South Asia Citizens Web

KABUL — The Afghan parliament on Saturday cut short a debate on a bill to protect women from violence after complaints from some traditionalist MPs that it was against Islamic teaching.

After reading the ’Indian History and Culture’ course that has just been approved by the academic and executive councils of the University of Delhi, it becomes clear that . . . if this document is implemented, it will not simply trample on history, it will throw every vestige of the entire discipline out of the window.

This is to draw your attention towards the volte face in matter of hazardous white chrysotile asbestos by the Indian delegation at the sixth meeting on UN’s Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade which concluded on May 10, 2013. In a bizarre act the delegation claimed that the domestic studies by National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH), Ahmedabad show no hazards from white chrysotile asbestos. I had written a letter to the head of the Indian delegation arguing why India needs to support inclusion of white asbestos in the UN list of hazardous substances.

This clip is from "Father, Son and Holy War" (1995). It captures Asghar bhai during the bloody communal riots of 1992-93. The Ekta (unity) rally for communal harmony led by him marched for two days through the riot stricken streets and by-lanes of Bombay.

Red alert, yet again. The old French-German ’couple’ - the engine or the brakes on Europe-making, depending on one’s views - is about to autodestruct. Should we tell a few home truths to our German neighbours, who might become our masters, or start cleaning up our own backyard and accept the compromises that may escape the worst? Better, I believe, to understand what is happening by considering the European ensemble as a whole, all of whose components will either sink or save themselves simultaneously. Europe-making has stalled on budgetary constraint. It has become discredited in the eyes of the public. But that doesn’t rule out a unique political system staggering on - one which is neither national nor federal, but an amalgam of the negative effects of both and one which henceforth will mandate everything. This has become all the clearer in the light of recent developments in Italy and France.