South Asia Citizens Web

A book review of The God Market: How Globalisation Is Making India More Hindu by Meera Nanda; Random House India.

It is the face of the Bhopal gas tragedy. The photograph of an unnamed child, barely out of infancy, looking out with an unrelenting gaze upon the world from the soil of a newly dug grave, was taken soon after the gas leak from the Union Carbide factory. It continues to symbolise the incalculable human cost of the world’s worst industrial calamity. Today, a full 25 years later, another generation of children, born to parents from the gas-affected, poverty-stricken neighbourhoods of the city, continue to bear the footprint of that fateful night when a cloud of deadly methyl isocyanate enshrouded the area.

The norms and rules of civil decorum in the National Assembly of Pakistan (NA) seem to have been compromised on Friday. Unfortunately irrationality reared its ugly head on the fourth day of the Assembly’s budget debate. Maulvi Asmatullah — recently separated from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) — shocked many during Assembly proceedings by loudly reciting the azaan from his desk whilst facing the chair rather than the Kaaba.

A daylong People’s Convention on IDPs, Detainees and War Crimes in Sri Lanka was held in New Delhi on June 7, 2010 just before Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s visit to India beginning June 8. It was jointly organised by several organisations and institutions. The Convention adopted a Statement on the Sri Lankan Situation (alongwith a Roadmap for Dignified Resettlement, Reconcilliation and Durable Political Solution in Sri Lanka that was incorporated as an annexure to the Statement).

Bhopal Accident - In this short 3 minute video, learn about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the world’s worst industrial disaster, that took place in the city of Bhopal, India.