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).
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…
DEBATE ON COMMUNAL VIOLENCE BILL AND RECENT RIOTS
Asghar Ali Engineer ((Secular Perspective October 16-31, 2011)
The Communal Violence Bill was the first item on the agenda of National Integration Council meeting held in Delhi on 10th September 2011 and almost all speakers expressed their views on the Bill. As expected the opposition leader Mrs. Sushma Swaraj of BJP led the attack followed by Mr. Arun Jaitly, Opposition leader in Rajya Sabha. Both of them maintained that this bill divides Indian people into majority and minority and this polarization is extremely harmful, in fact disastrous for the country. Read more…
HOW TO PAY MORE TAXES
Arun Kumar
The European rich now wish to pay more taxes. What about the Indian rich?
Startling news: the rich in many European nations have asked their governments to tax them more. This follows the call made by Warren Buffet in the United States that the rich should pay more taxes. The motive is self-interest: to save their economies from sliding further and going into a double-dip recession, and preventing the kind of youth violence that has been witnessed in many countries in Europe. The recession looming on the horizon (if the world is not already in it) will be more difficult to deal with than in the earlier rounds since this time the cause is political rather than financial, as the case was with the global recession that started in late-2007. Read more…
DENIAL OF CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS AND MARGINALIZATION: LINGUISTIC BENGALIS AND MUSLIM MINORITIES IN ASSAM
Shahiuz Zaman Ahmed
This book explores the citizenship issue in Assam where the Muslims and Bengali speaking Hindus are discriminated against by the state by way of the ‘D’ voters list. ‘D’ stands for doubtful voters and this is an insidious way of religious profiling resorted to by the state to marginalize minorities. Read more…
CESAR CHAVEZ AWARD FOR RAJ CHOUHAN
(Supplied by Chin Banerjee, President SANSAD)
Raj Chouhan, a New Democratic Party (NDP) member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly and a former member of the Indian People’s Association in North America (IPANA) is the recipient of the 2011 Cesar Chavez Black Eagle Award for his selfless service to the farm workers struggle. Read more…
WALL STREET PROTESTS GO GLOBAL
Oct 15th, 2011 7:19 pm BdST (liberation News Service)
Demonstrators worldwide shouted their rage on Saturday against bankers and politicians they accuse of ruining economies and condemning millions to hardship through greed and bad government. Read more…
THE GADDAFI PARADOX
Surendra Kumar
The murder of Gaddafi on October 20 by NATO-supported mobs has been hailed by Western leaders and press while a substantial section of people have condemned the illegality of this murder and denounced the logic of the invasion of Libya. Gaddafi was a despot but so is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and so are the heads of numerous other countries. It is not the legal right of NATO to go around killing government heads just because they are despots. Undoubtedly there are two sides to Gaddafi and he was killed because of his positive role in the Arab World. In the process, France and UK seem to be replacing US in international lawlessness (Editors). Read more…
MOURNING REVOLUTIONARY WRITER GURSHARAN SINGH
Revolutionary playwright, director, and activist, Gursharan Singh passed away in his home in Chandigarh on September 27, 2011. Read more…
MEMORIAL MEETING FOR BHAJI GURSHARAN SINGH (1929-2011)
A memorial meeting to celebrate the life and work of Gursharan Singh, the legendary Punjabi dramatist, director, and political activist popularly known as “Gursharan Bhaji,” was held in Surrey, BC, on October 10, 2011 at the Bombay Banquet Hall. Read more…
TEARFUL ADIEU TO PLAYWRIGHT GURSHARAN SINGH
SD Sharma
Chandigarh, September 28
Hundreds of litterateurs, farmers, social and political activists paid tributes to Bhisham Pitamah of Punjabi theatre Gursharan Singh at the Sector 25 electric crematorium here today. Read more…
MY THOUGHTS AND SYMPATHIES TO NAVSHARAN AND ATUL AND TO THE FAMILY!
Rahul Varma
Shri Gursharan Singh was a great person who possessed the best qualities humanity had to offer. He was an artist, who inspired other artists and the public alike. Read more…
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