South Asia Citizens Web

(Kabul) – The Afghan government should take urgent steps to ensure that rape and sexual abuse of children leads to prosecution of the abusers – not of victims, Human Rights Watch said today.

Finally a senior Union Minister has made official what many knew already. The Government cannot even make the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) more human because the army does not want it diluted, leave alone repealed. In his K. Subramanyam Memorial Lecture on February 6, 2013 at the Institute of Defence Studies Mr P. Chidambaram said “We can’t move forward because there is no consensus. The present and former Army Chiefs have taken a strong position that the Act should not be amended (and) do not want the government notification … to be taken back. How does the government … make the AFSPA a more humanitarian law?” (The Hindu, February 7, 2013).

This article explores the nature of militarisation and forms of repression in the educational sector of Sri Lanka in recent years, with a special focus on higher education.

Lubna Marium participated in the 1971 liberation war by working in the Refugee Camps and later an Advance Dressing Center of Sector 7, with her mother Sultana Zaman and sister Naila Khan. Here she shares her thoughts on Shahbag.