South Asia Citizens Web

We are writing this letter in support of a network of thousands of mothers across Japan who fear the devastation resulting from the tsunami on March 11th and the grossly negligent government policies since its occurrence. We believe the government’s negligence will have more adverse consequences than the already catastrophic impact of the tsunami and resulting radiation exposure. An almost certain rise in cancer rates for millions of people is the best case scenario from the continued leakage from Fukushima Daiichi reactors No. 1, 2, 3, and 4. It is our intention to limit the exposure of human beings to this risk to the greatest extend possible.

What better way to end the festive season than to donate generously to a fundraising drive (literally) for the Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Centre (SIRC)?

Will they bash up universities in Jakarta and other places for teaching different versions of the Ramayana?’ An interview with noted historian Romila Thapar

In case anyone has missed the point, the essay in question is not a pamphlet written by a provocateur: it is a scholarly essay published by a university press and aimed principally at an academic readership. Which makes it even harder to understand why the highest academic body of India’s most important liberal arts university, the University of Delhi, would choose to override expert opinion and remove it from an undergraduate syllabus. Especially when doing so would suggest, whether the academic council intended this or not, that the university had caved in to violent intimidation. [. . .] The reason Hindutva militants attacked this essay is not difficult to understand. Hindutva seeks to re-make the diversity of Hindu narratives and practices into a uniform faith based on standardized texts.

76 secularists and human rights campaigners, including Mina Ahadi, Nawal El Sadaawi, Marieme Helie Lucas, Hameeda Hussein, Ayesha Imam, Maryam Jamil, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasrin, Farida Shaheed, Fatou Sow, and Stasa Zajovic have signed on to a Manifesto for a Free and Secular Middle East and North Africa.

In light of the recent pronouncements of the unelected Libyan Transitional Council for ‘Sharia laws’, the signatories of the manifesto vehemently oppose the hijacking of the protests by Islamism or US-led militarism and unequivocally support the call for freedom and secularism made by citizens and particularly women in the region.