South Asia Citizens Web

Bangladesh’s Education Ministry was preparing to print the 2017 editions of its standard Bengali textbooks when a group of conservative Islamic religious scholars demanded the removal of 17 poems and stories they deemed “atheistic.”

A judge of the Bombay High Court recently gave bail to three men who were charged with a murder committed in the presence of eye-witnesses.

Kashmiri actress Zaira Wasim for whom the film Dangal was a dream of opportunity responded to the adulation initially with a big smile . . . she has had to change her stance, under pressure and to offer an apology saying that her achievement is a ‘disgrace.’

In December 2016 the Bangladeshi Parliament discussed the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2016, a bill which reportedly includes a special provision allowing child marriage at any age in “special cases”, such as “accidental” or “illegal” pregnancy, or where a marriage would protect a girl’s “honour”. The current legal minimum age of marriage in Bangladesh is 18 for women and 21 for men. The exception reportedly provides no minimum age. There are fears that such a provision would legitimise statutory rape and encourage the practice of child marriage in a country with one of the highest child marriage rates in the world.

Denying entry of women to the Agasthyamala, a breach of gender justice - letter to the Kerala forest minister by S Faizi