SACW | 14 Oct. 2003

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at mnet.fr
Tue Oct 14 21:11:33 CDT 2003


SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE   |  14 October,  2003

Announcements:
a)  The SACW web site is down, users are invited to use Google cache 
till further notice.
b) 'South Asia Counter Information Project' a back-up, archive area 
and sister site of SACW can be accessed at: 
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sacw/
c) All  SACW and associated list members in India wanting to consult 
web sites being blocked at  groups.yahoo.com   may openly bypass the 
'ban' via: http://anon.free.anonymizer.com/http://groups.yahoo.com
or http://proxify.com/

+++++

[1] Upcoming  'Pen and Peace Conference' in Pakistan
[2] India: "Ban Yatra Politics, End the Sacrificing of Innocent Lives 
in the Name of Religion"
- Press release by Citizens for Justice and Peace
[3] India: A Historic Compromise?: Centre-Left pact against BJP (Praful Bidwai)
[4] India: Our Ayodhya, and Ram's (Radha Kumar)
[5] India: ANHAD Dispatch on Workshops
[6] India: Ram Riot Spin Deployed. . . : Hindutva's Temple of Doom
[7] Calling For Electronic Civil Disobedience To Resist The Blocking 
of groups.yahoo.com in India

--------------

[1.]

DAWN, 14 October 2003

Indian writers to arrive on 17th
By A Reporter

ISLAMABAD, Oct 13: An 11-member delegation of Indian writers will 
arrive in Pakistan on Friday to participate in the 'Pen and Peace 
Conference' being organized at Lahore and Islamabad.
The delegation, led by Ajeet Kaur, will arrive in Lahore through the 
Wahga border on Friday at around 4pm.
The members of the delegation will cross the border on foot. They 
will be received by Dr Mubashar Hassan, Tahira Mazhar Ali, Kishwar 
Naheed, Fakhar Zaman and Munno Bhai on this side of the border.
Other members of the Indian delegation include Gopi Chand Narang, 
Jeelani Bano, Chitra Mugdal, Jagtar Singh, Dr Shehpar Rasool, Dr 
Syeda Hameed, Kiran Kaur Gujral, Manohar Shayam Joshi and Indra 
Goswami.
The writes represent seven different languages of India. The 'Pen and 
Peace Conference' is being organized by Hawwa Cooperatives, a 
non-governmental organization, in collaboration with ActionAid 
Pakistan.
Eminent writer, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi will inaugurate the Lahore 
function on Saturday at 4pm while in Islamabad, humorist Mushtaq 
Ahmed Yousafi will inaugurate the dialogue. The Indian writers will 
also meet Justice Dr Javed Iqbal (retired) during their stay in 
Lahore.

  0 0 0

[URL of Interest for people reading above report]
Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature
http://www.foundationsaarcwriters.com/index.htm

____

[2.]


Sabrang Alternative News Network

Citizens for Justice and Peace
October 13, 2003

Press Release
"Ban Yatra Politics, End the Sacrificing of Innocent Lives in the 
Name of Religion"

-----Appeal to the UP Chief Minister Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav
and to Union Home Minister & Deputy Prime Minister Shri LK Advani

Families of Godhra victims who's wives were burnt alive in the S-6 
Coach of the Sabarmati Express appeal for and end to the politics 
that takes innocent lives. They demand
a)      A Ban on Future Ayodhya Yatras especially the one planned 
from October    15, 2003

Four Victim Families who lost their wives/mothers.sisters in the 
gruesome mass burning of 59 innocent people on board the S-6 Coach of 
the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002 have appealed to the UP 
ChiefMinister Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav and Union Home Minister and 
Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani to immediately prohibit the planned 
rath yatra to Ayodhya on October 15, 2003.

In a fervent appeal made through Citizens for Justice and Peace, an 
organisation dedicated to struggling for justice to the victims of 
violence, they have made this appeal. Sworn affidavits accompany this 
appeal for peace and against the politicisation of religion.

The names of the Godhra victim families on who's behalf we are making 
this plea are:
Dr Girshbhai Rawal, 82 years old, lost his wife Sudhabehn in the 
Godhra tragedy and his son, Ashwinbhai when he was stabbed at Ramol 
on April 16, 2002. Ashwinbhai was the local Bajrang Dal President and 
a BJP card holder. Ashwinbhai's wife, Belabehn and 18 year-old 
daughter Khushboo; Bharatbhai Panchal, 40 years old lost his wife 
Jyotibehn in the Godhra tragedy. His daughter Shefali, now 16 years 
and son Dhawal; Prakashbhai Chodagar, 35 years old, lost his wife 
Nilimabehn (Amibehn) in the tragedy. Their children are Harsh, 8 
years and younger son, Meet (4 years); Sharadbhai Mhatre, 42 years, 
who lost his wife Malabehn.

The letter, a copy of which is attached, states that the Godhra 
victims " , have expressed their concern that these rath yatras 
invariably vitiates the atmosphere and become the cause or result of 
violence. The affidavits of some of these relatives are annexed. We 
also

believe that these yatras only serve political purposes. Moreover 
they have the searing impact of ripping apart the centuries' old 
harmony and lived secularism of Indian society which is also the 
basic structure and part of the Indian Constitution.

"Our country and the Indian polity has been held ransom to this 
politico-religious mobilisation for over almost two decades now and 
this must stop.
We apprehend that the yatra which is scheduled  to start on October 
15, 2003 will also lead to a cycle of communal violence and cause 
heightened insecurity among the minority communities all of which 
will further vitiate the already surcharged atmosphere in the 
country. In the context of what has happened during the similar 
yatras and agitations in the past,  we strongly urge and demand that 
you prevent the forthcoming rath yatra by issuing prohibitory orders 
and also ensure that there is no problem of outburst of violence and 
no problems concerning law and order."

Sworn affidavits of the victim families have also been attached to 
the letter. An excerpt from Dr Girishbhai Rawal's affidavit states:
"*After 19 months of loss, I say and submit that I feel that me and 
my entire family, as also other victims of the Godhra tragedy, have 
been made sacrificial goats by the VHP in their political game. I say 
this because my wife participated in the yatra spontaneously thinking 
it was a religious event. In her life and mine we did not share the 
communal sentiments that are part and parcel of the VHP/BJP's 
politics. Since this tragedy of the Godhra incident and our family 
members have been used by the VHP and the BJP to amass crores of 
rupees, here and abroad, and also win the last elections. Worst 
still, they were used for justifying the murders at Naroda and BEST 
Bakery have been shockingly committed and justified. Fifty-nine 
people burnt in Godhra and 2500 people massacred all over Gujarat! 
Who has done all these things and who has benefited this things? On 
many occasions the VHP and BJP have held functions with big names 
from the NRI world and collected large sums of money while they made 
us sit on the dias as scape goats. Where has this money gone and what 
has it been used for? 

* The Honourable Supreme Court should investigate the collection of 
funds and what they are used for by the VHP and BJP. Cassettes and 
CD's were made, T-shirts were distributed, all around the death of 59 
persons by burnings in the S6 coach in the Sabarmati Express. But 
those forces that are capitalizing on this tragedy have no concern 
for the poor and innocent lives lost, they are interested in their 
own politics and are again trying to begin one more yatra. As victims 
of Godhra burning, and personally as a father who has suffered his 
son's joining the VHP and becoming a victim of their hate propaganda 
by absorbing it in his heart and mind, I earnestly feel that all such 
yatras like the Ayodhya yatra which is political and not religious, 
which causes and uses violence should be banned. The Central 
government will not do it so it is up to the Honourable Supreme court 
to take this historic step.

* The investigation into the causes and fallout of the Godhra tragedy 
too are being suppressed by the current BJP establishment. The kind 
of threats and intimidation that are used to avoid fair testimony in 
Courts and before the Nanavaty-Shah Commission, and the fact that no 
real impartial truth has come out so far suggests clearly that unless 
the Honourable Supeme Court takes a direct and personal interest in 
the Godhra and Other Investigations, Justice will not be done. The 
police is completely under the sway of the BJP and VHP politics in 
the State and therefore we urge you to respond to our appeal in the 
matter. Even Courts in Gujarat cannot function free of the communally 
surcharged atmosphere which the establishment is doing nothing to 
diffuse. In fact statements of senior functionaries of the state and 
the center further aggravate the situation andpolice atrocities 
against innocent minorities continue."

The CJP will be following its commitment to file an intervention 
petition on behalf of the Godhra S-6 victims in the Supreme Court 
very shortly.

Teesta Setalvad
Secretary
Citizens for Justice and Peace
Shri Vijay Tendulkar (President), Shri IM Kadri (Vice President), 
Teesta Setalvad (Secretary)
Members: Shri Cyrus Guzder, Shri Titoo Ahluwalia, Shri Alyque 
Padamsee, Shri Javed Akhtar, Shri Ghulam Pesh Imam, Shri Nandan 
Maluste, Shri Anil Dharker and Shri Javed Anand


____


[3]

The Praful Bidwai Column
October 13, 2003

A Historic Compromise?
  Centre-Left pact against BJP

By Praful Bidwai

The latest round of Lok Sabha byelections in India, from Solapur in 
Maharashtra and Ernakulam in Kerala, have shaken up a number of 
party-political equations. Their results have been interpreted as a 
setback to the Congress, and generally, to the secular forces, and as 
a major gain for the Bharatiya Janata Party and its communal allies 
like the Shiv Sena. Some analysts have seen them as signs of weakness 
in the Congress's recently--and reluctantly--adopted strategy of 
building alliances with other parties. Some others have underscored 
their negative significance for Maharashtra's new Chief Minister 
Sushilkumar Shinde. This was the first byelection after he assumed 
that office, and that too from a seat he had vacated after three 
consecutive terms. More broadly, the results, many argue, show the 
tactlessness of the Congress's apex leadership.

There is a good deal of merit in this analysis. But the setback to 
the secular parties shouldn't be exaggerated. In fact, the election 
results strengthen, they do not weaken, the case for a broad-based, 
universal political front or alliance against the BJP. However, to 
start with, it must be conceded that the sheer margin of the 
Congress's defeat in Solapur (1.22 lakh votes) is eloquent and 
daunting. This is only partly explained by "anti-incumbency" which is 
no doubt in play given the shaky character and poor performance of 
Maharashtra's ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition. 
At least three other factors seem to have worked against the 
Congress: choice of candidate, non-cooperation by the NCP, and caste 
and community equations which it didn't fully reckon with.

Mr Anandrao Devkate, originally the Congress's third choice, became 
its candidate after the other two potential candidates (Mr Shinde's 
wife and Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh) turned down the ticket. Mr Devkate 
faced energetic opposition from the BJP's Maratha sugar-baron 
candidate Pratapsinh Mohite-Patil, who happens to be the brother of 
the NCP's senior leader and PWD minister Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil. The 
NCP simply didn't campaign for Mr Devkate. Besides, Solapur's 
Marathas (22 percent of the electorate) and Lingayats (40 percent) 
backed the BJP for caste reasons. And the constituency's Muslims (15 
percent) didn't vote for the Congress because they were antagonised 
by the communal use of POTA.

However, it would be wrong to conclude from this that the 
Congress-NCP alliance has no future and Mr Sharad Pawar's party can 
somehow align itself easily with the BJP/Shiv Sena. There is an 
organic solidarity and complementarity between the BJP and Sena. They 
are both Hindu-supremacist or -communal by ideological inclination, 
political programme and instinct. They belong to the conservative 
Right-wing part of the political spectrum. The NCP may have its 
flaws, even its incoherences, but it is not a communal party. Rather, 
it's a centrist party with a multi-caste, multi-religious base, 
including Muslims. It cannot join a coalition with the BJP/Sena 
without itself splitting. The Solapur result should jolt the Congress 
into coordinating its relations with secular allies far better, which 
it doesn't always do.

As for Kerala, the Congress lost the "super-safe" Ernakulam seat not 
to the communal forces, but to the Left Democratic Front--for the 
first time since 1967. In fact, before the results, there were 
apprehensions that the NDA would gain handsomely from the fight 
between the LDF and the Congress-led United Democratic Front, and 
that the former CPM leader and ex-Kerala Finance Minister A 
Viswanatha Menon, backed by the BJP, would scrape past both the LDF's 
Mr Sebastian Paul and the Congress' M.O. John, the Antony faction's 
candidate. In the event, the BJP's votes in Ernakulam declined from 
78,000 to just 51,000. Mr Menon came a poor third. Mr Paul won by 
22,000 votes. In 1999, the Congress had won Ernakulam with a big 1.11 
lakh margin. The latest rersult represents a huge, unprecedented 
transfer of votes to the LDF.

It is tempting, but totally wrong, to blame the result mainly on the 
Congress's internal factionalism, although that played a part in its 
defeat. The decisive factor was Mr Antony's policies and his handling 
of the Marad and Muthanga crises and his crushing of the non-gazetted 
employees' strike. He unleashed wanton repression upon Muthanga's 
Adivasis.  And in Marad, near Kozhikode, there were repeated 
Hindu-Muslim clashes in January and May, which forced 4,000 Muslims 
to flee their homes. The state government has failed to help the 
refugees return home. So unpopular was Mr Antony's governance record 
that even the Marad issue didn't lead to religious polarisation in 
the Congress's favour.

Mr Antony's main internal rival, the Karunakaran group, has sensed 
the changed public mood and made overtures to the CPM and joined it 
in attacking the Antony government for its "Hindu-communal" bias. 
This allegation isn't as far-fetched as it might sound despite Mr 
Antony's "clean" image. Recently, Mr Antony has shifted towards 
soft-Hindutva and made several statements about the "pampering" of 
Muslims. He has accused the minorities of grabbing "undeserved 
benefits" and causing a "social imbalance" via Gulf remittances.

It's possible to argue that the Karunakaran camp was driven not by a 
secular commitment, but by purely factional calculations in attacking 
Mr Antony. But that alone cannot explain why Mr K. Muraleedharan (Mr 
Karunakaran's son and state Congress president) said on October 2 
that "it is better for Congressmen to join hands with the Marxists 
rather than with the saffron brigade". The Karunakaran group, which 
controls 20 to 25 of the Congress's 65 MLAs, has set November 19 as 
the deadline for Mr Antony's removal. Mr Muraleedharan's proposal for 
a Congress-Communist alliance must be understood both within and 
beyond its local context. It's an appeal for a Grand Alliance or 
coalition against the BJP--a proposal for a "historic compromise" 
between two traditional enemies in Kerala (and West Bengal and 
Tripura): the Congress and the Communists. The least this calls for 
is serious national debate.

The "historic compromise" idea is worth pursuing in the form of a 
universal Centre-Left alliance against the Hindutva forces. This 
should aim to repeat the worthy one-seat-one (Opposition)-candidate 
principle which brought the Emergency-period Congress to its knees in 
1977. Such a strategy needs special unity and moral clarity within 
the Opposition. This clarity can only be founded on recognition of 
Hindutva's uniquely undesirable character and menace to democracy. To 
appreciate this, it's necessary to outline a number of premises:

? The BJP (with the Shiv Sena) is India's only significant political 
force which opposes the pluralist, multicultural and secular 
foundations of this society and politics and one of whose main 
objectives is to subvert the Constitution. This Hindutva agenda is 
reflected both in the BJP's long-term dedication to "divisive 
issues"--the Ram temple, abolition of the Kashmir-related Article 
370, and imposition of a Uniform Civil Code detached from a genuine 
gender-just, human rights-based, reform of personal laws--and in its 
practical support for the Ayodhya agitation, its attacks on 
Christians, and above all, its anti-Muslim pogroms.

? The BJP and Shiv Sena are extreme Right-wing parties which are 
incapable of internal reform or change towards democratic structures. 
They are controlled by unelected cabals and unaccountable cliques 
like the RSS over which neither the electorate nor even the 
administrative system can exercise any control. They are bonded to 
anti-parliamentary organisations, activities and programmes which 
dominate their cadres' formation and thinking. They consciously use 
communal violence as a strategy of political mobilisation.

? The BJP has pursued an especially malign set of policies--in 
economics, foreign affairs, security, and in social and gender 
matters. It leads Independent India's most conservative government. 
Its policies have weakened democratic structures and India's economic 
base and imposed considerable hardships upon the people, e.g., 
through the virtual dismantlement of Public Distribution of food.

? The BJP practises outrageously confrontationist and intimidatory 
politics, challenging and undermining the integrity of democratic and 
liberal institutions, such as parliamentary committees, including the 
Public Accounts Committee and Joint Parliamentary Committees, the 
Finance Commission, National Human Rights Commission, Election 
Commission, and sometimes, the Supreme Court. The latest example is 
its threat to privatise and bleed to death IndianOil Corporation, 
India's sole Fortune-500 company--as a revenge for the Supreme 
Court's stay on the sell-off of HPCL and BPCL.

? The BJP is converting India into an authoritarian "National 
Security" state by exaggerating and communalising "security threats"; 
and by imposing draconian laws. It has militarised society and 
doubled India's military expenditure over the past six years even 
while making the public more insecure. It is trying to turn India 
into a vassal state of the United States, while mindlessly pursuing a 
hostile policy towards Pakistan.

Voting the BJP out of the power is the topmost public priority 
today--and a precondition for India's re-secularisation and 
democratic advancement. But it is only on the basis of a principled 
and united Opposition, with the Centre-Left as its fulcrum, that the 
scourge of communalism, militarism and hypernationalism can be 
combated and eradicated. Only thus can our people's creative energies 
be unleashed and channelled into productive, democratic avenues. Or 
else, this country will become the world's social and intellectual 
backwater marked by endemic, widespread economic servitude and 
subjugation. That is not what the Indian public deserves in the 
Twentyfirst Century.-end-

_____


[4.]

The Indian Express
October 14, 2003

Our Ayodhya, and Ram's
The mandir-masjid issue has led to Islamic and Hindu extremists 
feeding on each other. And endangering India

RADHA KUMAR

I generally don't write about domestic policy issues because I work 
on foreign policy, but the Ayodhya temple-mosque dispute is fast 
becoming a national security concern for India, and therefore a 
concern for all the countries that seek to deepen their engagement 
with India. It has also affected India's relations with Muslim 
countries adversely, to an extent the Indian government is yet to 
take on board.

Since the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the temple 
movement has progressively polarised Hindus and Muslims and has 
inadvertently become a spark for Muslim terrorism in India. The 
Hindu-Muslim riots that followed the mosque's destruction were a 
turning point for criminal trader and mafia boss Dawood Ibrahim, who 
engineered the Bombay blasts of 1993 in retaliation. Today Ibrahim, 
who has sanctuary in Pakistan, is a major financier of jihad in India.


Though at first sight the Bombay blasts appeared to be a one-off, we 
have found that they were instead the first salvo in a mounting war. 
Bombay has suffered regular terrorist attacks since 1993, which have 
multiplied following the Gujarat riots of 2001. Those riots too were 
set off by an Ayodhya-related destruction - the burning alive of a 
carriage-load of temple activists by a small group of angry Muslims.

The retaliatory riots that ensued in Gujarat, in which upwards of 
2,000 Muslims were killed, sent shock waves through Muslim countries 
worldwide. The impact was greatest in West Asia, whose Muslim states 
had generally been sympathetic towards India, especially over 
Kashmir. Antipathy towards India has become so deep in West Asia that 
the Organisation of the Islamic Conference is considering admitting 
Russia as a member, but is resolute in refusing India's longstanding 
application.

The Gujarat riots were also a shot in the arm for groups such as the 
Lashkar-e-Toiba, whose leader Hafeez Sayeed lost little time in 
calling on all Muslims to launch a jihad on all Hindus. Prior to the 
riots, the Lashkar was composed predominantly of Punjabi Pakistanis - 
it was unable to recruit non-Pakistanis, even in Kashmir. The latest 
terrorist attacks in Bombay, however, indicate the Lashkar and 
similar jihadi groups have begun to find recruits within India.

This is not to say that the temple movement is the root cause of 
Muslim terrorism in India - nor, for that matter, are the Gujarat 
riots. If there is one root cause, which many would debate, it is 
surely the failure of India's elites, both Hindu and Muslim, to 
integrate their communities or offer them hope of betterment and 
justice.

This failure is glaringly obvious when the Gujarat government points 
to the scandalous record of the Congress in the 1984 Hindu-Sikh riots 
as justification for its own unlawful acts 18 years later.

A less glaring but equally obvious failure is when some human rights 
campaigners accuse temple activists of deliberately setting fire to 
their own brethren in order to provoke riots. Is there no limit to 
the evil we are prone to imagine?

India appears to have become so inured to communal brutality that its 
response to it is more and more tepid. Thus we hear the ruling 
party's spokesman accuse the Central Bureau of Investigation of being 
''politically motivated'' when it presents evidence that several 
ministers of the present government stood and watched the mosque 
being destroyed - some even celebrated.

Couldn't M. Venkaiah Naidu have, instead, praised his party in 
government for letting justice take its course? And why, when Murli 
Manohar Joshi so creditably resigned as minister for human resource 
development upon the court's ruling that charges be framed against 
him, did the Prime Minister persuade him to withdraw his resignation?

With the temple activists demanding that the government enact 
legislation for a Ram temple to be built on the Babri Masjid site, 
the Ayodhya dispute is once again set to become violent. As a result 
many Indians now feel Hindu and Muslim leaders should arrive at a 
settlement that will allow the temple to be built, with provision for 
a new mosque nearby.

But such a solution will not settle the problem - indeed, the danger 
is it might exacerbate it. Muslim radicals will see the solution as 
further evidence of Hindu fiat, and more of them will turn to 
violence in revenge. And Hindu radicals will take it as an invitation 
to force similar solutions for Kashi, Mathura and a long list of 
other contentious Hindu-Muslim sites, to which Muslim radicals will 
again respond with terrorism. In other words, terrorism will increase 
rather than decrease.

The tragedy of it all is that there is a way out of the problem if 
India's leadership were willing to espouse it. The Archaeological 
Survey of India's excavations show a prior structure existed under 
the site and have turned up artefacts that go back 1,000 years. Why 
not continue the excavations with the goal of turning the site into a 
public monument of the richness of India's history, warts and all?

One part of the site could preserve the ruins of the Babri Masjid as 
an object lesson in what happens when India's different religious 
groups seek to forcefully impose their demands rather than negotiate 
them peacefully, while maintaining the Ram lalla shrine as it is.

Another part of the site could display the different levels of 
excavation and their finds in situ, as a type of physical history 
lesson that we still don't have in this country whose archaeology is 
so great.

A solution of this kind would rescue the Ram of Tulsidas, Valmiki and 
Gandhi from the degradation the temple activists have inflicted upon 
him. Most important of all, it could pave the way for Indians to say 
that they will never again turn to violence as a way of settling 
religious disputes, nor to revenge as a substitute for justice.

That in turn could pave the way for seeking a collective solution to 
the disputes in Mathura and Kashi, two tinderboxes waiting to be lit.

India is on the threshold of a bright future. Isn't it time to say 
goodbye to the iniquities of the past, both real and imagined?

The author is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign 
Relations, New York

______



[5]

ANHAD DISPATCH

NO.1.  FOUR DAY WORKSHOP OF FUTUTRE RESOURCE PERSONS

Dear Friends,

                       Over the last six months Anhad in close 
collaboration with over hundred other organisations has organised 14 
residential camps to equip the participants in countering the RSS/ 
VHP/ Sangh Parivar hate propaganda and prejudices. The session which 
specifically deals with countering Myths is a whole day session taken 
by Dr. Ram Puniyani. It is physically not possible For Ram to go to 
every workshop and to every corner of India . This whole day session 
is a very essential part of the workshop .

Anhad is organising a four day intensive training workshop with Ram 
Puniyani ,where he will train others to take his session. The 
workshop will be in Delhi from October 27-30, 2003. The venue will be 
decided in a few days time.

Who can participate: Maximum number of participants: 30

1. People who are seriously concerned with the rise of right wing in India.

2. Who would be ready to give time whenever Anhad needs them to take a session.

3. They are highly articulate and have enough intellectual capacity 
to grasp the issue ( only heart in the right place is not sufficient)

4. Preferably they have attended Ram's session in one of our 
workshops or elsewhere.

It is essential for the participants to read Ram Puniyani's Primer on 
Communalism before the workshop begins.

The final decision on participants will be taken by Anhad.

You can nominate people from your organisations/ or self nominate . 
Please send the details to 
<mailto:anhadinfo at yahoo.co.in->anhadinfo at yahoo.co.in- telephone: 
23327367/ 23327366 latest by 20th October 2003.

----------------------------------

NO. 2   YOUTH FOR PEACE

Anhad launched its Youth For Peace programme in Delhi on September 
27, 2003 with a concert by Indian Ocean at the Lal Chwok Open Air 
Theatre, Pragati Maidan. The programme was attended by over 3500 
students from schools and colleges.

Youth For Peace had its meeting on 12th October .

Youth for Peace is organising a day long workshop with Ram Puniyani 
on October 26th , 2003 .

The main agenda for Youth for Peace is to work amongst students in 
schools and colleges on the questions related to communalism and 
peace . Youth For Peace felt that it was neccessary for the present 
members of Youth 4 Peace as well as for those who want to join it to 
get a basic orientation on the issue before they actually start 
working in schools and colleges.

Those wishing to join Youth 4 peace and attending the workshop should 
write to <mailto:anhadinfo at yahoo.co.in>anhadinfo at yahoo.co.in  ( 
please donot write to the yfpinfo id which was earlier circulated- it 
has been hacked unfortunately and is being no longer used by Youth or 
Peace).

A workshop with Ram Puniyani  for Youth For Peace . Venue: 4, Windsor 
Place, Ashoka Road, Opposite Kanishka Hotel, New Delhi-110001. Tel- 
23327367/ 66

( There is a big tree at the back under which 100 people can sit very 
comfortably- the workshop will be under the tree)

Sincerely

Shabnam Hashmi


______


[6]

India Independent Media Center - India
Oct 12, 2003

RAM RIOT SPIN DEPLOYED. . .
Hindutva's Temple of Doom
http://india.indymedia.org

______


[7]

FOCUS ON INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN INDIA
http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/

Calling For Electronic Civil Disobedience To Resist The Blocking of 
groups.yahoo.com in India:

Users should speak up for unfettered communications rights

This current move to block internet content  for thousands off users, 
is a blatant violation of freedom of expression and sets a very 
dangerous precedent of censorship and control of the internet in 
India. It is very unfortunate that human rights groups in India, have 
still not taken note.

All in India wanting to bypass the illegal blocking of 
groups.yahoo.com are advised go via:
http://proxify.com/
or
http://anon.free.anonymizer.com/http://groups.yahoo.com

1. Advertise this among other users.

2. All users are invited to send at least 10 e-mail messages a day @ 
each of these e-mail addresses a, b, c and d. [see addresses below] 
If only a few hundred people repeatedly send them 10 blank messages a 
day, that would help jam their pipes and slow down their mail servers.
All moderators running lists on groups.yahoo.com with subscribers in 
India are invited to join and invite their users to send blank 
messages and or Protest letters to people listed under a, b, c,d.

3. Internet users abroad are invited to join in solidarity

4. Call a 'Flash mob'  in Delhi at Electronics Niketan on Lodi Road 
in Delhi or elsewhere,  or in other cities in solidarity with  ..... 
users ; get in touch with http://www.mumbaimobs.org/
http://bloremobs.rediffblogs.com/
http://www.delhimobs.com/


In solidarity

Harsh Kapoor
(South Asia Citizens Web)
N.B.: Feel free to send copies of your protest letters to 
<aiindex at mnet.fr> for a compilation of letters being prepared

o o o

Addresses of the officials and bodies to whom people should actively 
write to protest Internet censorship in India:

(a) Arun Shourie
Minister (Communications & Information Technology & Disinvestment)
Ist Floor, Electronics Niketan,
Lodhi Road,New Delhi , India
Email : ashourie at nic.in

(b) Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad
(Minister of Information and Broadcasting)
E-Mail: ravis at sansad.nic.in
Phone: (91) 23384340, 23384782 Fax : (91) 23782118

(c) Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)
http://www.mit.gov.in/cert/

(d) India's Department of Telecom
http://www.dotindia.com/
E-mail: ddgir at sancharnet.in

e) The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI)
http://www.ispai.com/


[Press coverage for call to resistance]

The Times of India, October 13, 2003
Cyber satyagraha to nail e-vigil
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=230308

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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace 
and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & 
non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia 
Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex). [Please note the SACW web site 
has gone down, you will have to for the time being search google 
cache for materials]
The complete SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.insaf.net
South Asia Counter Information Project a sister initiative provides a 
partial back -up and archive for SACW.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sacw/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

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