South Asia Citizens Web

Bail Application filed on behalf of 63 workers of ’Graziano Transmissioni’, who were arrested on 22.9.2008, on the charge of murder of Chief Executive Officer of the said company, Lalit Kishore Chaudhary, has been rejected by the Court of Sessions at Noida (Gautam Budhha Nagar), Uttar Pradesh. It is noteworthy that out of these 63 workers only 19 were in fact named in the First Information Report, got lodged by the employers themselves. No arrests however, were made from the spot of incident (…)

The Hindu, 26 October 2008
When the Third Shivaji speaks
Mavericks like Bal Thackeray create no dynasties; worse, they leave behind a greater chaos than they were able to create.
How this same rabble-rousing rhetoric found a resonance in the hearts of the jobless youth, the discontented lower middle class, the working class and the lumpen is a mystery.
Aging and ailing: Thackeray’s public appearances have become rare.
It is the evening of the Dussehra Day. I am watching the Marathi (…)

The News, November 06, 2008
Habit of dishonesty
Throughout his nearly nine years in office, former president Pervez Musharraf spoke of eradicating corruption and loudly proclaimed his own honesty at every available occasion.
The report is now surfacing that hundreds of acres of military land in Dera Ismail Khan were quietly allocated to two key leaders of the MMA, Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI-F and then NWFP chief minister Akram Durrani, as a bribe to ensure the silence of the (…)

counterpunch.org, November 7 / 9, 2008
Barack Obama has appointed John Podesta to run his transition. During the lean years of the Bush administration, Podesta, native of Chicago, ran a shadow cabinet for the Democrats. Since 2003, the home of this government-in-exile has been the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank set-up to rival the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. The money, about $10 million per year, came from George Soros, Peter Lewis, (…)

New Statesman, 6 November 2008
Mutiny in the mountains
In Kashmir, a wave of peaceful mass protests against Indian rule has been put down with ferocity. The capital city of Srinagar has now become an open prison to its citizens
An open prison: a policeman guards Dal Lake during a strict curfew imposed at the start of October as a reaction to the resumption of protests after Ramadan
One afternoon in August this year, I left a magazine office near the East Village in New York after an (…)