South Asia Citizens Web

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.

We, the undersigned, welcome the decision of Pakistan government to release 26 Indian fishermen on humanitarian grounds. They were in Pakistani prison for more than two years for allegedly violating territorial border. The Pakistani gesture came in the background of a meeting, which took place in New Delhi, between the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh & the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on last Sunday. The poor Indian and Pakistani fishermen find it extremely difficult to recognize other country’s territorial border in the mid-sea.

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