South Asia Citizens Web

Whereas violence is considered by various political tendencies as radical, productive of closure, and susceptible to legitimising (ideological) control; the truth is quite the opposite.

We are forced to gather outside your residence today. We have broken with our tradition and etiquette of protest, i.e., to demonstrate at public offices rather than private residences because a large section of our population no longer feels safe in their own homes. Disappearances and illegal detentions have become rampant in the name of fighting terrorism. It is as though a new wave of counter terrorism has been launched to terrorize the youth belonging to a community.

The Delhi HM Conference “New Cultures of the Left”, the first South Asian Historical Materialism Conference, will be held at the JNU Convention Centre, JNU Delhi, on 3-5 April 2013. The conference occurs against several backgrounds that make the revival of the left and the reemergence of Marxist and other forms of radical theory and politics imperative. These ‘backgrounds’ include the massive convulsions in the world economy from the financial crash of 2008 onwards; the great uprisings in the Arab world that dominated the whole of 2011 with their remarkable mass-based struggles for democracy; the emergence in the West of spontaneous forms of resistance to Austerity politics and its fierce attacks on the lives of millions of people both in and out of employment.

The Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project along with Tirunelveli district administration has carried out an “offsite emergency exercise.” According to the Collector’s Press Release, the “exercise was observed by the representatives from AERB, NPCIL HQ and other officials of NPCIL.” Why were the local public representatives such as MP, MLA, local civil society members, prominent citizens and the local media not invited? Why was the whole exercise a quick and hush-hush affair that lasted only for an hour?
Do nuclear disasters affect a large area around the plant or just one or two specific villages? How come the exercise is carried out in an isolated village and not throughout the project affected area?

posted below is a report and a public petition from 2011 along with links to relevant material