Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire

  • Petition to: Stop the Carnage in Swat and FATA / Stop the Taliban from Ending Girls Education

    by sacw.net, 17 January 2009

    Child Rights Movement
    Petition to Stop the Carnage in Swat and FATA Stop the Talibans from Ending Girls Education
    To Our Leaders, Decision and Opinion Makers The Honorable, President of Pakistan Prime Minister of Pakistan Chief of Army Staff Director Inter-Services Intelligence Federal Ministers and Secretaries for Interior, Information, Education, Human Rights and Social Welfare & Special Education/NCCWD Governor NWFP Chief Minister NWFP Chief Ministers Sindh, Baluchistan & (…)

  • Vibrant Gujarat: Lies, Half Truths and Illusions

    by Fr. Cedric Prakash sj, 17 January 2009

    sacw.net
    It is January 14th 2009.....Makarsakranti, the only feast of the Indian calendar which is not observed on a particular day of the Lunar month. It is generally believed that on this day, the sun enters the constellation of Makar (crocodile) and begins to move towards the north. In Gujarat, it is known as Uttarayan, the day on which thousands of kites dot the skies in order to propitiate the Sun-God. The newspapers today (as those of yesterday) are filled with stories of (…)

  • Manufacturing compulsions of national security

    by Ashok Mitra, 16 January 2009

    The Telegraph
    A Great Confidence Trick
    Why has the Centre set up a National Investigation Agency?
    Whom are the authorities hoping to fool?
    Ten young men, armed to the hilt with artillery and explosives that are products of the state-of-the-art terror technology, quietly land in Mumbai, saunter into three or four locations of high visibility and hold the city to ransom for three ghastly nights and days. They make a merry bonfire of this country’s security. They must have planned the (…)

  • ’Good Boys’, Character Making and The Nation

    by Subhash Gatade, 16 January 2009

    sacw.net
    ’Na Taala Toota na tijori, Phirbhi BJP Mukhyalaya se dhai karod chori’ (Neither the lock was broken nor the safe, Still 2.5 crore Rs were stolen from the Party headquarters.) - A SMS which was circulated widely in the journalist community.
    What is the weight of 2.5 crore Rs. if one decides to have the whole amount packed in the denomination of Rs.1,000 notes ? It is exactly 31 kilograms. Please do not get surprised over my correct reply. I just wanted to share few details of the (…)

  • Why Pakistan chose to honor Charlie Wilson is beyond everyone, even the Texans

    by Fatima Bhutto, 16 January 2009

    The Daily Beast
    My Charlie Wilson War
    Why is the University of Texas naming a chair of Pakistan Studies after the notorious U.S. congressman who helped destabilize that country? Fatima Bhutto—niece of the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto—demands an answer.
    Pakistan’s new government, the only in the world headed by two former convicts—who have their fingers on the button of a nuclear-armed state, no less—is nothing if not a keen purveyor of irony.
    There’s currently an effort (…)

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