South Asia Citizens Web

the calendar says it’s December 6. On this very day, 20 years ago, the Babri Mosque was demolished. In the pre-planned communal violence that followed, over 2,000 people were killed and property worth hundreds of crores destroyed in Ayodhya, Bombay (now Mumbai), Surat, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Kanpur and elsewhere. In the Mumbai edition of two out of five English national dailies, there’s not a word on Ayodhya, its immediate aftermath, and what it has meant for the nation’s polity. Nothing on the news pages, nothing on the opinion pages. Two others did remember the date as if it was an incident of some minor consequence. Only one of the five newspapers thought it fit to devote three news pages and the main comment piece, highlighting the failure of justice and the lack of punishment for the grievous crimes committed on December 6, 1992, and thereafter.

India is halfway to becoming a fascist state — halfway because the central government is still relatively liberal and tolerates checks and balances while the states are increasingly in the grip of fascist political parties. A fascist political party proclaims its worship of the people, romanticises the idea of community and culture, is deeply conservative about the rights and responsibilities of individuals, has young men that threaten or carry out acts of violence, bows before an all-powerful leader, and practices politics as if it were theatre. Going by these characteristics, most of our regional parties are fascist.

alleged Perpetrators a report by IPTK/APDP examines 214 cases of human rights violations and for the first time, the role of 500 alleged perpetrators in these crimes. The report is authored by Parvez Imroz, Kartik Murukutla, Khurram Parvez, and Parvaiz Mata.

Government of Gujarat had claimed that they provided employment to 65,000 youth in Gujarat under “ Swami Vivekanand Youth Employment Week” organised in February/March 2012. But, Government of Gujarat’s replies to the RTI application filed by Amrish Brahmbhatt and Rohit Prajapati of Jyoti Karmachari Mandal is not just a self contradictory but surprising and shocking.

We the undersigned, strongly condemn the arrest of four students of the University of Jaffna (UoJ) by the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) on Thursday, November 29, 2012. While welcoming the release of Kanesamoorthy Sutharsan, a student of the Jaffna Medical Faculty on the morning of Tuesday, December 4, we condemn the continued detention of the remaining three Jaffna University Student Union members: Sanmugam Solaman (24), Kanagasundram Jenamajenth, and Student Union Secretary Paramalingam Tharshaanan (24).