South Asia Citizens Web

It is crucial for the truly committed secularists in Nepal to have the courage and honesty to define the meaning of secularism in the constitution, incorporating its universal contents.

Few people of the present day generation would know or recall the Hawala case of mid 1990s in which several prominent political leaders of BJP. Congress and even Janata Dal, led by L K Advani were charged with collecting bribe money from Hawala dealers Jain brothers of Madhya Pradesh. Except for then Janata Dal leaders Sharad Yadav and Devi Lal, after years of apparent meticulous probe by the CBI under the supervision of the Supreme Court, all were honourably discharged, for lack of evidence. Sharad and Devi Lal unfortunately said on camera that yes they had been given party funds and therefore they were initially denied the honourable acquittal till 1999 general elections they too aligned with the BJP and then onwards no one heard anything about the Hawala scam. The same is now happening with Saffron terror.

By and large the film industry everywhere is a dedicated supporter of the political establishment; Bollywood, more than a manifestation of the pan-Indian cultural industry, takes the cake.

It is with great sorrow that I write of the death of Sri Lanka’s greatest film director Lester James Peries! The doyen of Sinhala cinema who celebrated his 99th birthday on April 5th passed away at a private hospital in Colombo on Sunday April 29th 2018.

In the past few weeks, ATMs across India have gone cashless, bringing back nightmares of the cash crunch during demonetisation. Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur and Telangana are some of the states that have experienced severe cash crunch during this period. The worst affected by the cash crunch is the informal sector.