South Asia Citizens Web

Dawn
Was Indira Gandhi low on oxygen in Leh to have ordered Siachen fiasco?
A seemingly intractable problem stalking India and Pakistan is their inability to say sorry, mea culpa, and move on. The mulish tendency has led to absurd levels of crises, including nuclear close calls, which would be considered anathema in most cases even among very hostile neighbours.
Conciliatory efforts are discouraged. I remember the bemused face of a Pakistani delegate at a Track III peace conference in (…)

From Tehelka Magazine, April 25, 2009
A Darkness Unforgotten
As charred bodies lay in hundreds, it was the utter silence that was haunting
The Denial of party election tickets to Congress leaders Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar is little recompense to the over 3,000 Sikhs who died in the pogrom following then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in October 1984. The wave of ethnic cleansing that raged unchecked for nearly three days across the country after Mrs Gandhi was shot (…)

The News
The tenant commandments
Confrontation between the tenants and the security forces at Okara military farms pushes AMP into action
By Aoun Sahi
The murder of three tenants allegedly by an agriculture land contractor of the military farm in Kulyana Estate, Okara, on April 6, 2009, has once again brought to light the growing tension between the farm authorities and the tenants in the region.
On April 7, 2009, thousands of tenants from different military farms gathered at Chak (…)

Kashmir Times, 20 April 2009
Editorial
Defending the indefensible
Army chief’s objectionable observations on repeal of draconian AFSPA and reduction of troops
The assertion by the Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor that the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act cannot be repealed and that there is no question of reduction of troops from the civilian areas in Jammu and Kashmir makes its obvious that contrary to its claims the Indian state is not in a mood to honour the Prime Minister’s (…)

Mainstream, Vol 47, 18 April 2009
P.C. Joshi: A Biography by Gargi Chakravartty; National Book Trust, New Delhi; 2007; pages 119; Rs 30; ISBN 978-81-237-5052-1.
The crowning of Atal Behari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the Prime Minister of India on May 16, 1996, even if for just 16 days, formally ended the political domination of the Congress. Since then India has been ruled not by any single party but by an alliance of parties. The Communist Party of India (CPI) and (…)