SACW | 17-18 Jul 2004

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire    |  17-18 July,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[1]  Sri Lanka: Child Security and Protection is 
the first step towards Rehabilitation (SLDF)
[2]  Bangladesh: The case of Qazi Faruque Ahmed - 
Making a mockery of justice (Zafar Sobhan)
[3]  Pakistan: Clip the wings of MMA minister (edit, Daily Times)
[4]  India Pakistan and elsewhere: Women as spoils of war (Ishtiaq Ahmed)
[5]  India: [Women's protest against  the Army] 
The Body Remembers  (Edit, The Telegraph)
[6]  India: Poor don't eat guns! (Kuldip Nayar)
[7]  India: State conference of the Kerala 
Sthreevedi [Women's organisation] (Newsreport)
[8] India: Detoxifying education
-  Letter to the Editor ( Mukul Dube)
-  Write, Erase (Poornima Joshi)
-  Inoculate India's Mind
[9] India's Department Of Atomic Energy: Fifty 
Years of Profligacy (S. P. Udayakumar)

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

[1]



16 July 2004

For Immediate Release:

Child Security and Protection is the first step towards Rehabilitation.

SLDF calls on UNICEF, the GOSL, SLMM and others to work towards protection
of children from recruitment in the North and East, more particularly in
relation to the current crisis in eastern Sri Lanka.


SLDF joins forces with the children of the Eastern Province, their
families and broader community to call for urgent action to address child
security and protection.  As the LTTE recruitment drive has intensified,
more and more families are also openly resisting recruitment in the East –
a resistance that has met with it’s particular brutal backlash.  We call
on all actors to take proactive steps in solidarity with these children
and their families in fighting recruitment.  Every child has a right to
family life, a right to education, a right to live in peace. We all have a
responsibility to ensure that those rights are not violated.

We call for a fundamental revision in the UNICEF Action Plan on Children
Affected by War given the accentuated vulnerability of the newly released,
and the unrelenting brutality of LTTE recruitment.  In fact, the
specificity of the situation in the East may well warrant a second action
plan.  We call for revision and expansion of the action plan on three
fronts.

1.	Firstly, we call broadly for focused energies on child protection.
When children are released the most critical step in their successful
rehabilitation is to give them the basic guarantee of security from
recruitment.  Taking away the fear and trauma of this uncertainty will go
a long way towards ensuring that these children’s well being is advanced.
For instance, the plight of children released from the Karuna faction of
the LTTE demonstrates the need for child protection being prioritized.
While these children still grapple with injuries suffered in battle,
post-traumatic stress, and the broader challenges of rehabilitation and
re-integration, the most dire threat they face is the risk of
re-recruitment into the ranks for the LTTE.  Over the past weeks
re-recruitment has been taking place at accelerated rates and these
children’s new found freedom has spiraled into a new terror for them and
their families.  Ultimately child protection remains the most critical
step and there is little constructive terrain for reintegration and
rehabilitation as long as the threat of re-recruitment remains alive.  For
instance, when rehabilitation work (including the reintroduction of
schooling and such) is conducted with these children, it has to be done
through organizations that are entirely independent of the LTTE and the
TRO (a LTTE proxy) to ensure that there is no pressing fear.   Efforts in
the areas of rehabilitation and reintegration have to be integrated into
effective monitoring capacity by independent agencies.


2.	Secondly, UNICEF’s Action Plan has a commendable breadth in working
with a range of different actors – not just the LTTE, but also the
government and other agencies.  However, the release of thousands of
children in April and the inability of this network to provide the
protection and security for these children has demonstrated the need to go
beyond those actors recognized.  Liaison with a wider range of actors
including grassroots community based groups and even with unorganized
groups such as the children’s families is essential at this stage.  In
addition to expansion of its own staff, creating a network with other
independent groups will also help UNICEF expand its monitoring capacity on
the ground in a way that is responsive to the scale of the current child
protection crisis.

3.	Thirdly, UNICEF needs to establish trust and work closely to support
the children’s families and their community advocates.  For instance, this
situation calls for UNICEF to be present when families meet the LTTE, that
UNICEF clarify its mandate to families, consult with families regarding
their needs and priorities and work with a broad network of independent
child protection agencies and community based networks to ensure the
continued safety of these children.  As a first step, these may also
involve a public statement that UNICEF makes to the families involved that
is parallel to its contract with the LTTE; a statement that commits UNICEF
to a mode of operation that is rooted in the families, that is accessible
to them and consults with them on an ongoing basis.

SLDF believes that the responsibility regarding children vulnerable to
recruitment is not confined to UNICEF.  UNICEF has been an important actor
in this regard, and has a unique role to play.  But this is a
responsibility that extends to a wide range of actors – including the GOSL
child protection authorities, other political parties, SLMM, the NGO
community, other UN organs and the international community at large:

·	We call on the GOSL to address its own 
law and order responsibilities to
the citizens of the North and East.  Its police should take proactive
steps to investigate and clamp down on the abduction of children at least
in the areas outside LTTE control.  Its enforcement agencies should take
proactive steps to prevent abduction of children and its prosecutors
should launch criminal proceedings against those responsible for such
abduction.  So far the Government of Sri Lanka has not demonstrated that
it takes the lives and futures of Tamil children seriously.  How it
addresses abduction and protects children vulnerable to recruitment will
be a crucial test of the significance that the GOSL accords to the rights
and dignity of its Tamil citizenry.

·	The SLMM, ICRC, ILO and UN agencies such as UNHCR, should also comply
with their mandates and take proactive steps to monitor recruitment and
protect these children.   Each of their mandates call on these agencies to
do much more than they currently do in contesting child recruitment and
protecting the rights of the child.  For instance, the SLMM needs to take
new initiatives to rebuild credibility and trust and re-assure families
that they take their human rights monitoring responsibilities seriously
and will be a reliable advocate for children viz a viz its dealings with
the LTTE.  The SLLM must regard each and every case of child abduction or
recruitment as a violation of the Ceasefire Agreement and issue well
publicized weekly statements containing details of such abduction and
recruitment.

With the internecine fighting in the East growing more bitter, and the
fears about a total breakdown of the ceasefire becoming more intense, it
becomes all the more critical that we ensure that children are not caught
up in the war.  We are facing the prospect of children fighting and
killing children.  We need to pressure the LTTE to release children
already in its ranks and stop recruitment of others.  All the actors in
the North and East, from local NGOs and religious communities to
international organizations have a role to play.  We all need to come
together in a single-minded and concerted determination to fulfill our
responsibility to the children of the region.

--
Sri Lanka Democracy Forum
www.lankademocracy.org
Contact E-mail: contact at lankademocracy.org


_____


[2]


The Daily Star
July 17, 2004 	 
Editorial

The case of Qazi Faruque Ahmed
Making a mockery of justice
Zafar Sobhan
www.thedailystar.net/2004/07/17/d40717020327.htm

_____


[3]

The Daily Times
July 18, 2004 
EDITORIAL #2: Clip the wings of MMA minister

The Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal's NWFP minister for 
food and excise and taxation, Fazal Rabbani, 
needs to be leashed. We say this on the basis of 
news reports about the way the gentleman is going 
around stretching the limits of his official 
mandate.
Recently, he raided some houses in Peshawar's 
Hayatabad locality to arrest 'sinning' men and 
women who were allegedly 'enjoying the spirits' 
and indulging in 'debauchery'. The minister is 
doubtless patting himself on the back for having 
done the good deed. But we are not convinced. 
There are innumerable verdicts by the higher 
courts that seek to put an end to this sort of 
state transgression, the most recent having been 
issued by the Lahore High Court on July 16 in a 
similar case. And just in case the minister and 
his pious MMA colleagues are inclined to shrug 
off the decisions of the higher courts, may we 
remind them that the sanctity of a home is also a 
well-established tenet of Islamic jurisprudence.
But we know the minister will not be convinced. 
He is the product of a mindset that has come into 
existence in the past 25 years and thrives on 
vigilante action. He is also someone, like others 
of his ilk, who refuse to make a distinction 
between 'sin' and 'crime'. This is the worst 
aspect of the so-called Islamisation of laws in 
this country. While people enjoying a good 
evening in the privacy of their homes are to be 
hauled up and humiliated, those who are fighting 
the state and killing state functionaries in the 
name of jihad and religion are being lionised. 
Not only that, the MMA actually wants the state 
to make deals with them that border on plain 
capitulation. This is as topsy-turvy as anything 
can get.
Mr Rabbani's attitude can also be gauged from the 
lowbrow, sexist remark he is reported to have 
made about Ms Kashmala Tariq, a Pakistan Muslim 
League-Q MNA. Again, he is not alone in doing so. 
His colleagues have done this before and this 
includes a gentleman in the Punjab assembly who 
made some equally unacceptable remarks in the 
house last year. We think there is need for the 
national assembly to legislate against this kind 
of attitude. At a minimum, such ministers should 
lose their ministry and such members made to 
resign their seats.
Finally, a word about the proposed Hisbah Act. Mr 
Rabbani's shenanigans should give everyone a 
foretaste of what could happen in the NWFP if the 
MMA government is allowed to complete the home 
run on that act. Mercifully, the draft proposal 
is with the Council of Islamic Ideology; 
mercifully also, General Pervez Musharraf has 
seen fit to nominate moderate Islamic scholars to 
the CII. We hope that the Council will consign 
the draft law where it belongs - in the trashcan. 
We are also pleased to note that the Peshawar 
traders unions have taken a stand against the MMA 
government's absurd order to have all the shops 
closed at all five prayer times. It seems like 
the NWFP is finally waking up to the blunder that 
some of its voters committed in October 2002. 
Thank God for that. *


_____


[4]

The Daily Times
July 18, 2004 
Women as spoils of war
Ishtiaq Ahmed

On March 17, 2004, I interviewed Hans Raj Khatri 
(born 1920) of Sidhwan Bet, the twin village of 
Saleempura, in Jagraon tehsil of Ludhiana 
district, East Punjab. Before Partition, these 
villages were populated by Muslim Arains who had 
a large presence throughout the Jagraon tehsil as 
well as rest of the district. He told me the 
heart-rending story of two sisters, Zainab Bibi 
and Ramzan Bibi.
"In August 1947," he said, "the Muslims in our 
area started preparing to migrate to Pakistan. 
Bhaisakha Singh, a Sikh from the neighbouring 
village of Kishenpura, told them they did not 
need worry. The communities had long lived 
together in peace and now that the Muslims were 
leaving they would be escorted safely to the 
nearby refugee camp.
"They trusted him and next day the caravan began 
the short journey towards the camp. Suddenly two 
gunshots were fired at them. Baisakha Singh told 
the men to walk to the camp on their own and 
leave the women and children in his protection. 
So, leaving the women and children behind, the 
able-bodied men walked away.
"However, some scoundrels raided the women in 
Baisakha Singh's custody and were able to take 
away some of them. Among them were two married 
sisters, Ramzan Bibi and Zainab Bibi. Kidnapped 
women were selling at the time for as little as 
Rs 300. The sisters pleaded with their captors to 
first let their families pay for their freedom. 
They agreed and approached Inder Singh, also of 
Kishenpura, who was in the Indian army, to find 
out if the families were willing to pay the 
ransom. Inder Singh asked me to talk to them.
"The goons demanded Rs 1,000 for each sister. 
Ramzan Bibi's husband was in England at that 
time. Her father-in law, Ata Muhammad Mehr, said 
if he did not try to get her freed, his son would 
never forgive him. After some wrangling, the deal 
was made at Rs 700 and she was returned.
"Zainab Bibi's father-in-law offered only Rs 300, 
saying he could not pay more. Her husband did not 
protest. The kidnappers said they would not 
charge less than Rs 1,000. They argued that 
Zainab Bibi was younger than Ramzan Bibi and more 
attractive. Her in-laws, however, refused to 
raise their offer. She was never returned. I am 
not aware of what happened to her later."
On the night of March 6-7, 1947, several Hindu 
and Sikh villages in the Rawalpindi and Jhelum 
districts were surrounded by Muslim miscreants. 
In a matter of a fortnight some 3,000 people had 
been killed. Women were raped, their breasts cut 
off and vaginas torn. It was the first 
large-scale carnage in the Punjab. Later, it was 
replicated in many places. On 15 August 15, 1947, 
Muslim women were paraded naked by Sikhs in 
Amritsar and then hacked to pieces.
Urvashi Butalia and Ritu Menon-Kamla Bhasin have 
recently published excellent academic works 
inspired by the feminist theory of the treatment 
meted out to women in 1947. They observe that 
many Sikhs, as well as some Hindus, chose to kill 
their women. Also, many of their women committed 
suicide. Their theory is that aggression against 
women is meant to symbolise the defeat and 
humiliation of the enemy. Rape of captured women 
is the ultimate proof that their protectors are 
no longer real men. The children born to such 
women represent total control over enemy 
property. Consequently, the defeated group 
considers those captured by the enemy defiled and 
worthless.
I have wondered whether or not such ideas crossed 
the minds of their in-laws in the case of Ramzan 
Bibi and Zainab Bibi. Is it possible, in the case 
of Zainab Bibi, that their decision not to buy 
her back was not dictated by lack of money? 
Perhaps she was unwanted both by her husband and 
father-in-law now that she had been in the hands 
of known criminals?
Wars bring out the worst in humankind. While 
those defending themselves against aggression are 
in the right and deserve sympathy, there is no 
such thing as a noble war. The revelation of 
flagrant human rights violations by the US and 
British occupation forces in Iraq lay bare world 
leaders' hollow claims of civilised conduct by 
the Anglo-Saxon powers. Yet, no news has come out 
of Iraq so far of women being subjected to sex 
crimes or being sold as chattel. Even the Israeli 
military, which has been mercilessly inflicting 
collective punishment on the Palestinians in the 
occupied territories for a long time, is strictly 
forbidden any sexual outrage against Palestinian 
women. The Indian security forces, too, have not 
been accused in recent days of indecent acts 
against Kashmiri women. It seems that 
considerable restraint is now exercised in 
treating enemy women as far as wars directly 
involving functioning states are concerned.
For this we should thank the Geneva Convention 
and the subsequent UN conventions outlawing 
primitive practices - tolerated in the past by 
Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Hindu lawmakers - 
which allowed women (as well as men) captured in 
war to be legally sold as slaves.
However, warfare in a situation of breakdown of 
established authority is poorly covered by the 
existing laws of war and human rights, simply 
because the jurists are unable to identify the 
principal - state-like - offender. But things may 
be changing now.
In Yugoslavia and Rwanda, where ultra-nationalist 
groups started wars in the 1990s to ethnically 
cleanse the territory of the enemy group, women 
from the opposite side were subjected to 
shockingly barbarous acts. In Yugoslavia the 
Serbs and in Rwanda the Hutus have been 
identified as the main aggressors, although the 
Croatians and Muslims in the former case and 
Tutsis in the latter fought back and in some 
cases inflicted similar injury on innocent Serbs 
and Hutus. The UN has now established criminal 
tribunals to trace the culprits and punish them.
Shall we ever track down the culprits of crimes 
against women in 1947 and try them in a court of 
law? As far as I know, none was ever punished and 
when India and Pakistan became independent many 
being tried for various crimes walked away 
scot-free!

_____


[5]

The Telegraph
July 17, 2004 | Editorial

THE BODY REMEMBERS

It takes only twelve women to make a point, and 
to make it unforgettably. About 40 Manipuri women 
gathered before the headquarters of the Assam 
Rifles' 9 Sector in Imphal, of whom twelve 
stripped to the skin and called out to the army 
to come and rape them. The posters they displayed 
were equally terrifying, with the blood red 
letters on a white background accusing the 
"Indian army" of rape and torture. The immediate 
cause of this explosive protest was the alleged 
torture and killing of Thanglam Manorama by army 
personnel on Sunday. But it was also an 
expression of pure fury at the military forces' 
continued violation of human rights, against 
which the many women's organizations in Manipur 
have been protesting for a long time. But there 
was nothing unplanned about the procedure. Ms 
Ramani Devi, the secretary of the All Manipur 
Social Reformation and Development Samaj, said 
that the women had decided to take this step as 
their protests against extra-judicial killings 
and molestation of women in Manipur had gone 
unheeded.

A spectacle of naked women with loosened hair 
standing before the great gates of an army base, 
yelling at the military forces to come and rape 
them is both terrifying and humbling. That it was 
planned as an extreme step is indication of an 
unspeakable agony that could only be given 
organized expression by the public presentation 
of the naked female body. For these women, the 
body, which made them and their daughters 
vulnerable, had itself turned into a weapon. By 
exposing it, they wished to expose those they 
felt had humiliated and degraded them. Manipur 
has a long tradition of women's groups fighting 
against social evils like alcoholism as well as 
violence and injustice. Their struggle is for 
development and harmony in the midst of 
bloodshed, uncertainty and deprivation. While it 
is not surprising that a form of protest 
unprecedented in the country should first come 
from them, it should also be recognized that 
Manipur's is a traditional society. So it is not 
just the courage, intelligence and dignity of the 
women that should be acknowledged, but also their 
feeling of immeasurable humiliation and injustice.

Their demand was for a public trial of the 
guilty. This is particularly relevant in a state 
where the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 
is operative. This law gives enormous powers to 
security forces. In order to "maintain the public 
order", they can arrest, search, detain or kill 
anyone on the basis of suspicion, and no 
investigation of their operations can be carried 
out by civil authorities without permission from 
the Centre. Protests against human rights 
violations in the north-eastern states under the 
purview of the AFSPA have a long history. Ms Irom 
Sharmila Shanu, for example, has been fasting for 
three and a half years, demanding that the AFSPA 
be repealed in Manipur. She has been kept alive 
by force-feeding. It seems incredible that 
security forces should open themselves to such 
allegations, since the militants they are 
fighting could find the people's anger useful. It 
is only with an agenda against violence and for 
social development that such manipulation can be 
beaten, and it is again the women's groups which 
are leading that effort in Manipur.


______


[6]



The Daily Star
July 18, 2004 	 

Poor don't eat guns!
Kuldip Nayar, writes from New Delhi
WHEN Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was Deputy 
Chairman of the Planning Commission, he wrote to 
then Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi to propose 
a cut in the defence expenditure. She sternly 
rejected the suggestion. He was disappointed 
because in a famished economy like India's he saw 
no other way to find money for other sectors, 
particularly agriculture. It is strange that the 
same Manmohan Singh should be increasing the 
defence expenditure by Rs 17,000 crore, a hike of 
some 27 per cent, and that too within one month 
of assuming power. True, the exigencies of the 
budget cannot afford delay. But no new government 
can have an estimate of its defence needs in a 
few days' time. It is obvious that Manmohan 
Singh's defence minister simply totalled up the 
pending projects to include them in the budget.

This would not have made much difference if the 
approach of the Congress had been similar to that 
of its predecessor. The BJP is chauvinistic in 
thinking. It believes that the more weapons a 
country has, the greater is its say in the world 
affairs. Its is arrogance of power. The Congress, 
on the other hand, has had the tradition to 
confine armaments to the needs of defence, 
neither profligate nor offensive. The BJP-led 
government took only a month after coming to 
power to explode the bomb. But the governments 
headed by the Congress and the non-BJP parties 
did not explode the bomb although they had it in 
the basement for years. Their reasoning was that 
the explosion would nullify India's advantage in 
conventional weapons if and when Pakistan 
followed suit. Narasimha Rao changed his mind 
even after all was ready at the Pokhran site. The 
fallout deterred him.

Indeed, the reading that Pakistan would retaliate 
turned out to be correct. Islamabad detonated the 
bomb within a week of India's explosion. Then 
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told me that he had 
to do so because he could not resist the pressure 
from his own people. "They would have killed me," 
he said. I am surprised that the Congress party, 
which harks back on the values of Mahatma Gandhi, 
should have increased the defence expenditure. 
L.K. Advani's pride in exploding the nuclear 
device is understandable. He belongs to the RSS 
which has fascist tendencies. He does not realise 
that the BJP is responsible for making India lose 
the advantage of superiority in conventional 
warfare.

My purpose is not to renew the discussion on the 
bomb but to know what we have gained. We gave 
Pakistan parity overnight. Does the colossal 
expenditure on weapons from Israel, Russia or 
America make much sense when Islamabad has made 
it clear more than once that its defence was the 
bomb.

Some 15 years ago when I interviewed Dr A.Q. 
Khan, father of Pakistan's bomb, he minced no 
words in making it clear that "if you ever drive 
us to the wall as you did during the Bangladesh 
war, we would use the bomb." Islamabad's 
modernisation of its armed forces is nothing 
except the strategy woven around the bomb. 
President General Pervez Musharraf has often 
argued that the modern war does not require a 
large army. While effecting a cut in the Pakistan 
forces, he made the same point and mentioned the 
change in the conduct of warfare after the bomb. 
I cannot visualise the situation where Pakistan 
does not use it even when it faces reverse after 
reverse. India will also use the bomb if 
repulsed, however loud its declaration that it 
will not be the first user. Moral postures hold 
so long as they are not tested in the battlefield.

With improving relations with Pakistan and China, 
the hike on the weaponry makes little sense. 
Either we are not serious about normalising 
relations with the two countries or we are not 
clear about our defence policy. In both cases, we 
betray lack of mature thinking. Even otherwise, 
the world has arrived at a stage where war means 
only destruction. There will be no victory, only 
defeat for everyone. Strategists from now onward 
will have to keep this in mind while planning 
even a limited war. Violence cannot possibly lead 
today to a solution of any major problem because 
violence has become too terrible and too 
decimating. One thing which is clear is that 
there cannot be an imposition of ideas on any 
large section of people. The experience of Iraq 
is before us. America believed that it could 
enforce its way of thinking on the Iraqis. See 
the consequences: the resistance has come to 
represent nationalism striving for freedom from 
foreign control.

I am worried over the effect the sharp raise in 
defence expenditure might have on the 
neighbouring countries. Pakistan has reacted 
adversely. Its people are also poor like ours who 
need food and employment, not guns and warships. 
Were Islamabad and Dhaka to tear a leaf out of 
our book, they too would lessen expenditure on 
social welfare and the poverty alleviating 
programmes and go for the armament. For a country 
like India every penny counts. A raise of Rs. 
17,000 crore is too big an amount to be ignored. 
I do not want to translate the allocation into 
schools, hospitals or houses. But making a fetish 
of defence does not help. People can always be 
frightened into spending much more on "security." 
Is the spending-spree on defence goodies 
necessary when we are in the midst of fighting a 
grim battle against poverty? The military is such 
a holy cow that nobody wants to touch it. But 
every purchase has to be justified. There is no 
reason why we should look for more weapons, not 
for avenues of employment. The Left's silence 
intrigues me. It does not criticise the 27 per 
cent increase in the defence, taking away quite a 
bit of resources. But it picks on small 
expenditures here and there to talk about equity. 
It should have at least demanded some independent 
agency to find out whether the money for the 
armed forces was rightly spent. The Tehelka 
disclosures have shaken people's faith in the 
purchases made by the military. There has never 
been a parliamentary committee appointed to look 
into the spending by the military. Why not 
appoint one now? The Auditor General's scrutiny 
is too superficial.  [...]

______


[7]

URL: www.thehindu.com/2004/07/18/stories/2004071805100300.htm
The Hindu, Jul 18, 2004
Kerala - Thrissur   
`Conventional family shackles women'

By Our Staff Reporter

The women's activist, K. Ajitha, addressing a 
meeting organised in connection with the State 
conference of the Kerala Sthreevedi in Thrissur 
on Saturday.

THRISSUR, JULY 17. The noted writer and women's 
activist, Sara Joseph, has said that among the 
private and public spaces that human beings 
intervene, the conventional family is the most 
`ominous, oppressive, exploitative and 
reactionary' one.

Participating in a discussion organised as part 
of the State conference of the women's 
collective, Kerala Sthreevedi, here today, Prof. 
Joseph said the much-talked about goal of 
equality of women can be achieved only if the 
popular delusion that `family is a pious 
institution' is shattered. Emphasising that the 
conventional family attributes no significance to 
women, she said religion is at the base of the 
concepts regarding a conventional family.

Religion as a whole, particularly the Semitic 
religions, has always tried to relegate women to 
the backyards in all realms of human activities. 
Pointing out that conventional families are 
structures built on the basis of religion and 
socio-economic status of the husband and wife, 
Prof. Joseph said that even now a man and a woman 
cannot build a family on the basis of their 
mutual love and respect.

Families are treated as the entry points, where a 
man and woman can enter into `legitimate sex'. 
But by forcing a woman to enter into a marital 
relationship with a man just on the basis of 
compatibility of religious and socio-economic 
statuses the society imposes its norms on the 
sexual experiences of individuals. Thus the 
conventional families deprive the rights of women 
even on their body.

In conventional families, women are denied the 
ownerships of everything, including property, 
house and even of their child. The children are 
known by their father's identity even though it 
is the mother who has to endure the ordeals of 
pregnancy, giving birth and rearing up the child.

Conventional families deny even the sense of 
identity and subjectivity of women, Prof. Joseph 
said. She said in such a context there are 
possibilities of women entering into lesbian 
relationships and forming families based on such 
relationships, as a shelter from the oppressive 
structures of conventional families.

"Not that I advocate lesbian relationships as 
ideal ones, but it is for the men to find answers 
to the question as to how to avoid them,'' she 
said. Emphasising that the problems of women were 
becoming acute with the onslaught of 
globalisation and the consequent crisis in the 
agricultural and traditional industrial sectors, 
Prof. Joseph said the women have to strive to 
place their own superior sense of justice and 
launch a struggle in all institutions such as the 
family and political parties. The women's 
activists, K. Ajitha, Meenakshi Thampan and 
Jyothi Narayanan, were among those who spoke on 
the occasion.


_____


[8]

D-504 Purvasha
Mayur Vihar 1
Delhi 110091

17 July 2004

Dear Editor,

Here is how the *Hindu* described part of what happened in the Rajya Sabha
on 15 July: "Dr. [Murli Manohar] Joshi said the probe into the fire in the
Sabarmati Express would re-open old wounds."

For decades Dr. Joshi was busy keeping at a safe distance from research
work in physics. Then he occupied himself with the Vedic cleansing of
academia through the replacement of impure text books, personnel and
syllabi. He cannot have been able, at least for reasons of time, to grasp
that in the academic world answer books are routinely re-evaluated when
students ask for that to be done. That is to say, he could not have known
that tens of thousands of old wounds will have been re-opened in what was
until recently his fiefdom. How much agony he could have prevented if he
had not had so much on his hands.

It is true that sleeping dogs should not be disturbed: but what Dr. Joshi
is opposing, and for recidivist reasons, is the possible bringing of
justice to those who were wronged. His former cabinet colleague Shri
Jaitley might be able to explain to him the difference between justice and
vendetta: though that worthy's ability to steer clear of verbal
legerdemain has not so far been demonstrated.

Mukul Dube

o o o

Outlook Magazine | Jul 26, 2004
Write, Erase
A defunct education advisory board lives again. 
But will it survive the vicissitudes of 
politics-and work?
POORNIMA JOSHI
URL: www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040726&fname=HRD&sid=1

Outlook, 17 July 2004
Inoculate India's Mind
URL: www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040726&fname=Col+Anita&sid=1


_____


[9]

South Asians Against Nukes  | July 16, 2004

INDIA'S DEPARTMENT OF ATOMIC ENERGY:
Fifty Years of Profligacy

by S. P. Udayakumar
URL: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org/PMANE/spuk16jul2004


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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.sacw.net/
The complete SACW archive is available at: 
bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

South Asia Counter Information Project a sister 
initiative, provides a partial back -up and 
archive for SACW:  snipurl.com/sacip
See also associated site: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org

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

--