South Asia Citizens Web

An incredible and courageous struggle by Sri Lanka’s university teachers for the defence of the state education system is underway. This started as a pay dispute and has expanded itself to raise key questions about the role of education in society, university autonomy, role of intellectuals to promote public debate. The teachers are not backing down despite having gone without pay for several months and facing all kinds of intimidation. University teachers across south asia and beyond need to extend a hand of solidarity and support to Sri Lanka’s teachers.

details of a petition filed with the Sindh High Court on the tragic Baldia Town factory fire incident on Sept 11, 2012, in Karachi. The Petition has been filed by the Pakistan Institute of Labour and Education and Research (PILER), Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum, National Trade Union Federation, Hosiery Garments Textile, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and legal activist Javed Iqbal Burki and others.

The recent Comptroller and Auditor General’s report on the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and, more broadly, on nuclear safety regulation has highlighted many serious organisational and operational flaws. The report follows on a series of earlier CAG reports that documented cost and time overruns and poor performance at a number of nuclear facilities in the country. On the whole, the CAG reports offer a powerful indictment of the department of atomic energy and its nuclear plans.

I share the frustration of those progressives who worry about the incredibly insular worldview of many ordinary Pakistanis. But I find the desperation and even nihilism of at least a segment of progressives rather incongruous, because surely the point is not only to harp on about our ‘America’ problem, but to try and address it. We have a problem, yes, but it existed back in the day when our now ex-leftists were also happy and willing to decry the excesses of American imperialism, while the mullahs were celebrating the alliance with ahl-i-kitab against the godless communists. The problem continues to exist today and is likely to do so in the future, regardless of whether conservatives remain true to their currently favourite pastime of America-bashing.

Speaking to NDTV, just ahead of the launch of his memoirs on the Fatwa years, Mr Rushdie says the ban on ’Satanic Verses’ that India was the first country in the world to ban the book and that set the tone. Since then, the State has failed to protect artistes or free speech. From attacks on art galleries to recent sedition cases against cartoonists, Mr Rushdie says India is no longer Nehru’s country. Nehru was a liberal, he says, who always argued against government censorship.