South Asia Citizens Web

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.

The world over the very idea of a multi-cultural, pluralistic and democratic society is being confronted by shrill sectarian voices. Liberal values are under threat. The so-called Arab Spring has proven to be far removed from a democratic resurgence as it bares its fundamentalist Islamic heart in Egypt. The strategy of these sectarian groups to arouse primordial fear is invariably the same: us versus them, the known versus the unfamiliar. They couch their thinly disguised fascist agendas by using ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism’ as a cover.

Photos from Jantar Mantar, New Delhi by Mukul Dube on 21 February 2013. Protest gathering of progressives and feminists in Delhi to demand the undiluted implementation of the Justice Verma commission recommendations by government of India.

After frankly acknowledging the organizational role of the RSS and BJP in spawning terrorism in the country Home Minister Mr Sushil Kuamr Shinde has suddenly backtracked, buckled under pressure and apologized to the BJP.