South Asia Citizens Web

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

In the face of escalating war threats, Iran’s Network of Iranian Labor Associations (NILA) sent the message below to Amnesty International’s December 10 Human Rights Day Event in Chicago on Human Rights in Iran.

Many years ago, when some of us argued about the ills of the present and, more to the point, the ills of contemporary India, we would be asked by our elders where such ideals had ever been implemented. ’In China!’ we’d reply without hesitation’ Peoples’ China was our El Dorado, the land of promise. Under the leadership of the Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao, the Chinese Communist Party was looking after the true interests of Chinese peasants and workers, and marching towards the socialist future. Nay, as we were communists and hence internationalists, the Great, Glorious and Correct Chinese Communist Party - GGC-CCP for short - represented the oppressed people of the entire world! China was the future transported into the present. Our elders and betters would point out the totalitarian nature of the regime, the total lack of freedom of speech and political democracy. What freedom, we’d reply. Freedom for whom?

the environment and the well-being of people in general should be treated with more respect than industrial/profit-making interests. By writing this letter, we are soliciting your stance on these issues in writing. In the interest of democracy and transparency, we feel we are entitled to a response from you.