South Asia Citizens Web

Islamabad, 16 July 2018. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) is gravely concerned over what it sees as blatant, aggressive and unabashed attempts to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming elections. While it is critical that the polls are held as scheduled, there are now ample grounds to doubt their legitimacy – with alarming implications for Pakistan’s transition to an effective democracy.

The practice of democracy in the countryside is almost invisible to the television anchors and columnists and other influential urban compatriots who pay American prices for a cup of coffee in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.

Over 150 concerned citizens write to Cabinet Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad about the pre-legislative process being followed on data protection legislation

The Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla is changing and in ways some of its research fellows find troubling. In the past few months, this premier research institution in the humanities and social sciences has organised several lectures by Hindutva ideologues such as Rajiv Malhotra of the New Jersey-based Infinity Foundation and Ashok G Modak, a former Bharatiya Janata Party member of the Legislative Council in Maharashtra. Malhotra’s organisation promotes Hindutva views on Indian history and culture and counters Western academic research in those fields. The subject of Modak’s lecture was Swami Vivekanand and Veer Savarkar.

14 July, 2018. CHENNAI — Citing evidence pointing to violation of Standard Operating Procedures, a total breakdown of civilian authority and possible malafide intent and murder, a 23-member team of retired judges, senior bureaucrats and police officers, and social activists have called for a full administrative and criminal investigations into the 22 May 2018 Thoothukudi police firings and violence that resulted in the deaths of 14 people.