South Asia Citizens Web

Statements by PUCL, SAHMAT and PUDR regarding multiple democratic aberrations violating freedom of press, freedom of expression, academic freedom and blatant misuse of state power in West Bengal

Nowhere has literature been so much entangled with the political history of a land as it has been in Bangladesh. The people of Bangladesh had to fight for self-determination; that political struggle against colonial exploitation by Pakistan was over in 1971. But soon another monster raised its head, a hydra-headed monster with multifarious tentacles, the worst of which were religious fanaticism and communal hatred.

Between 12 and 1 yesterday, 15 April 2012, the Uttarakhand police lathi charged more than 300 workers who have been sitting on a protest in Dehradun for the last ten days. 11 workers who have been on hunger strike (six from April 6th and five who joined them on April 9th) have been forcibly hospitalised in Doon Hospital, where they are resisting attempts to force-feed them. 326 workers have been arrested and detained in various jails in the city.

Ho tribals lose hold of Saranda as mining is set to take over the pristine sal forest. A report and photographs by Sayantan Bera

More than 5,000 people packed Colombo’s Sugathadasa stadium for the inaugural conference of the Peratugami Samajawadi Pakshaya (Frontline Socialist Party – FSP) on 9 April 2012. Most were members and sympathisers of this new Left party – a breakaway from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Peoples’ Liberation Front – JVP); but many representatives of other radical Left parties, Left intellectuals, and progressive social activists were also in attendance. The emergence and consolidation of the FSP is an important and hopeful development for the revival of peoples’ movements in Sri Lanka in the post-war era, following decades of retreat of the labour and left movements.