South Asia Citizens Web

The facilities under construction are, in many cases, being built by workers who are virtual slaves. Of Qatar’s two million inhabitants, only 225,000 are nationals; the rest are migrant workers, mostly from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, brought in to do manual labor. There have been widespread reports that thousands of workers are being abused and hundreds have quietly perished. The International Trade Union Confederation has estimated that, without urgent action to remedy conditions, 4,000 migrant workers will have died before a single ball is kicked in Doha.

The way Indians assiduously imitate Pakistan, I get nightmares of Indian pilots blowing the conch shell in a religious ritual for the take-off. I have no idea who hijacked the plane’s loudhailers in Pakistan to offer recitation of religious verses on its commercial flights and why. Has that deterred air pockets and late arrivals?

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.