South Asia Citizens Web

THE Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) has asked all its members to march to parliament next month on a common charter and called for a united front for intensified action. The DUJ announced this programme while observing the “Save Journalism Day” on November 16. On the occasion, veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar released a booklet titled Press for Sale: Watchdog Unmasked.

President Obama visited the former home of peace activist Mahatma Gandhi in India today. Basharat Peer on Gandhi’s forgotten fight for freedom from tyranny—and why Obama won’t push the issue on his trip.

Greater transparency is an important step towards corruption-free administration. This is one important lesson from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).

The failures of the MGNREGA are the handiwork of the powerful elite and an entrenched self-serving bureaucracy. Workers are paying the price and landmark legislation is being undermined through the failure of policy makers and administrators to do their job. Finally the country will pay the price in fundamental, basic ways.

“Why aren’t you writing about Irom Sharmila?” demanded Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Peace Laureate and Iranian human rights lawyer, in a media meet in Delhi in 2006. Sharmila had been fasting for six years protesting army atrocities in Manipur under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Ebadi’s vehement support had given a fillip to Sharmila’s protest. But the Government was unmoved.

This week, Sharmila completed ten years of her hunger strike. On 2 November 2000, Assam Rifles troops had arbitrarily shot dead 10 civilians waiting at a bus stop at Malom, Manipur. Sharmila, then a poet and human rights worker of 28, demanded a repeal of the inhuman Act and went on her fast unto death.