South Asia Citizens Web

I therefore fervently appeal to all political parties in this last winter session of Parliament to rise above partisan politics and pass a law to make communal violence history, and help build an India in which some people are not condemned to live life only in the spaces between riots.

If we are to believe Mr. Modi …
(Translated from Gujarati)
by Rohit Prajapati and Trupti Shah
16 February 2014
If we are to believe Mr. Modi, Gujarat has “developed” so much so that it would do if Gujarat’s development goes dieting for months together.
If we are to believe Mr. Modi, Gujarat has “developed” so much that Gujaratis can do without Food Security Act.
If we are to believe Mr. Modi, Gujarat has “developed” so much that Gujaratis can do without government hospital, (…)

Penguin India’s decision to withdraw Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, from publication — as a result of legal and possibly extralegal pressure from a right-wing organisation — has thrown up a series of questions in the public sphere. These include questions around the ethics of corporate action and the limits of corporate responsibility in supporting and protecting authors; the prevalence of two sets of laws in India — those governing freedom of expression and those governing insult and injury to groups defined around different vectors of identity, including religion and caste — and how these laws might constrain or override one another; and looming questions about the kinds of effects that a neo-nationalist and majoritarian political regime is likely to have on the spectrum of civil liberties and citizens’ rights in the coming months.

Section 295A of the IPC opens the door for bullies to walk in

China’s workers have emerged over the last few years as a strong, unified and increasingly active collective force. Workers have time and again demonstrated the will and the ability to stand up to abusive and arrogant managements and to demand better pay and working conditions. However, workers are still hampered by the lack of an effective trade union that can maintain solidarity, bargain directly with managements and protect labour leaders from reprisals. As a result, workers are turning to labour rights groups that can advise and support their collective actions while, at the same time, demanding more of the official trade union and putting pressure on it to change.