Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire

  • New Delhi’s war on beggars

    by Harsh Mander, 2 February 2009

    Sunday Magazine, The Hindu, January 25, 2009
    The war against begging
    Being destitute in our country has been made a crime. And the punishment is often inhumane…
    From time to time, governments declare war on beggars. These despised and dispensable individuals, who live customarily by alms, can never hope to win a battle against such a powerful adversary as the State. Instead, they deploy their own time-tested weapons: a stubborn, if fatalist, resolve to survive, as they have against so (…)

  • Pakistan: Can religious extremism be countered with out secular alternatives ?

    by Afiya S. Zia, 2 February 2009

    Dawn
    Extremism is a thin line
    Several commentators have expressed their concern and disbelief in the media, over the growing violence and escalating socio-political changes observed in Swat in the past few months.
    While one can understand the common citizen’s empathy and outrage against the injustices committed by the militants, it is surprising why social scientists who are writing in the papers are a) wondering why the militants are waging such a successful war beyond the tribal (…)

  • UK: Rise in the market for fatwas and book burning and decline of secular space

    by Kenan Malik, 2 February 2009

    The Sunday Times
    Twenty years ago a fatwa was imposed on Salman Rushdie, but as Kenan Malik explains, Islam’s outrage touched more than one man - it altered us all
    On February 14, 1989, a fatwa requiring Rushdie’s execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
    It was 20 years ago this month that Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced his fatwa on Salman Rushdie. "I inform all zealous Muslims of the world", he proclaimed, "that the author of the book entitled The (…)

  • Anatomy of India’s Taliban

    by Jawed Naqvi, 2 February 2009

    Dawn
    Last week’s vigilante-style attacks on young revellers in a pub in the BJP-ruled Karnataka state could be seen as an attempt to “Talibanise India” as a government minister feared.
    Or it could be dismissed as mere hooliganism, as some newspapers would want us to believe. The innocuous-looking violence can actually be better explained as a continuing facet of a global phenomenon that began during the Cold War, when religion became a handy tool in the cat-and-mouse game of the (…)

  • Ecologists file law suits agianst illegal acquisition of lands and privatisation of lakes

    by Leo Saldanha, 2 February 2009

    On 2nd Feb 2009, World Wetland Day, the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka will hear two major PIL efforts on two high controversial projects in Karnataka.
    The High Court will hear a batch of connected PILs and Contempt Petitions relating to the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project - a major reason for controversy being the excessive and illegal acquisition of lands unconnected to the project, especially about 20 lakes that have been destroyed by M/s Nandi Infrastructure Corridor (…)

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