South Asia Citizens Web

The Indian government claims that there have been 45 violations of the 2003 ceasefire accord in August 2015 and over 240 ceasefire violations along the Indo-Pak border in 2015. The situation on both sides of the border is worsening. In the last few days especially, the situation has become extremely tense.

As common idioms go, the Pakistani nation is perceived and personified as male. Its female citizens are ‘his’ avatars who are validated through kinship – either by virtue of birth or marriage. This explains how the title of Mother/Daughter/Sister-in-law of the Pakistani nation has usually been the exclusive privilege of those women who have been either proxies or progeny of male leaders.

A discussion on India’s state run Rajya Sabha TV Violence over state boundaries in Nepal with Guests: Jayant Prasad, India’s Former Ambassador to Nepal ; Prof. S D Muni, Subject Expert on Nepal ; Tapan Bose, Subject Expert on Nepal. Anchor: Bharat Bhushan

The respected and loved Kannada scholar and writer MM Kalburgi was murdered by two unidentified men on August 30 at his home in Dharwad. The seventy seven year scholar was actively researching Vachanas literature of early Kannada and literature produced during the Adil Shahi period in Northern Karnataka. He was a source of wisdom for many students and scholars, and his killers gained access posing as students. He was also a vocal critic of religious superstitions and had been targeted by fundamentalists within his own Lingayat community and by Hindutva organisations.

The gunning down of rationalist Kannada scholar M.M. Kalburgi is a blot on our society. The behaviour of these fringe religious zealot groups, who have assassinated three such eminent thinkers and elderly scholars in the last two years in Maharashtra and Karnataka, is no less than that of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.