South Asia Citizens Web

May 11th and May 13th, 2016 mark the anniversaries of nuclear tests that India conducted in 1998.After 18 years of the nuclear tests, the security that the atomic weapons were supposed to bestow on us is conspicuously missing and South Asia is becoming more dangerous with each passing day.

Secularism implies freedom from prejudice.

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, for better or worse, was a large presence on the political landscape of India for fifty years. In a fragmented sociopolitical and religious ethos, he represented the pluralism that would bind the people of Jammu and Kashmir together for a long time. Such personages leave indelible marks of their work and contributions on societies for which they have tirelessly worked, and their work, for the most part, traverses religious, class, and party fault lines.

NB: Many decades ago, during the opposition to the Vietnam war, democrats the world over were internationalist in their outlook. Sufficiently large numbers of them refused to align with one-sided ideologies, and supported democratic movements across the geopolitical divisions of the Cold War. Yes, there were political dogmatists then too, but the anti-Vietnam war movement - or the now-forgotten but highly successful anti-MX missile movement of the 1980's (European Nuclear Disarmament) (…)

Bangladesh has become a dangerous place for anyone who dares to cross an invisible line set by Islamic extremists intent on silencing dissenting voices with knives and guns.