Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire

  • India: Before the storm broke [in Lalgarh]

    by Monobina Gupta, 9 July 2009

    Express Buzz, 1 July 2009
    As recently as two months ago Lalgarh, now poised on a dangerous cusp of violence, was just a sliver of land, nestling among luminous green fields, hillocks and a gently flowing Kangasabati river. Had I not travelled in April to this tiny corner of rural Bengal, I could have been taken in by reports of protracted Maoist violence wracking the tribal outpost for months. Surprisingly, Lalgarh was not even a fleck on the horizon of the Left government as late as last (…)

  • India: Compel government to implement police reforms ordered by Supreme Court

    by S R Darapuri, 9 July 2009

    Mail Today, 8 July 2009
    On July 3, Dehradun police staged a fake encounter in which Ranveer Singh, an MBA graduate who was going to join his new assignment, was killed in cold blood. According to the details of the incident, the deceased along with one or two friends, as alleged by the police, were riding a motorbike. They were stopped by the police at a check post.
    It appears that the police men misbehaved with them as usual and the boys might have objected to it.
    This might have (…)

  • Why India’s Section 377 ruling is not Stonewall

    by Yasmin Nair, 9 July 2009

    India’s Delhi High Court issued a ruling about Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code July 2, marking a historic day for the country’s LGBTQ population. For over a century, S. 377 codified the prohibition of "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." It should be noted that S. 377 has not been overturned; it has been "read down" so that consensual homosexual sex is no longer criminalized.

  • India: Women’s groups and feminists should be particularly encouraged by the Delhi court decision on section 377

    by Ratna Kapur, 9 July 2009

    The Delhi high court judgement on Section 377 is nothing short of historic, bold and revolutionary in ways that extend beyond the rights of gays
    and lesbians. Section 377 penalises sodomy, an act for which persons could be punished with death and burnt alive in late 13th century Britain.

  • India: Gay but not quite happy

    by Jawed Naqvi, 9 July 2009

    Dawn, 9 July 2009
    An apocryphal story told by the late Prof A.M. Khusro when he was vice chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University goes thus: in 1603 James VI of Scotland became England’s first Stuart monarch.
    Within 10 days of arriving in London, he demanded that Shakespeare’s troupe come under his own patronage. So they were granted a royal patent and changed their names to the King’s Men, in honour of King James.
    One day, waiting for The Merchant of Venice to begin, the king asked his (…)

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