South Asia Citizens Web

extending anti-terrorism charges and totally unjustified punishment against workers is the latest tactic of the state that ally with the powerful industrial elite to crush workers who demand their due rights.

The KKNPP reactors from Russia are being set up without sharing the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Site Evaluation Study and Safety Analysis Report with the people, or the people’s representatives and the press. After a 23-year-long struggle, we obtained a copy of the outdated and incomplete EIA only a few months back. No public hearing has been conducted for the first two reactors either. The KKNPP project has been imposed on an uninformed and unwilling population throwing all democratic precepts and values of our country to the wind. The people of Tamil Nadu and Kerala are deeply concerned about our safety and wellbeing as the KKNPP reactors pose grave and serious threats.

We, the undersigned civil society organisations and activists, are deeply disturbed by the threats faced by Mr. Herman Kumara of the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) and Mr. Aruna Roshantha Fernando of All Ceylon Fisher Folk Federation (ACFFF) and condemn these attempts to stifle democratic rights and silence these leaders.

. . . much as one welcomes the US exit, America’s defeat will not be Afghanistan’s victory. The crimes of foreign occupation pale in front of the enormous crimes committed by the Taliban government, 1996-2001. Although the outside world knew the Taliban largely for having blown up the 2000-year old Bamiyan Buddha statues and their cruel treatment of women, their atrocities were far more widespread. Going from door to door, they had executed thousands in Mazar-i-Sharif after ascertaining that they were ethnic Hazaras or Shias. A 55-page UN report says that Mullah Omar’s men, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians. Fifteen such massacres were committed during the period of the Taliban government until it was mercifully removed by the US invasion.

This set of political buttons (or badges) were made by me in collaboration Mukul Mangalik on the occasion of the First A K Ramanujan lecture and seminar that was held at the Ramjas college in Delhi University.