Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
INSAF BULLETIN SALUTES MAY DAY 20011!
It is125th Anniversary of the International Workers’ Day.
Into the streets May First!
Alfred Hayes
IS LOKPAL THE ANSWER TO CORRUPTION?
Vinod Mubayi
The issue of corruption has caused an unprecedented upheaval among the middle classes in India. Is an unelected all-powerful Lokpal the answer?
AT THE RISK OF HERESY: WHY I AM NOT CELEBRATING WITH ANNA HAZARE
Sidhabrata Sengupta
The Jan Lokpal Bill engineered by Anna Hazare, a former army man turned Gandhian, ostensibly to put an end to corruption in India has generated enough euphoria in India to draw such comments as second struggle for independence. The author of this article is sceptical about this bill and its impact.
GANDHI, HAZARE AND FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION
Asghar Ali Engineer
Anna Hazare is emerging as another Gandhi and he is not only in every newspaper but also on almost every page of every newspaper for making UPA Government to accept his demand to draft Lok Pal Bill with real teeth eighth members of civil society on the drafting panel. The UPA Government had no other course but to accept Hazare’s demand after having been exposed in several matters of corruption.
ASSAM: ALIENATING THE NATIVES
Ram Puniyani
In the recently concluded assembly elections in Assam (March-April 2011), one of the issues which was whipped up by BJP was about the Bengali speaking people especially the Muslims of Assam. Most of the Bengali speaking Muslims are projected to be from Bangladesh, and the communal parties and groups are using this myth to enhance their political capital, which is mostly based on spreading hate against minorities and bringing to fore the issues related to identity. In different parts of India also, the issue of Bengali Muslims has been raised too often. The Bengali speaking Muslims, Bangladeshis and also those from West Bengal, are projected to be Bangladeshis, and are presented to be threat to security. This point was raised time and over again in the acts of terror committed in recent years by the gang of Sadhvi Prgaya Singh Thakur to Aseemanand types belonging to Abhinav Bharat, Sanatan Sansthan etc. Many a time Bangladeshi groups were named in these acts of terror done by Hindutva groups and their connection with local Bangladeshis was propagated to the hilt. In Assam the issue of Bengali speaking Muslims has been brought up time and over again and this point has also been used at the time of elections to polarize the communities along religious lines.
MADHYA PRADESH: SHADOWS OF HINDU RASHTRA
Ram Puniyani
Madhya Pradesh is being ruled by the BJP Government from last several years. This is one state where BJP and its erstwhile avatar, Bhartiya Jansangh had a good deal of following in the past also. During last few years one has seen with the BJP Government in the saddle, the state is imposing the norms which are intimidating to minorities, the BJP associates have become more assertive, state is promoting the outright Hindu culture, and it is also the place where the terror component of RSS affiliates has been having its dens at various places in the state.
MOHALI MAGIC SHOULD BE SUSTAINED TILL ALL ISSUES [BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN] ARE RESOLVED
(Press release)
We, the peace activists and citizens of Pakistan and India welcome the very positive statements of the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan issued from Mohali on the side lines of the Cricket World Cup Semi Final played on 30th March 2011.
NEPAL MAOIST AND INDIA BHAI-BHAI, SAYS SHARMA
http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2011/apr/apr19/news16.php
United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN-M] spokesperson Dina Nath Sharma has said his party is in favor of further improving the already ‘cordial ties’ with India.
NEPAL MAOIST LEADER DAHAL SWINGS BACK TO PEACE, CONSTITUTION
Supplied Professor Sam Noumoff and Sam Boskey
Kathmandu, April 20: Ditching the official party line of revolt, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has swung back to the line of peace and constitution floated by Vice-chairman Dr Baburam Bhattarai.
THE CONTINUED SHOCKING SAGA OF INDIA’S MISSING GIRLS
Shree Mulay
The census data from India released on March 31, 2011 show that the sex ratio amongst 0-6 year-olds has steadily declined to the lowest level since independence, standing at an average of 917 females per 1000 males, a shameful record for a country that claims to be the new emerging powerhouse amongst nations.
ON THE CONCATENATION IN THE ARAB WORLD
Perry Anderson
The Arab revolt of 2011 belongs to a rare class of historical events: a concatenation of political upheavals, one detonating the other, across an entire region of the world. There have been only three prior instances—the Hispanic American Wars of Liberation that began in 1810 and ended in 1825; the European revolutions of 1848–49; and the fall of the regimes in the Soviet bloc, 1989–91. Each of these was historically specific to its time and place, as the chain of explosions in the Arab world will be. None lasted less than two years. Since the match was first lit in Tunisia this December, with the flames spreading to Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Oman, Jordan, Syria, no more than three months have passed; any prediction of its outcomes would be premature. The most radical of the trio of earlier upheavals ended in complete defeat by 1852. The other two triumphed, though the fruits of victory were often bitter: certainly, far from the hopes of a Bolívar or a Bohley. The ultimate fate of the Arab revolt could resemble either pattern. But it is just as likely to be sui generis.
WHO OWNS THE WORLD?
Noam Chomsky
The democracy uprising in the Arab world has been a spectacular display of courage, dedication, and commitment by popular forces – coinciding, fortuitously, with a remarkable uprising of tens of thousands in support of working people and democracy in Madison, Wisconsin, and other US cities. If the trajectories of revolt in Cairo and Madison intersected, however, they were headed in opposite directions: in Cairo toward gaining elementary rights denied by the dictatorship, in Madison towards defending rights that had been won in long and hard struggles and are now under severe attack.
BINAYAK SEN RELEASED ON BAIL
Aman Sethi
“I know in my heart that I never betrayed the people of this country”
EX-GUJARAT POLICE CHIEF COMMENDS BHATT’S AFFIDAVIT AGAINST MODI
Indian Express.com: Posted online: Fri Apr 22 2011, 17:33 hrs
Ahmedabad: Former Gujarat Director General of Police R B Sreekumar on Thursday commended fellow police officer Sanjiv Bhatt for implicating Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Godhra riots.
DISMAYED AT HAZARE’S PRAISE FOR NARENDRA MODI
Dear Annaji
We are deeply shocked by your endorsement of Narendra Modi’s rural development. There has been little or no rural development in ths state.
DALIT LEADER UDIT RAJ FORMS ANTI-MAYAWATI PLATFORM IN UP
Vikas Pathak
With Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections approaching, there are distinct signs of an attempt from within Dalits to break Mayawati’s vote bank. Earlier this week, Dalit activist Udit Raj floated a platform, Upekshit Dalit Mahapanchayat, in the state to mobilise support from Scheduled Castes other than Mayawati’s caste of Jatavs, adding he was open to the idea of the platform developing into a political party.
SUPREME COURT ASKS TAMIL NADU TO GET RID OF TWO-TUMBLER SYSTEM
Rakesh Bhatnagar
An archaic social malpractice by adhering to the two tumblers system to discriminate between people from the “upper” and “lower caste” may be on its way out if Tamil Nadu government abide by the Supreme Court’s latest verdict.
CITIZEN’S INITIATIVE FOR PEACE (CIP) PROTESTS BANNING OF GANDHI BOOK
(Press Release: Supplied by Sukla Sen)
The Citizens’ Initiative for Peace (CIP), Mumbai is quite dismayed at the reported moves of the Maharashtra government to ban the book ‘Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India’ authored by Joseph Lelyveld, apparently based on secondhand sources viz. reviews of the same carried by some newspapers.
KANNADA VERSION OF THE BOOK ‘WOMEN’S MOVEMENT AND COMMUNIST PARTY’
The Kanaada version of the English booklet ‘Women’s Movement and Communist Party’ titled as ‘Mahila Chaluvali Mattu Communist Paksha’ was released at a study camp organized by the Communist Party of India (ML)-Liberation on April 9 and 10. The booklet was translated by N Divakar, PUCL, with a remarks from Professor Laxminarayana and was released on 10 by E Rati Rao, Vice-President of AIPWA (All India Progressive Women’s Association).
(ML Update, 19-25 April, 2011).
IRAN IS TOP OF THE WORLD IN SCIENCE GROWTH
Andy Coghlan
Which country’s scientific output rose 18-fold between 1996 and 2008, from 736 published papers to 13,238? The answer – Iran – might surprise many people, especially in the western nations used to leading science. Iran has the fastest rate of increase in scientific publication in the world.
“BULLAH”
Written by: ‘Shahid Nadeem’
Directed by: ‘Madeeha Gauhar’
Presented by: Ajoka Theatre in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism – Khyber Pakhtonkhawa presents
On 1st May 2011 at 5:30pm at Nishtar Hall, Peshawar:
OBITUARY: MANNING MARABLE (1950-2011)
Sekhar Ramakrishnan
Manning Marable, a Marxist scholar, who recently completed a new biography of Malcolm X that is said to challenge popular images of Malcolm, died yesterday, apparently from complications related to his longstanding battle with sarcoidosis and perhaps with the lung transplant he got last year. As an aside, something for Amal and Karunakaran to think about as they evolve guidelines for organ transplantation in Tamil Nadu – even though Marable lived for less than a year after receiving his double-lung transplant, the world is a much better place for his having had the few months to complete his book, which is likely to be very influential.
MALCOLM X SCHOLAR MANNING MARABLE DIES AT 60
Cristian Salazar (Guardian April 2, 2011)
New York (AP) – Manning Marable, an influential historian whose forthcoming Malcolm X biography could revise perceptions of the slain civil rights leader, died Friday, just days before the book described as his life’s work was to be released. He was 60.