South Asia Citizens Web

“Campaign Reservation Express” in support of Women Reservation Bill, to be passed in its present form in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies is going to be launched on May 20, 2010 from Jhansi, city with historical significance for Women Struggle

A great deal of new evidence concerning the 26 November 2008 terrorist attacks in Bombay has emerged over the past year. This includes the book Who Killed Karkare: The Real Face of Terrorism in India by S.M.Mushrif, a former police officer with a distinguished record, who uses news reports during and just after the attacks to question the official story; the book To the Last Bullet by Vinita Kamte (the widow of Ashok Kamte) and Vinita Deshmukh; revelations concerning Hemant Karkare’s bullet-proof jacket and post-mortem report; the David Coleman Headley trial; and the trial of Ajmal Kasab, Fahim Ansari and Sabauddin Shaikh.

Today, the police have killed one person in Kalinganagar and critically injured at least thirty more; at the proposed POSCO plant site in Jagatsinghpur, Orissa, 25 platoons of police have been deployed to crush the people defending their land. They expect an attack tomorrow or the day after.

As national platforms of democratic forest movements, with more than 200 organisational members spread across the country, we unequivocally condemn this brutality. But such atrocities are not occurring in isolation. Operation Green Hunt and the increasing miitarisation of the conflict in central India is wreaking devastation in our homelands and closing the space for democratic struggles.

The government of India had made a solemn commitment in Parliament in the matter of undoing the predatory actions perpetrated by state agencies on tribal lands and of restoration of the same; but even after more than two decades, the commitment is yet to be honoured.