SACW | Nov 22-24, 2008 / Nepal: media rights / Bangladesh elections / Afghan women MP's speak out / Hindutva

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | November 22-24, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2584 -  
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net

[1] Nepal:
   - Increasing number of media rights violations (FNJ)
   - India and the Nepali peace process (Prashant Jha)
[2] Bangladesh: 'We want 100 reserved seats for women through direct  
election' (Ayesha Khanam)
[3] Afghanistan: Female MPs speak out as conditions worsen and  
Islamists gain respectability (Clancy Chassay)
[4] India: The Hindu Right Confusion Between Biceps and Bhagvad Gita  
(Jyotirmaya Sharma)
   + BJP Is Playing With Fire (Kuldip Nayar)
[5] India: Mumbai’s Cloistered Hearth (Ajay K Mehra)
[6] For gays in India, fear is way of life (Emily Wax)
[7] Book Review: Shades of belonging (Kamila Shamsie)
[8] India: Free Speech: Would anyone dare issue a fatwa against  
Iqbal? (M J Akbar)
[9] Announcement:
- Dissemination Workshop on 'Radioactive Waste in India' (New Delhi,  
2 December 2008)

-----

[1] Nepal:

Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ)
FNJ Secretariat, Media Village, Kathmandu, Nepal
Phone: 00977-1-4112763/4112673
Hotline: 977-1-4112723 Fax: 00977-1-4112785

INCREASING NUMBERS OF MEDIA RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

17 November 2008

In the past few days the numbers of attack on Nepalese media houses  
and media persons are increasing. Such attacks and threatens targeted  
for media by various groups- known or unknown- hinder not only the  
media and media people to perform their duties but also confine  
people's right to information. Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ)  
always believes in the necessity of complete media freedom for the  
development of democracy, and the country as a whole. FNJ has  
recorded all these incidents of attacks on media as media rights  
violations and asks the government to be serious for the security of  
journalists and people's right to know.

The eastern regional office of National News Agency (RSS) in  
Biratnagar was vandalized on November 13 by an unknown group. Issuing  
a press release, FNJ has strongly condemned the attack and asked the  
local authority to find out the guilty as soon as possible.

In a separate incident, Himal Khabar Patrika (Himal magazine) was  
burnt down by a group of people on 16 November from Customer Solution  
office at Maitigar, Kathmandu; capital city.

Around 9:45pm, about 8-10 numbers of people entered the office  
premises on the motorbikes and take five thousand copies of magazines  
in their control. People with their mouth covered with scarf burnt  
down magazines and looted the three mobile set of staffs. They even  
broke down the land-line telephone set.

Likewise, Shiva Devkota, editor/publisher of Nuwakot Jagaran Weekly  
was attacked by a group of people while taking part in the program -  
"Janajagarn Aviyan" (public awareness campaign) - organized by Nepali  
Congress today, 17 November, at Nuwakot district of central region.  
Due to the attack his right hand is seriously injured.

FNJ condemns all the attacks on media and media persons and ask all  
the concerned bodies including the government to act seriously for  
the security of journalists and investigate about the incidents and  
punish the people involved in the incidents.



o o o

INDIA AND THE NEPALI PEACE PROCESS
by Prashant Jha

Some see the peace process, which the Indian establishment had a key  
role in orchestrating , as a done deal. But this is an excessively  
complacent assessment.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/24/stories/2008112451961100.htm

_____


[2]

The Daily Star
November 22, 2003

'WE WANT 100 RESERVED SEATS FOR WOMEN THROUGH DIRECT ELECTION'

by Ayesha Khanam

Women rights activist Ayesha Khanam was born in 1947. She did her  
honours and masters in Sociology from the Dhaka University in 1969  
and 1970 respectively and worked as a research fellow at Bangladesh  
Institute of Development Studies during 1977-1978. From 1965 to 1971  
she was a student activist and worker. She actively participated in  
the Liberation War as a freedom fighter. Since 1972, she has been  
working with Bangladesh Mahila Parishad and is currently president of  
the organisation. She played an active role in ratification and  
implementation of CEDAW and in the South Asian Women Caucus. She  
regularly writes on women issues in periodicals and newspapers.  
Shamim Ashraf took the interview.

Do you see any uncertainty over the parliamentary polls?
I personally think elections will be held. The BNP's pressing for its  
demands has created uncertainty, which I think is not a responsible  
attitude. All the parties say the country's interest is greater than  
that of the party. At this moment when the country is struggling in  
the democratic process, only the interim government or the EC cannot  
rescue the country?

Do you think BNP's seven demands are logical?
I don't think so. Isn't it ridiculous to demand rescheduling of the  
polls to ensure that the Hajis can cast their votes. It's an obvious  
attempt to bag cheap popularity. It is they who are responsible for  
depriving the nation of an elected government for two years. It's not  
only irresponsible but also unacceptable behaviour.

How much has been done to meet the people's expectation for reforms  
of democratic institutions?
There are a few good achievements. The EC has prepared a voters list  
and trying its best to hold the election with all the parties. They  
also received some points positively on the women issue. Though we  
shouldn't have hoped for too much from an unelected government, the  
people had very high expectation from the caretaker government as the  
political governments did not fulfil public aspirations for a long  
time and there was a political vacuum. To do that we needed a totally  
independent government, but we didn't get one. Since the CTG is not  
going to contest in the election and doesn't have any political  
ambition, we expected it to pass some bills and reform institutions.  
Bowing down to the fundamentalists after announcing the Women  
Development Policy was a setback for the government. It couldn't show  
the courage to say no to a small group of people who violated  
emergency, even though the issues of resource and equal rights were  
not there in the policy. It's double standards, and is contrary to  
the promises the government had made earlier. We also welcomed  
separation of the judiciary.

Do you think the judiciary is performing independently?
We know separation doesn't mean independence. There is a question now  
among the people due to verdicts in different cases and granting of  
bails, as if there was some influence from above. We thought this  
government would be different from the others and would work for the  
interest of the nation. It's true that the government took on the  
Himalayan task of bringing qualitative change suddenly to a political  
leadership that doesn't have any accountability. But the CTG failed  
to apply any innovative process and rather tried to follow the  
politicians' formula, like giving way to some.

Will you give some examples?
They didn't need to concede in issues like the Women Development  
Policy. Why did they need to bow down, what was the danger? The CTG's  
soft dealing with Jamaat-e-Islami was also unnecessary. The  
government can't take firm a stand against them because these  
quarters have enjoyed favour over the years.

Do you think the government could prioritise the issues?
The CTG was too ambitious at the beginning. It's true that corruption  
was pervasive and total plundering took place. But it's not realistic  
for the CTG to make the landscape of the anti-corruption drive so  
wide. As the charges could not be proved against many of the accused  
they're coming out from jail, and we fear they that situation may  
turn worse due to their reaction. The CTG needed be very selective,  
focused and strategic, and to go after particular issues, persons and  
institutions.

What outcome do you see?
Some sort of surrender. Whether this surrender will let the drive go  
on depends on who wins in the election and whether they will play a  
responsible role in the coming days. Now the situation is that all  
the responsibilities are on the government, not the political  
parties. The people expected that those who were responsible for  
wrongdoing would have to pay for it; it is justice. But these  
wrongdoers are now trying to jeopardise everything. They should ask  
themselves what mistakes they had committed in the past. The people  
whose non-transparency and corruption are legendary are now saying  
they are taking steps to rescue the countrymen. The people want to  
know who are responsible for the spread of fundamentalism and the  
rise of the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), and for helping in  
the bomb attacks.

Do you see this soul-searching?
I don't see any apologetic gesture by the parties whose actions led  
to the 1/11 changeover, causing a two-year break in democratic  
process. It is regrettable that they speak in an aggressive tone. In  
fact, we'll have to wait a generation or more to get leadership that  
will work to fulfil the people's expectations, and behave logically,  
rationally and soberly. You see that BNP even demanded scrapping of  
the amendments brought to the RPO. Why? Why don't they want discipline?

What role do the voters and citizens need to play to get such  
leadership?
People will have to sacrifice instead of seeking money, and support  
political vision and education instead of hooliganism. But nothing  
will happen until good candidates come out victorious. For that,  
we'll need to look at the electoral process. The politicians should  
have played the key role in it, but they could not take a stand  
beyond their party interest. All the parties who were in power should  
have worked to bring the war criminals to trial. But their position  
was strengthened through getting protection. A move is on to turn the  
whole state communal.

How is that?
By giving Jamaat political protection and including it in a political  
alliance. Could they win in more than three constituencies had they  
contested alone? By entering the BNP-led coalition, Jamaat has become  
stronger than BNP.

Can you detail what negative impact Jamaat had in policymaking?
All the policy intervention steps adopted during the 2001-2006 BNP- 
Jamaat alliance regime, especially those regarding women, were  
regressive. All positive aspects, like men-women parity in the Women  
Development Policy, were deleted. They also had a hand in changing  
the Education Policy and the administration, and in strengthening the  
JMB.

Do you think people will see an end to rejection of the election  
result, confrontational politics, and blame game after the next  
parliamentary polls?
The nation badly needs it. While the world leaders are now putting  
their heads together to find a solution to the world economic  
disaster, we can't afford any more political instability. We should  
take a lesson from Barack Obama's slogan for change and act  
accordingly. Everything should be resolved through negotiation, and  
the voters should give an indication for a new qualitative change  
through their votes. We want the parliament to function, and not  
remain ineffective round the year on trivial issues. The MPs may walk- 
out, but must go back again and put their arguments there. They must  
attend the government's policymaking meetings, and parliamentary  
committees must function. These will ensure transparency and  
accountability of all. We'll have to change the violent and  
destructive political culture for realising our demands.

How do you see the victory of the same old candidates in the local  
elections?
The elections were fair. And it is the responsibility of the voters  
to elect unquestionable candidates. It is solely their right, no  
political party has anything to do with it. That's why we need to see  
political parties' manifestos. It is only way to meet people's  
expectations, and the citizens have a crucial role to play in this  
regard.

Do you see any need for debates on parties' manifestos?
Definitely. We want to know what is in the election agenda of the two  
major electoral alliances. Before we vote for them, we want to know  
about their foreign policy, economic development plan, safety-net  
programs, what they will do in the Sidr-affected areas, etc.

Identify the failures of the CTG.
I want to first say that the CTG system itself is a failure of the  
political parties, it's an abnormal set-up -- and we can't expect too  
much from such a government. There's contradiction even among us --  
we asked the CTG to do many things, but we later criticised it,  
saying that the CTG didn't have the mandate to do all these. Why  
would the CTG want to do the things that the parliament members  
didn't do over the years, why would it try to bring reforms in  
parties when political leaders themselves didn't want them?

Do you think the timing of parties' registration and RPO amendment  
was right?
No. It could be done much earlier when the government had people's  
support. Such complexities would not arise and there would be enough  
time for discussion. At the fag end of its tenure, the government and  
the EC have to meet the illogical demands of the parties'.

Why did it happen?
I don't know for sure, but I guess that some advisers misguided the CTG.

How much progress has been made in representation of women in the  
parliament?
Very, very little. After years of endeavour by a social action  
committee of women rights organisations, the government, political  
parties and other stakeholders now consider it as an issue in  
politics. The nomination of more women candidates, as done by Awami  
League this time, brings me hope. The party is now saying it would  
ensure 33 percent women representation by 2020. I think other parties  
will also do the same. The BNP and its allies are yet to declare  
their candidates. Though the political thinking of the left-leaning  
parties go with us, they have less popularity. But it'll be better  
for us if they nominate women candidates and contest in the election  
in an alliance.

Do the women organisations have any demand to the parties ahead of  
the elections?
It would be a very good beginning if 60 women MPs were elected in  
this parliament. Sheikh Hasina may think about nominating 30 women  
candidates from her party and the rest may come from the allies. More  
candidates will come out victorious if fewer party-affiliated  
candidates are chosen.

Are you going to propose any candidate to any party?
We've already prepared a list of about 60-80 and sent it to Sheikh  
Hasina. We'll also send the lists to other parties. We're also  
planning to list names of about 250-300 women who are brilliant in  
their fields for appointment in different fields. We'll send this  
list to the new elected government.

What about the reserved seats in the parliament?
We want 100 reserved seats for women, who will be elected through  
direct election. The EC will identify the constituencies. A voter  
will have two votes, one for the general seat and the other for  
electing a woman candidate. Other ways might also be developed if the  
constitution is amended in line with this demand. But it'll take more  
time.

What provisions have been made in the RPO regarding these issues?
They didn't do any exercises on it. The EC just specified ensuring 33  
percent women representation in the party, and has used generalised  
ideas about the rest.

_____


[3]

The Guardian,
November 22 2008

Afghanistan : Acid attacks and rape: growing threat to women who  
oppose traditional order
FEMALE MPS SPEAK OUT AS CONDITIONS WORSEN AND ISLAMISTS GAIN  
RESPECTABILITY

Clancy Chassay in Kabul


Afghan woman victim of acid attack Kabul's head of education, Naziba  
Norstani, visits the 17-year-old victim of acid attack. Photograph:  
Omar Sobhani/Reuters

They were walking to school in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar,  
a group of teenage girls discussing a test they had coming up, when  
two men on a motorcycle sprayed them with a strange liquid. Within  
seconds a painful tingling began, and there was an unusual smell as  
the skin of 16-year-old Atifa Biba began to burn.

Her friend rushed over to help her, struggling to wipe the liquid  
away, when she too was showered with acid. She covered her face,  
crying out for help as they sprayed her again, trying to aim the acid  
into her face. The weapon was a water bottle containing battery acid;  
the result was at least one girl blinded and two others permanently  
disfigured. Their only crime was attending school.

It was not an isolated incident. For women and girls across  
Afghanistan, conditions are worsening - and those women who dare to  
publicly oppose the traditional order now live in fear for their lives.

The Afghan MP Shukria Barakzai receives regular death threats for  
speaking out on women's issues. Talking at her home in central Kabul,  
she closed the living room door as her three young daughters played  
in the hall. "You can't imagine what it feels like as a mother to  
leave the house each day and not know if you will come back again,"  
she said, her eyes welling up as she spoke.

"But there is no choice. I would rather die for the dignity of women  
than die for nothing. Should I stop my work because there is a chance  
I might be killed? I must go on, and if it happens it happens."

Barakzai receives frequent but cryptic warnings about planned suicide  
attacks on her car, but no help from the government. Officials advise  
her to stay at home and not go to work, but offer nothing in the way  
of security assistance, despite her requests. She said warlords in  
parliament who received similar threats were immediately provided  
with armoured vehicles, armed guards and a safe house by the government.

Afghan women are feeling increasingly vulnerable as the security  
situation worsens and a growing number of western and Afghan  
officials call for the Taliban to join the government.

"We are very worried that, now the government is talking with the  
Taliban, our rights will be compromised," said Shinkai Karokhail, an  
outspoken MP for Kabul. "We must not be the sacrifice by which peace  
with the Taliban is made."

Under Taliban rule, up until 2001, women were not allowed to work and  
were forbidden from venturing outside the home without a male escort.

Afghan women who defy traditional gender roles and speak out against  
the oppression of women are routinely subject to threats,  
intimidation and assassination. An increasingly powerful Taliban  
regularly attacks projects, schools and businesses run by women.

Six weeks ago, Lieutenant-Colonel Malalai Kakar was assassinated in  
her car on her way to work in Kandahar. She was Afghanistan's highest- 
ranking female police officer and a fierce defender of women's  
rights. Only five feet tall, she was known to have beaten men she  
found to be abusing their wives. Another senior female police officer  
was killed in the province of Herat in June.

Safe house

Talking to the Guardian at a safe house on the outskirts of Kabul,  
Mullah Zubiallah Akhond, a Taliban commander from the southern  
province of Uruzgan, said the group's attacks on women were always  
political and not based on any desire to target or punish women  
specifically.

He condemned the acid attack on the group of schoolgirls in Kandahar,  
and insisted the Taliban were not involved. "We support the education  
of girls, but separate from boys. We would not attack schoolgirls. We  
only target those working with the government."

The Taliban's regional commands have varying attitudes toward women,  
but all those fighting under the Taliban banner are committed to  
enforcing their interpretation of sharia law, which forbids women  
from working or leaving the house without a male escort.

The Islamist group is just one of the many threats facing  
Afghanistan's few outspoken female MPs. "Our parliament is a  
collection of lords," said Barakzai. "Warlords, drug lords, crime  
lords."

In parliament, she says, she is often greeted with screams of "kill  
her" when she stands up to speak, and she has had no shortage of  
personal threats from fellow MPs.

They visit her privately to tell her she will be killed if she  
continues to speak out on such issues as the right of a woman to have  
a personal passport (separate from the standard "family passport") or  
against compulsory virginity tests for young women, and the right of  
a man to have custody of a child at two years old. It is not only men  
who oppose women in parliament - both Barakzai and Karokhail have  
faced obstruction from other female MPs on key women's issues.

Karokhail said that, of the 68 women in the 249-strong parliament,  
only five were vocal on women's issues. The majority of women in  
parliament vote in favour of more traditional legislation that often  
rules against women's rights.

Some women now fear the parliament is becoming more conservative  
towards women. "Talibani ideas are natural among our people,  
particularly their vision about women," said Barakzai.

According to Afghan commentators, President Hamid Karzai, desperate  
to win next year's elections, has been bringing former mujahideen  
commanders into parliament in the hope they will support him at  
election time.

Most of these former jihadi commanders share the Taliban's ideas  
about women and are expected to support legislation that will once  
again limit women's freedom. In addition, according to the Taliban  
commander, the group has a growing number of MPs in parliament  
lobbying for their policies.

In much of the country, especially rural areas, women remain  
subservient to the men in their family and rarely venture out of  
their homes. Even in the relatively liberal capital, Kabul, it is  
common to see women robed in blue burkas trailing five paces behind  
their husbands.

It is difficult to gauge how the worsening situation in the country  
is affecting women, but according to a recent study by the UN, some  
87% of them suffer abuse in the home. Afghan human rights groups are  
documenting cases of "honour" killings, forced abortions and rape,  
and a database is now being constructed by the UN.

Najla Zewari, who works for the UN's gender and justice unit,  
believes violence against women is increasing, fuelled by growing  
frustrations caused by the economic crisis and lack of security. She  
said there had also been a sharp increase in rapes by men who claimed  
they could not afford to pay the dowry needed to marry. After the  
public shame of an attack, the victim is usually outcast and the  
rapist is then the only man who will have the woman as his wife.

It is crimes like this that make many Afghans nostalgic for the harsh  
justice of Taliban rule. Barakzai countered: "Women were safe, in one  
sense, under the Taliban - but they were kept as slaves, they were  
not allowed to do what they wanted even in their own home."

As the Taliban strengthen, the future for women in Afghanistan looks  
bleaker. Barakzai said women's rights, once heralded as the great  
success of post-invasion Afghanistan, had been sidelined and might  
suffer more in the struggle to find a solution to the fighting.

Last week, a council of 400 women politicians met in Kabul to discuss  
this possibility and prepare ways to counter it. Karokhail said: "Our  
biggest fear at the moment is that the return of Talibani ideas to  
government will wind back the gains we have made in these last years."


_____


[4] India:

Hindustan Times
November 23, 2008

TIME FOR SOME MEDITATION
  	
by Jyotirmaya Sharma
		
An amusing spectacle is unfolding on most news channels these days:  
the top leadership of the BJP strenuously arguing that it is wrong to  
speak about ‘Hindu’ terrorism. These are the same people who  
demolished the Babri mosque, coining the slogan Garv se kaho hum  
Hindu hain (Say it with pride that we are Hindus). They are the same  
people who encourage and incite lumpens to attack M.F. Husain’s  
exhibitions in the name of preserving ‘Hindu’ culture. The same who  
glorified and justified the wilful killing of thousands of Muslims in  
a premeditated, planned and systematic fashion after the Godhra  
tragedy in the name of ‘Hindu’ pratishodh (reaction, retaliation).  
Among them are also people who have invented the most hateful,  
diabolical and misleading formulation in recent times, arguing that  
‘all Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims’.  
Among these very people are individuals who have flouted every norm  
and tenet, every single article of faith of the Indian Constitution  
in the name of preserving Hindu asmita (sense of self). Among them  
are also people who certify Jinnah’s secular credentials, but brand  
anyone talking about coexistence, civility and debate as pseudo- 
secularists.

Having said this, I agree with them that there is no ‘Hindu  
terrorism’, just as there is no ‘Islamic/Muslim terrorism’. But there  
is something called Sangh parivar terrorism, just as there is al- 
Qaeda terrorism. Neither Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur nor Osama bin  
Laden represent their respective faiths, nor do their organisations  
represent the people who they claim to represent. To push aside  
misplaced legalism, just as the charges against the sadhvi are yet to  
be proved in a court of law, even Osama bin Laden has not yet been  
indicted by a court of law anywhere in the world. The only difference  
between Osama and Pragya is that the former is unlikely to contest an  
election in the future and become a member of an elected body. In the  
case of Pragya Thakur, given the way in which criminal investigations  
are conducted, there is a strong possibility of her becoming a  
people’s representative, as she would only be following a ‘great’  
tradition. Just as Osama hides in the impregnable mountains of  
Afghanistan, the likes of Pragya will hide behind the fig leaf of the  
democratic ‘will of the people’. This is why very few people in the  
country speak about political, electoral and administrative reforms,  
and the Indian polity has been penetrated by criminal elements of  
both communal and secular hues. If a hundred people tell a lie and  
another hundred believe in it, it does not become the truth — this  
classical formulation has been conclusively reversed in our country.

The predicament of the Sangh parivar is akin to having a tub bath,  
where one only floats in one’s own dirt and filth. From the 19th  
century onwards, apologists of Hindu nationalism have sought to  
portray Hinduism as a unified, seamless and monochromatic faith. The  
mess that is Hindutva is a result of this ideological confusion and  
intellectual laziness. While it argued, on the one hand, that  
Hinduism was a tolerant, peaceful, inward-looking, all-embracing  
faith; on the other hand, there was a call to all Hindus to regain  
their Kshatriyahood and resort to the virtues of biceps and the  
Bhagvad Gita.

Every proponent of Hindu nationalism encouraged and promoted the idea  
of retaliatory violence, be it Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo or V.  
Savarkar, in the name of preserving righteousness and a fictional  
unbroken, centuries-old Hindu tradition. All of them were ensnared by  
19th century definitions of religion and attempted to mould their own  
faith, as they understood it, in ways that were alien to the diverse  
strands of ‘Hinduism’.

Without exception, all Hindu nationalists from the 19th century  
onwards argued that religion was the core of Hindu nationalism, and  
moreover, that it was the only core of nationalism. They further  
argued that if the former was true, then, nationalism was the only  
religion. It is this formulation that allows the likes of Vajpayee  
and Advani to argue, to this day, that Hindutva stands for idealism  
whereas nationalism is their ideology. They say so in the belief that  
this linguistic and rhetorical contortion will go unnoticed, and it  
often does. It also manifests in contemporary times as Indian middle- 
class aspirations of envisioning India as an economic and military  
superpower. Very little time and energy are expended in discussing  
the constellation of values that will constitute the heart of this  
putative superpower. Like their 19th century predecessors, the  
Hindutva votaries are satisfied as long as they can vanquish their  
real and imagined enemies, at home and abroad, and impose their  
national socialist understanding of the idea of will to power.

No nation is either entirely tolerant or wholly wedded to violence.  
Any civilisation is a composite of the pure and the tainted, and from  
the struggle between the two emerge values that are sublime,  
civilised and truly human. This struggle is neither a given, nor is  
it a zero-sum game, and it impels human beings to make choices.  
Choosing peace, tolerance, civility and truth is not a sign of  
weakness as the apologists of violence and retribution will make  
people believe, but a way of sublimating the beast within us. Buddha,  
Mahavir and Gandhi were not weak men. Why, then, are their spiritual  
children afraid to take this crucial leap? I posed this question to a  
Japanese writer, who also writes on questions of identity and  
nationalism. He paused for a moment and said: ‘They did not have the  
burden of contesting and winning elections.’

(Jyotirmaya Sharma is a Professor of Political Science at the  
University of Hyderabad)


o o o


Dawn,
November 21, 2008

BJP IS PLAYING WITH FIRE

by Kuldip Nayar

THE Indian armed forces are a holy cow. We do not question their  
expenses, nor has there ever been any parliamentary committee to look  
into their budgetary allocations.

Why they purchase a particular type of weapon has been left to the  
defence ministry to decide. To take one example, the navy is bent  
upon buying the Russian aircraft carrier Gorshkov even though Moscow  
has been periodically raising the sale price, which now stands at  
$3.2bn.

Once in a while a case like the Bofors guns scandal has shaken the  
nation, but that information came from outside and the ruling party  
did its best to hush it up. Even the Italian go-between, Quattrochi,  
was pursued up to a point and then allowed to go scot-free, despite  
CBI protests, because of his high-level connections.

So our trust in the armed forces has been implicit since independence  
and never did we suspect that some officer could be ideologically  
contaminated. All of a sudden, we have been hit by one case, that of  
Lt Col Srikant Prasad Purohit. He is the senior serving officer who  
has allegedly played a key role in the Malegaon bombings of Sept 29.  
The blasts took place in mostly Muslim localities, killing 31. As  
usual the initial suspicion fell on Muslims. Malegaon is a small  
weavers’ town near Nasik in Maharashtra and this is the second time  
in two years that the Muslims of this run-down area have been victims  
of similar blasts.

Strange that the military intelligence had no clue that one army  
officer was involved with local Hindu extremists. The credit goes to  
the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) that unearthed the information that  
those responsible for the crime were Hindu terrorists. The ATS  
interrogated Lt Col Purohit and arrested him after getting permission  
from the army.

The question anybody will ask is why military intelligence failed to  
discover that a senior officer was involved. Military intelligence  
has a large set-up in all the three services and has its men all over  
the country. When they fail in their job of uncovering extremists in  
their own ranks, this suggests that they are taking their job  
nonchalantly.

It is all the more disconcerting that no such previous case has come  
to light since independence. It may well be an aberration. Yet it is  
difficult to imagine that a Purohit has been born only in the last  
few years. An in-depth and overall probe is required.

True, in a recent interview Chief of Army Staff Gen Deepak Malhotra  
has revealed that the army high command is now profiling officers.  
This is a knee-jerk reaction. A thorough profiling of 31,000 officers  
is simply not possible and picking up a few at random will not be  
fair. What the services have to eliminate is the suspicion in the  
minds of the people that even the military is not immune to communal  
contamination. For the common man the armed forces are a bastion of  
security and protection.

I concede that the military does a credible job in hiring recruits  
from a society that has all the ills and converting them into an  
apolitical force. But this is a field where the nation cannot afford  
to go wrong even in one case.

I do not think that a secular India will ever face a situation of  
communalism in the armed forces even if the rulers were to connive  
with fundamentalists of a particular community. The armed forces  
themselves have such an ethos that they would not allow such a  
situation to arise.

I know how upset the army was when a senior officer was taken to the  
BJP office in Delhi for a briefing when the Vajpayee government was  
in power. The mistaken impression given to the army high command was  
that some MPs wished to be briefed about ongoing operations.

Still, the worrying point is that many retired military officers are  
joining the BJP, or propagating on its behalf. Indeed, the party has  
an association of ex-military men. A few days ago this association  
sent out invitations on BJP stationery to a press conference about  
Assam scheduled to be addressed by a retired lieutenant general.

This does not come as a surprise because the BJP has said that Hindus  
cannot be terrorists and that the armed forces are a part of Indian  
society which has been horrified by the pusillanimous and apologetic  
approach of the UPA government to terror attacks. In fact, party  
president Rajnath Singh has said that the party will bear the legal  
costs of those apprehended in the Malegaon case.

The BJP is playing with fire when it communalises a case that should  
be looked into objectively and the guilty punished severely. The  
problem with the party is that it is trying its best to polarise the  
country for the purpose of elections, five of which are in progress  
in the states and then for the Lok Sabha, which is scheduled next  
March-April. The party is so power hungry that all other segments of  
society and the institutions will have to take steps to protect  
themselves.

I do not know why the regimental centres have to have a temple,  
mosque and gurdwara on their premises. These places of worship exist  
in those towns and cities where the regimental centres are located.  
Those who seek the comfort of religion are perfectly free to go  
there. Why should the army allow religious worship in its places?

Yet much depends upon political parties. They cannot disturb the  
nation’s faith in the ethos of pluralism. This is our heritage from  
the national struggle and this is what we have enshrined in the  
constitution. Playing the Hindu card to counter Muslim  
fundamentalists is hitting at the very foundation of India. The  
nation even before winning independence said that it would have a  
secular polity and that is what we have been following, although not  
as firmly at times as we should.

Purohit or persons like him among Hindus, Sikhs or Muslims are a  
symptom of diseased thinking. They are a danger to the country’s  
integrity. It’s a pity that for the sake of votes some political  
parties are encouraging them even at the expense of the country’s  
unity. My experience says that they will not go very far.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.


_____


[5]

The Statesman
Tuesday, 11 November 2008

MUMBAI’S CLOISTERED HEARTH

A Mockery Of The Very Idea Of India

By Ajay K Mehra

       When we swear by the soil, we must, adhere to the natural,  
geographical division. Our earth has been clearly divided into  
different kinds of soil regions: alluvial, volcanic, etc…. (S)ons  
should work only in their respective mother soils ... only those born  
in the alluvial soil can work in the alluvial region. They may call  
themselves ‘alluvians’… (and so on). People may be given identity  
cards with the name of the soil clearly printed on it ... Babies born  
in the air (planes) should be employed as pilots and air-hostesses.  
Nobody except the sons and daughters of the air should get these air  
jobs…

       ~ Letter to the Editor, The Times of India (January 28, 1973).

Thus did a citizen ventilate his frustration at the peak of Bal  
Thackeray’s sons-of-the soil movement. More than three decades later,  
when his nephew, Raj, takes a leaf out of his political rulebook, an  
agitated Bihari youth gets violent and invites death. This drama,  
which has proceeded from the absurd to the bizarre, has claimed lives  
and resulted in the destruction of public and private properties  
during the past few months. It also makes a mockery of the very idea  
of India ~ secular, multi-cultural, tolerant, non-violent.

The Constitution has incorporated this idea, and the violent MNS  
campaign runs counter to its spirit, particularly violating Articles  
15(1&2), 16(1&2) and 19(d&e).  Alas, it is still not a legally  
debarred and socially ostracised party.

Language of violence

Raj Thackeray’s ‘arrest and bail’ drama displayed the Maharashtra  
government’s kid-glove handling of, even complicity with the man.  
Union civil aviation minister Praful Patel’s endorsement demonstrated  
that a party does not become national merely on the strength of the  
Election Commission’s endorsement.

Raj has made a strident statement to the effect that the rulers  
understand only the language of violence, premeditated,  
indiscriminate and brutal violence against migrant workers by the  
goons representing his party. He thus makes a travesty of every  
branch of the Indian state; the statement is seditious by any legal  
reckoning.

Obviously, the bail granted to him by a lower court in Mumbai on an  
amount that he must be spending every evening on his imported Scotch  
and cigarettes, demonstrates a larger political game. It is a game  
that seeks to legitimise the extra-constitutional politics and the  
illegal ways of another Thackeray.

Those unaware or in selective amnesia about the rise of Bal Thackeray  
and his Shiv Sena during the 1960s and 70s should recall how the  
Congress used the Sena to break the Left stronghold in the trade  
union movement. Thackeray’s anti-Tamil tirade was tolerated in  
return. Studies on the Shiv Sena are explicit on the role of  
Congressmen who are senior members of the present government and call  
the shots. The insensitive ‘bullet for bullet’ remark by the  
Maharashtra Deputy CM on an incensed Bihari youth’s killing by the  
Mumbai police ~ which keeps winking at gangsters ~ exposes a larger  
game in creating another monster by India’s political Frankensteins.

The rise of Bal Thackeray and his Shiv Sena and their political  
mainstreaming despite intemperate undemocratic statements and  
activities revealed the soft underbelly of Indian politics. The rise  
of his nephew, Raj’s Sena reinforces further brutalisation of Indian  
politics. Have the Indians obeisant to the Thackerays ever questioned  
the relevance of a Sena (army) on a democratic turf? This explains  
the grim regularity of brutal violence in an intensely competitive  
electoral system where fragments of the electorate get transformed  
into segmented vote-banks.

This revival and continuance of the xenophobic Sena politics since  
the ruthless violence of the Assamese against the ‘tribal’ plantation  
workers in May and the unsuccessful Kashmiri militants’ diktat  
against migrant labour in the valley in January raises questions of  
constitutionality and the natural processes of migration within  
India. Is the spurious ‘sons of the soil’ concept of the 1960s  
relevant in the century signified by economic liberalisation and  
globalisation, a scenario that has opened vast fields for the  
daughters and the sons of toil?

At a time when India beacons Bharat in every field, irrespective of  
the traditional pull-and-push factors operative at any time, anywhere  
in the labour market, isn’t parochial politics a short-term nuisance?  
For, those resisting ‘outsiders’ in their part of the country would  
be declaring themselves outsiders in other parts of the country.

Indeed, migration is both a socio-economic and a political issue and  
has triggered agitations from time to time in different parts of the  
country - Hyderabad’s Mulki movement, the Assam movement, the  
anti-‘diku’ drive in Chhotanagpur (now Jharkhand), the anti-Bengali  
rhetoric of the Darjeeling Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and the continuing  
disquiet in the north-east. All these movements have targeted migrants.

Integral part

On the other hand, the agricultural labourers, masons and  
construction workers from Bihar and eastern UP, the plumbers from  
Orissa, and so on, have now become integral to the economy. They live  
and work in Punjab, J&K and elsewhere. All states are now trying to  
attract investments; they cannot close their doors to qualified  
professionals from India and abroad.

The fact that campaigns of the MNS variety draw enough support to  
disrupt harmony deserves to be probed. Surely, the targeted taxi- 
drivers, washermen and milkmen from the east do not usurp jobs from  
the Marathi Manus; neither do those who compete for all-India jobs.

The state governments have over decades been insensitive and  
impervious to the needs of employment of the Marathis. That  
implicates not only the Congress-NCP combine, but also the BJP-Sena  
alliance. Interestingly, but for the family feud, Raj would still  
have been a part of this political construct.

The most worrisome aspect of the latest bout of chauvinistic politics  
is the abdication of constitutional obligation by the Union and state  
governments and the tendency of the parties and leaders to keep  
playing with fire.

The writer is Professor, Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies,  
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi



______


[6]


Boston Globe,
23 November 2008

FOR GAYS IN INDIA, FEAR IS WAY OF LIFE

Activists working to challenge laws
Ponni Arasu, Arvind Narrain, and Siddharth Narrain are activists with  
the Alternative Law Forum in Banglalore, India, which is working to  
repeal laws against homosexuality. Ponni Arasu, Arvind Narrain, and  
Siddharth Narrain are activists with the Alternative Law Forum in  
Banglalore, India, which is working to repeal laws against  
homosexuality. (Emily Wax/Washington Post)

By Emily Wax
Washington Post / November 23, 2008

BANGALORE, India - Even with the white horse rented, his gold- 
speckled turban fitted, and the wedding hall lined up, Mahesh did not  
feel ready to get married, at least not to a woman.

The shy computer engineer is gay.

But Mahesh went ahead with the elaborate ceremony in May because  
someone he had befriended online blackmailed him - threatening to  
tell his parents unless he paid $5,500.

Severely depressed and suffering from insomnia, Mahesh recently  
swallowed a dozen painkillers. He survived. But his blackmailer heard  
he was in the hospital and demanded more cash to keep his secret.

Three months later, Mahesh said he is broke and taking several  
antidepressants. He is still married.

"I really don't want to die. But I also don't want to keep lying,"  
said the 24-year-old, who spoke from a counseling center and asked to  
be called by his first name. "I feel so trapped. According to the  
law, my blackmailer can report me and have me arrested."

That's because in the world's biggest democracy, homosexuality is  
illegal.

The Indian penal code describes the act as "against the order of  
nature" and declares it punishable by 10 years to life in prison,  
longer than most rape or murder sentences.

But several human rights groups are making a historic challenge to  
the law, imposed by the British in 1860, in the New Delhi High Court.  
The effort to repeal the law is seen as a test case of India's  
commitment to secular democracy, with some legal specialists saying  
that moral or religious arguments cannot trump constitutional rights  
in a democratic society. A verdict is expected before the end of the  
year.

The challenge comes during a time of sweeping social changes for  
India's younger generation. Three-quarters of the country's 1.1  
billion people are younger than 35, and more of them are living away  
from home and working for multinational companies, which often have  
policies that protect employees from discrimination based on their  
sexual preferences.

Many young gay men and lesbians say they find slightly more  
acceptance working in the international call center and information  
technology industries. They also take heart from the broader trend  
among young Indians of favoring so-called love marriages over  
arranged partnerships.

"There's real hope that the growing freedom in love and in career  
mobility for new India's young generation can start to dissolve  
boundaries for gay and lesbian Indians, too," said Arvind Narrain,  
33, a lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore, which is  
pressing for the repeal of the law. "But there are still a lot of  
problems, especially with blackmail and harassment, which is made  
possible by the law. We have a long fight ahead."

Being gay is increasingly accepted in India's artistic and literary  
communities. Nobel economics laureate Amartya Sen and writer Vikram  
Seth have backed the push to decriminalize homosexual acts, launching  
an effort among filmmakers and fashion designers to speak out in  
behalf of gay rights.

A new Bollywood movie called "Dostana," or "Friendship," breaks new  
ground with two gay characters. Still, the Hindi heroes pretend to be  
gay to save money on rent and seduce their alluring roommate - more  
"Three's Company" than "Brokeback Mountain."

In reality, gay and lesbian Indians say, they have few places to meet  
openly. Studies show that they often lead dangerous, closeted lives,  
with high rates of suicide and mental illness. Lesbians have reported  
being fired from their jobs and raped for not being feminine enough.

Most gay Indians are married, often with children, and have covert  
relationships with lovers, activists said.

That's part of the reason blackmail has become a thriving mini- 
industry here, illustrating just how powerful the law is in daily life.

Even in cosmopolitan cities such as Bangalore, the gay community is  
seen as a secret club where a special pass is needed to attend gay  
nights at an underground bar.

Throughout India's history, homosexuality has been largely taboo.  
Nonetheless, the transgender community had some social acceptance in  
the cultural traditions of Hinduism and Islam in India, and some  
tribal groups see lesbians as having mystical powers.

But European missionaries and British rule further demonized  
homosexuality, and the country's pulpits are to this day bastions of  
antigay rhetoric.

India remains a largely conservative nation. Not only is marriage a  
societal duty, it also drives economic activity, activists said.

As India's middle and upper classes expand, so do the enormous  
dowries given to grooms and their parents by brides' families.

The dowries, though technically illegal, almost always include a car  
for the new couple, along with an apartment and often large amounts  
of wedding gold.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.


_____


[7]  Book Review:


The Guardian
November 8 2008

SHADES OF BELONGING
Kamila Shamsie is captivated by Gillian Slovo's portrait of outsiders


Ceylon in the 1940 s: a toddy-tapper falls from a palm tree, his  
gruesome death - "a jumble of fragmented skins, and bones that had  
once been a man " - serving as occasion for a very beautiful and self- 
obsessed English girl to meet a thrilling and gorgeous Sinhalese man.  
In the hands of an unskilled writer, such a beginning can only serve  
as heavy-handed metaphor for the devastation that will mark the union  
of these two wilful creatures. But Gillian Slovo, writing her 11th  
novel, is far too subtle and thoughtful a writer to make such easy  
links between opening and denouement. The tableau of toddytapper,  
English girl and privileged Sinhalese man is both dramatically tense  
and shot through with tiny considerations of gender, ethnicity,  
character and belonging which later magnify as they weave their way  
through this captivating novel.

    1. Black Orchids
    2. by Gillian Slovo
    3. 384pp,
    4. Virago,
    5. £17.99


The English girl is Evelyn; born and raised in Ceylon, she must  
return to England now that colonial rule is coming to an end. The  
Sinhalese man is Emil, Evelyn's way out of the two possible futures  
that await her in London: marriage to kind-but-dull Tommy, or life as  
"junior spinster " in her sister's house. The limited choices  
available to a young wom an in the 1940s are made more evident by the  
fact of Evelyn's defi ant nature, which has no avenue through which  
to express itself other than her choice of husband.

One of the refreshing features of the book is its refusal to conform  
to the old, weary paradigm of privileged coloniser and impoverished  
native. It is the wealthy Emil who inhabits a world of privilege, and  
his choice of an English girl is more problematic for his family than  
Evelyn's choice of a Sinhalese man is for hers.

But in the 1950s, when Emil and Evelyn, with their young son Milton,  
leave Ceylon for England, everything shifts. Slovo understands keenly  
how racist societies infect all but the strongest who come into them.  
So Evelyn, who has grown up in Ceylon firmly on the side of "the  
natives " (though this seems less a thought-through position than  
born of a desire to infuriate her mother's English boarders ), finds  
herself aggravated by Emil's refusal to accept a marginalised  
position in society. She reflects that, while Englishmen are willing  
to change when they find themselves in new situations, Emil is not,  
and she places the blame not merely on the man but also on his  
ethnicity.

The scene in which Emil and Evelyn visit Milton at boarding school is  
a remarkable set-piece, revealing not only how the attitudes of a  
society to which she wants to belong turn Evelyn against her foreign  
husband but, even more damningly, how they produce the same effect in  
the half-Sinhalese Milton. As the book progresses through the 1960 s  
and 70 s it is Milton's relationship with his father that takes  
centre stage. The resentment the younger man feels towards the older  
is both the result of their competing personalities and of Milton's  
self-loathing, which is a consequence of never having Emil's  
advantage of growing up in a world in which he could take belonging  
for granted. Character traits and societal pressures are never  
distinct from each other in Black Orchids; they interweave into a  
nuanced and moving narrative.

But in addition to being an astute look at racism and belonging, this  
is also a roller-coaster of a narrative which combines startling  
surprises with painfully inevitable moments. Slovo knows how to pace  
a story, and how to make you care about the fates of characters you  
may not even like. Evelyn in particular moves us from pity to fury to  
a mix of the two as her story twists and turns.

The story of Emil and Evelyn and their families is also, of course,  
the story of a changing London, and those parts of it which remain  
burdened with the worst aspects of its past. Evelyn and Emil's two  
children, Milton and Vanessa, are born into one kind of world, and  
grow up in the rapidly shifting atmosphere of the 1960s and 70s. That  
Vanessa is able to move through both old and new London rather more  
successfully than her brother is in part a matter of temperament and  
upbringing (she stayed close to home rather than enduring the  
poisonous boarding school atmosphere which Milton grew up in), but it  
is also because Evelyn was granted the wish she makes about her  
unborn second child just after arriving in London, a wish she would  
never have thought to formulate when living in Ceylon: Please God  
(for the child's sake), let this one not turn out too black.

• Kamila Shamsie's latest novel, Broken Verses, is published by  
Bloomsbury. To order Black Orchids for £16.99 with free UK p&p, call  
Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875.


_____


[8] Freedom of Expression:

The Times of India
23 November 2008

WOULD ANYONE DARE ISSUE A FATWA AGAINST IQBAL?

by M J Akbar

Spare a prayer for God's professionals; they are not very fashionable  
among the elite, and who is more elitist than media? I have great  
respect
for the thousands of priests, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh,  
Buddhist, Jain, who perform community service on pitiable pay. There  
is neither reward nor award for the nameless, selfless maulvis and  
monks devoted to a Calcutta Muslim Orphanage or a Ramakrishna  
Mission. We pen-pushers swan around mouthing homilies and delivering  
self-satisfied sermons; they deliver.

But so much of their good work on the ground is destroyed by the  
pomposity of clerics floating at the top. Education is no insurance  
against their stupidity.

The Lucknow maulana - whose name is irrelevant and would in any case  
take up too much space - who passed a fatwa against Harivansh Rai  
Bachchan's Madhushala because it "eulogized alcohol and drunkenness  
in society" has been blessed by neither wit nor a sense of poetry.  
Who can explain the power of a metaphor to someone who does not know  
the nuance of verse? How do we convey the tremor of a poet's  
subversion to one who has not learnt to smile? A closed mind is by  
inclination self-righteous. When no one else believes you are right,  
you have to console yourself.

By the Lucknow maulana's standards of literary criticism, a  
substantial body of Urdu poetry would be banned. Urdu verse has  
brought indescribable delight to those who know the language, most of  
whom are Muslims. It is a poetry that can be enjoyed either in the  
company of thousands, at a mushaira, where the poet recites his or  
her composition, or in the silence of a room over a book. The cleric  
would have to pass a fatwa against every Urdu poet, from Ghalib,  
Daagh and Zauq down to the humblest versifier, for each one has used  
the symbol of a cup of wine and the saqi, who pours it in the tavern.  
I presume the learned cleric of Lucknow has not read this couplet,  
for it is a needle designed to puncture smugness:

Zauq! Jo medresse ke bigre hue hain mulla
Un ko maikhaane mein le aao sanwar jaayenge.
(Zauq! Bring the mulla misled by a medressa
To the tavern, it will correct his ways.)

The tension between the tavern and the mulla is a constant, and even  
overworked theme of Urdu poetry. Hazrat Daagh Dehlivi was no less  
scathing (incidentally, my apologies for the poor quality of  
translation):

Lutf-e-mai tujh se kya kahoon, zahid
Hai kambakht tu ne pee hi nahin.
(How do I describe, o priest, wine's joy to you?
A drop has never passed your misbegotten lips.)

I suppose it would be considered too predictable to quote Ghalib,  
since he has been turned into a bit of a caricature of the hard- 
drinking, irresponsible lover-poet; but his verse is so utterly  
beautiful that it would be a shame to pass up an opportunity to offer  
more than one gem.

Har chand ho mushahda-e-haq ki guftagu
Banti nahin hai badah-o-saaghan kahe baghair.
(Let us discourse, each moment, of truth divine
How do we talk without the strength of wine?)

And:

Kahan maikhana ka darwaza Ghalib aur kahan waaez
Par itna jaante hain, kal wo jaata tha ke ham nikle.
(Where is the tavern door, Ghalib, and where the priest!
But this I know: yesterday he entered as I was leaving.)

The conflict is not between religion and the believer, but between  
religiosity and the poet. The poet taunts those who seek to dominate  
men in the name of God, without understanding either God or man.  
There has been no one with a finer understanding of Islam among the  
greats of the language than Allama Iqbal. Iqbal's personal commitment  
to his faith shaped his world-view, and underpinned his philosophical  
essays. If Iqbal was not a Muslim then a Muslim has not been born on  
the Indian subcontinent. Iqbal uses the image of wine and saqi, freely.

Sharaab-e-kuhan phir pila saaqiya
Yahi jaam gardish mein laa saaqiya.
(Pour me that familiar wine again, saqi!
Fill the world with the same wine, saqi!)

Iqbal is even more scathing of the priest than Daagh:

Ummeed-e hoor ne sab kuch sikha rakha hai waaez ko
Yeh hazrat dekhne main seedhe hain, saade hain, bhole bhaale hain.
(The hope of houris has taught him all he wants to know
The priest merely looks simple, humble, plain, innocent.)

Would the Lucknow maulana like to pass a fatwa against Iqbal's  
poetry? Now that would be much bigger news than a judgement against  
Madhushala. Of course Iqbal was never as provocative as Daagh could be:

Zahid sharaab peene de masjid mein baith kar
Ya wo jagah bata de jahan par Khuda na ho.
(Priest, let me sit and drink inside the mosque
Or tell me that place where God can't be found.)

Indian Muslims have savoured such verse since it entered public  
space; no one has taken it as a literal injunction to start drinking  
inside a mosque. The poetic truth is not the literal truth, which of  
course is the point of poetry.

Perhaps the last word - or last sheyer - should be left to the  
Anonymous poet:

Pahunchi yahan bhi Shaikh wa Brahman ki guftagu
Ab maikada bhi sair ke qaabil nahin raha.
(The quarrel of Shaikh, Brahmin has reached here
Even the tavern is no longer worth a visit!)


_____


[9] Announcements:


Invite for the Dissemination Workshop on `Study on Radioactive Waste  
in India'

Date: 2 December 2008

Venue: PHD House, New Delhi

Toxics Link invites you to participate in the Dissemination Workshop  
on the 'Study on Radioactive Waste in India' to be held on 2 December  
2008 at PHD House, New Delhi.

The workshop is a part of the recently concluded study taken up by  
Toxics Link, with support from Heinrich Boll Foundation, aimed at
mapping the civilian nuclear fuel cycle in India with a clear focus  
on waste generation and management practices and flagging critical  
issues therein.

Toxics Link is an environmental NGO dedicated to bringing toxics  
related information into the public domain. We have expertise in the  
areas of municipal, medical and hazardous wastes, as well as in  
specific issues such as the international waste trade, and the  
emerging issues of chemicals safety.

The workshop seeks to bring together an eclectic mix of experts from  
the nuclear establishments, scientific community, academia, civil
society, international agencies and media. The objective is to share  
the initial findings with the participants and seek inputs that can  
be incorporated in finalising the report. In addition, we expect the  
workshop to provide the participants a platform for holding a rich,  
informed discussion on the issue and suggest possible action points  
as a way forward.

Your participation will lend great value to the discussions and we  
sincerely hope you would be able to participate. A line of
confirmation however will be greatly appreciated. Please confirm to  
Upasana Choudhry by email at upasana.choudhry at gmail.com


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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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