South Asia Citizens Web

What can India learn from Japan? And what can India teach the world? How a nation copes with disaster is a sign of its democracy’s health — and whether it can move beyond mere technofixes and plumbing stereotypes

The plan of the Government of Chhattisgarh is very clear, which is to use the front of the Salwa Judum and SPOs and push these people out from their villages into either migrating out of their homelands into the Salwa Judum camps or to join the IDPs in Khammam, AP or go deeper into the forest area and join the Maoists or stay in the village and die of hunger. This tactics is not new. All this is being done in order to shrink the mass base of the Maoists.

Justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done: This is a well-worn cliché that sums up the rigour and application that any process of justice delivery must observe to withstand the exacting test of public scrutiny. When the crimes to be investigated are mass crimes directed against a particular section of the population on account of their religious faith, and when the political party in power represents discriminatory, not constitutional, governance, this task requires from such a commission – apart from the time-tested norms of independence and integrity – both moral and physical fortitude. The Justice BK Somasekhara Commission report on the sustained attack on 57 Christian churches and prayer halls in Karnataka in 2008, released in part on January 28, 2011, unfortunately fails to meet this test on all counts.

the politically conscious and democratically oriented sections of society, especially the women’s rights organisations, need to realise that protection of women’s rights is hardly a top priority for the mainstream political parties and that they need to organise themselves, mobilise public opinion and sustain pressure for a women development policy that truly ensure women’s equal rights in every sphere.