South Asia Citizens Web

Instead of immediately banning the import of potentially deadly asbestos, the proposed free trade agreement between India and Canada will boost asbestos trade. In such a backdrop, talks on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the two countries is quite sad and disturbing and has been denounced by the environmental, labour & health groups. The groups demanded that ban asbestos trade must be deemed a pre-condition for future negotiations on CEPA.

Quite likely, someone will be knocking at your door a few weeks from now and asking for your fingerprints. If you agree, your fingerprints will enter a national database, along with personal characteristics (age, sex, occupation, and so on) that have already been collected from you, unless you were missed in the “Census household listing” earlier this year.

The purpose of this exercise is to build the National Population Register (NPR). In due course, your UID (Unique Identity Number, or “Aadhaar”) will be added to it. This will make it possible to link the NPR with other Aadhaar-enabled databases, from tax returns to bank records and SIM registers. This includes the Home Ministry’s NATGRID, smoothly linking 21 national databases.

The sentencing to death of a Christian woman on charges of blasphemy by a sessions court in Nankana Sahib has created an uproar in Pakistan. The Aasia Bibi case has touched a raw nerve among thousands of people for more than one reason. The trigger for her ordeal to become a test case for our independent judiciary to do justice without prejudice is obvious. The woman is clearly a victim rather than a blasphemer. She has suffered incarceration for a year over just the kind of charges the blasphemy laws have been used in Pakistan for: to settle personal scores, build pressure for property disputes or simply browbeat minority communities into emigration or life as third class citizens.

Maheshwar Hydro Power Corporation Ltd. and the [Madhya Pradesh] State Government have completely failed to provide agricultural land and rehabilitation to the thousands of farmers, workers, kevats and kahars affected by the Maheshwar dam.

Pakistan’s government should immediately introduce legislation to repeal the country’s blasphemy law and other discriminatory legislation, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should also take legal action against Islamist militant groups responsible for threats and violence against minorities and other vulnerable groups, Human Rights Watch said.