South Asia Citizens Web

Yes, we are speaking from Nonadanga slum area, Kolkata. Our government has uprooted all the slum-dwellers of Nonadanga from their habitat. On 30th March, police and Kolkata municipal development authority (KMDA) bulldozed the homes of some of the poorest of the poor people of our country; more than 300 homes were burnt. Even the evicted people wasn’t given any time to move their things of daily usage. They were being compelled to stand roofless under the heavy rainfall and northwester; they are living the same life along with their children under the open sky struggling with all adversities of nature till date. Who are these people? They haven’t come to Kolkata to live in slums by choice. Most of the people have come from Sundarban after the devastating storm ’’AILA’’ destroyed their villages last year. Some have come to ’’The city of joy’’ only to make two ends meet. There isn’t enough employment in the villages, so they have been compelled to leave their homes and to come to the city to find jobs. Some are rickshaw-pullers, some work as electricians, masons; some work as maids in others house.

KARACHI, April 17: Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC) and Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) organised a demonstration and a candle-light vigil in front of Karachi Press Club on Tuesday April 17th, 2012 to mark Global Day of Action against Military Spending.
A large number of civil society and human rights activists, labour leaders and students attended the vigil and raised their voice against increased spending on military in Pakistan.

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.