South Asia Citizens Web

Himalmedia co-publisher Kanak Mani Dixit was detained on Friday [22 April 2016] afternoon from near his office in Patan Dhoka in Kathmandu on the direct orders of the Chairman of the Commission to Investigate the Abuse of Authority (CIAA).

Highly respected professors face intimidation, threats and smear campaigns for deviating from the views of the Hindu right.

For too long the Haryana government dismissed the Murthal gang rapes as a rumour. And even now there seems to be an inexcusable laxity in the work of identifying the culprits and building a foolproof case against them, or even ensuring the security of witnesses and gang rape survivors who speak up.

Most of the violent extremist groups based in Punjab carry out violent acts outside Punjab. It is in incidents of sectarian violence or violence against minorities that one begins to feel their presence. These are basically expansionist groups that think in terms of Pan-Islamism and their leadership has more religious training and is conscious of religious revivalism than the Taliban. Their issue is not territorial but to capture state and spread Islam.

India has a shameful record of governments helping businesses acquire land by using police and administration to put pressure on citizens, and obtain the consent of village councils even in areas where there is no internal security “situation”. Imagine then the process in Chhattisgarh, which has an ongoing war to boost the mechanisms of fear and favour in which governments act as an extension of corporate will