South Asia Citizens Web

Moscow 1937 By Karl Schögel reviewed by BENJAMIN SCHWARZ In this dazzling 650-page feat of historical reconstruction, Karl Schlögel, a professor at the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), has summoned up a great city—what was once the New Jerusalem for much of the world’s intelligentsia and downtrodden—as it consumed itself in an orgy of fear, paranoia, denunciations, mass arrests, suicides, and executions. Schlögel’s book is a fragmentary yet meticulous social history of Moscow (…)

This report documents incidents of attacks on places of worship in Sri Lanka since the end of the war in May 2009 and discusses the broader context of such attacks. The report lists 65 cases of attacks on religious places of worship between May 2009 and January 2013. Direct attacks have been reported from all provinces of Sri Lanka, making clear that the threat is not restricted to particular areas. Most of the reported incidents were from the Western province (16), followed by the Eastern province (12), the Southern province (11) and the North-Western province (9).

Although the list cannot claim to be comprehensive, it offers a starting point to document attacks against places of worship of the four main religions practiced in the country.

The engagement of women as suicide bombers in the Taliban insurgency manifests fresh directions in the approaches and ideologies of those who are behind it. Counterinsurgency measures need to pay attention to the factors that drive women and girls to join the Taliban as suicide bombers, says Massouda Jalal

Muslims in Uttar-Pradesh are rightly feeling betrayed by the state government. They continue to protest in different parts of the state as the government of the state is trying to subvert the process of law and getting rid of the entire issue under the pretext that the inquiry has been given to CBI. There are serious issues in this case but before that it is important to understand why the Muslims of the state are restive and agitating and whether their demand has some communal undertones as media is charging.

As the world celebrates Women’s Day, these village women are engaged in a bitter tussle with the administration to stop land acquisition for the Posco steel project. They also want the five platoons of police still deployed at the site of the proposed mega project in Jagatsinghpur district withdrawn