SACW | Jan.22-23, 2007

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | January 22-23, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2352 - Year 8

[1]  Pakistan - India: Time to rethink  (M.B. Naqvi)
[2]  Bangladesh: Give me back my country (Tahmima Anam) 
[3]  India: A Home For Ms Nasreen (The Telegraph)
[4]  India: Sangh bares its fangs on Founder's Centenary ()
[5]  India: On Sardar Sarovar Project - Press Release by Narmada Bachao Andolan
[6]  India: Update on Madarsa incident in  Allahabad
[7]  Canada: Wajid Khan deserves our respect (Tarek Fatah)
[8]  USA: Ayatollah D'Souza (Katha Pollitt)
[9]  India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch No 167
[10]  Upcoming Events:
       - Nordic workshop "War, Peace and 
Development in Sri Lanka" (Göteborg, 29 - 30 
January 2007)
       - Sahmat Exhibit - Making History Our Own 
(News Delhi, 30 January - 4th February 2007)
____


[1]

22 January 2007

TIME TO RETHINK

By M.B. Naqvi

There was déjà vu about Indian Foreign Minister 
Parnab Mukherjee's recent visit. People had 
unnecessarily raised high hopes mostly because of 
the preparations he had made before coming. But 
remember, the Indians are still hiding their 
extreme pleasure on President Pervez Musharraf's 
new Kashmir ideas. This visit was after all only 
a decorous diplomatic formality: delivering a 
letter of invitation to Musharraf for attending 
SAARC summit in Delhi. For the rest, Mr. 
Mukherjee took soundings in Pakistan about what 
India is precisely expected to do.

Why is it the time to rethink? Pakistan has 
pursued the holy grail of 'normalization' for 35 
years. This damned normalization has not been 
achieved after a bout of three wars, some 
skirmishes and war scares. Plenty of 
negotiations, including the three full rounds of 
composite dialogue, have taken place. 
Normalization however continues to elude. It is 
time to take stock and look this concept of 
normalization into its mouth.

Among many problems between the two countries, 
Pakistan assigned the highest place to Kashmir 
and staked everything on it. It went to war twice 
on the subject and refused trade with India. 
Pakistan PM still repeats the Mantra that without 
Kashmir's resolution, the Subcontinent can have 
no stable peace. The Indians of course say that 
yes we are quite ready to discuss Kashmir but 
this is not the only subject. For them 
people-to-people contacts is said to be the first 
thing, quickly followed by free trade on MFN 
basis and resolution of all disputes should 
follow.

Among eight recognized ones, two disputes relate 
to territory: Siachin and Sir Creek. Despite all 
talks these have not been solved despite the ease 
with which they could be. Then, two relate to 
water: Wullur Barrage and Kishan Ganga projects. 
Had there been any goodwill these disputes too 
would not be there, one of which is being 
arbitrated by the World Bank. Some security 
issues are being discussed, which incidentally 
boil down to agreed CBMs to prevent unauthorized 
launches of nuclear weapons or nuclear accidents. 
This is mainly procedural and does not tackle the 
problem of nuclear weapons.

It is remarkable that a desirable visa policy 
could never be agreed upon by both countries. Any 
improvement here, too, goes on eluding. There are 
dozens of minor issues on which a modicum of good 
sense would mean actual cooperation. There is the 
trafficking of women and children; there is 
narcotics question. The maritime coastal services 
on both sides are fond of arresting often 
illiterate and simple seafarers (fishermen) from 
each others country, produce them in a court and 
quickly put them in jail. After a while, with 
trumpets flaring, the diplomats meet and agree to 
release the hapless fishermen. This sorry 
pantomime has gone on too long. Can the two 
maritime agencies not just warn and instead of 
arresting; just shoo them off. Tell them where 
they are. These fishing boats can not invade 
Pakistan or India.

Then, there is the question of journalists' 
visas. Despite all sympathetic talk by the former 
Indian Foreign Minister, SAFMA and even a SAARC 
resolution, nothing has changed. The Indian 
immigration authorities have recently not 
honoured what was a SAARC visa for journalists. 
The fact is that so far no, repeat no, dispute 
has been resolved by the two.

Insofar as Kashmir is concerned on which Pakistan 
had staked so much, the Indian PM and Cabinet 
should be overjoyed that Musharraf has given them 
all they could ask for: A de facto recognition of 
India's sovereignty over the Indian held Kashmir. 
Musharraf has withdrawn the traditional Pakistani 
demand in terms of UN resolutions about 
plebiscite. In other words, Pakistan is no longer 
a revisionist state; it accepts status quo. What 
remains is to tie up the many loose ends by 
constructive negotiations. The issue need no 
longer be put on a backburner. What is the 
situation, instead?

The Indians are still mulling over whether to say 
yes. The BJP is the main opposition party; it 
would be reluctant to say yes. What it actually 
wants is hard to guess. The real reason why the 
Indians are not jumping with joy is their 
industrial-military complex, mainstream press and 
the business community may not be ready for the 
consequences of saying yes. For them what is 
essential is there should be no slackening in 
India's military build up. A Kashmir solution 
would seem like a hitch in the programme. They 
even do not like the recent Indo-American 
agreement on civilian reactors because some 
notional limits on India's sovereignty may 
result. What is relevant for Pakistanis is that 
Indians have no agreed policy vis-à-vis Pakistan. 
There is no consensus in India on the subject.

Indian hardliners have reasons to be worried. 
Much of Indian effort is to expand its nuclear 
deterrent, complete with all the paraphernalia of 
missiles, tests for adaptation and so forth. 
Notionally, more than half of these efforts have 
to be for containing and countering Pakistan's 
military build ups. After a Kashmir agreement, 
logic will demand friendly relations. How to make 
friends with someone who is to be countered? Both 
are developing the ultimate weapons. One asserts 
that where nuclear arms race is raging between 
two feuding states that live cheek by jowl, no 
friendship or friendly cooperation is possible.

Which responsible Indian can forget that Pakistan 
has atomic weapons that can be dropped on his 
cities by aircrafts or by missiles? Similarly no 
responsible Pakistani can forget that Indian 
military has a lot more nuclear weapons. It can 
take out any number of cities in Pakistan. These 
weapons have no defence. (The American talk of 
anti-missiles missiles is a rich man's fancy; no 
state can depend on an anti-missile system that 
is still unreliable). India and Pakistan have 
been open adversaries and each other's designated 
enemy against which they have to be always alert. 
So long they rely on nuclear weapons, there will 
be no real agreement and friendship, no matter 
what the terms.

For one thing, Indian Capitalism is now 
graduating into Imperialism; a military build up 
is a necessary supplement. The fact is that a 
country that is engaged in this larger effort of 
projecting power up to Straits of Malacca and 
beyond is not likely to be overjoyed when 
Pakistan has given India what it has always 
wanted. Its leaders might be embarrassed that 
they will have to make some return gesture. But 
this offer by Musharraf they simply cannot 
refuse. All the ado about how 'joint management' 
can work is bogus. Where there is a will there is 
a way. If the two want to cooperate they can. The 
point is they do not want to cooperate for others 
(nuclear) reasons. Without the nuclear issue 
being out of the way, India-Pakistan relations 
cannot be normalized, much less expanded.

This joke of 'normalization' has gone on for 35 
years. Pakistan has normal relations with 
Iceland. India has good relations with Peru. Do 
India and Pakistan want that kind of 
'normalization'? Can normalization be a goal? The 
two had better spell out what do they want. 
Should it not be a historic people-to-people 
reconciliation from grassroots upward? The way 
French and Germans reconciled after the Second 
World War is a shining example. It can be copied. 
Regional integration in South Asia, so desirable 
economically, will not be available unless the 
Pakistanis and Indians trust each other.

Can the two sets of Mandarins find a basis to 
create trust in each other while both stay 
nuclear powers? One way or another, a regional 
nuclear disarmament may be essential even for 
peaceful coexistence.

_____


[2]

The New Statesman
22 January 2007

BANGLADESH: GIVE ME BACK MY COUNTRY

by Tahmima Anam

When Tahmima Anam went home to Dhaka to cast her 
vote in the now-postponed election, she found a 
nation in chaos, tormented by corruption and 
brutality.

On 10 January 1972, my father came home to his 
country for the first time. It was three weeks 
after the end of the Bangladesh war, and he was 
making his way back from India, where he had 
enlisted with the newly formed Bangladesh army. 
When I think about that day, I always wonder what 
country my father thought he was returning to. 
Surely it was a thing of his imagination, born 
out of the years marching against the Pakistani 
occupation, the months touring India to gain 
support for the war, the gruelling training at 
the officers' camp in West Bengal. I can picture 
the shock that he and his fellow freedom fighters 
must have felt when they finally did cross that 
border, seeing their imagined country and their 
real country meet for the first time.

The Bengali phrase desh-prem means "love for the 
country". Like many expatriate Bangladeshis, my 
desh-prem makes me believe there will come a day 
when I pack my bags and leave London for good. My 
desh-prem is a long-distance affair, full of 
passion and misunderstanding; often, my heart is 
broken. Many Bangladeshis never actually return 
home; it is more of an idea, something to turn 
over in our hearts before we go to sleep, but for 
me the prospect of returning is real. In 1990, 
after 14 years abroad, my parents left their jobs 
with the United Nations and moved back to 
Bangladesh. So many of their friends told them 
they were foolish to return to a country that had 
so little to offer, but in the latter months of 
that year, Hossain Mohammad Ershad's military 
dictatorship was toppled by massive public action 
of a kind not seen since the days of the 
independence movement. So the country my family 
returned to was bathed in hope, and, almost two 
decades after the birth of Bangladesh, we finally 
seemed on the brink of becoming a functioning 
democracy.

Sixteen years after Ershad's dramatic fall, 
Bangladesh is a very different place. We have had 
three national elections, and our two main 
political parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist 
Party (BNP) and the Awami League, have handed 
power back and forth to each other like a baton 
in a relay, each election becoming successively 
more bitter, and each five-year term bringing 
dramatic increases in corruption and partisan 
politics. Amazingly, when the Awami League was in 
power, the BNP refused to attend parliament; when 
the BNP was in power, the Awami League refused to 
attend. As a result, the people we mandated to 
represent us in government failed to discharge 
their responsibilities, instead taking to the 
streets and announcing that their defeat was 
engineered and not willed by the voting public.

In Bangladesh, elections come hand in hand with 
claims of vote-rigging. Where there is an 
election and a transfer of power, there will 
inevitably be rumours of conspiracy, of stolen 
ballot boxes and hijacked polling stations. 
Whether and to what degree these rumours are true 
is almost less important than the assumption that 
a sitting government cannot hold a fair election. 
Therefore, in 1995, the constitution was amended 
to include a peculiar and rather clever system of 
handing power to a caretaker government that is 
responsible for holding a fair election. 
According to the constitution, the last retired 
chief justice of the Bangladesh Supreme Court 
becomes chief adviser to the caretaker 
government. He has the authority of a prime 
minister, and is given the responsibility of 
appointing a cabinet, together with which he will 
govern the country for no more than 90 days. 
During this time his main tasks will be to 
oversee fair and non-partisan elections and to 
hand over power to the newly elected government.

So far, so good. But as plans go, this one is not 
foolproof. Although the arrangement worked on the 
first two occasions, this time around the BNP 
felt it could not afford to lose the election. 
All the signs indicated that if the election was 
free and fair, the BNP would be defeated by the 
Awami League. After five years of alleged 
corruption, theft and autocracy, it was faced 
with the possibility that it would actually have 
to be accountable for the crimes it had committed 
during its tenure. The excesses of previous 
regimes were mild compared with those perpetrated 
during those five years, which saw an alliance 
between the BNP and the most powerful of the 
Islamic parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami. The BNP 
formed this strategic partnership in 2001, and 
over the past five years the Jamaat's influence 
has spread throughout the bureaucracy and 
district governments, enabling the party to build 
grass-roots support and gain crucial political 
and public recognition.

As well as giving power and legitimacy to the 
Islamic right, the BNP alliance committed severe 
abuses of power. It politicised the police force 
and formed the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a 
special branch that was responsible for hundreds 
of killings in the name of "law and order". This 
force signed contracts for bridges that were 
never built, bought television channels, 
appointed biased judges, jailed and harassed the 
opposition, and placed RAB people into every post 
that might influence the election. The alliance 
invented 14 million false voters. By the same 
stroke, it wiped most Bangladeshis from a 
religious or ethnic minority from the electoral 
register.

Popular opposition to the BNP's blatant attempts 
at manipulating the election has made it 
terrified of losing power, and so, instead of 
allowing the caretaker government to fall into 
the hands of a neutral chief adviser, it 
encouraged the BNP-appointed president, Iajuddin 
Ahmed, to take the post. When we first saw the 
ageing Iajuddin taking the oath to become chief 
adviser, he appeared harmless enough. People, 
including the opposition, decided to give him a 
chance to show his neutrality - his desh-prem. 
But he proved to be easily manipulated, and after 
a few weeks he became a hated figure.

In the meantime, the beleaguered Awami League has 
committed its fair share of mistakes. In order to 
press its demands it called an indefinite series 
of strikes, bringing the economy to a halt while 
it conducted its campaigns of civil disobedience. 
No one went to work; the classrooms emptied out, 
the ships were marooned at Chittagong port, and 
the price of dhal tripled in a matter of months. 
But by far the most un forgivable blunder it 
committed was to sign a deal with the far-right 
Khilafat-e-Majlish. The Awami League has long 
claimed an ideological advantage over the BNP, 
branding itself the more secular, progressive 
party, so for those of us who believed there was 
a significant difference between the two parties, 
this was a cynical and heartbreaking manoeuvre. 
Under the terms of the deal, the Awami League 
will assist the Khilafat-e-Majlish in legalising 
fatwas and challenging any laws that contradict 
"Koranic values". Whether the Islamic right will 
really gain a foothold in mainstream politics - 
and the hearts of the public - in Bangladesh 
remains to be seen; however, that both parties 
believe they cannot win an election without the 
endorsement of the right is sign enough that 
Bangladesh's identity as a moderate Muslim 
country is under threat.

When I landed in Dhaka a few days ago, the city 
looked as it so often does in January. The fog 
was low and woolly on the ground; people were 
huddled under their shawls; the smell of oranges 
and roasted peanuts lingered in the air. But, of 
course, I knew that all was not as it seemed. In 
these past few months my desh-prem has been under 
siege, and this time, I arrived in Dhaka in 
bitter spirits. I had planned this trip so that I 
would be able to vote; I had spent months looking 
forward to returning to Bangladesh to exercise my 
democratic right. Yet as the day drew near, I 
realised I wouldn't be going home to vote, but 
rather to witness a sham election. With the Awami 
League boycotting the elections, and talk of a 
constitutional crisis, we all began to worry that 
this year could mark the death of democracy in 
Bangladesh. The mood was sombre and people seemed 
resigned; it appeared there was nothing anyone 
could do to prevent this political charade from 
going ahead.

But then, just as it appeared there was no 
solution in sight, the president suddenly 
declared a state of emergency and postponed the 
elections indefinitely. He resigned as chief 
adviser and dissolved the caretaker cabinet. The 
exact reasons for his about-face are still 
opaque, but we do know that it happened through a 
combination of international pressure and army 
intervention. To what degree the army is now 
running things is unclear; vague and ominous 
ordinances have been proposed, some of which hint 
at restrictions on personal freedom and on the 
media.

Walter Benjamin famously said that a state of 
emergency is also always a state of emergence. 
Can we take this literally in Bangladesh? Will 
the emergency see us through to a fair election, 
or will the army consolidate its power and wrest 
democracy from us indefinitely? And what would 
happen to my desh-prem then? Could it survive 
another onslaught?

Whenever I imagine returning to Bangladesh for 
good, I wonder what kind of country I want to 
return to. I want, more than anything, to have 
that feeling of protean possibility that my 
father must have had when he crossed the border 
into his new country. I want a country where my 
gender does not preclude me from being an equal 
citizen. Where corruption has not touched every 
facet of public life. Where the children don't 
sell popcorn on street corners or work in 
matchstick factories. I want to know that I'm 
going to show up on polling day and see my name 
on the voter registration list. I want to stand 
in a queue, press my thumb into a pad of ink, and 
put my mark wherever I like. I want my 
politicians to stop courting the Islamic right. I 
want the water table to stop rising. I want the 
government to stop driving the Hindus and the 
Chakmas and the Santals out of this country. I 
want someone to count my vote. I want a halt to 
the steady erosion of civil liberties. I want a 
country where the army cannot arrest anyone 
without a warrant. I want our political parties 
to be democratic, transparent and accountable. I 
want fair and neutral judges. I want the right to 
vote. I want there to be no such thing as a legal 
fatwa. I want the war criminals of the 1971 
genocide to be tried, condemned and jailed. I 
want to vote. I want a country worthy of my 
desh-prem. I want a country.

Tahmima Anam's debut novel, "A Golden Age", set 
during the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence, 
will be published in March by John Murray (£14.99)


_____


[3]

The Telegraph
January 13, 2007

A HOME FOR MS NASREEN

Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen's 
extension of her permission to stay on in India 
is about to expire. She likens her position to 
standing at a bus stop all her life

Well-behaved women rarely make history," says a 
sticker pasted on Taslima Nasreen's refrigerator 
door. But then, rarely do they have to make up 
their minds about what they are going to do and 
where they are going to go each time they get 
shunted out of a country either. That is 
something that the exiled Bangladeshi author and 
firebrand feminist is having to do on a regular 
basis - every six months or so. In fact, the 
six-month extension of her permission to stay on 
in India, which she received in August last year, 
is about to expire. And as D-day - February 17 - 
closes in on her, the woman who held her head 
high in spite of several fatwas against her 
openly tells you that it's not a nice feeling.

"The uncertainty is very disturbing," she says. 
"It's like standing at a bus stop all your life." 
When you are always at the bus stop, you are 
never home. And, after all these years of 
standing and waiting, Nasreen wants to go home. 
But home, for her, is not just Bangladesh. She 
doesn't see the two Bengals - East and West - as 
separate. "It is a forced division, created 
artificially," she tells you and says that she 
doesn't accept it. "Ideally, I would like to be a 
part of an undivided Bengal," she adds wistfully. 
But at the moment, for all practical purposes, if 
her "beloved Motherland" - or what the rest of 
the world knows as Bangladesh - won't have her, 
she would like to be a part of India. But New 
Delhi is not as keen on that. Nasreen has been 
hoping to get Indian citizenship - but going by 
past experience she is not too optimistic about 
that. Right now, she would settle for an 
extension of her resident permit for a longer 
period. "I don't know why I can't be granted a 10 
or even a five-year extension," she asks, 
sounding both hurt and exasperated.

She finds the short-term extensions frustrating, 
having to constantly worry about when the visa 
will expire. "I seem to be always writing out 
applications requesting permission for me to stay 
on somewhere," she sighs, smiling sadly. "And 
then waiting."

Evidently no one is inured to the insecurity and 
uncertainty of a wait. Not even Taslima Nasreen, 
who has had years of practice. She has been 
waiting for over a dozen years. Waiting to return 
to something that she can call home. It was way 
back in 1994 that Nasreen first had to flee from 
her homeland. A gynaecologist and newspaper 
columnist, she was already in the black book of 
Islamic fundamentalists for her open criticism of 
the oppression of women in the name of religion. 
But it was her book Lajja (Shame), which dealt 
not only with the injustices against women in her 
community but also the plight of minority Hindus, 
that had the hardliners baying for her blood.

Fatwas were announced against her, unleashing a 
mob fury that forced her to go into hiding in her 
own country. "I used to be shifted from one 
hideout to another by friends, sometimes cramped 
into the back seat of cars, wrapped in blankets 
held down by suitcases," she recalls. She didn't 
know where she was being taken, what she would do 
next or whether or not she would be alive the 
next moment. One day she found herself being 
bundled up in an aeroplane, heading for an 
unknown destination with virtually no personal 
belongings. "I had no idea," she says today, 
"that I would never again return to my country."

The rest, of course, is history. Nasreen, now 44, 
has been living in exile since, with only a 
secret visit in 1988 to Bangladesh to be with her 
sick mother, who was on her death bed. "A lot of 
people had feared for my life during that trip," 
Nasreen says. "But I loved her and nothing could 
keep me from going and meeting her. I was not 
afraid to die. But there was a lot of 
international pressure on the government to 
ensure that I was safe."

Letter after letter went to the Bangladesh Prime 
Minister - penned both by eminent personalities 
and ordinary citizens of the world - urging 
Nasreen a safe journey back, ironically enough, 
from home. "I write on behalf of the 
International Academy of Humanism to express our 
concern for the safety of Dr Taslima Nasreen," 
wrote Professor Paul Kurtz, president, 
International Academy of Humanism. And Hermann 
Bondi, former master, Churchill College, 
Cambrige, wrote, "I am writing to you out of 
concern for Dr Taslima Nasreen. Many of us hope 
and indeed trust that your government will 
protect this distinguished person from the crude 
violence that threatens her and abstain from 
prosecuting her for her alleged views."

In a letter to her, author Salman Rushdie wrote, 
"Great writers have agreed to lend their weight 
to the campaign on your behalf." They included 
Czeslaw Milosz, Mario Vargas Llosa and Milan 
Kundera. And not that Nasreen is not aware of it.

No, Nasreen doesn't deny that she found "love and 
acceptance from total strangers" outside of her 
country. "European countries quarrelled among 
each other to give asylum to me," she says. 
Sweden - where she was first taken to in 1994 - 
and Germany, in particular, were keen to host 
her. But when you point out to her that France 
had once issued her only a 24-hour visa, she 
immediately reminds you of the flak Paris 
received for that, including a demand for the 
resignation of the then President. You can't miss 
the urgency in Nasreen's voice. She wants to make 
sure that you recognise that when her own people 
abandoned her, strangers picked her up and gave 
her shelter.

Yet Nasreen craves the love of her own people. 
"Everyone needs to come back to a home," she 
sighs. At the moment home for her is her plush 
apartment on Calcutta's Rowden Street. "It 
doesn't necessarily have to be a home full of 
people. It is a space where you feel independent. 
A place where you belong." Her only family member 
is a cat by the name of Minoo. Nasreen had picked 
her up from the Gariahat fishmarket when she was 
only a kitten, abandoned and alone.

Minoo is a fearless and independent creature - 
more like a tigress or a Baghini, which is what 
Nasreen calls her. And, yes, she has a home. 
Nasreen gave her one. The question is, who will 
give Nasreen a home?

_____


[4]


Dr. John Dayal

Member: National Integration Council
Government of India

National President: All India Catholic Union (Founded 1919)
Secretary General: All India Christian Council (Founded 1999)
President: United Christian Action, Delhi (Founded 1992)

505 Link, 18 IP Extension, Delhi 110092 India
  Email: johndayal at vsnl.com
Phone: 91-11-22722262 Mobile 09811021072

SANGH BARES ITS FANGS ON FOUNDER'S CENTENARY
Interfaith dialogue meeting attacked in Kanpur, Muslims, Christians
victim s elsewhere

Statement by Dr John Dayal, Member, national Integration Council,
Government of India, New Delhi, 22 January 2007:

The bloodthirsty manner in which the Hindutva brigade in India
celebrated the Birth Centenary of its founder and Rashtriya Swayamsewak
Sangh chief Guru Golwalkar last Sunday is evidence that the hyper
nationalist and religious fundamentalist group has sharpened its attack
on Christians and Muslims as enemy aliens in India.
Not only did the Hindutva Parivar violently attack residential Muslim
areas in the Silicon city of Bangalore in Karnataka taking out a
provocative procession, which defied the police, it attacked
institutions in Kangra of Himachal Pradesh, its spokesmen made repeated
announcements on friendly Indian language television news channels that
they would wage war on [Muslim] terrorism and [Christian] Conversions
which they identified as the twin threats to India.
Their cadres among the `Sadhus' [saints or mendicants], now
congregating along the Ganges-Yamuna Rivers' confluence at Allahabad,
they said, would ensure their the dream Hindu Homeland Nation [Rashtra]
was realized as soon as possible.
The vitriolic diatribe against religious minorities has reached its
peak on the eve of elections to several State Legislative Assemblies in
the country.
For the most, Indian police forces have been mute witnesses to the
Hindutva violence. In Bangalore, capital of Karnataka which is now
ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political face of the RSS, the
police made an ineffectual attempt to control the ravaging mobs,
killing one person. In Kangra, they watched helplessly and in Kanpur,
the industrial capital of India's largest province of Uttar Pradesh,
they came much too late although television cameras were on duty
recording the mass violence.

The Kanpur violence, in fact, was the one that gave away the Sangh
Parivar intolerance. What they presumed was a Christian conversion
rally because two White United States citizens were in attendance,
turned out to be an interfaith prayer and dialogue meeting where a Sikh
cult leader from New Delhi had taken two of his foreign guests as key
speakers.
Curiously, only one news channel showed violence and identified the
attackers as Hindutva Parivar members. Only one Hindi language
newspaper, the mass circulated Amar Ujala, reported the incident in
detail. Another channel took the Hindutva side and said the meeting was
of Christian missionaries even though nether police chief of the city
denied it was so.  The police chief, Sinha, promised action against the
ringleaders who masterminded the well planned attack. The silence of
other mass media was not explained. Newspapers in Uttar Pradesh
routinely target the Christian minority in publishing statements of the
Sangh Parivar against Church groups and institutions.
The Americans, who were not identified, were said to be in a state of
panic and had cut short their stay in the hotel in Kanpur. The Sikh
cult leader was identified as Sant Sangat Singh Bains, who ahs a large
ashram in New Delhi, and is known for his work in ecumenism and inter
faith dialogue. The organizers of the meeting in Kanpur are well-known
Hindu intellectuals Kailashpati Tripathi and his associates who have an
inter religious meeting every week. The police said later they had
arrested two persons who they did not name
I saw the Sangh aggression on the Hindi Television news Channel
`Seven'. The camera recorded how the peaceful meeting was abruptly
disrupted by a mob of about twenty persons who slammed open the door of
the hall, tore down the curtains, climbed up a table and smashed the
sound system. Then they assaulted some of the persons attending the
meeting even as their spokesman told the television reporter that they
would not allowed conversions in Hindu Rashtra of India. Mr. Tripathi
later told a fact finding team of the All India Christian Council that
there was no Christian activity in their meeting, which was part of a
series of prayer dialogues they have been organizing for a long time.
In the past, there had been no objections, much less attacks, on their
inter faith meetings, he said.
In Kangra, a small town in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh
whose Congress government recently passed a law banning religious
conversions - defying the Congress president's directive - a
fanatical crowd surrounded a Christian run orphanage and wanted the
pastor to close pack up and leave the state. The police watched and
then curiously advised the crowd to file a formal complaint with the
police against the pastor and his group. Pastor Behal's has had a
church, and children's home with about 15 inmates for several years
in this district town. Of late, the local Hindutva groups have been
railing against him, and want him out of the state where outsiders are
not permitted to own property but can run institutions.
The Sangh violence against Christians has not surprised me. Neither am
I surprised that violence takes place in states that are ruled by the
BJP as much as in other states ruled by the Congress. The one
difference is that in Congress ruled states, the police make an effort
to act against the attackers, while in BJP governed states such as
Madhya Pradesh, even preliminary reports are not registered by the
police.
I have also in many letters on behalf of the All India Catholic Union
and the All India Christian Council, addressed to Congress President
Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Union Home
Minister Mr. Shivraj Patil, spelled out the Sangh conspiracy against
the Christian community.
The national leadership has been told time and again that the writ of
the Indian Constitution seems not to run in states such as Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. They have also been told that the
mushrooming number of  anti-conversion bills actually convinces the
Sangh cadres that they are right in attacking Christians. The most
shocking has been the anti conversion bill passed in the Himachal
Pradesh assembly, controlled by the Congress, in utter defiance of the
assurances of the Congress president.
Unless the national government and the Supreme Court of India direct
state governments to take preemptive action, we fear that anti
Christian violence will only escalate in coming months.


______


[5]

NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN
62-Gandhi Marg, Badwani, Madhya Pradesh-451551
Phone: 07290-222464, E-mail: nba.medha at gmail.com/abarada at rediffmail.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Press Release 
21.01.2007


ï	Mr. Modi's dedication, not of benefits or 
rehabilitation nor the Project but merely power 
turbines, is a political farce.
ï	SSP stopped at 122 mts cannot reach the 
full height since rehabilitation is not in sight.
ï	Centre must review the project with 
socio-economic-environmental impacts and massive 
corruption proved.


	It is just unfortunate and totally unjust 
that CM of Gujarat, Mr. Narendra Modi restoring 
to one more act of fooling people of Gujarat and 
nation as a whole. Mr. Modi dedicated to nation, 
the power turbines of Sardar Sarovar Project and 
not the project itself or even the benefits, 
which are far from completion and achievements. 
The people all over the country, who have watched 
the struggle and challenge the falsehood that 
helped push the giant Dam of Sardar Sarovar to 
122 mts, should very well know that the turbines 
which were brought from Sumitoto and Hitashi, two 
of the Japanese companies as per the condition 
put forward by Bilateral Development Assistance 
agencies of Japan, have not been functional or up 
to the mark as yet. Both the power houses - River 
Bed Power House (RBPH) and Canal Head Power House 
(CHPH) have generated much less power and much 
costlier power than was expected at 110 meters of 
dam height itself.

Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, who are to get 
only power and not a drop of water, are 
sacrificing their generation old adivasi and 
farmer communities, prime agricultural lands and 
thousands of crores of rupees till date, while a 
huge investment is yet to occur, with balance of 
financial liabilities and affected families in 
their account. It is to be noted that Sardar 
Sarovar has not yet come on the list of projects 
providing power to Maharashtra as per the 
official documents of MSEB.

Madhya Pradesh, where thickly populated villages 
and townships are thrown into the affected area 
of the dam at the present height of 122 metres, 
also has not received the real power beyond 
negligible minimum. This has happened because, in 
spite of height raised to110 mts during monsoon 
of 2006, Gujarat govt. could not use water in the 
reservoir for producing power in Canal Head Power 
House. The reason was the fear of villages on 
canal banks getting drowned with breaches in the 
canal, carrying not just water but also 
corruption.

With the farcical celebration of the so-called 
dedication of turbines, the government has also 
restored to fake publicity through advertising, 
spending lakhs of rupees from the public 
exchequer. Just as the promises of Rehabilitation 
over years have not come true in case of 
thousands of Sardar Sarovar Project affected 
families, the promise of 1450 MW also cannot be. 
This being the generation capacity (installed 
capacity) at Full Reservoir Level, which is to be 
at 138.68 mts, cannot be achieved at either 122 
mts or even at the full height. The claims of 
government of Gujarat regarding power generation 
are unwarranted and in discrepancy with the 
calculations of Central Electricity Authority, 
which is actually only half of what Gujarat 
government claims. The actual generated power has 
always been less than generating capacity (in any 
hydro power project) and in the case of Sardar 
Sarovar, it has to start with 439 MW and within 
years, will come down to 50 MW, once irrigation 
targets in Gujarat are achieved. The conflict 
between irrigation and power in any Multi Purpose 
Project is well known to the country, which will 
be much more in case of Sardar Sarovar, with 
inter state conflicts that are bound to infest 
Sardar Sarovar sooner or later.

Mr. Modi could not dare gift Irrigation, even the 
whole project, obviously because the project is 
far from being completed. More than 40,000 
families still await full and complete 
Rehabilitation as per law and court judgment and 
hence continue to live in their lands, under 
threat of submergence.

The permission to raise height, even if by 
putting gates, is not and cannot be given by 
Central agencies, including Rehabilitation 
Sub-group of NCA. It is revealed from the reports 
of few of the research organizations of Gujarat 
that mere 10% of drinking and irrigation targets 
claimed at 110 mts could be achieved by state. 
People of Kutch and Surat are deprived, not of 
non-performance of water supply network but also 
because of distributive in-justice. The later 
reason has come to be worse, with transfer of 
water and land in command area of SSP to 
corporates first, before the drought affected 
farmers and others, who were made to await the 
mirage of Narmada all through these decades. It 
is in this context that Gujarat Congress, the 
government and the authorities at the Center must 
show the rational and political acumen not to 
support the political agenda of Mr. Modi, rather 
should expose false claims of benefits and 
Rehabilitation both. When central authorities 
have power and responsibility to ensure justice 
to oustees before submergence and even withdraw 
the sanctions to a project as well its financial 
support through Planning Commission, beyond the 
boycott of dedication function of Mr Modi. It 
could do good if along with:

a)       Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) 
undertake with Planning Commission and update the 
Cost-Benefits of 40,000 crore project i.e. Sardar 
Sarovar 
b)       MoWR does not sanction any further funds 
under its Accelerated Irrigation Benefit 
Programme, much criticized by CAG.
c)       Not allow any further work at the Dam 
site including erection of gates if no legal and 
justice based Rehabilitation is in sight for 
thousands of families i.e. a few lakhs of people 
in the river valley, the oldest of civilization.
d)       Ministry of Environment send special 
team to review compliances put forth as on the 
Environment compensation measures as 
pre-conditions in the project clearance, which 
too are only on paper.
e)       Direct Ministry of Social Justice to 
ensure immediate allotment of land and 
establishment of R&R sites for already affected 
and to be immediately affected adivasis and 
farmer communities.
f)         Undertake CBI enquiry into huge 
corruption in the name of Rehabilitation and 
compensation, which is proved through documents 
by NBA.

Noorji Padvi,  Yogini Khanolkar,  Chetan Salve, 

Ashish Mandloi, Medha Patkar

______


[6]

Date: 22 Jan 2007 07:42:36 -0000


Subject: Update on Madarsa incident in  Allahabad

Gangrape of Two Madarsa Girls in Allahabad

Dear All

It is an urgent action alert. Two days ago, some 
goons forcibly entered into a residential girl 
Madarsa in Allahabad. They took two girls with 
them and they were gang raped. After the getting 
the news of the incident, I tried my best to 
contact all those who are in the position to 
intervene. I thought, this can be turned to other 
way and this type of incident will lead to 
further seclusion of Muslim girls. So, immediate 
intervention by the sensitive organization and 
persons are necessary.

Subhashini Ali, national President of AIDWA, 
reacted immediately and asked DG, UP police to 
take action against the culprits including the 
policemen. She had also given a memorandum to the 
governor.
In Allahabad, I asked, Padma Ji of Stree Adhikar 
Sanghatna, if possible go to the spot and see the 
ground situation. Due to Kumbh, it was very 
difficult on Friday to move inside Allahabad. But 
in spite of difficult situation, they went to the 
spot and I am sending their initial observations. 
Team members are (1) M. Hema Bindu, Asst. 
Professor, IIIT, Allahabad (2) Padma, Activist 
and Teacher (3) Farida Khan, Activist (4) Shyam 
Kali, Teacher. They all belong to Stree Ahikaar 
Sanghatan.

Nasiruddin (Mobile-09450931764)
Lucknow

Initial Observation of the Team

The Madarsa was started in the year 1992 in a 
rented accommodation in Kareli area of Allahabad. 
Three years back it was shifted to Karhenda, a 
secluded place, beside a Mosque, where recently 
Tarabi was also held. It is situated very close 
to the bridge over the Sasur khaderi river. 
Maulana Wasiullah was running it for “dini” 
purpose. This is the  FIRST madarsa for girls in 
Allahabad.There are altogether 55 inmates; free 
for poor and Rs.250/- for others is totally being 
charged.

On the fateful night of 17th January, around 12 
a.m., six miscreants, claiming themselves to be 
police personnel (CID) for investigation, forced 
(breaking the front door) themselves into the 
premises and locked the watchman in the store 
room. Then caretaker (khaala) and the sleeping 
girls were woken up, enquired about the 
whereabouts of the Maulana (manager) and selected 
2 girls after threatening (with knife and pistol) 
and locking the others IN A ROOM. These two were 
taken away to the fields, one Km away, opposite 
the Madarsa and gang raped for 2 hrs, threatening 
to cut them down into three pieces.

Meanwhile, the locked-up girls were 
shouting/crying for help, but being a deserted 
place, none could hear and come for rescue. 
Around 2 a.m., both the victims returned, shocked 
and chilled in the outside cold, cried and lied 
down only to wake up at around 9 a.m. on the 
morning of 18th Jan. They called up one of the 
UDF leaders then, whose wife immediately came up 
to the madarsa and picked up all the girls. There 
were attempts to lodge an FIR and conduct a 
medical examination of the victims, but the S.O., 
Kareli would not co-operate. Only after the 
intervention of the SSP around the afternoon, did 
the case get registered under 376, 452 and 506, 
but the medical part still left untouched till 
this time of 19th Jan.

Few preliminary but important observations noted by the investigation team:

·     When madarsa started in 2003-2004 ---- LIU 
came for investigation during midnight, but was 
opined by the Maulana as not OK.
·     11 months later ---- second time investigation
·     4 months before this incident took place ----- third time investigation
·     All the times, they were requested for TWO 
security guards, who were denied on grounds of 
lack of finances, but OFFERED Gun license instead.
·     People of Kareli are highly dissatisfied 
and have NEGATIVE remarks about the SO, who is 
under the protection of the local MLA and MP.
·     The maulana broke down with emotion that 
his dreams were shattered and said now the 
madarsa may have to be closed, because of lack of 
security to the inmates.

WE ALL FELT THAT THIS CASE NEED TO BE TAKEN 
SERIOUSLY AND NOT JAILING THE MISCREANTS BUT A 
DIFFERENT AND NOVEL KIND OF PUNISHMENT BE METED 
OUT TO THEM , SO THAT OTHERS OF SIMILAR ILLNESS 
LEARN A LESSON.
Team members-
(1) M. Hema Bindu, Asst. Professor, IIIT, Allahabad
(2) Padma, Activist and Teacher
(3) Farida Khan, Activist
(4) Shyam Kali, Teacher. They all belong to Stree Ahikaar Sanghatan.


Dear All

Update on Allahabad incident

1. After lot of pressure, today medical 
examination of both the girls was done. Report 
confirmed the incident.

2.Mulayam Singh has announced two lakhs as compensation/help.

3. Police has round up few youths. till late night identification was going on.

4. Tommorrow on 21st different organisations have 
planned to sit on protest dharana in front of 
Allahabad Kotwali. We are going to Allahabad.

Nasiruddin
09450931764

______


[7]

The Globe and Mail
22/01/07

Commentary
WAJID KHAN DESERVES OUR RESPECT

by Tarek Fatah

This has not been a particularly kind month for 
Mississauga MP Wajid Khan. But the political 
dogfight in which he finds himself pales when 
compared to the day his MiG 19 was shot down over 
India in 1971. Mr. Khan parachuted to safety, 
only to end up in an Indian PoW camp for the next 
year.

Can Wajid Khan the MP replicate the surviving 
skills of Wajid Khan the fighter pilot? I caught 
up with Mr. Khan and asked him whether he was 
going to quit. "You must be kidding," he quipped.

When I suggested that now that his own Muslim 
communities, especially Arab leaders, are 
attacking his credibility, he interrupted: 
"Listen to me very carefully, my community is the 
Canadian community; I am not the ambassador of 
some country to Canada; I am an MP representing 
Canadians and my primary interest is Canada's 
welfare. I am not in politics to represent some 
overseas group or government. Yes, I am a Muslim, 
but I cannot be held hostage by self-appointed 
community leaders who have their own hidden 
agendas."

Mr. Khan was reacting to a joint statement by 
Khaled Mouammar, president of the Canadian Arab 
Federation, and Mohamed Elmasry, president of the 
Canadian Islamic Congress, who not only demanded 
Mr. Khan publish his elusive Middle East report 
to the Prime Minister but also attacked Mr. 
Khan's credibility while mocking his competence.

Their statement claimed there was nothing in Mr. 
Khan's "past or present activities and experience 
that would qualify him as suitable for such a 
sensitive mission." It went on to say that "most 
of the countries he has visited know nothing 
about him as a representative of Canada."

Mr. Elmasry further complained: "Wajid Khan is 
not a professor of political science . . . and 
his knowledge of the Middle East is very limited. 
He's a member of Parliament and he so happens to 
be a Muslim, and he does not represent the Muslim 
viewpoint." The words were clumsy, yet the 
underlying message was clear: Wajid Khan's 
ancestry is Pakistani, not Arab. He is not a good 
Muslim, and he does not qualify to speak for the 
Arab community. Ethnic politics has sunk to a new 
low. Once more, religion has been inserted to 
deride one's political opponent.

Of course, Mr. Elmasry, an engineer, is no 
professor of political science, either.

The demand for the publication of Mr. Khan's 
report is valid but suspicious. Neither the 
Canadian Arab Federation nor the Canadian Islamic 
Congress could explain why they never made 
similar demands of another globe-trotting special 
adviser to a prime minister -- Sarkis 
Assadourian, a Syrian-born Canadian MP who served 
Paul Martin.

Salma Siddiqui, a vice-president of the secular 
Muslim Canadian Congress, says there is an 
explanation. While distancing herself from Mr. 
Khan's politics, Ms. Siddiqui, an Ottawa 
businesswoman and long-time Liberal, came to the 
former Liberal MP's defence. "Attacks on Wajid 
Khan have very little to do with the merits of 
his Middle East trip," she said in a statement. 
"It is more to do with a sense of misguided 
jealousy many Islamists feel when seeing a 
secular Muslim MP being chosen to advise the 
prime minister."

Indeed, news reports about Mr. Khan's 
fact-finding trip indicate he supports a much 
more pro-Palestinian position than the 
Conservative government had adopted before his 
mission. For Canadian Arab and Islamic leaders to 
slam an MP who clearly supports their cause 
indicates, at best, poor leadership, if not 
"misguided jealousy."

Ms. Siddiqui says it is Mr. Khan's refusal to 
meet the Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah 
during his trip that may have riled his critics.

Long before he left for the Middle East, Wajid 
Khan had already made many enemies in Islamist 
circles. His public denunciation of Islamic 
extremists in Canada at the time of the alleged 
Toronto terror plot had not gone well with the 
country's mosque establishment. More than one 
imam had threatened him with political oblivion 
in the next election. His spurning of Hamas and 
Hezbollah may have been the straw that broke the 
camel's back.

Could Wajid Khan be paying the price for standing 
up to Islamic extremists? One may take him to 
task for crossing the floor, and one hopes the 
Prime Minister permits the publication of his 
report. But for standing up to Islamic 
extremists, Wajid Khan deserves the support of 
all Canadians.

Tarek Fatah, a native of Pakistan, is host of The 
Muslim Chronicle on CTS-TV and founder of the 
Muslim Canadian Congress. He was a delegate to 
the recent Liberal convention.


______



[8]

The Nation
posted January 19, 2007 (February 5, 2007 issue)

AYATOLLAH D'SOUZA

by Katha Pollitt

In his new book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural 
Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, far-right 
provocateur Dinesh D'Souza argues that Al Qaeda 
really does hate our freedoms--and so does he. 
Forget geopolitics--Israel/Palestine, US military 
bases in Saudi Arabia, our support for assorted 
corrupt regimes, Arab socioeconomic stagnation. 
No, 9/11 was provoked by feminism, birth control, 
abortion, pornography, feminism, Hollywood, 
divorce, the First Amendment, gay marriage, and 
did I mention feminism? Muslims fear the West is 
out to foist its depraved, licentious, secular 
"decadence" on their pious patriarchal societies. 
And, D'Souza argues, they're right. Working 
mothers! Will & Grace! Child pornography! Our 
vulgar, hedonistic, gender-egalitarian, virally 
expanding NGO-promoted values so offend 
"traditional Muslims" that they have thrown in 
their lot with Osama and other America-haters. At 
times D'Souza sounds like he can barely keep from 
enlisting himself: "American conservatives should 
join Muslims and others in condemning the global 
moral degeneracy that is produced by liberal 
values."

Well, it's a theory. Specifically, as D'Souza 
acknowledges, it's a secular version of Jerry 
Falwell's contention that 9/11 was a divine 
rebuke to "the pagans, and the abortionists, and 
the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who 
are actively trying to make that an alternative 
lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, 
all of them who have tried to secularize 
America." Of course, Falwell got hammered; even 
George W. Bush had to distance himself. Besides 
the obvious objections, God's aim seemed wide of 
the mark: Did He think the ACLU had an office in 
the Pentagon and that Windows on the World was a 
gay bar? The same objection can be raised to 
D'Souza's cultural explanation for 9/11: Al Qaeda 
didn't send planes crashing into Universal 
Studios or the headquarters of Planned 
Parenthood. It blew up the emblems of US economic 
and military might. Subsequent attacks took place 
in countries that sent troops to Iraq, not 
condoms to Cairo. As Osama himself has noted, 
he's not attacking Sweden.

But let that pass. The Enemy at Home isn't really 
about Osama. It's about us--the cultural left, a 
k a "the left wing of the Democratic Party" (plus 
a few Republican friends), "the domestic 
insurgency" that is "working in tandem with bin 
Laden to defeat Bush." (With typical 
slipperiness, D'Souza claims he's not accusing 
anyone of treason--just of allying themselves 
with the evildoers out to destroy us. Note that 
the book jacket features a torn and burning 
flag.) D'Souza boasts that he'll go McCarthy one 
better and name names in high places--his long 
list includes Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, 
Howard Dean, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Salman Rushdie, the 
ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Wendy Kaminer, Planned 
Parenthood, Rosie O'Donnell, Alec Baldwin and a 
whole bunch of Nation writers, including Eric 
Alterman, Jonathan Schell and me. OK, Eric and 
me, possibly. And Hillary is a workaholic, so 
maybe she promotes America-hatred and child 
pornography in the wee hours, after her day job 
beefing up the US military. But Rosie O'Donnell 
working with bin Laden? Salman Rushdie on the 
same side as the fanatics who tried so hard to 
kill him? Does D'Souza have any idea how weird 
that sounds?

When the left isn't coddling terrorists, it's 
alienating "traditional Muslims," a group D'Souza 
believes the right ought to win over. The way to 
do this is not by building schools and hospitals 
that might actually improve their lives; it's by 
defending their cultural values, which 
fortunately just happen to be D'Souza's own. 
(Honor killings and child marriage aren't 
Islamic, he claims, just things that regrettably 
happen in Muslim societies. As for the veil, he 
approvingly quotes Sudanese radical cleric Hassan 
Turabi, who claims it lets women be seen as human 
beings. It's nice to see the cultural-relativist 
shoe back on the far-right foot.)

Actually, the Bush Administration has been doing 
just that for some time. It supports the 
ultraconservative Saudi regime. At the United 
Nations, it lined up with the Vatican, Iran, 
Libya and Sudan to oppose comprehensive sex ed. 
This last item got them nowhere, except with the 
US Christian right--but that's the point. 
D'Souza's proposal looks international, but it's 
really domestic. It's all about revving up the 
flagging Republican base: The Vagina Monologues 
caused 9/11! Unfortunately for the Republicans, 
not only are there not quite enough true 
believers stupid enough to believe that, but most 
Americans--not just Eve Ensler and Barney 
Frank--are on the other side of the culture wars. 
There is no support, none, for restricting 
divorce, as the Institute for American Values 
discovered when it tried to get state legislators 
to make divorce harder to obtain. Polls show 
increasing comfort with gay rights. Even South 
Dakota balked at outlawing abortion. As for the 
vulgar raunch-fest that is popular culture, 
Americans, and foreigners too, pay zillions for 
the music, movies, TV shows and magazines D'Souza 
claims US leftists are cramming down the throats 
of the world.

If the last election showed us anything, it was 
that the culture wars are not an automatic win 
for the right. Moreover, the extraordinary 
rejection of Bush's war in Iraq, which crosses 
all sorts of demographic and political lines, 
shows how little appetite Americans have for 
intervention in the Muslim world even when they 
really do share the values supposedly being 
promoted, like constitutional democracy and 
ethnic and religious tolerance. The idea that 
Americans are going to embrace the mullahs and 
ayatollahs out of a shared dislike of gays and 
working mothers is fairly fantastic. Besides, the 
Americans who come closest to sharing 
"traditional Muslim" family values are 
fundamentalists like, um, Jerry Falwell, who 
think Islam is the devil's work. The minute they 
tried bringing their new best friends to Christ, 
they'd find out that a mutual obsession with 
female chastity can take you only so far.

The Enemy at Home is not just slimy and nasty and 
silly, it's deeply confused. After all, who is 
urging Americans to combine with foreign powers 
against their fellow citizens? Not Bill Moyers. 
Who is saying we must adopt the mores of an alien 
culture or be destroyed? It's Dinesh 
D'Souza--surrender monkey.


_____


[9]

INDIA PAKISTAN ARMS RACE AND MILITARISATION WATCH
Compilation No 167
(December 30, 2006 - 15 January 2007) Year Seven

URL for full text PDF is: http://www.sacw.net/peace/IPARMW167.pdf

_____


[10]

  A Nordic workshop on "War, Peace and Development 
in Sri Lanka" is held in Göteborg 29-30 January 
2007. The aim of the workshop is to bring 
together scholars in the Nordic research 
environments working on issues related to the 
violent and longstanding conflict in Sri Lanka, 
and in particular on efforts for achieving peace 
and development. The primary focus is on paper 
presentations of the participants own research. 
The workshop will provide an opportunity for the 
participants to link up with other Nordic 
scholars studying the causes and effects of the 
war in Sri Lanka, peace attempts and the Nordic 
involvement in Sri Lanka, as well as development, 
reconstruction and humanitarian interventions. 
The workshop is a follow-up to a workshop held in 
Uppsala in January 2006 and is jointly organised 
by the Dept. of Peace and Development Research 
(PADRIGU), School of Global Studies, Goteborg 
University, and Dept. of Peace and Conflict 
Research, Uppsala University. Any questions, 
please contact Dr. Camilla Orjuela 
<camilla.orjuela at globalstudies.gu.se>

o o o

MAKING HISTORY OUR OWN

AIFACS Gallery, 1 Rafi Marg, New Delhi. Jan 30- Feb 4th, 1-7 pm.

PLEASE JOIN US for the opening on January 30th, 5-7 pm.

The first stop in a year-long journey across 
India, work by artists made specially for this 
show interpreting individual histories, 
inspirations and trajectories. A collective 
visual history of the arts made by artists. A 
confluence of creative histories in the midst of 
celebrating National histories. It launches 
simultaneously as a web exhibition:

<http://www.sahmat.org/makinghistoryourown.html>www.sahmat.org/makinghistoryourown.html

Metro: Central Secretariat. Parking at VP house, 
Press Club and Central Secretariat Metro.


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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), 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/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

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