South Asia Citizens Web

Ms. Asma Khan Pathan, District President of BJP Minority cell, Kheda, Gujarat tweeted an image of Muslims burning the Indian National Flag at 10:41 AM on 28 November 2013 claiming that to be of illegal Bangladeshis doing so in a protest in Assam. In reality, the image was that of JuD protesters burning the Indian flag in Karachi

Nearly 9 million people were mobilized to serve in Britain’s military during World War I. By the time photographer Giles Price started seeking veterans of the war in 2005, there were just 23 left. Even fewer lived long enough to have their portrait taken. “I was aware that very few were still alive and wanted to document them while they were alive,” Price said via email.His series, “The Old Guard,” features portraits of the last 12 veterans of the war, which broke out 100 years ago next (…)

Hindustan Times
by Harsh Mander
November 21, 2013
The continued human suffering and cynical engineering of social ruptures in Muzaffarnagar is another reminder of the imperative for a law to prevent further communal violence. This statute was promised by the UPA government when it assumed power in 2004. But so far it has been unable to muster the political courage to steer it through

The nucleus of power in Bangladesh is pivoted around the recognition of ‘heterosexual Muslim Bengali males’, as this combines ‘ the greatest race, the greatest sexual orientation, the greatest religion, the greatest sex’. If power politics and the power of money are also added, who would be able to resist the rise of ‘the greatest sex’? The state can. But none of AL-JP-Jamaat-BNP-Leftist alliance – who runs our state, has effective agendas to stop the communalism. The existence of AL-JP-Jamaat-BNP depends on that very rise. The non-communist leftist parties of the county and those opportunistic parties which call themselves ‘communist parties’, ally with AL and BNP alternately, supporting the rise of ‘that sex’. On the other hand, the revolutionary parties want to give democratic-revolution a chance. Amid this razzle-dazzle, the minority gets annihilated.

One of the worst-kept secrets of the human resource development ministry is the fact that education in India is in a mess. Explosive expansion over the last two decades has failed to mask appalling standards of quality: in this, indeed, we are now at the very bottom of the global ladder. In 2011, India first participated in world-wide tests of the reading and arithmetical ability of school children. In every test, in every grade tested, India competed desperately with Kyrgyzstan for the last two places. These tests confirmed the results obtained earlier by another organization: in school-learning outcomes, in 2003, India was among the five worst countries in the world. In the eight years between the tests, we had only deteriorated. The reactions of the government were entirely predictable. It did nothing about the facts revealed. Claiming that the tests were biased against us, it withdrew India from future world-wide testing.