South Asia Citizens Web

The 40th anniversary of the liberation of Bangladesh is special not simply because it marks the passing of decades, but because of the current passionate attempt to recapture the founding spirit of the nation. The recent debates on the Constitution and an attempt to return it to its original secular character of 1972 are vital to the future survival of the country. But the hurried changes made, with an ultimate outcome of keeping Islam as the state religion, have disappointed many. In contrast, the war crimes trials that are underway still offer hope.

Some 150 individuals and organisations from civil society in Pakistan, from prominent non-governmental organisations, labour organisations, academia, women’s rights bodies, and media expressed deep concern over the current political situation in the country and said a crisis was being manufactured on frivolous grounds in the name of the so-called ’memogate’. In a joint statement issued, “The civil society activists appealed to the people of Pakistan to stand united and firm in support of democracy and to resist all attempts aimed at its subversion. They said the people of Pakistan have made great sacrifices for the cause of democracy and they should not let any vested interests trample their right to have a democratic country.

Devolution signalled the rude awakening over the dangers of running women’s policies as never-ending ‘development schemes’ rather than as permanent policy with regularised staff. Some critics observe that despite high moments, the MoWD ran for too long as a glorified NGO and from project to project. Since they were not permanent schemes, the SBBWCs in three provinces hung in limbo as governments attempted to absorb them into the provincial administrative set-ups. Punjab, meanwhile, refused to own the SBBWCs and made a technically reasonable, if misguided, case over the historically disinterested attitude of the federal government itself with regard to these centres.

New Delhi, December 17 : About twenty two members of Plachimada Coca-Cola Virudha Samara Samithi and Plachimada solidarity forum including Vilayodi Venugopal, Sri N. P. Johnson, N Subramanyan, Fr. Augustine, M N Giri, Sahadevan and ors, walked in to the premises of the Coca Cola Factory and courted arrest. When produced the Magistrate ordered their release on furnishing personal bond but activists refused to take bail in protest against apathy on the part of state government and the delaying and subverting tactics in favour of Coca Cola. NAPM hails the action of these activists and salutes their courage for choosing to do this to bring home the dire need for quick passage of the ‘Plachimada Coca-Cola Victims’ Relief and Compensation Claims Special Tribunal Bill, 2011.

It is one of Sartre’s greatest strengths that his declared aim was ‘to write for his own time’.1 From the 1940s onward he became ever less interested in ‘timeless’ questions, and ever more concerned to explore the concrete realities of his own age. Yet paradoxically this engagement with the contemporary makes it particularly tempting to speculate about what would have been Sartre’s response to the events of our own age. Ever since his death in 1980 those of us who have drawn insight and inspiration from Sartre’s works have tended to ask how Sartre might have judged particular political developments. And because of the central place given to violence in Sartre’s thought, as well as his detailed reflections on the Second World War and the wars in Algeria and Vietnam, it is only too natural to ask how Sartre would have responded to the appalling events of 11 September 2001 and the subsequent ‘war on terror’.2