South Asia Citizens Web

The Supreme Court bench hearing the Muzaffarnagar cases issued notice on a writ petition filed by Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), victim survivors praying for the appointment of a High Powered Committee of Court Commissioners to survey the four worst affected districts (Shamli, Baghpat, Meerut and Muzaffarnagar), assess details of the dead and missing as also the scale of damages and monitor the transparency and quality of the probe/investigation and report back to the Supreme Court. Petitioners have also asked for directions to transfer the investigations to the CBI. The state government that had filed a status report has been asked to respond to the allegations by the petitioners that powerful accused are being dropped as accused and serious offence of rape and gender violence have not been recorded. The petition has also prayed for investigations into the overall criminal conspiracy, behind which majoritarian outfits are involved, which is related to communalizing the atmosphere prior to the elections using the services of supremacist outfits especially the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Individual incidents of conflict have been converted into mass mobilization by these outfits with hateful anti-minority propaganda being a ready tool.

Govind Purushottam Deshpande, 1938-2013. Eminent Marathi playwright and intellectual Govind Purushottam Deshpande died at 8.15 p.m. on 16 October 2013, following a long illness.

Fight the Power – Power Plant Construction Workers
GurgaonWorkersNews – Newsletter 59 – October 2013
Gurgaon in Haryana is presented as the shining India, a symbol of capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the gateway of development. At a first glance the office towers and shopping malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls and in the side streets of the (…)

As a feminist, I’ve always assumed that by fighting to emancipate women I was building a better world – more egalitarian, just and free. But lately I’ve begun to worry that ideals pioneered by feminists are serving quite different ends. I worry, specifically, that our critique of sexism is now supplying the justification for new forms of inequality and exploitation.

India and the United States have been engaged in intense discussions on civilian nuclear power for more than seven years. In 2008, in return for Washington’s help in persuading the Nuclear Suppliers Group to create a special exemption for India, the Manmohan Singh government promised the United States that it would buy reactors with a minimum generating capacity of 10,000 megawatts from American companies. This commitment was made without any economic studies, or even a comparison of reactors available in the world market. Going by the current capital costs of nuclear reactors, this would have translated into $50 billion or more in reactor sales.