South Asia Citizens Web

Indeed, India is a pluralistic society. But it has a long way to go before it can be considered "secular," a word written within the preamble of the constitution.

Quite like prisoners whose biometric data like finger prints can be collected only under the Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920, it is quite outrageous that National Population Register (NPR) is taking biometric data of every resident and citizen of India disregarding absence of any legislative mandate for it.

We, at the Peoples’ SAARC, a parallel process to the official SAARC aimed at presenting the South Asian civil societies’ collective voices on pressing regional issues, have convened a series of country processes to evolve consensus on the future direction of the SAARC, and consolidated the outcomes of these country initiatives into this regional Civil Society Memorandum which is submitted today to the official 17th SAARC Summit for its urgent consideration.

We, the participants of the People’s SAARC India Assembly 2011 met in Thiruvanathapuram on 8-9 November 2011 to affirm our commitment to justice, peace and democracy in the region. We also affirm and commit ourselves to the vision of an alternative political, social, economic and cultural system that enables social and sustainable development in the region that will do away with discriminations based on gender, caste, religion, language and ethnicity . . .

Some sections of the Press have misquoted M. Pushparayan, a member of our Struggle Committee, as saying: "If she (Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu) is satisfied and advises us on that point we have no problem on allowing work to restart at the first unit." Pushparayan and the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) categorically deny having made such a statement as we want the KKNPP project to be scrapped completely.