South Asia Citizens Web

The sudden indefinite postponement of the concert at which TM Krishna was to sing at the Nehru Park in New Delhi, has grossly violated and weakened the right of all Indian citizens to express themselves freely, as also our rights as citizens to listen to, and experience art in freedom and without fear.

Audio recording of the Third A. K. Ramanujan Lecture delivered by musician and public intellectual T.M. Krishna, on February 20, 2018 at Ramjas College, University of Delhi. The History Society, Ramjas College, instituted the A.K. Ramanujan Lecture in 2012, in defence of academic freedom. An essay ’Three Hundred Ramayanas’, by the scholar-folklorist A.K. Ramanujan was removed from the Delhi University History syllabus after it came under attack by a group of fundamentalists in 2008. [This recording part of sacw.net archive]

The religious right has so far not managed to win power at the ballot box, but its ability to rouse a rabble and paralyze the country has given it a disproportionate and vicious grip on what’s left of democracy in Pakistan.

November 10, 2018: People’s Union for Democratic Rights condemns series of incidents triggered by members of CPI(Maoist) in Bastar Sambhag (region) of Chhattisgarh

Afghanistan’s long-awaited parliamentary elections took place on 20, 21 and 27 October 2018. The Government made efforts to secure polling centers enabling more than four million Afghans to safely cast votes. Many citizens, however, exercised their right to votein the face of violence, with the first day of polling seeing the highest number of civilian casualties recorded on any election day since UNAMA began systematic documentation of civilian casualties in 2009. Additionally, those who made efforts to vote did so in defiance of an orchestrated campaign of abductions, threats, intimidation and harassment of voters and election workers carried out by the Taliban in the weeks and months leading up to the elections.