South Asia Citizens Web

Recent editorials from The Hindu and Deccan Herald about the rising fallout on India Sri Lanka relations given the nature of dangerous competition between political forces in Tamil Nadu that seem to be instrumentalising human rights issues in Sri Lanka. A fanatic fringe seems intent on hijacking the protest movement in Tamil Nadu against Sri Lanka’s treatment of its Tamil citizens.

KARACHI – Pakistani fishermen organisations activists and Indian human right activist and journalist have demanded the Pakistan and Indian governments release all the fishermen jailed in both countries. Mohammad Ali Shah, chairperson of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), Jatin Desai, senior journalist from Mumbai, India and Karamat Ali, Executive Director, Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) while addressing a joint press conference at the Press Club on Monday said the arrest of Pakistani and Indian fishermen had intensified in the recent months after violations at the Line of Control (LOC).

Bangladeshi man runs across a makeshift bridge, as it starts to rain in Cooch Bihar district in the Indian State of West Bengal. © Manpreet Romana/NYT
In November 2012, The New York Times ran two paired pieces written from both sides of the Bengal border.
Jyoti Rahman analyzes both articles: “Naeem is a few years older than me, and Mr Ray is likely to be slightly younger. That means, all of us were born decades after partition. Ours is the generation that has not known Pakistan in (…)

Who is a muktijoddha? It seems apparent.. any one who has fought for the freedom of Bangladesh. But was it and is it so apparent. Many discourses and contestations are rife in Bangladesh. Our muktijoddhas were not only our “damal chelera” (our gallant boys) but also their mothers who cooked for them, sisters who hid their weapons. Were not birangonas or war heroines, muktijoddhas too? Finally, shahids too were muktijoddhas, including those who fought not with guns but their thoughts!

Narendra Modi of the RSS is an ambitious man who seems to want to become the prime minister of the country. His propaganda machine never speaks of the violence in 2002 in the state he ruled and rules, but it constantly plugs his hand in its development. I do not propose here to question the claims of development that he makes or which are made for him. Better qualified people have done that and have shown that these claims are based on sleight of hand or on outright lies. I shall only look at the meaning of this development business in Modi’s lexicon.