South Asia Citizens Web

Ramdev is an empty slate on which the RSS can chalk plans to transform India into a Hindu Rashtra.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta: "The first act of this tragedy/farce was performed on Jantar Mantar with Anna Hazare as its central character – to the fanfare of television. Then we had an intermission marked by some variety entertainment, fake or not so fake CDs, ego battles and backroom intrigue. Now, that interval is over, the second act has begun and the acrobat called Ramdev appeared on stage, performing his contortions, playing to the gallery, setting the stage for a hairy-happy-clappy fascism that brooks no doubts about itself. Ramdev, like all fascists, loves talking about ‘revolution-kranti’. He has himself photographed triumphantly in front of Bhagat Singh’s statue in Delhi, with a bronze ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ flag billowing sculpturally behind him. . . He is all image, all costume, all ready for the show. But no, this is not Tahrir square. Not yet. No matter what television tells you. And nor are homophobic hysterics who call for death sentences at every provocation the likely agents of democratic transformation. Corruption is only their fetish. Tomorrow it will be something else. As Hartosh Singh Bal of Open Magazine remarked recently on a discussion in Times Now, Ramdev had demanded a war against Pakistan in the wake of 26/11. Tomorrow, Ramdev, or someone like him, may well go on hunger strike again, demanding a war, or that homosexuals be castrated or sent to prison or (like in Iran) sentenced to death for ‘corruption’."

Lawyers for Democracy (LfD) is shocked at the violence meted out to protesters at the Katunayake Free Trade Zone (FTZ) and calls for an immediate halt to such violent practices and an independent investigation as to what transpired.

POSCO PRATIRODH SANGRAM SAMITI Villages Dhinkia, Gadkujang, Nuagaon; Erasama Block, Jagatsinghpur -District, Odisha
CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES ATTACK WITHIN 24 HOURS’ TIME
Women, Children Beaten; Thousands Assembled on Village Border to Resist; Betel Vine Farms Illegally Destroyed, District Administration Threatening People Over Loudspeakers
Today, following two weeks of illegal land grabbing on the fringes of the POSCO area, the administration has announced it will begin the attack (…)

The dream of a lasting peace between Pakistan and India can’t happen unless their militaries get out of the way.