South Asia Citizens Web

If we get it right, the Food Security Bill carries the potential to alter the destinies of millions of India’s poor and disadvantaged people, by assuring them as a legal right sufficient food to live with dignity. It was approved by the Cabinet after over two years of intense, sometimes fractious debate. Opinion in the Cabinet itself was reportedly divided around the proposed law. Gaping divisions persist, even as the debates now shift to Parliament, campaigns, the media and the people. The discussions around this proposed law hold up a mirror to unequal India, an India comfortable for too long with this inequality.

Anders Breivik, the man who carried out the July 2011 massacre in Norway, counts the sanatana dharma movements in India among his allies in Europe’s supposed war against Islam. His manifesto refers to Koenraad Elst, a well-known Belgian critic of Islam who is also a strong votary of Hindutva in India. In addition, many other Indian writers are also quoted by Breivik. This essay looks at the shared world view, agenda and history of this school of Hindutva, and the anti-Islamic European right.

Greetings! We, the senior citizens of the Koodankulam area in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, India, would like to appeal to you not to revive the civil nuclear cooperation negotiations with our country. We have witnessed how your country has suffered from both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. This "Hiroshima to Fukushima" devastation has taken a heavy toll on your country although you are scientifically more capable, technologically superior, and financially better-off than most countries in the world. Our country, India, is not in a position to face a Hiroshima or to suffer a Fukushima.

Odhikar is deeply concerned to learn from the media of the proposed amendments to the Anti- Terrorism Act 2009, approved by the Cabinet meeting on December 26, 2011, which has widened the scope of the Act by approving death penalty for financing terrorist activities. The existing law stipulates that a person guilty of the offence of financing acts of terrorism shall be sentenced to not more than 20 years and not less than three years of imprisonment. According to new amendments, as reported by media, a person or entity will be considered a terrorist if they harm or help harm another country while staying in Bangladesh.

We, the undersigned, visited Gobindpur, Dhinkia and Patna villages of
Jagatsinhpur district of Orissa, on 22nd December, where the villagers
are peacefully resisting the proposed POSCO steel plant for the last
six years in order to protect their lands and livelihoods from
complete destruction. Our visit was in the aftermath of the incidents
of 14th December 2011, during which the peaceful protest against the
construction of the coastal road connecting Paradip port to the
proposed site of the POSCO steel plant, was viciously and unexpectedly
attacked with country-made bombs by hired goons of the local
contractor Bapi Circle, who is a known criminal with many pending
cases in Odisha. In the process, many protesting villagers, including
elderly women, were badly injured. One of the men hired by Bapi Circle
was also killed by being accidentally hit with a bomb thrown by his
own associates. After this heinous incident, the state government has
slapped false charges of murder (Sec 302 of the Indian Penal Code)
against 11 key activists of the Posco Protirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS),
including some who were not even present at the time of the attack.