness is so much on display that one can gauge the depth of their feeling about the role of armed players, the militants and the Indian army both in different measures. Read more…

BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF BLIND FAITH

Ram Puniyani

 

No other country produces more holy men (and some times women) with spiritual powers as a thriving business than India. Here is a story of one Nimal Baba who became a multimillionaire solving  problems of others. Read more…

THE CONVICTION OF SEEMA AZAD AND HER HUSBAND BY AN ALLAHABAD COURT

Press Release

 

The news of the sentencing of Seema Azad, along with her husband Vishwavijay Kamal, charged under Sections 121, 121A and 120B of IPC and also under the relevant provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for possessing objectionable literature, to life imprisonment by a court at Allahabad on 8 June 2012 has come as a shock to the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) and thousands of human rights workers all over the country. Read more…

THE EXIT OF RANVEER SENA FOUNDER BRAHMESHWAR SINGH

(ML Update, a CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine  05 – 11 JUNE 2012

 

 

Brahmeshwar Singh, the founder of the notorious Ranveer Sena and the mastermind behind dozens of massacres perpetrated by the Sena in Shahabad and Magadh regions of Bihar between 1995 and 2000, was gunned down at Ara in the early hours of 1 June. The cremation took place in Patna on the next evening. Read more…

DE-STALINIZE MARXISM

Prabhat Patnaik

 

 

Economist and the former Vice-Chairman of the State Planning Board Prabhat Patnaik has said that “the developments in Kerala over the last several days have been a source of great pain and anguish” for him and called for interventions against the twin threats of “hegemonized bourgeois liberalism” and “feudal Stalinism” preying the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in Kerala and elsewhere. Read more…

TESTY WITH TEHRAN – HINDUSTAN TIMES

Suvrat Raju

 

Last week, negotiations between Iran and a set of world powers, led by western countries, ended with no resolution except for a promise to meet again. The West wants Iran to shut down its nuclear program. Iran points out that international law grants it a right to pursue civilian nuclear activities, and that the West has failed to produce any concrete evidence linking it to nuclear weapons. Read more…

CUBA: A REGIME’S TIGHT GRIP ON AIDS

(The New York Times May 8)

 

Havana — Yudelsy García O’Connor, the first baby known to have been born with HIV in Cuba, is not merely still alive. She is vibrant, funny and, at age 25, recently divorced but hoping to remarry and have children. Read more…

BOOK REVIEW: JUSTICE BEFORE RECONCILIATION: NEGOTIATING A ‘NEW NORMAL’ IN POST-RIOT MUMBAI AND AHMEDABAD

Author:  Dipankar Gupta

 

(Routledge, New Delhi, 2011, 186 pp., Rs 595, Hard Bound, ISBN 978-0-415-61254-8)

 

Review by  Mahtab Alam Read more…

SIT ON MODI – A SPECIOUS REPORT

Vinod Mubayi

 

In the deeply distressing as well as depressingly criminal history of communal riots in independent India over the last 50 years, the pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 stands out for the sheer scale of its brutalities and the prolonged period of sustained hostilities against the minority Muslim community who constituted less than ten percent of the state’s population. Read more…

JUSTICE OR FORGIVE AND FORGET?

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

In view of what is going on in Gujarat where victims have been denied justice for more than 10 years, a debate has started that one should forgive and forget and march forward and engage oneself in economic development which is taking place there. How long the victims will keep on wailing over what happened in 2002, however disastrous it might have been. Sometime ago Maulana Vastanvi who runs several madrasas and other high level secular educational institutions also expressed similar views and advised Muslims to join the developmental stream in Gujarat and benefit from it. We might forgive but can we forget? Read more…

THE 2012 QUEBEC STUDENT MOVEMENT – 100 DAYS LATER

William Ging Wee Dere (Montreal)

 

Montreal, QC: Quebec students are boycotting classes to demand more accessibility to higher education to roll back a 75% increase in university tuition. The current strike of 250,000 Quebec students, which began February 13, 2012, has lasted over 100 days and shows no sign of abating. Read more…

THIRTY-FIRST MARCH IN MONTREAL GATHERS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE!

Roger Rashi

 

It is well past midnight of May 25 and I have been marching non-stop for the past 4 hours. There are literally tens of thousands of people marching throughout Montreal tonight ! Read more…

POLITICS THROUGH FOOD HABITS

Ram Puniyani

 

In the middle of April 2012 Osmania University (OU) witnessed an unusual violence on the issue of eating beef. A section of dalit students’ were demanding that University Hostels should have beef on the menu. They also organized a beef festival in which a large number of students ate beef biryani (a dish of rice with beef). The festivity was not to last long as the ABVP (Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad), the student wing of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh), created rampage, a student was knifed, a bus was torched and ruckus was created in the university. The Vice Chancellor of OU knelt to the aggressive cow protectors and said that beef will not be introduced in the menu. Read more…

NEPAL: MAJOR PARTIES AGREE ON 11-STATE FEDERAL MODEL

The three major political parties of Nepal, United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN-Maoist], Nepali Congress (NC) and United MarxistLeninist (UML) together with the Madhesi Front,  reached a breakthrough on the new constitution as they agreed on 11-province federal structure along with mixed governance system. Read more…

BLACKLISTED ISRAEL MILITARY INDUSTRIES MOVES DELHI HIGH COURT

The Delhi High Court has issued notice to the defense ministry and the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) on a plea by the Israel Military Industries (IMI), Israel’s state-run defense equipment supplier, seeking to set aside OFB’s decision cancelling its contract to set up a plant to manufacture an advanced propellant for artillery ammunition at Nalanda in Bihar. Read more…

RED SALUTES TO THE DEPARTED COMRADE T P CHANDRASHEKHARAN OF KERALA

T P Chandrashekharan was a popular leader of the Revolutionary Marxist Party, a breakaway from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM. There is strong evidence that CPM was directly or indirectly involved in this political murder; if so, it is a new low for CPM. Read more…

RESIST THE CLIMATE OF INTIMIDATION OF ACADEMIA

“We Condemn The Attempt Of Bodies Like Deoband To Encroach On Our Academic Space” – Press Statement April 27, 2012: http://www.sacw.net/article2662.html)

 

It is a matter of deep distress that a threat from Darul Uloom Deoband has forced Prabha Parmar, a research scholar at the Chaudhary Charan Singh University to change the topic of her post-doctoral research: Use of magic and realism in the major novels of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh and Vikram Seth. Taking strong exception to the UGC’s decision to award a post-doctoral fellowship to the scholar on a topic that included Rushdie’s writings, Darul Uloom Deoband demanded “immediate remedial steps to correct the high impropriety.” Terming the award an act of ‘glorification’ of Salman Rushdie, the seminary asked for the writer to be blacklisted and for the award to be cancelled with immediate effect. Read more…

PAKISTANI PROTEST BAND LAAL USES MUSIC AND SATIRE TO TAKE MARX TO THE MASSES

A story of how Mumbai citizens welcomed this revolutionary music group from Pakistan. Read more…

INDIA’S BROKEN PROMISE: How a Would-Be Great Power Hobbles Itself

Basharat Peer

 

This article analyzes the constraints in India’s drive to become a great power. Read more…

JUDICIARY DRAWS FLAK FOR BATHANI TOLA ACQUITTAL

Mohammad Ali

 

The acquittal of 23 activists of Ranvir Sena, the upper caste militia allegedly involved in the gruesome murder of 23 Dalits at Bathani Tola in Bihar, by the Patna High Court this past week puts a question mark on the commitment of the judicial system as well as the State Government for delivering justice to the underprivileged Dalits and minorities, argued activists at a convention on “Bathani Tola Acquittal: Political Complicity and Issue of Justice in Feudal and Communal Massacres” here. Read more…

PROTEST HARASSMENT OF MADHURI KRISHNASWAMI

May 27, 2012

 

Respected Friend,

 

I am attaching a few newspaper reports on the action taken by the Madhya Pradesh Government against Ms Madhuri Krishnaswami, of the Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan [JADS]. Madhuri is my niece and I have known her since her birth. Her father, the late Air Vice Marshall Srinivas Krishnaswami, served the country with great distinction. Madhuri is a Gandhian, and giving up all comforts and career chances, she has worked tirelessly for several decades in the interests of the tribal and dalit communities of Madhya Pradesh. The government has time and again trumped up charges against her. Once when she was charged with murder, it so happened that at that very time she was on leave with her father in Bangalore, and seen by several high-ranking officers there. Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, and their contractor cronies, who are looting forest wealth and oppressing tribals and dalits, want her out of the way. Read more…

THE AUSTERITY OF THE AFFLUENT

P. SAINATH

 

 

A rural Indian spending Rs. 22.50 a day would not be considered poor by a Planning Commission whose Deputy Chairman’s foreign trips between May and October last year cost a daily average of Rs. 2.02 lakh (app. Rs. 200,000). Read more…

MAY DAY: FROM THE HAYMARKET MASSACRE TO THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT

Lawrence M Wittner  (Professor Emeritus History, State University of New York/Albany)

 

 

Many people might be surprised to learn that the May Day celebrations that occurred around the world this week were born more than a century ago out of a struggle by American workers for the eight-hour day. Read more…

INSAF BULLETIN EXTENDS MAY 1 SALUTE TO THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD!

CPM VOWS TO CONTINUE ON ITS SUICIDAL COURSE: “DEFEAT THE CONGRESS” AND “ISOLATE THE BJP”

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

India’s communist parties might not be a decisive factor in the outcome of forthcoming parliamentary elections in 2014 but their indifference to dangers of communalism and their inability to distinguish between Congress and BJP could be a disastrous and unprecedented mistake. Read more…

ELECTORAL EQUATIONS AND SECULAR VALUES

Ram Puniyani

 

In the January-February 2012 election in UP, Congress did worse and Samajwadi Party did better than expected. The Muslims of UP played an important role in the election outcome; only a decisive return to the uncompromising secular politics of Gandhi and Nehru can restore their confidence in Congress. Read more…

A JOURNEY THAT BEGAN IN DELHI REACHES ITS CONCLUSION

The Hindu

 

In this interview with a leading journalist, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, the leader of the Maoist Communist Party of Nepal explains the reasons for a shift in Party’s policy. Read more…

BAIDYA FACTION OF NEPAL MAOISTS TAKES OUT TORCH RALLY

As expected Maoist hardliners are unhappy with the decision of the Party to allow the deployment of Nepal army in Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) area. Read more…

PLA HANDOVER DECISION HAS FOILED CONSPIRACY AGAINST PEACE, CONSTITUTION: DAHAL

UCPN (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal Wednesday said that his party’s decision to hand over the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) cantonments to the Nepal Army put to an end to all kinds of conspiracies against peace and constitution writing process. Read more…

MANUFACTURING A RIOT

Ram Puniyani

 

It is not for the first time that Hindu supremacists manipulate anti-Muslim riots. This time it was done in the historic old city of Hyderabad. Read more…

INDIA TO RESOLVE ALL ISSUES WITH PAKISTAN

India is committed to resolving all outstanding issues with Pakistan through dialogue but it is necessary to have an environment free of terror to move forward meaningfully, the government tells the Rajya Sabha. Read more…

WHAT PAKISTAN SHOULD DO IN AFGHANISTAN

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

Pakistani and Afghans share the same religion and ancestry and yet Pakistanis living in Kabul feel safer being identified as Indians than as Pakistanis. Political analyst Pervez Hoodbhoy explains why this is so. Read more…

WHY KARACHI BURNS AGAIN AND AGAIN

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

For a very long time Karachi has been the place of sectarian violence, contributed by various factors. What turned an idyllically clean and peaceful city of earlier decades into today’s hell-hole? Hoodbhoy explains why. Read more…

WHEN MANMOHAN SINGH COMES TO ISLAMABAD

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

Once again the heads of Pakistan and India visit each other’s terrain with promises of peace and friendship. What is behind this noble, important and welcome gesture? Read more…

THE EXTREME MAKEOVER OF INDIA’S (POSSIBLE) NEXT LEADER

Parvez Ahmed

 

Narendra Modi, the orchestrator of anti-Muslim carnage of February 2002 is being portrayed as a man of the future; what is behind all this? Read more…

AN AMERICAN CITY COUNCIL PASSES RESOLUTION CONDEMNING 2002 GUJARAT RIOTS

Press Trust of India (Mar 29, 2012)

 

 

Washington: A US City Council has passed a resolution condemning the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat and expressed concern over the “denial” of justice for the victims. The resolution, passed this week by the City Council of Harvey, Illinois, expressed solidarity with the victims, including those who died in the Godhra train fire on February 27, 2002. Read more…

CHRISTIAN COUNCIL CONDEMNS SAUDI GRAND MUFTI CALL FOR DESTRUCTION OF CHURCHES IN WEST ASIA

(Press statement, New Delhi, March 29, 2012)

 

The All India Christian Council has condemned the call by Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.” Read more…

MAMATA BANERJEE OF WEST BENGAL IS DOING WHAT SHE HAS ALWAYS BEEN GOOD AT

KOLKATA: “Smile in the face of adversity” seems to be the message of singer-turned-rebel Trinamool Congress MP Kabir Suman, who has penned a song mocking the West Bengal government after a Jadavpur University professor was arrested for group mailing a cartoon featuring chief minister Mamata Banerjee, railway minister Mukul Roy and Trinamool MP Dinesh Trivedi. Read more…

JOURNALISTS, ANALYSTS URGE LEADERS TO THINK SERIOUSLY ABOUT PEACE

South Asian Media Net

 

Speakers at a seminar on April 18, 2012 called for complete demilitarization of Siachen Glacier and making it a tourism spot and peace park to promote harmony in the region. Read more…

A SHORT STORY: A LONG OVERDUE APOLOGY

Yoginder Sikand

 

The old man shook his head and answered, in a language I could barely understand. ‘No, sir, I’ve never heard of “India”.’ Read more…

ANAND PATWARDHAN’s LATEST DOCUMENTARY JAI BHIM COMRADE; A FILM WITH A DIFFERENCE

Priyanka Borpujari

 

 

(It took 14 years to make the 200-minute-long documentary “Jai Bhim Comrade” on Dalits. Director Anand Patwardhan explains why?) Read more…

APPEAL TO SUPPORT KOLKATA-BASED WEEKLY FRONTIER

Over the past 40 years many of you have had a chance to associate with and support Frontier, the weekly paper founded by Samar Sen in Calcutta. It is now available also as a webzine. Read more…

IMPLICATIONS OF THE RECENT ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS IN INDIA

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

Although the performance of Congress in the Assembly elections in five states including the most populous state of UP  were far from impressive, state elections still reflect regional and not national concerns. Congress can still hope to win the parliamentary elections due in 2014 and prevent Hindutva forces represented by Bhartiya Janata Party coming to power. Read more…

INDIA, IRAN, ISRAEL, AND THE U.S.

Vinod Mubayi

 

 

Despite the travails of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) regime in India, which makes it appear as a battered boxer barely hanging on to the ropes, it has discovered a rare backbone in itself by adopting an independent stance geared to India’s interests with regard to the crisis brought about by the sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. and Western Europe coupled with Israeli threats to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. Read more…

TEN YEARS AFTER ‘GUJARAT’: THE MAN ACCUSED OF SANCTIONING IT IS POISED TO BECOME INDIA’S PRIME MINISTER

Stephanie Nolen

 

Crouched beside her husband waist deep in a rooftop water tank at 2 in the morning, Anjuman Bano listened to her Hindu neighbours debate. Would they smuggle the pair to safety? Or toss them to the mob howling for Muslim blood below? Read more…

GUJARAT: STATEMENT OF HONORABLE JUSTICE HOSBET SURESH

Sabrang Trust/ Citizens for Justice and Peace

 

How does one live with the recurring memories of a gruesome past? Of the hideous acts of mass murder, rape and destruction of properties and livelihood? We have recorded all such stories, as each one, the victims, and all kith and kin of the dead, narrated with tears in their eyes and with no hope of any future, in our report, Crime Against Humanity. Read more…

MUSLIMS ARE GUJARAT’S NEW OUTCASTES: SURVEY

Roxy Gagdekar

 

The 2002 communal riots not only drove Muslims into new ghettos all over the state, they also reduced them to the status of second-class citizens who do not seem to exist for the government. This is the finding of a city-based NGO, Janvikas, which conducted a survey on the status of the minority community in the state after the riots. Read more…

GUJARAT 2002: WHAT JUSTICE FOR THE VICTIMS?

Christophe Jaffrelot

 

Ten years after the 2002 violence, the results of judicial  proceedings have been very few in Gujarat. Read more…

TEN YEARS OF GUJARAT CARNAGE, CITIZENS COURTED ARREST IN AHMEDABAD

DEMANDING AMAN- EKHLASH-INSAAF

 

March 9, 2012: Today Movement for Secular Democracy (M.S.D.) and Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties organized a very spirited demonstration at Paldi Cross Road for Peace, Harmony and Justice in the state as a part of remembering of 10 years of Gujarat Carnage-2002 and the leading citizens of Gujarat courted arrest defying the police. Read more…

SPIRITED DEMONSTRATION IN NEW YORK ON 10th ANNIVERSARY OF GUJARAT POGROM

Vinod Mubayi

 

New York’s Union Square, a traditional arena for progressive groups, witnessed a spirited demonstration on March 3 commemorating the 10th anniversary of the pogrom when over 2000 Muslims were mercilessly massacred in Gujarat, the state often labeled as the “laboratory” of Hindutva and ruled by the BJP for a long time. Read more…

SAVING FACE – WITH GRACE

Kiran Omar

 

Pakistani Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary on the despicable practice of disfiguring women by throwing acid on their faces as an assertion of male supremacy and the efforts of a team of Pakistani and British doctor to  restore their dignity. Read more…

THE SHAFIA TRIAL: A QUESTION OF ASSIMILATION

Tamkinat Mirza

 

Afghan immigrant to Canada Mohammed Shafia with the complicity of his son and second wife orchestrated the murder of his  three daughters—Zainab (19), Sahar (17) and Geeti (13), as well as his first wife Rona Amir Mohammad,  just because they violated strict family discipline. This medieval concept of family honor is not  uncommon among  South Asians and needs social disapproval. Read more…

NINE HUNDRED FORTY-THREE WOMEN ‘KILLED FOR HONOUR’ IN 2011

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan

 

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)’s annual report, many people became victims of extrajudicial killing in 20111. Read more…

THE NORM OF THE PATRIARCH

Ram Puniyani

 

Hindu fascist organization Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) claims to build moral character but its cadre who now occupy important positions in governments in many parts of India including Karnatka were caught displaying  lowest levels of conduct during the Assembly session. RSS’s political wing  Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is busy doing damage control. Read more…

BRINGING BACK WHAT’S OURS

Arun Kumar

 

It is very likely that Indians hold over  $500 billion of illegal money abroad. What are the facts and how to retrieve this asset, which indeed belongs to the people of India? Read more…

FIGURES BUST MYTH INDIA’S BUREAUCRACY IS “BLOATED”

Praveen Swami

 

Contrary to popular view, India does not have a high ratio of public servants relative to its  population except in  the conflict-torn or border regions. Read more…

THE SRI LANKAN CASE: RHETORIC, REALITY AND NEXT STEPS?

Centre for Policy Alternatives

 

The plight of Tamil civilians and  surviving LTTE  recruits represents on of the horrors of wars of attrition. Both the democratic forces of Sri Lanka and the world over have been urging the Sri Lanka government to abide by the internationally recognized norms of human rights. However, the steps taken by the government of Sri Lanka to restore basic rights of Tamil civilians have been too little and  recommendations of its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission(LLRC)  have not been implemented. Read more…

SRI LANKA: AWAKENING CALL FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

The resolution introduced by Human Rights organizations of  40 co-sponsoring countries calling  upon the government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has been approved by a majority. Read more…

MADNESS IS NOT THE REASON FOR THIS MASSACRE

Robert Fisk

 

 

The massacre of 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, near Kandahar by 38-year-old staff sergeant is being dubbed as an action of a  “deranged” soldier  rather than a manifestation of the policy of NATO against a poor country. Read more…

DON’T NORTHWOODS IRAN

Jacob G. Hornberger

 

America and its allies hyped American for the need to attack Iraq; now they are doing the same for an attack against Iran. In the first case it was the questions of weapons of mass destruction and now a scare is being created about Iran developing nuclear weapons. Read more…

LIVES OF MILLIONS HINGE ON SUPREME COURT’S RULING ON GENERIC DRUGS

Daya Varma

 

India’s generic drugs are a life-line for millions of sick in India and Africa because they are a lot cheaper than the brand name drugs sold by the giant pharmaceutical companies. For example, India’s generic anti-AIDS drug cost $120 per patient per year in contrast to the same drug, with brand name, which costs $1200 per year. Read more…

US SPECIAL FORCES STATIONED IN NEPAL

Rajan Pokhrel

 

Kathmandu: A top Pentagon Commander has said that the United States has stationed its Special Forces team of the US Pacific Command in Nepal to contain violent extremist forces. Read more…

LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA BY EMINENT DEVELOPMENT ECONOMISTS

Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India (March 12, 2012)

 

Dear Prime Minister,

 

We welcome the tabling of a National Food Security Bill in the Lok Sabha as an important step towards the elimination of hunger and under-nutrition in India. However, we feel that the Bill in its current form has some serious shortcomings. We are writing to propose a simpler and more effective framework for the Public Distribution System (PDS), which requires only minor amendments of the Bill. Read more…

SLAIN INDIAN POLICE SERVICE OFFICER HONORED

Aligarh Alumni Association (DC, USA) honors AMU alumnus, slain IPS officer, Narendra Kumar Singh by establishing a scholarship in his name. Read more…

CPI (ML) SEVERELY CONDEMNS ABDUCTION OF TWO ITALIAN TOURISTS BY MAOISTS

The abduction of two Italian tourists by  the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI-Maoist] is yet another example  of  diverting  people’s attention from the crises faced by the ruling system. Read more…

ARREST OF THE JOURNALIST S.M. KAZMI PROTESTED

All India Left Coordination’s Statement

 

The arrest of senior journalist Syed Mohammed Kazmi in connection with the attack on an Israeli diplomat’s wife last month is condemnable, based as it is on accusations that carry little credibility. Read more…

MUSLIM COMMUNITY LEADERS CONDEMN JOURNALIST KAZMI’S ARREST

Coordination Committee for Indian Muslims

 

New Delhi, 7 March 2012: Coordination Committee for Indian Muslims (CCIM), after an emergency meeting here at the Jamaat-e Islami Hind headquarters this evening, forcefully condemned the arrest of Journalist Muhammad Ahmad Kazmi by Delhi Special Police. Read more…

OBITUARY: MADELEINE PARENT (1918-2012)

Rima Elkouri

 

I see her, once again, at 82 years of age, taking the microphone so as to encourage thousands of women gathered in front of Place des Arts to continue taking up the struggle. I had imagined a giant. I saw a frail, soft-spoken old lady appear. But one shouldn’t judge by appearances. Activist Madeleine Parent, who left us this week, was a real giant whose courageous voice has marked history. Her legacy is immense. Read more…

MADELEINE PARENT (1918-2012)

Rick Salutin Columnist

 

During the Cold War, rumours were spread that she was Russian. Read more…

OBITUARY: PETER NOVICK (1935-2012)

Dennis Hevesi

 

Peter Novick, a history professor at the University of Chicago who stirred controversy in 1999 with a book contending that the legacy of the Holocaust had come to unduly dominate American Jewish identity, died on Feb. 17 at his home in Chicago. He was 77. Read more…

PETER NOVICK 77: AN APPRECIATION

Michael Berenbaum

 

 

Peter Novick argued that the Holocaust had been overemphasized in American culture and manipulated by prominent Jewish organizations to preclude any criticism of Israel’s  policy toward the Palestinians. He asserted that it was used to strengthen Jewish identity by making a long-defeated enemy central to that identity at precisely the point when Jews have gained full acceptance in American national life. Novick saw this as a fixation that allowed Jews to see themselves as oppressed when they have, in fact, become privileged. Read more…

OBITUARY: Dr. GOPAL MOHAN BHATNAGAR 1937- 2012

Zafar Iqbal

 

Rahe.n naa rahe.n ham, mahka kare.n gey…

[Whether I am around or not I shall be like a fragrance in the air] Read more…

INSAF Bulletin 118-119

February, March 2012

GUJARAT: TEN YEARS OF SHAME, NO END YET IN SIGHT

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

Ten years ago in Gujarat, several thousand Muslims were brutally killed; their properties torched while many more were driven from their homes and forced to live for years in squalid refugee camps.  As has become the hallmark of the Indian justice system, the main perpetrators of this atrocity, amounting almost to genocide, have remained unpunished and continue to enjoy all the perks of power.  Ironically, the principal targets of the perverted legal system in the state were initially the victims themselves.  Over 90 Muslims in Godhra were arrested soon after the fire in the coaches of the Sabarmati express that killed 57 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya. Read more…

AN APPEAL BY CONCERNED CITIZENS ON GUJARAT CARNAGE

We, the undersigned members of civil society, were aghast to learn from newspaper reports that RK Raghavan, the head of the Special Investigative Team (SIT), is planning to file a closure report, and has no intention of filing charges against Narendra Modi and his co-conspirators for being allegedly complicit in the horrific massacre in Gujarat in 2002 which resulted in the death of over a thousand innocent citizens and extensive destruction of private and public property. Read more…

A DECADE OF GUJARAT CARNAGE

Ram Puniyani

 

India has witnessed many acts of communal violence. Starting from the Jabalpur riot of 1961 to the last major one of Kandhmal (August 2008). Many an innocent lives have been lost in the name of religion. Amongst these the Gujarat carnage is a sort of marker. It came in the backdrop of massive Anti Sikh pogrom of 1984, the anti Muslim violence of post Babri demolition and the horrific burning of Pastor Graham Steward Stains in Kandhmal. It was a quantitative and qualitative departure from the other major carnages which have rocked the country. Read more…

GUJARAT AUTHORITIES MUST FACE JUSTICE OVER MASS KILLING

The persistence of Zakia Jafri in her fight for the truth after her husband was murdered is in the interests of all Indians.

 

Savitri Hensman

 

A magistrates court in Gujarat has postponed a decision on whether a dossier on the horrific murder of a former MP and 68 others should be disclosed to his widow and others. Despite mounting evidence, a special investigation team had urged that no charges be brought against the state authorities, including chief minister Narendra Modi, for their alleged role in the killings, and that the report be kept secret. The team was ordered to submit all papers to the court by 15 March. This landmark case is not only about justice for the victims but also about whether the Indian constitution and rule of law apply in Gujarat. Read more…

REMEMBERING GUJARAT

According to information available to us the following programs have been organized concerning Gujarat anti-Muslim carnage. Read more…

THE GREATEST THREAT TO INDIA: CHILD MALNUTRITION

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

Aarti Dhar reported in the Hindu (January 11, 2012) the findings of a survey by Naandi Foundation. The survey found that 42 percent of Indian Children are malnourished. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called it “a national shame’; that is true but he forgot to add that this is the gravest threat to India’s future as well. Read more…

RESERVATION: A FAIR DEAL FOR MUSLIMS

P.S. Krishnan

 

No one can complain that too much has been given to the minorities, in particular Muslims, through the sub-quota for B.Cs among the minorities. Read more…

STIFLING THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: BEYOND THE OBVIOUS

Ram Puniyani

 

The state refusal to let Salman Rushdie attend the Jaipur Literary Festival is being used to spread anti-Muslim climate. Read more…

WHY ARE PAKISTANI STUDENTS SCIENCE-PHOBIC?

Pervez Hoodbhoy

 

School syllabi demand it, but even then few young Pakistanis want to study science subjects and still fewer want to become scientists. Many generations have found science so odiously dull that they are now indifferent – even hostile – to a subject that stands at the very pinnacle of human understanding and progress. While some of our better students will be reasonably successful in science-related professions such as engineering, medicine, and information technology, their poor science backgrounds will leave them ill-equipped for pushing the frontiers of these rapidly evolving fields. Read more…

AFGHANISTAN: WEST’S ROMANCING OF THE TALIBAN

Praveen Swami

 

People of Afghanistan will pay the price for the West’s looming deal with the Islamic Emirate it destroyed after 9/11. Read more…

INDIA SEEKS BOOST IN SAUDI ARABIA CRUDE OIL SUPPLY

Rakesh Sharma and Santanu Choudhury

 

India has asked Saudi Arabia, its largest crude oil supplier, to augment daily shipments by up to 100,000 bbl each year over the next few years to meet expanding refining capacities at home, Oil Minister Jaipal Reddy said Thursday. Saudi Arabia exported 547,236 bpd to India last fiscal year. Read more…

INDIA, PRAISING U.S. TIES, DEFENDS BUYING IRAN’S OIL

Jim Yardley

 

New Delhi – Ranjan Mathai, the Indian foreign secretary, made the rounds in Washington last week, describing India’s relationship with the United States as one of growing comfort, depth and candor, if not perfect harmony. Read more…

THE MASK IS OFF: TEAM ANNA AND HIS LIEUTENANTS ARE BATTING FOR THE BJP

Dhirendra K Jha

 

On 30 October last year, when Mohan Bhagwat claimed that Anna Hazare’s  anti-corruption movement was actually supported by the RSS, the remark  conveyed palpable nervousness and attracted criticism from Team Anna. Read more…

STRONG WATCHDOG INSTITUTIONS IN A WEAK DEMOCRACY MAKE FOR A TALL ORDER

Arun Kumar

 

The Lokpal Bill failed to become law in 2011. The Lok Sabha passed it after some acrimony, but the Rajya Sabha did not even vote on it. Three views emerged during the debate inside and outside Parliament. First, it is a weak Bill not worth passing in its present form. Secondly, it is better to have some sort of Lokpal even if it is not what it ought to be. Lastly, the Bill would create a monstrous institution that will undermine Indian democracy, especially as it would affect the functioning of legislators and the Prime Minister. Read more…

PATHWAY TO HINDU RASHTRA

Ram Puniyani

 

Recently (December 2011) M.P. Government’s Gau-Vansh Vadh Pratishedh (Sanshodhan) Act (Bill for Protection of Cow Progeny) got the Presidential clearance. As per this act punishment for slaughtering the cow or its progeny, transporting them to slaughter house, eating and storing beef, is punishable with a fine of R 5000 and prison term up to seven years.  States like Gujarat, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh already have laws against cow slaughter, while Orissa and Andhra Pradesh permit the killing of cattle other than cows if the animals are not fit for any other purpose. Read more…

MALEVOLENT MAMATA AND THE DANCE OF DEATH IN WEST BENGAL

The tragic stories of Safar, Vikram and others like them typify the plight of peasants and workers in post-“change” Bengal. In the case of starving transport workers, the blatantly irresponsible policy of the state government is directly to blame. As for the distressed peasants who are helpless victims of a deep agrarian crisis generated by successive governments at state and central levels, the TMC-led  government has betrayed a total lack of political will to help them out. Read more…

BANGLADESH: COUP BID REVEALS EXTREMISM WITHIN ARMY

Analysis by Naimul Haq

 

Dhaka, Feb 2, 2012 (IPS) – Bangladesh’s army has won paludits as leading United Nations peacekeepers, but the January coup attempt against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has exposed lurking religious extremism within its ranks. Read more…

SRI LANKA: PRACTICAL STEPS TO MEANINGFUL RECONCILIATION – JOINT STATEMENT BY CONCERNED CITIZENS

17th February 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka

 

Several valuable recommendations are contained in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s (LLRC) Report and they are all the more compelling because they have issued from a Presidential Commission. In pursuance of this, we the undersigned call upon the government of Sri Lanka, in consultation with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the leadership of the Muslims, to take steps to implement the recommendations. In this statement we have highlighted certain important recommendations. The government is morally bound to implement the proposals of its own commission or otherwise stand indicted of a lack of sincerity. Read more…

SOUTH ASIA: ONWARD TO A BETTER TOMORROW

Pritam K. Rohila

 

 

Most South Asian nations are currently struggling with internal tensions, some more serious than others. But at the same time they are reaching out to their neighbors to find solutions to their problems. Read more…

NEWS BRIEFS

Some news in brief from South Asia. Read more…

BOOK REVIEW: THE MARKET FOR HUMAN ORGANS

Amal Joseph

 

Book: The Red Market by Scott Carney; Hachette Book Publishing India, 2011; pp xvi + 254, Rs 550.

 

Scott Carney chooses an unusual trade to write about – that of human body parts. From a single cell the human egg to a fully grown child, everything is up for sale in the global red market and Carney documents each one of them in great detail. The usual laws of trade apply to human organs too, except that the seller is always poor and the buyer is always rich and both of them are desperate for different reasons and the middleman slices off a huge amount of money while the soft bureaucracy and the law enforcers look the other way. Read more…

ANNOUNCEMENT

South Asia: Beyond Boundaries, Building Solidarities (South Asia Solidarity Initiative Six-Week Course). Read more…

OBITUARY: HAR GOBIND KHORANA (1922–2011)

Uttam L. Raj Bhandary

 

Har Gobind Khorana, who died on 9 November 2011 at the age of 89, was a pioneer and a visionary. That someone with such a humble background could rise to become an icon of molecular biology is a testament to his extraordinary drive, discipline and striving for excellence. Read more…

WE HOPE 2012 BRING SOME RELIEF TO THE OPPRESSED AND MARGINALIZED OF SOUTH ASIA!

SLOW MARCH TOWARDS A HINDU INDIA

Vinod Mubayi and Daya Varma

 

Independent India’s leaders declared that the country belonged equally to all its citizens; Jinnah said the same thing for Pakistan on the eve of its independence. Unlike Pakistan, which declared itself an Islamic republic, India did not change its stated objective of secularism but neither did it take firm steps to ensure that this objective was realized in practice.. There are many victims of this failure but Muslims, the largest single religious community after Hindus  are its worst victims as is clear from  the article” Persistent Exclusion of Muslims in India” by Ayesha Pervez in this issue of the Bulletin. Read more…

PERSISTENT EXCLUSION OF MUSLIMS IN INDIA

(www.infochangeindia.org: December 13, 2011)

 

India’s Human Development Report 2011 cites only a minuscule improvement in the socio-economic status of Muslims in India compared with other excluded groups. Read more…

MEDIEVAL ARABIC WRITING IN INDIA

Vinod Mubayi

 

In contemporary understanding in India, which is derived mostly from what is taught as history in schools, the interaction of India with Arab-Muslim countries after the advent of Islam is depicted purely in a one-sided way, as one of conquest, loot, and plunder.  No one denies the presence of conquest and loot in history but it is hardly unique to India or the Arab countries. Read more…

BEHENJI: THE PRAGMATIST POLITICIAN

Ram Puniyani

 

With elections looming over Uttar Pradesh horizon, recently (Nov 2011) UP Chief Minister Mayawati declared that her cabinet has approved the proposal to divide the UP state into four smaller states. She declared that only a dalit-OBC Chief Minister should be able to solve the problems of dalit-OBCs. Read more…

INDIA’S INCOME INEQUALITY HAS DOUBLED IN 20 YEARS

(7 Dec, 2011, 09.40AM IST, TNN: Supplied by Sukla Sen)

 

 

New Delhi: Inequality in earnings has doubled in India over the last two decades, making it the worst performer on this count of all emerging economies. The top 10% of wage earners now make 12 times more than the bottom 10%, up from a ratio of six in the 1990s. Read more…

ALTERNATIVE SPACES

Shumita Didi Sandhu

 

 

“Our home had always been a space open for all our parent’s friends, our friends and everyone in between! It was peopled at all times with very old relatives, some comrades who were passing through, writers, poets, musicians, singers, painters, .theatre people,  even dancers who may be using the space for a rehearsal, mehfil, informal exhibition. Read more…

SUBRAMANIAN SWAMY’S HARVARD UNIVERSITY SUMMER SCHOOL CANCELLED

Radhika Jain and Kevin J. Wu (CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS,  December 07, 2011, Supplied by Sukla Sen)

 

 

A  vote for the approval of the 2012 Summer School course catalog, which faculty acknowledged would normally take no more than one minute, generated a heated debate when Comparative Religion Professor Diana L. Eck proposed an amendment to exclude Swamy’s Economics S-110 and Economics S-1316 from the catalog. Read more…

CRPP LED BY SAR GEELANI A MAOIST FRONT ORGANISATION, SAYS THE GOVERNMENT

(PTI December 7, 2011)

 

Government Wednesday named Committee for Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) led by Delhi University teacher SAR Geelani, who was acquitted in Parliament attack case, as a CPI(Maoist) front organisation. The reference to CRPP as a Maoist front organisation came in a written reply in Rajya Sabha by Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Home Affairs. Read more…

PERSECUTION OF MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN, NEVER ENDS EVEN AFTER DEATH

(European Organization for Pakistani Minorities: www.eopm.org;  December  7, 2011)

 

Even in death, the Ahmadiyya community faces persecution. In a gruesome incident late Saturday night, 29 graves in an Ahmadi graveyard were desecrated in Dunyapur; district Lodhran, around 100 kilometres away from Multan. Read more…

INDIAN ‘REPUBLIC KILLING ITS OWN CHILDREN’

Bernard D’Mello

 

Kishenji Fought for a Better World. Read more…

OBITUARY: David Montgomery

The Guardian  Sunday 11 December 2011

 

David Montgomery’s practical experience of industrial relations – rare among American academics – came from the time he spent in the 1950s as an industrial organiser for the Communist party. Read more…

HINDUTVA’S NEW OUTREACH

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) was born in 1925 on the principle that ‘Hinduism is nationalism’.  In the eighty-six years since its founding it has traversed numerous paths – all leading to the fulfillment of this formulation. Read more…

SHRI SRI RAVISHANKAR AND ART OF POLITICS

Ram Puniyani

 

AS ELECTIONS in Uttar Pradesh are nearing, so is the number of travels by spiritual gurus. These gurus are giving their discourses against corruption. (November 2011). The major ones amongst them are Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (Sri Sri). Sri Sri has shared space with Anna and played a considerable role when the government had arrested Anna. Sri Sri came to play the role of an interlocutor between Anna and his followers, during his prison stint. As if by a divine design, yoga guru Ramdev and Sri Sri have suddenly realized this menace of corruption and have plunged themselves head long into the anti-corruption movement. Read more…

MAMATA B’S NAPOLEON COMPLEX–TIME TO BE CONCERNED

Trevor Selvam, Chennai

 

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress replaced the Left Front government, which had been in power for the last  three decades. Her victory was made possible by shortcomings of the Left Front government but more importantly because of large scale opposition of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the leading force behind the Left Front Government  by left intellectuals as well as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) who are engaged in armed struggle in many Adivasi areas and whose leader Kishenji was recently killed in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee’s government has now, as was to be expected, unleashed a rule of terror. Read more…

RUINING INNOCENT LIVES: GUILT OF INVESTIGATION AGENCIES

Ram Puniyani

 

 

Nine youth accused in Malegaon blast case of 2006 have been granted bail by the MCOCA court. (Nov 6 2011). These Muslim youth were arrested after the bomb exploded on the Shab-e-Barat, killing several people. Immediately after that the Anti Terrorist Squad  arrested nine Muslim youth, there was really no evidence worth its name against them. Still police which is, motivated more by biases than by professionalism, arrested these Muslims youth. Read more…

FREEDOM OF PRESS AND JUSTICE KATJU

(socialist_pakistan_news@yahoogroups.com)

 

Justice Markandey Katju is making a very relevant point about the behaviour of media. The media has been taking more interest in trivial issues that entertain the elite like the Formula 1 race or trivia about Bollywood personalities. It has by and large ignored serious issues like conflicts, adverse impact of globalization on the large sections of Indian people, corporate greed and corruption, etc. If Media is non-entertaining, it is covering issues that catch the fancy of Middle-class like the disproportionate coverage given to Anna Hazare Movement for days without end as if there were no other issues concerning the people of India. Read more…

ISHRAT JAHAN: MURDER IN COLD BLOOD

Ram Puniyani

 

Ishrat Jahan’s murder in Gujarat is yet another instance of death during fake encounters of Muslim youth by Narendra Modi’s government. Read more…

NEPAL: PARTIES CRACK ENDLESS DEADLOCK

In a much awaited breakthrough in the peace process, the political parties in Nepal arrived at a consensus following hectic talks held in Baluwatar Tuesday evening. Read more…

THE RICHNESS OF THE RAMAYANA, THE POVERTY OF A UNIVERSITY

(The Hindu: Opinion October 8, 2011)

 

‘What people don’t recognize is that the story of Ram, what we call the Ram Katha, extends over a huge historical period.’  – Diana De Selliers Read more…

UNRAVELLING THE TRUTH: BOOK REVIEW

Ram Puniyani

 

(Book Reviewed: Godse’s Children- Hindutva Terror in India, Pharos Media, Delhi, Pages 400, Rs 360, Pb)

 

Terrorist violence has been one of the major problems of recent times. This phenomenon came to popular notice more so after the 9/11 attack on WTC, which was followed by, apart from other things, popularization of the terms ‘Islamic Terror’, ‘Jehdi terror’. Read more…

LIBYA RECOLONISED

Aijaz Ahmad

 

Libya is the first country that the Euro-American consortium has invaded exclusively on the pretext of human rights violations. Read more…

MARCH IN NEW YORK AGAINST MILITARY REPRESSION IN EGYPT

Friday Nov. 25 witnessed a spirited march by some 500 people against military repression in Egypt that has led to at least 40 deaths and 2000 serious injuries in the last week especially in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Read more…

OBITUARY: John McCarthy (1927-2011)

John Markoff (NY Times October 25, 2011)

 

[We are reproducing this obit not only because John McCarthy was a great scientist but also because of two other reasons: 1. In late 1970’s some of us used to produce a monthly magazine New India Bulletin and one of us (Daya Varma) used to go to Boston to have the material type set by Deepak Kapur using MIT computer with which McCarthy’s name is associated. 2. McCarthy comes from a communist family. Ed.) Read more…

THIS ISSUE OF INSAF BULLETIN IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF COMRADE GURSHARAN SINGH, THE ICON OF REVOLUTIONARY THEATRE IN INDIA

WALL STREET IS OCCUPIED, WHY NOT DALAL STREET?

Vinod Mubayi

 

As a potent symbol of global capitalism, the one surprising fact about the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is that it was so long in coming, a full three years after the excesses of the major investment houses and their high flying tycoons, the so-called Masters of the Universe, caused a severe downturn of the U.S. economy and threw it into a recession from which it is yet to recover. Read more…

GURSHARAN SINGH: THE BERTOLT BRECHT OF INDIA

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

The Communist Party of India (CPI) was at the heart of initiating a revolutionary cultural movement in pre-independence  India through IPTA (Indian People’s Theatrical Association) and PWA (Progressive Writers’ Association), which produced such great writers, poets, and artists as Munshi Premchand, Ismat Chugtai, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Balraj Sahani and numerous others. The decline in the communist movement naturally resulted in a dissipation of the revolutionary cultural movement but it never quite ended. Of the ones who carried this torch, the name of Gursharan Singh will always be remembered. Read more…

PAKISTAN: AN INCURABLE DISEASE?

Murtaza Haider

 

Given the brutal violence against the Shias in Pakistan over the past three decades, Shias have started to wonder if there is a future for them in Pakistan. Read more…

A VISION FOR NEPAL-INDIA RELATIONS

The Hindu (Opinion, October 19, 2011)

 

From Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, Prime Minister of Nepal

 

The major thing is to build trust between our two countries, two governments, and two peoples. Read more…

NEPAL DEMANDS COMPLETE DISARMAMENT OF ALL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

 

 

(http://nepalnews.com/archive/2011/oct/oct07/news07.php) Supplied by Sukla Sen

 

Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Nepal to the United Nations, Gyan Chandra Acharya has said that Nepal consistently advocates for general and complete disarmament of all weapons of mass destruction including biological, chemical, nuclear, radiological weapons in a time bound manner. Read more…

NEPAL: PARTING YOUR WAYS, COMRADES?

[In these comments on the commonly-recognized factional schism within the Nepali Maoist party, UCPN(M), this writer for the Nepali bourgeois newspaper Republica traces the path toward a split–and raises tactics which may prevent or postpone it further. — Frontlines ed.] Read more…

ANNA [HAZARE] IS THE ICON OF BANAL HINDUTVA

Jyotirmaya Sharma (Mail Today, Oct 17, 2011)

 

The ethical compass of his followers is skewed.

 

Does Anna Hazare have an ideology? Despite the surfeit of emotion that Hazare generates, this is a legitimate question that ought to be asked, understood and answered. That he is no democrat in the sense the word ‘ democracy’ is normally understood is a foregone conclusion, something that even his most vocal admirers would admit. He brings to debate and discussion the rigour and predictability of a military drill. His model of rule, governance and statecraft is that of undiluted paternalism, something even his secret admirers would admit. Read more…

CASH-FOR-COVERAGE TAKES THE FIZZ OUT OF ADVANI’S YATRA

Mahim Pratap Singh (The Hindu, Bhopal October 14, 2011)

 

A cash-for-coverage scandal has taken the fizz out of BJP leader L.K.Advani’s ambitious Jan Chetna Yatra (peoples awakening march) against corruption and black money with BJP leaders in Madhya Pradesh attempting to bribe journalists for favourable coverage of the yatra. Read more…

HINDU WOMAN ENTITLED TO EQUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS: SUPREME COURT

(The Hindu New Delhi, October 13, 2011)

 

Traditionally girls and women are not entitled to family property, especially non-movable property; it goes to their brothers. The recent judgment by Supreme Court rules against this; if implemented, as it should be, it will have profound impact  in the organization of agricultural land since girls move to their husband’s home after marriage. Read more…

MASS OUTRAGE AGAINST SCHOOL FEE HIKE IN INDIA

(Press release by All India Parents Association)

 

 

Successive governments have failed to establish sufficient schools across the country to serve the population.  As a consequence Private schools have mushroomed all over India; they are money-making factories wanting to make more money and hence the protest. Read more…

PUCL CONDEMNS RAID AT THE HOUSE OF KAVITA SRIVASTAVA AT JAIPUR

(Supplied by Sukla Sen)

 

 

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) strongly condemns the outrageous and uncalled for act of raid at the residence of Kavita Srivastava, PUCL national secretary in Jaipur early morning today (3 October  2011). Read more…

THE VINDICTIVE ARREST OF SENIOR POLCE OFFICER SANJEEV BHATT IN GUJARAT

(Citizens for Justice and Peace release, September 30, 2011; supplied by Arun Khote, PMARC)

 

The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) strongly condemns the vindictive action of the Gujarat government in arresting Sanjeev Bhatt, senior IPS  (Indian Police Service) office in an action that is nothing short of an attempt to intimidate an important witness in the Zakia Ahsan Jafri and CJP criminal complaint against chief minister Narendra Modi and 61 others. Read more…

‘NO COMPROMISE WITH GOONS’: GUJARAT’’S BHATT REJECTS TERMS SET FOR BAIL

(Press Trust Of India Ahmedabad, October 04, 2011)

 

 

Suspended Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt refused to make any compromise with the Gujarat government after a local court proposed that if he went on police remand for about three hours his bail plea could be heard on Tuesday itself. Read more…

EXCERPT FROM A LETTER BY SANJIV BHATT TO NARENDRA MODI

 

 

In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. – Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The spirit of the hapless victims who have been struggling for justice in Gujarat may occasionally flag but it will not be suppressed by any amount of false Goebbelsian propaganda. The struggle for justice is never easy anywhere in the world…it calls for everlasting patience and unfailing perseverance at all times. The spirit of the crusaders for truth and justice in Gujarat is epitomized in this poem by Bhuchung Sonam, an alumnus of M.S. University, Baroda. Read more…

Top - Home « go back — keep looking »

• Archives

  • Year:	Select Year 2026 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006
    Month:	Select Month January February March April May June July August September October November December

  
  
  • PAST YEARS

• Related Links

  • ALTERNATIVES
  • Alternatives International
  • ICWI

website by CHRISTIAN DOMPIERRE & KEN BERNATCHEZ | design adapted by PINKGORILLADSGN | Log in