Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire

  • The Kalinga Effect

    by Ananya Vajpeyi, 13 April 2009

    Economic Times, 11 April 2009
    In the April 2009 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Robert D Kaplan has published a story about Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, titled ’India’s New Face’. At the moment, Modi is billed as the BJP’s alternate candidate for PM, should the right-wing Hindu nationalist party win India’s 15th general election in May 2009 and in case L K Advani has to opt out for some reason. Kaplan reports his conversations with many people, including Modi himself, in which he (…)

  • German Afghan Women’s Rights Activist Killed in Kandahar

    13 April 2009

    Taliban shoot dead Afghan politician who championed women’s rights Two gunmen behind killing in Kandahar Legislator’s colleagues had warned her of attack
    Jon Boone in Kabul The Guardian, Monday 13 April 2009
    A leading female Afghan politician was shot dead yesterday after leaving a provincial council meeting in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, which her colleagues had begged her not to attend.
    Sitara Achakzai was attacked by two gunmen as she arrived at her home in a rickshaw - a (…)

  • Celebrating Najma Akhtar, and her associates who built Bangladesh’s women garment workers trade union

    by Hana Shams Ahmed, 13 April 2009

    The Invisible Millions
    Standing Up and Standing Out
    [Daily Star, March 7, 2008]
    Begum Rokeya’s ‘Sultana’s Dream’ was an early work of fantasy fiction. But if any group of women have come close to achieving that state, it is the 18 lakh garment workers in the 4,500 factories all over the country. In a society where a woman’s first responsibility is always seen as the caretaker of the house and mother to her children, where her career is secondary to her husband’s, it is these garment (…)

  • BJP’s idea of a theocratic India gives heart to the religious caboodle in Pakistan

    by Jawed Naqvi, 13 April 2009

    The affinity between the Pakistani establishment and the BJP is not recent. It is grounded in a common ideological corner they shared during the Cold War. A large number of Pakistanis seem to prefer the rightwing religious revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to rule India.

  • Educated To Hate: Thanks to The Ekal Vidyalaya Schools of the Hindu Right

    by Communalism Combat, 13 April 2009

    Ekal Vidyalayas, or one-teacher schools, are run by the Friends of Tribals Society (FTS), one of the many wings of the Sangh Parivar.

    A Committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and headed by Avdhash Kaushal reported on Ekal
    Vidyalaya schools in the Singhbhum district in Jharkhand and in the Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts in Assam. The
    Committee’s report, submitted to the MHRD in 2005, brings out the communalisation that is rampant in these schools and in their curriculum and textual materials.

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