South Asia Citizens Web

Whatever the intention behind them, the new rules framed last month under the Information Technology Act, 2000 are likely to have a chilling effect on the development of the Internet as a medium of communication and information in India. Apart from the unreasonable restrictions on free speech they envisage, the rules raise serious concerns about the privacy of a citizen’s personal information

Sixteen years after Bangladesh endorsed the Beijing Plan of Action (1995) for gender equality at the UN Conference for Women, the Cabinet has finally okayed a National Policy for Women’s Development in 2011. Its earlier incarnation formulated in 1997, in consultation with women’s groups, and perhaps in deference to international commitments and aid promises never got off the ground. It then became hostage to fractionalized politics. A revisit to its history explains why the 2011 Policy remains conservative in limiting its recognition of women’s rights in the public sphere and how institutional weaknesses and bureaucratic conservatism can frustrate implementation.

Bangladesh govt must come clean and implement women’s development policy and not surrender to demands of the religious fundamentalist forces.

Going by the charged reaction to the Mukhtar Mai verdict, it is clear that loopholes in the investigation mechanism and the law need to be fixed. Women victims of violence in Pakistan do not find redress whether through the courts or the country’s policing and investigation apparatus.

[T]oday, secularism is in jeopardy in India. The main threat comes from the rise of Hindu militancy and its consequences not only for electoral politics, but also for the judiciary and society at large. The core belief of the Hindu nationalist movement, whose key organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was founded in 1925, is that the Indian identity is embodied in Hinduism, the oldest and largest religion of India. For decades the RSS has worked at the grass roots level, recruiting children who are taught to fight religions founded outside India and forming new fronts (that include student, labour and peasant groups).