South Asia Citizens Web

This paper is focused on a Futures Report of the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (Sigtur), raising major challenges as to its authorship and contents. It is at the same time a challenge to the Sigtur project as a whole. As to the Futures Report, the challenges have to do with the subject positionality of the authors (mostly White, Northern, Male professors/promoters of Sigtur), their overwhelming dependence on Northern sources, and the relevance of their essays to the challenges facing Sigtur.

Prominent human rights lawyer Sultana Kamal was threatened by Hefazat-e-Islam with physical violence after making hypothetical comments on a television talk show. In the meantime, a legal notice was served demanding the arrest of veteran journalist Afsan Chowhdury, who has been accused under the ICT Act of defamation in a Facebook post.

The recent death of sanitary worker Irfan Masih in Umerkot [Pakistan] raises questions about unsafe working conditions and religious disharmony in the region

Peter Waterman, the romantic rebel and eternal dissident and internationalist passed away on the night of 16 June 2017

We are writing to you in the context of the serious repression by your Government on the people of Puthuvypeen, near Kochi who have been peacefully protesting against the LPG Import Terminal Project of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) for the past 108 days. Just as we were pleased to note certain positive decisions by your Govt. on other fronts, we are constrained to note that like in any other state, people’s voices and struggles continue to be muzzled in Kerala, particularly when the justifiability of ‘development projects’, pushed against popular consent is questioned in democratic ways.