South Asia Citizens Web

Veteran leader of the left movement, Tahira Mazhar Ali, passed away on Monday. Though she had been unwell for some time, her death has been met with a profound sense of loss by those who knew her. (Posted here are messages from PILER, Pakistan Peace Coalition and from the Awami Workers Party; These are followed by reports from DAWN, Pakistan Today and an editorial in The News)

This paper is appearing in: Communalism in Post-colonial India Changing Contours Edited by Mujibur Rehman; Routledge India (forthcoming, 2016)

Dr. Daya Varma, life-long communist, scientist, activist, dreamer, pharmacologist, professor emeritus at McGill University, Montreal, passed away on 22 March 2015

Today, on 24th March 2015, the families of Mohalla Hashimpura whose men were shot dead; and the five survivors, of the worst custodial communal killings in independent India expressed their anguish, suffering and outrage at the judgment of the Delhi Trial Court that acquitted all the accused Policemen of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC). 28 years later, they remembered every detail of that fateful day when about 50 men of Mohalla Hashimpura were abducted by a Unit of the 41st Battalion of PAC in a yellow coloured PAC truck by 19 members of this Unit. [photos included below are by Mukul Dube]

On March 16th 2015, the Haryana Government unanimously passed Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Bill with main opposition parties INLD and Congress supporting the Bill. The new bill passed by the Haryana Government bans cow slaughter and sale of beef and imposes a punishment of rigorous imprisonment of not less than three years extending up to 10 years and fines ranging from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. one lakh. The Haryana Government’s move comes just days after the President’s assent to Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill 1995 early this month.