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
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and sister site of SACW can be accessed at:
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+++++
[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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