South Asia Citizens Web

Just about a year is left before the next presidential election takes place in Afghanistan. It will be the third such election and Afghans will vote for a new president about six months ahead of the scheduled departure of NATO troops stationed in the country for the past 12 years.

The events of last over two decades have shown us, more than before that the efforts of dividing the nation by communal forces have been a major obstacle to social peace and process of development. In India while the communal violence began with the Jabalpur riot of 1961, it is from last couple of decades especially from 1980s that the divisive politics has tried to drive a wedge between different communities along religious lines. The regret is that it is only few social workers and scholars who took this issue in all its seriousness and Asghar Ali Engineer can be counted amongst those few. He also spent major part of his social efforts to fight against the ideology and machinations which led to communal violence and the victimization of minorities, time and over again, year after year.

The Koodankulam safety petition by many of India’s highly respected scientists was sent on 13 May 2013 to the Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and to The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) - plain text is posted below and a PDF copy of the original is attached below.

A massive protest was organised by the Medical Faculty Students’ Union of the Colombo Medical College, in front of the Faculty last week, against the intake of unqualified local and foreign students into local universities for the academic year 2011/2012, for LKR 7.5 million per head. The second appeal to the Government was to withdraw the students of the Kothalawala Defence Academy which is run under the Ministry of Defence and in the process of privatisation, from hospitals attached to local universities which are maintained under the Ministry of Higher Education, when receiving clinical training.

The results of the Pakistan elections are in – but how did a former exile win the vote? By promising airports to people who can’t afford bicycles, says novelist Mohammed Hanif