SECULARISM, DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

INSAF Bulletin 112 August 2011
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).

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA – DRIFTING, LISTLESS

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

The UPA government is drifting, unable to exert power or carry out the program it was elected to accomplish. The only thing keeping it going is that the alternatives are far worse. Read more…

TERRORISM, COUNTER TERRORISM AND RIGHT-WING IDEOLOGY

Daya Varma and Vinod Mubayi

 

The terror attacks in Mumbai and Oslo have provoked different responses but have brought out the urgency of combating hate speech and right-wing ideology. Read more…

NORWEGIAN MASS KILLER’S MANIFESTO HAILS HINDUTVA

Praveen Swami

 

 

Those killed in Norway by the sole assassin Anders Breivik were not only innocent but also symbol of a progressive Norway.  The killer, though alone, must represent a social base for ultra reactionary politics. What relevance does it have for South AsiaÉ  Praveen Swami’s article gives a glimpse of the possible dark future. Read more…

TERROR VISITS MUMBAI YET AGAIN

Ram Puniyani

 

The three blasts in Mumbai on 13th July 2011 not only killed nearly 20 innocent people but shook the city yet again. The previous attack on Mumbai 26/11 2008 was horrific enough to have killed over 200 people.  The tragedy was followed by the great resilience of Mumbai citizens to rehabilitate the victims to line up for blood donations and help in many more ways, the efforts which make us salute Mumbai citizens yet again. Read more…

SLAVERY IN THE ‘LAND OF THE PURE’: PAKISTAN’S TWO MILLION DALITS

Yoginder Sikand

 

Although we hear and read a lot about US-Pakistan relations, Pakistan’s Jihadi groups,  and victims of Blasphemy laws, this report by Yogi Sikand exposes a less well recognized but an important problem affecting  Pakistan’s population, the Dalits, mostly Hindus. Too poor and with too little resources to migrate to India in the post-partition days, the condition of Dalits seems the worst of all in Pakistan. Read more…

TREASURE OF FAITH: HOARDS OF WEALTH IN PADMNABH TEMPLE

Ram Puniyani

 

 

In the book “The Art and Science of Healing Since Antiquity”, Daya Varma wrote: “Fueling the popular and erroneous perception that the West in materialistic and the East, particularly India, is spiritualistic, most god men and women happen to be of Indian origin. But for whatever reason these spiritualists prefer to operate in the United States of America. In this article Ram Puniyani shows how the wealth of these god men is far beyond what one could imagine. Read more…

ARMING TRIBALS AGAINST NAXALS UNCONSTITUTIONAL: SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

Text of the Supreme Court Order of 5 July 2011 in the Salwa Judum (in Chhattisgarh) Case Writ Petition (Civil) No(S). 250 Of 2007 | Nandini Sundar & Ors. Versus State Of Chhattisgarh. Read more…

BANGLADESH: AWAMI LEAGUE CHOOSES TO BE A SLAVE, NOT MASTER, OF HISTORY

(Editorial: New Age, 30 June 2011: source South Asia Citizens Wire – 4 July 2011 – No. 2719)

 

The passage of the 15th amendment to the constitution in parliament on Thursday marks a sad episode in the political history of Bangladesh. By pushing the amendment through, the ruling Awami League officially completed its deviation from the spirit of the liberation war and bracketed itself with all those that it has consistently castigated as forces opposed to the spirit of liberation. Read more…

MAKE HEALTHCARE A LEGAL ENTITLEMENT, SAYS BINAYAK SEN

(The Hindu, June 23, 2011)

 

New Delhi: Human rights activist Binayak Sen called for making healthcare a legal entitlement for all. Read more…

ALMOST 70 % INDIANS LIVE IN RURAL AREAS

PTI

 

Nearly 70 per cent of the country’s population lives in rural areas where, for the first time since independence, the overall growth rate of population has sharply declined, according to the latest Census. Read more…

SANSAD NEWS RELEASE JULY 25, 2011

South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) held its Annual General Meeting in Vancouver, BC, on July 17,  2011, elected a board with representation from the entire South Asian region and adopted resolutions pertaining to people’s struggles and human rights on the subcontinent and Canada. Read more…

FIRST BILINGUAL LITERARY (URDU-HINDI) POETRY RECITATION AT EMBASSY OF INDIA IN WASHINGTON

Zafar Iqbal (Washington, DC)

 

Zafar Iqbal and his associates have been organizing programs symbolizing the historic cultural links between Hindus and Muslims in India for quite some time. Here he provides some details of a successful Urdu-Hindi poetry recital in America’s capital city, Washington. Read more…

CHINA IS BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE FOR ALL

Wen Jiabao (Speech of China’s Prime Minister in London;  27 Jun 2011)

 

Wen Jiabao: “Since the process of reform and opening-up began in China, people outside the country have seen the development and changes there in different ways. There is also an intense interest in our future path. On my visit to London, I wish to take the opportunity to address this subject.“ Read more…

60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF TIBET

William Dere

 

Tibet is the stick with which China is hammered again and again not only by allies of Dalai Lama but by all human rights activists why are dying to see Tibetans revive their feudal culture as they wish. India facilitated the exodus of Tibetans as can be seen in Dharamsala. But there is another reality to Tibet and in the life of Tibetans in the words of the Chinese Vice-President. What is it? Read more…

KARNATAKA FARCE: BJP’S COMPLICITY IN CORRUPTION AND CORPORATE PLUNDER

ML Update

 

Even as the BJP’s Karnataka Government completed three years, and the Centre once again rejected the Karnataka Governor’s recommendation for imposition of Central rule in the state, a new act in BJP’s Karnataka drama is unfolding once more. The BJP’s topmost leadership is in the middle of a public spat over which of them is responsible for patronizing the powerful Karnataka Ministers and notorious mining mafia: the ‘Bellary brothers’. Read more…

CANADA MUST STOP PROTECTING ASBESTOS INDUSTRY

Kathleen Ruff

 

Canada is planning to export  asbestos to India despite overwhelming evidence about its debilitating effects on health. As to be expected the buyers (India) and sellers (Canada) can always find some experts who would vouch for the safety of this dangerous chemical. Read more…

TOWARDS A RIOT FREE INDIA

Ram Puniyani

 

India is planning to introduce a bill to end communal violence. It is a good development. However  the proposed draft is weak in some aspects. Here is an outline of the nature of the debate. Read more…

BOOK REVIEW: THE FAKIR

Author  Sunil Gangopadhyay (Translated from Bengali by Monabi Mitra) [New Delhi: Harper Perennial,  2010]

 

Reviewed by Yoginder Sikand

 

Indian history is replete with stories of fiercely iconoclastic rebels who, refusing to be bound by the strictures and prejudices of religious orthodoxy, bravely denounced social convention in their quest for spiritual transcendence and social equality. One such figure was the late nineteenth century Bengali poet-rebel Lalan Fakir. Defying the logic of the conservative society in which he was born by insisting that he was neither Hindu nor Muslim and announcing that he cared nothing whatsoever for hierarchies of caste and class, Lalan Fakir was, by all counts, an amazingly charismatic revolutionary who sought to preach a human-centric understanding of the transcendent, one that was rooted in the struggles of the poor and oppressed for their true humanization. Read more…

BOOK REVIEW: THE RED MARKET

Michiko Kakutani

 

Whereas black markets trade in illegal goods like guns and drugs, the “red market,” the journalist Scott Carney says in his revealing if somewhat scattershot new book, trades in human flesh — in kidneys and other organs, in human corneas, blood, bones and eggs. Many of the real-life examples he cites in this chilling volume cannot help but remind the reader of a horror movie, or of Kazuo Ishiguro’s devastating dystopian novel “Never Let Me Go” (2005), in which we learn that a group of children are clones who have been raised to “donate” replacement body parts. Read more…

MEXICO-US BORDER- BUILDING A CULTURE OF CROSS-BORDER SOLIDARITY

David Bacon

 

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a series on border solidarity by journalist and immigration activist David Bacon. This article and subsequent installments were originally published in the Institute for  Transnational Social Change’s report Building a Culture of Cross-Border Solidarity. Read more…

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