South Asia Citizens Web

[Lakbima News, 25 January 2009 >http://www.lakbimanews.lk/special/spe7.htm]
The defeat of the LTTE will enable the Tamil community to rebuild democratic politics but the government must make the minorities feel that they have a stake in Sri Lanka’s future, says Ahilan Kadirgamar, spokesman for the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, an international network of mainly Tamil human rights and democracy activists. He also warns that the Rajapaksa regime is attempting to entrench itself as an oligarchy. (…)

Asia Society
NEW YORK, December 15, 2008 - Novelist Amitav Ghosh and philosopher and cultural theorist Kwame Anthony Appiah discuss Ghosh’s new historical novel Sea of Poppies at the Asia Society. (1 hr., 23 min.)

[Magazine / The Hindu, 25 January 2009 >http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/01/25/stories/2009012550010100.htm]
Conversations about history
As the media representations of the Mumbai terror attacks demonstrated, we can’t do justice to contemporary events unless we understand our own history better. Renowned historian and winner of the prestigious Kluge Prize in 2008, Romila Thapar says heritage is too important a matter to be left to those with partisan political agendas. Excerpts from a (…)

Guns or butter? Schools or bullets? Tanks or hospitals? Gunpowder or milkpowder?

The Indian Express, 20 January 2009
Fog of war
by Vinay Sitapati
In a speech to Congress nine days after 9/11, US President George W. Bush declared “war” on terror. It seemed as innocuous a phrase then, as it is commonplace now. But re-categorising a ‘law enforcement’ problem as ‘war’ was a game-changer in two ways. First, war demands that we rally around the leader; questioning abuse of power can be unpatriotic. Second, since war is ugly business, mistakes happen. Some collateral (…)