South Asia Citizens Web

As we rush around for last-minute holiday shopping, we shouldn’t forget the sacrifices made by workers who make the products we buy. Just last week, young garment workers in Ashulia, Bangladesh jumped from windows on the 10th and 11th floors when a fire overtook the Ha-Meem factory. At least 25 workers were killed on the job, where they were sewing clothes for familiar brand names and stores like the Gap, Wrangler, JC Penny, Sears, Target and Abercrombie and Fitch.

Civil society and human rights organisations, trade union activists and lawyers formed the “Citizens for Democracy” alliance to launch a campaign to amend the blasphemy laws. [in Pakistan]

In the early eighties when the murmurs of protest were taking shape against the Sardar Sarovar Dam then no one had thought that the reverberations of ‘Narmada Bachao, Manav Bachao’ [Save Narmada, Save Humanity] will continue nearly three decades after that. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, the seeds of which were sown in 1985, has continued to challenge the Dam, the technocratic model of development, and kept the flag of resistance and justice afloat for the communities in the valley who are facing submergence, loss of livelihood, cultural heritage, and environmental disaster.

On 27 December 2010 a major protest meeting against the Chhattisgarh court sentence of life imprisonment of Dr. Binayak Sen was held at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. The protest had been called by PUDR, AISA, PUCL, PUCL Delhi, Anhad, HRLN, Delhi Film Archive, JTSA, Delhi Solidarity Group, AIPWA, Saheli, CAVOW, Foundation for Media Professionals, Jan Sanskriti Manch, The Group, Arundhati Roy, Kamal Chenoy, Swami Agnivesh, Harsh Mander and many other organizations and individuals

Reports on the blatant bias of certain nationalised banks in Punjab towards migrant labourers points to the pernicious nature of racism in India.