South Asia Citizens Web

LAHORE: Activists of Islami Jamiat e Taliba (IJT) on Friday demonstrated yet another display of barbarism and influence at the University of Punjab when they beat a male student for sitting next to his female classmate in Vice Chancellor Office Lawn.

Modi’s statement that ‘relief camps are baby-making factories’ has become iconic of state abdication and cruelty. Uttar Pradesh chief secretary’s claim that “no one dies of cold; go check Siberia” has joined this cruel iconography.

A five member fact finding team of Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) visited the relief camps last week, between 28th and 30th December 2013, to get a firsthand account of the condition and problems faced by people living in these camps. The team visited a total of 8 camps in the districts of Shamli and Muzaffarnagar and met people from over 60 villages.

The Karzai family graveyard lies a few miles outside Kandahar, on the edge of the village of Karz. On the day I drove there, burned-out cars stood rusting by the sides of the road, children splashed through open drains and bullet holes riddled the mud walls opposite checkpoints. Amid all this, the graveyard stood out — gleaming, immaculate. Straggling bougainvillea and mulberry trees blossomed over the calligraphic tiles topping the cream-colored walls. Through the double gates were lines of cypresses. In the middle stood a domed enclosure containing the graves of the clan elders.

In the latest round of vindictive actions against human rights defender Teesta Setalvad secretary of Citizen’s for Justice and Peace the Gujarat police Crime Branch has registered a false FIR on malicious grounds of cheating etc. Javed Anand also a human rights defender has also been roped in as a co-accused in this malicious and motivated case.