South Asia Citizens Web

No less a person than the prime minister, while speaking to probationers of the Indian police service in the capital the other day, invoked a curious argument against the Maoists. He did not just make the usual criticism — that Maoists were attempting to overthrow the constitutional order by violent means. He went on to add: “If we don’t control Naxalism, we have to say goodbye to our country’s ambition to sustain a growth rate of 10 to 11 per cent per annum”. And this, he clarified, is because central India is where the bulk of the country’s mineral wealth lies. In short, 10 or 11 per cent growth rate is elevated to the status of a national goal. Anyone who opposes policies that seek to achieve this goal is therefore acting against the national interest, and is ipso facto anti-national.

Much on the lines of Maliq Qadri, the terrorist from Pakistan who was greeted with Rose Petals in Islamabad court, the Malegaon bombers comprising of Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragya, Dayanand Pandey and others were also showered with rose petals at the behest of RSS and other Hindutva organisations in India.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz was the first Asian poet who was awarded with the Lenin Peace Prize by the former Soviet Union in 1963. He was also nominated for the Nobel Prize shortly before his death in 1984. On the 100th birth anniversary of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, celebrations are underway in countries of South Asia (most notably in Pakistan and India). Posted below is a compilation of reports and essays

Under new rules being drafted by the Afghan government that women’s advocates say will deter the most vulnerable women and girls from seeking refuge and are placing shelters under siege.

The new rules speak to the suspicions that women’s shelters still generate in this deeply conservative society, where the shelters have come to symbolize the competition between modern values and traditional Afghan ways. Many believe their very existence at best encourages girls to run away from home and at worst are fronts for brothels.

selected commentary on the 18 day protest movement in Egypt that led to the downfall of Mubarak.