South Asia Citizens Web

Tahira apa was one of the founders of the Communist Party-supported Democratic Women’s Association (DWA) in 1950, Pakistan’s first women’s rights organisation. DWA focused on mobilising women at the community level and was part of the umbrella group, Women’s Action Forum, formed in 1981 against Zia’s controversial laws imposed in the name of Islam. She was also a stalwart of the movement for peace between India and Pakistan.

AS Pakistan turns more and more towards a rightist agenda the most important question now is whether those who stand for a progressive, egalitarian order can protect the interests of disadvantaged sections of society that are likely to suffer the most.

At the Jamil Omar Memorial Lecture in Lahore on Wednesday, March 25th, Akbar Zaidi delivered a speech about the future of Pakistan’s Left movement.

bout two years ago, Asif Mohiuddin, 31, was on his way to office in an upscale Dhaka neighbourhood when he was accosted by three men, who later identified themselves as members of Ansarullah Bangla group, part of the Al-Qaeda network. Like Bangladeshi blogger Avijit Roy, who was slaughtered in the heart of Dhaka last month, Mohiuddin was stabbed six times on his neck and shoulder. Fortunately, he survived. Mohiuddin and Roy are members of a new kind of pariah club in Bangladesh.

Official British anti-communism has attracted much less attention than its American counterpart, with its perspiring, malodorous knuckleheads jabbing their lists before the cameras.