South Asia Citizens Web

Camp after camp has been forced to disappear in Muzaffarnagar by the official authorities. But where are the internally displaced persons? Look closer where the camps once stood and you will find them. In small shanty settlements, 10 tents here, another 10 tents half a kilometre down the road, 20-odd tents along the talab in Loi village. It is the same story in Shahpur. The “camp” has disappeared. Its people are now part of India’s great slum story, their tent clusters dotting the countryside of Shahpur village, here today, gone tomorrow; their permanent addresses unknown.

8th January: Hundreds of adivasis and farmers, representing a large number of oustees affected by the Sardar Sarovar and Jobat Dam Projects in the Alirajpur District of Madhya Pradesh, stormed the office of the Collector, Mr. N.P. Deheria yesterday and engaged in a day-long protest, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of about 40 adivasis, including 6 women, who were arrested on 5th January in a completely illegal manner from the site of the Zameen Haq Satyagraha at Jobat.

Devyani Khobragade, India’s deputy consul general to the US, was arrested by US police in December for allegedly paying her housekeeper Sangeeta Richard less than one-third the legal minimum wage and lying to US officials about Sangeeta’s real wage and working conditions. While there are understandable concern about Khobragade’s treatment following arrest, the diplomatic row between the US and India triggered by the arrest has obscured the real issue of worker exploitation.

. . . neo-liberalism has failed to eradicate poverty and actually exacerbated inequality and vulnerability, why has the Sri Lankan state not abandoned the perspectives and approaches that it has followed since 1977?

Nothing travels faster, it seems, than a bad and populist idea. By announcing that 90 per cent of the seats in 12 Delhi University colleges directly funded by Delhi will be reserved exclusively for residents, the new education minister, Manish Sisodia, has endorsed a small-minded proposal that was earlier supported by the BJP and Congress. The large-hearted cosmopolitanism of this city of migrants sets it on par with metropolises like Bangalore and Mumbai. Before the AAP goes ahead with its misguided plan, it should look again at the voters, or even its own council of ministers, and ask just who the real "Dilliwallah" is.