Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire

  • India: Irom Sharmila’s 10-year-fast is ignored

    by Kalpana Sharma, 26 December 2009

    A 10-day-fast can result in talks for a separate state for Telangana but a 10-year-fast to demand the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from Manipur results in nothing.

  • India: Will My Fast Against Violence and Dispossesion Help the Adivasis?

    by Himanshu Kumar, 25 December 2009

    In a country, where most Adivasi men women and children suffer from chronic hunger, and are often starved, hunger can hardly be a form of protest. I can only express solidarity with their sufferings. So as I decide to go on voluntary self purificatory fast as long as my strength permits. I am not protesting, but requesting all of us to look inwards and seek justice in our own eyes.

  • India: Corporate Crimes and Environmental plunder

    by Champa – the Amiya and B.G.Rao Foundation, 25 December 2009

    In Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa private mining companies enjoy vast illegal mining empires – and the corporate loot of resources is closely linked to political power. Meanwhile, resistance by Adivasi people – at Kalinganagar, Niyamgiri and Narayanpatna – has been met with savage repression and police firings. This offensive has intensified with the ongoing Central Government military offensive, ostensibly aimed at ‘Maoists’, but in fact clearing the way for mining operations

  • Nepal: Shrinking space for compromise; India should’nt flame tensions

    by Asian Centre for Human Rights, 24 December 2009

    Asian Centre for Human Rights
    NEPAL: PAX INDIANUS CRUMBLES
    BP/NP/04-09 23 December 2009
    Table of contents
    – I. Introduction
    – II. Shrinking space for compromise
    – III. India’s damaging role
    – IV. Consequences of Indian policy in Nepal
    – V. Dangerously stalled peace process
    – VI. Direct Indian interference
    – VII. The Phantom of Insurrection
    – VIII. Consequences of Indian support
    – IX. Impunity and the peace process
    – X. Rightward Shift
    – XI. Consequences for India

  • India’s Ruling Elites, Mineral Resources and Jharkhand

    by Dev Nathan, Harishwar Dayal, 24 December 2009

    Why are politicians and bureaucrats in Jharkhand uninterested in spending central development funds even when the state is so backward? And why are they not apprehensive about what this would do to their electoral fortunes? The Madhu Koda case supplies the answers. The ruling elite relies on a share of the rents or super profits from issuing licences for the state’s massive mineral resources. And the vote-gathering system is largely based on kinship and community ties, rather than on interest groups demanding various benefits.

elsewhere on the web