South Asia Citizens Web

Women’s Action Forum Hyderabad, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad are appalled that a peaceful demonstration against the division of Sindh on the 22nd of May was violently attacked resulting in the tragic death of two friends and comrades. We strongly condemn the use of force under any circumstances and particularly when it is used to subdue the democratic rights of the people to express their sentiments and political positions. WAF demands that the government take responsibility for not securing the security to those participating in the protest. While reparations cannot take away from the tragedy of losing one’s family members WAF demands that the government provide substantial financial and psychological support.

The boundaries between faith and blind faith many a times are very blurred. As such faith and reason have been counter-posed in the society. Faith has been ruling the roost in the areas of ‘unknown’ and the future. It has been constructed around the supernatural powers and clergy of different religions or self made Godmen have been the custodian of faith.

The so-called Site Evaluation Report (SER) consists of twelve (12) pages of hardly-legible typed-material with no cover page, no authorship, no ownership, no publisher, no date, no index, and no head or tail. If the print quality of the so called SER is anything to go by to assess the standard of the overall Koodankulam nuclear power project, we have so much to worry about our and our country’s future. You can hardly read a word and rarely decipher a number. Maybe that is the way NPCIL prepares its important public safety reports so that no one can and will read, understand, discuss, debate and ask more questions.

It is profoundly distressing that all of India’s political parties joined hands to condemn an inoffensive cartoon published in 1949 about Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s pivotal role in the making of the nation’s constitution. The cartoon, reproduced in a Class XI textbook published in 2006 by the National Council for Educational Training and Research (NCERT), showed Ambedkar riding a snail depicting the constitution and Prime Minister Nehru standing behind him with a whip in hand.

Renowned anthropologist and feminist scholar Leela Dube passed away at her residence in Delhi on 20 th May. She was 89. Fondly called Leeladee, Prof. Dube was one of the pioneers of feminist scholarship in India