South Asia Citizens Web

Comrade Satyapal Dang stalwart of the communist movement in Punjab, passed away on June 15, 2013. Comrade Dang was one of the tallest figures of modern India. His courageous resistance to communal hatred, personal modesty and spotless honesty was an inspiration to lakhs of Indians, even those who remained outside his party. I shall add some memories to this post soon. Here is a tribute by Purushottam Agrawal, containing many shared experiences

Ninety-three year old veteran Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Satpal Dang passed away in Amritsar after a prolonged illness last week. AB Bardhan, former General Secretary of the CPI reminisces about his friend and colleague of several decades

Government-enforced codes of conduct on the media are unnecessary and invariably infringe upon the right to free expression as established under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Human Rights Watch said.

DECLARATION by WOMEN’S COALITION TURKEY WE ARE CALLING UPON THE GOVERNMENT: IMMEDIATELY STOP POLICE VIOLENCE AND THE AGGRESSIVE, THREATENING AND CONDENSCENDING ATTITUDE AGAINST THE PEOPLE
The peaceful sit-in began to counter planned construction at the Taksim Gezi park, which would replace one of downtown Istanbul’s few green spaces with a shopping mall, has evolved into nationwide demonstrations and people’s resistance as a result of the brutal police violence and firing with tear gas (…)

Let me say what a great honour it is for me to be here to deliver the First A.K. Ramanujan Memorial Lecture. He was a distinguished poet, both in Kannada and English, a folklorist, an ethnographer. He was among the first of Indian thinkers to take a serious look at oral tales, lullabies, proverbs, songs, in fact, at the richness of the world of women. He was a much acclaimed translator from Tamil and Kannada. I have no expertise in any of these fields. My claim to fame ---and certainly the reason why I have accepted the invitation to deliver this lecture---is that I knew him closely from the days when he was still unknown. He worked as a Junior Lecturer in a town called Belgaum when he was 27 years old