South Asia Citizens Web

After the 2002 riots, the National Human Rights Commission, a statutory watchdog, had sent a team to Gujarat to investigate. It reported "a comprehensive failure on the part of the state government to control the persistent violation of the rights to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the people of the state". As the commission also pointed out, "critical and cruel as the communal dimension was to the tragedy of Gujarat, what was at stake, additionally, was respect for the rights of all Indians – irrespective of community – that are guaranteed by the constitution". The persistence of Zakia Jafri has helped to highlight the importance of this principle.

The tragedy of Kandhamal is that the attack on the Christian community was familiar and the subsequent failure of the legal system to accord justice to the victim-survivors predictable. This volume edited by Vrinda Grover critically examines the patterns of impunity as they unfold in Kandhamal. There is today a vibrant debate seeking legal reform to ensure accountability for mass crimes by extending culpability to those who sponsor and profit from the carnage. Rooted in the firm belief that without justice there can be no peace, this book seeks to contribute to the effort to forge new legal tools to alter patterns of continuing injustice and rampant impunity.

Market forces may decree that millions of viewers can no longer afford the television service they have had many years, unless the government takes pre-emptive steps to treat television as a public utility and guarantees citizens access to it.

Joint Statement on brutal corporate attack on peaceful protesters in Orissa We are extremely shocked and distressed over the barbaric inhuman violence on peaceful protesters especially woman by the security guards and hired goons of Jindal steel plant in Angul, Odisha. There has been series of attacks on unarmed peaceful protesters against forcibly land grab all over Odisha. On 25th January 2012 when the entire Nation was gearing up for the Republic day celebrations and the Indian ruling (…)

Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC), while welcoming signing of three trade accords between India and Pakistan has called upon the two governments not only to ensure the strict implementation of these agreements but also to follow it up with some essential steps towards facilitating people-to-people contacts at various other levels.