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For many years we have been witnessing women being prevented to participate in the electoral process both as voters and candidates. Shamelessly, despite their cutthroat competition, the religious and so-called liberal parties engaged in this fraud. And the Election Commission of Pakistan has never taken any action against this clear violation of its code of conduct. In addition, the state has been ominously silent on the closure and burning of girls’ schools and women’s colleges (…)

As journalists from South Asia, we have been deeply saddened by the horrific killings in Mumbai and are also deeply concerned about the fallout of rising India-Pakistan tensions on the entire region.

We call upon all media professionals, especially in the television networks, to observe restraint in reportage and interpretation, and to be careful to avoid imbalance.

(Published earlier in: The Statesman, 25 January 2009)
Two major scams – the DDA housing allotments and the Satyam scandal – have hit the headlines almost simultaneously. Both developments follow the lynching of the PWD engineer MK Gupta by BSP goons led by its MLA, Shekhar Tewari, in UP’s Auraiya town. He had refused to raise Rs 50 lakhs for chief minister Mayawati’s birthday bash.
The housing allotment and the Satyam scam highlight the level of corruption in the country. The UP (…)

A 20 member Peace Mission (Aman Karwan) from Pakistan visited India from January 21-24, 2009.
List of Delegates Mr. Haji Muhammad Adeel (Senator Awami National Party)Ms. Farzana Adeel (Wife)Mr. Ali Haroon Shah (former member Provincial Assembly & member of working committee PML N)Ms. Asma Jahangir (Chairperson HRCP)Mr. Ibn Abdur Rehman (IA Rehman) Senior Journalist & Bureau member of South Asian for Human Rights (SAHR)Ms. Salima Hashmi (Artist &Human Rights Activist)Mr. Iqbal (…)

Israel’s ‘security’ agenda has seen the country come close to a tragic re-enactment of the policies of ethnic hatred and extermination that accounted for the suffering of its own people.
While both countries are undermined by hawkish nationalists and religious zealots, Israel and India fortunately share powerful and humane dissident traditions.