South Asia Citizens Web

Considering the Fukushima nightmare, the police harassment and the DAE Chief’s announcement that the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) would go critical in September, we decided to embark on an indefinite hunger strike. We made it very clear that our strike would be completely nonviolent and we would follow the Gandhian ethos and practices. Some five to seven thousand people from Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari districts gathered in front of the St. Lurdes’s church at Idinthakarai.

Victim survivors and Citizens for Justice and Peace welcome the judgement passed by the Honourable Supreme Court in the Zakia Ahsan Jafri & Citizens for Justice and Peace SLP 1088/2008 today. The order is annexed to this press release.

The nation heaved a sigh of relief when Anna Hazare broke his fast (August 2011). The breaking of the fast with coconut water offered by a dalit and a Muslim girl was an attempt to project as if Anna’s upsurge represents all the sections of society and is not just having a narrow social base of elite middle class. Now as the matters stand a large section of dalits and Muslims are standing up to raise their voices against the ‘Anna claim’ that it is an inclusive upsurge. Congress in its frustration said that Anna Hazare is an agent of RSS, how far is this true?

Unique Identification (UID): A Primer. The Government of India has embarked upon an ambitious exercise to provide a "unique identification" (or UID) number to every resident of the country. Each number is to be connected with three types of biometric data: iris scans, fingerprints (all ten fingers) and a picture of the face.
Meanwhile, the UID project has raised many questions related for instance to privacy, civil liberties, financial costs, and even technical feasibility. Even the Planning Commission is concerned that disquieting "test results" of the UID project have been ignored. . .

The debate on the recently promulgated Industrial Relations Ordinance 2011 has offered the trade unions an opportunity to call for a thorough review of the basic premises of labour legislation adopted by the Ayub regime in 1959, in contravention of the principles followed till then. Some of the points made by them merit serious attention.