South Asia Citizens Web

For a Pakistani woman seeking to travel on a motorcycle, socially sanctioned rules define how she may sit. Although unwritten and unspoken, these are inviolable: First, no girl or woman may drive a motorcycle or clasp the handlebars with both hands. Second, although she can be a passenger behind a male driver, she cannot straddle the pillion seat. Instead, she must perch herself with both legs on the same side and hope she will not fall off. To sit otherwise is considered a violation of female modesty.

PUCL strongly condemns the serial blasts in Hyderabad on 21.02.2013 which has resulted in loss of life and grievous injuries to many. PUCL extends its sympathies to the families of all those who lost relatives and hopes that the injured recover speedily.

Is Bangladesh just trying to process its dark legacy, the trauma of the genocide that took place during the country’s Liberation War in 1971? Or is there something afoot? On February 5, activists of a network called ’Blogger and Online Activist Network’ occupied a key intersection in Dhaka, Shahbagh, and started protesting against the verdict pronounced by the International Crimes Tribunal in the case against Abdul Quader Mollah.

A string of recent violent attacks against journalists and media workers, including the murder of a blogger, shows the urgent need to better protect individuals commenting on Bangladesh’s ongoing war crimes tribunal, Amnesty International said.

Corruption is deeply embedded in the architecture of defence transactions and anything short of a complete transformation of structures, systems and processes will not make any difference. There is no deal in which middlemen do not play a role and hefty commissions are not paid.. The focus should shift to looking at the money trails, who paid whom and when, the specific role of big-time deal-fixers and their political connections. Yet, in all the major investigations so far, the role of these brokers has never been properly investigated... the focus on nailing the corrupt ends up paralysing the honest and ensures that the corrupt find more ingenious ways of making money. Only systemic reform can change things.