South Asia Citizens Web

Why a photo of a Pakistani girl on a booklet in Bihar need not embarrass officials

On the 5th of September 2017, President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe launched the government’s policy framework titled, ‘V2025: A Country Enriched’, which revealed the economic goals that the National Unity Government plans to achieve over the coming years. Although it is not uncommon to witness the showcasing of various charters, agendas and policy documents at public events, more often than not they end up unimplemented. V2025 seems to be more or less a pronouncement of the Government’s economic vision, which is in line with the Government’s overall economic policy.

The Rohingya Refugee Crisis: Causes and Consequences: Search for a Durable Solution” was a daylong Consultation held on May 11, at the India International Centre, New Delhi. The conference was organised by the South Asia Forum for Human Rights in collaboration with Development and Justice Initiative, India International Centre and Euro-Burma office. It brought together around 80 leading activist voices from civil society in Myanmar, the Rohingya community in Bangladesh and India, exile groups in the UK, official representative from Bangladesh, diplomats, lawyers, academics, social justice and women’s groups activists, the media, international agencies, faith based organisations and students.

We believe if the governments cannot solve the disputes between the two countries then the people should take the initiative. If the common people of two countries are allowed to meet then over a period of time peace and harmony will prevail. We urge the two governments to facilitate the meeting of common people from two sides by granting them passports and visas easily. Since people of two sides of border share a common culture they can play an important role where the governments have failed.

Both my mother and my father broke politically with the family, and became communists. My father was very active in the party, which delayed their wedding a bit. My grandfather refused to allow her to marry a communist whose public denunciations of his father-in-law-to-be were hardly a secret. His condition was that my father join the British Indian Army. They must have imagined that he would never agree, but Operation Barbarossa helped since the CPI instructed all its upper and middle-class members to join the British army and defend the Soviet Union. In the December 1942 wedding photograph my father is wearing a cheeky smile and a British army uniform. He fought, like a number of British communists, at Monte Cassino.