South Asia Citizens Web

Dozens of garment workers and labor leaders are facing unfair or apparently fabricated criminal cases in Bangladesh after wage strikes in December 2016, says Human Rights Watch

Despite the diatribe, “quiet diplomacy,” negotiations, has the political landscape of Kashmir, the nuclear flashpoint in South Asia, changed at all since 1953? How seriously do the Governments of India and Pakistan take current regional political actors, state and non-state, in Kashmir? So, I thought I’d revisit a long forgotten chapter of history, which, at the time, garnered tremendous international attention and condemnation of the arrogance of nation-states.

Voters of Uttar Pradesh will be electing their next state government in February 2017. UP is the largest state in the country. The political choices of its citizens determine not only the shape of state politics, but national politics as well. This time much more is at stake than usual. The voters of UP will not only elect their state government but will play a role in determining the fate of democracy in India. This puts a special responsibility on them to cast their votes with extreme care and wisdom.

A 2016 study by North East Network, Nagaland . . . ’The struggle for representation in the Municipal bodies of Nagaland is a classic example of using 371A to deny women the right to participate in governance. Similarly there are other customary practices and usages that continue to be discriminatory against women, though it varies across tribes and even villages within the same tribe’

The misogynist agenda behind such resistance to reservation for women is apparent from the near-complete absence of women in representative bodies in the entire political history of Nagaland.