South Asia Citizens Web

Press freedom and human rights groups submit a report on the deteriorating media environment in Sri Lanka to the 12th session of the United Nations Working Group of the Universal Periodic Review.

An investigation by Ain o Salik Kendra (Dhaka): ’The Nischintapur factory fire is the worst in Bangladesh’s industrial history, one already strewn with innumerable deaths and injuries, caused by callous indifference and a reckless disregard for workers’ safety’’

A dinner-table conversation on political liberalism seems to have caught the imagination of neophyte activists in Pakistan and trickled its way from drawing rooms to blogs to mainstream papers now. Most read as journeys of political self-discovery rather than intellectual offerings. The ‘analysis’ by these newly-conscientised, English speaking, elite patriots relies on a revisionism of anti-imperial heroism, in the context of the ‘war on terror’. In their criticism of a new nemesis called ‘The Liberals’, these new patriots recast themselves as the radical and authentic alternatives to the fake, traditional or Other Liberals, who are overtly critical of Islamic militancy and, therefore, necessarily pro-imperialist.

The Sena’s first rally was in 1966 in Shivaji Park. On their way out, the rallyists attacked an Udipi restaurant, marking the start of the Sena’s terror tactics. In 1967, alongside south Indians, communists became a target. Shiv Sainiks attacked the Communist Party of India’s (CPI) office in the working class area of Parel, and violently engineered splits in CPI unions. In 1970, they killed the CPI’s sitting MLA from Parel, Krishna Desai.

As the country celebrates 100 years of cinema we want to bring to your notice how New Wave Indie Cinema of India is under threat. Among the various challenges that we face as Indie film makers, the biggest is that of exhibition. The multiplexes which were given tax benefits to promote small budget content film have in fact been instrumental in destroying small cinema by only playing the box office game.