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).
DRAWING A BLANK IN PUNJAB AND UP ELECTIONS, A WAKE UP CALL FOR COMMUNISTS
Daya Varma
Sarju Pandey was a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a peasant organizer in the eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh. The 1952 elections to state assemblies and the parliament were held while he was still in the Jaunpur District jail. Sarju Pandey contested both the UP state Assembly and the parliamentary elections from his jail cell as a CPI candidate and won both. So did communists in other constituencies from UP, Punjab and elsewhere. Ravi Narayan Reddy, a prominent leader of the legendary Telangana peasant struggle, polled the highest number of votes in the country in the 1952 parliamentary elections, far more than Nehru; CPI became the official opposition in the Parliament.
HINDUTVA SLAPPED HARD IN THE FACE
I.K.Shukla
The RSS and others are delusional and damn wrong to certify BSP’s win as Hindu Social Engineering. First and foremost, it was they who pioneered and profited from Hindu Social Engineering in philistine and perverse ways in state after state. The credit of invention goes to them and the right to intellectual property (patent) is entirely theirs.
U.P. ELECTIONS – A PROOF OF MATURE DEMOCRACY
Asghar Ali Engineer
From Secular Perspective May-16-31-2007;
The election results from U.P. have stunned even great pundits. All predictions by observers and analysts as well as exit polls have gone wrong. Everyone thought that there will be fractured mandate and that BSP will go no further than 150 seats. Some said that Mayawati would once again align with the BJP in order to become Chief Minister. Others said that Mulayam Singh would align with BJP, in order to avoid being arrested by the Mayawati Government. The BJP was, on the other hand, projecting itself as one who will form the next government and projected Kalyan Singh as its chief ministerial candidate.
ARMY AND THE PEACE PROCESS IN KASHMIR
Ram Puniyani
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed of People’s Democratic Party, the party ruling in alliance with Congress in Kashmir, recently called for demilitarization of the state and withdrawal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (April 2007). This demand was looked at with a great amount of skepticism on the argument that how can we control the armed militancy in the state without the army presence and the special act to back that up.
CARNAGE IN KARACHI- WHAT’S NEXT?
Pervez Hoodbhoy
General Pervez Musharraf is now a desperate man. Dozens were left dead in the horrific carnage on May 12, initiated by his violent political allies in Karachi, the MQM (Muttahuida Quami Movement, an organization primarily of Urdu Speaking Pakistanis who went from UP and Bihar, ed.), in an attempt to stem the popular protests against Musharraf’s dismissal of the chief justice of Pakistan. But this may still not buy him enough strength. Protests will continue. His “million man rally” in Islamabad, held on the same day, blatantly used the state’s full organizational machinery and was widely ridiculed. It was seen as a sign of his weakness rather than strength. So what is Musharraf likely to do next?
RISING NUMBER OF FATWA VICTIMS IN BANGLADESH
(Editorial, New Age (Bangladesh), May 13, 2007)
A survey by Bangladesh Mahila Parishad reveals that the number of victims of fatwa is on the rise. Over the last four months alone, 50 women in seven districts fell victim to the obscurantist religious decree. Needless to mention, the unfortunate ones are mostly poor women of rural areas. In the year 2006, the number of such cases stood at 66. The survey is based on newspaper reports and so one cannot be sure that the number is exhaustive, as many cases may have gone unreported. Set against this rising incidents of fatwa is the rarity of the instances of prosecution of perpetrators. As the president of the Parishad said, very few cases have been filed against those who have issued fatwas. The main obstacle is that under existing laws the issuing of fatwa is not treated as a crime.
HIERARCHICAL SYSTEM AN OBSTACLE TO INCLUSION AND PROSPERITY IN NEPAL
Canada Forum for Nepal Press Release
May 22, 2007, Washington DC: The Member of Parliament and an emerging leader of Nepal Nepali Congress Sujata Koirala said that the Government of Nepal is working diligently towards constituent assembly election despite some delay resulting from mistakes made by Seven Party Alliance and the Maoists during recent months. She was speaking on a program in Washington DC organized by America Nepal Society (ANS).
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