South Asia Citizens Web

When a community healthcare worker in Pakistan leaves her home armed with a medical kit, she may have stepped on the frontline of a dangerous war in which extremists stand opposed to polio vaccination campaigns.

The Bangladeshi government should publicly explain what efforts have been made to investigate the abduction, torture, and killing of the labor rights activist Aminul Islam two years ago, including alleged links to state officials, Human Rights Watch said today. While police have filed charges against a missing suspect, there have been no apparent efforts to investigate allegations that members of Bangladeshi security forces were part of the conspiracy to kill the labor activist.

Leaflet in Hindi for 2014 general elections in India.

PAKISTAN is a dichotomous world. This is a country that has produced a woman prime minister – the first to be elected in a Muslim state. Its predominantly male parliament – the lower house – unanimously adopted a bill against domestic violence four years ago, but it failed to become law because the upper house refused to take it up. Its academia are now overflowing with female students – many of them in hijab. But this is also a country where women are murdered for marrying a man of their own choice, where little girls like Malala are shot in the head for going to school and where law makers defend their ‘right’ to bury women alive in the name of honour and refuse to condemn a colleague who has had his daughter killed for wanting a divorce.

आततायी की प्रतीक्षा
अशोक वाजपेयी
(एक)
सभी कहते हैं कि वह आ रहा है उद्धारक, मसीहा, हाथ में जादू की अदृश्य छड़ी लिए हुए इस बार रथ पर नहीं, अश्वारूढ़ भी नहीं, लोगों के कंधों पर चढ़ कर वह आ रहा है : यह कहना मुश्किल है कि वह खुद आ रहा है या कि लोग उसे ला रहे हैं।
हम जो कीचड़ से सने हैं, हम जो खून में लथपथ हैं, हम जो रास्ता भूल गए हैं, हम जो अंधेरे में भटक रहे हैं, हम जो डर रहे हैं, हम जो ऊब रहे हैं, हम जो थक-हार रहे हैं, हम जो सब जिम्मेदारी दूसरों पर डाल रहे हैं, हम जो अपने पड़ोस (…)