South Asia Citizens Web

Aside from the attacking and killing of vaccinators, the extremist propaganda that the polio vaccine is a western conspiracy against the Muslim world that will render those who are vaccinated infertile is preventing some parents from allowing their children to be vaccinated. This narrative has taken hold in certain communities because there is not a strong enough counter-narrative to educate the people about the fact that the polio vaccine saves lives and does not have adverse effects on the health of the recipients.

Two court rulings from India which raise the issue of curtailing and regulating use of loudspeakers in religious places such as temples, mosque, churches, gurudwaras and other places.

A dominant feature of the first year of Narendra Modi’s leadership is the quiet dismantling of India’s imperfectly realised framework of welfare and rights, covertly, by stealth.

Mahenaz Mahmud the mother of Sabeen Mahmud remembering her daughter (audio - BBC interview) | Zaheer Kidwai a mentor and friend of Sabeen reads out a tribute in urdu (eacpe video)

In 1971 Ravi Shankar and George Harrison organised a concert in New York City’s Madison Square Gardens to fund relief efforts for war-torn Bangladesh. The album featured the image of a starving child on the cover, which became a symbol of an impoverished country emerging out of the rubble of war. Forty-four years later, another image is now associated with Bangladesh: that of the abandoned refugees who float on the Andaman Sea with no hope of rescue.