South Asia Citizens Web

Panaji, Goa: One of India’s most influential artistic lives of the 20th century came to an end in Loutolim, Goa, on Sunday [11 December 2011], when Mario de Miranda died in his ancestral manor at the age of 85.

This is the inspiring story of Sr. Valsa John, an ordained nun, who worked among the Santal tribals of Jharkhand for over fifteen years—first as a school teacher and then as a human rights activist—until her brutal murder on November 15, 2011. It provides an insider’s view of the people’s resistance movement led by Sr. Valsa John against coal mining and displacement in the Amrapara block of Pakur district, Jharkhand.

Gita Sahgal tells the less known story of the men and women who wrote this foundational, emancipatory and anti-colonial document

HRCP also has serious concern at targeted killing of teachers, intellectuals and non-Baloch ‘settlers’ in Balochistan and calls upon all political elements in the province and beyond to unequivocally condemn these killings and play their role in ending such callous acts of violence.The precarious situation in Balochistan has been further compounded by targeting of human rights defenders in the province by the various parties to the simmering conflict, making access to reliable information on the human rights situation all the more difficult. The murder of two HRCP activists and three journalists in the province in 2011 signifies the dangers that those highlighting human rights violations face on a daily basis.

Peoples Union for Democratic Rights is distressed at the hiatus between the sharp observations of the Supreme Court judges and their timid operative orders and judgments. If there was any doubt over this it has been laid to rest by the recent orders of the apex court hearing the case of Soni Sori and the clarification offered by a bench of the Supreme Court in the much touted judgment on the issue of SPOs.