SACW - 17 March 2012 | Sri Lanka: injustices / Nepal: UN sec gen's coming trip / Pakistan: Stop violence in the name of religion / India: Communal bandwagon rolls on; First AK Ramanujan Lecture announced / Egypt: Islamists and Irael's Ultra-Orthodox

[Harsh Kapoor]

    South Asia Citizens Wire - 17 March 2012 - No. 2734
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Contents:

1. Sri Lanka: Kaleidoscope of injustices (Jawed Naqvi)
2. Nepal:  Ban Ki-moon and His Proposed Nepal Trip: A Vituperative Assessment (Kanak Mani Dixit)
3. Pakistan: Stop violence in the name of religion  - An appeal from Citizens for Democracy
4. Pakistan: Concern about new bid to censor the Internet: HRCP, FIDH
5. India: The communal bandwagon rolls on (Madanjeet Singh)
6. India: PUDR Statement - Impunity as the Flip side of Normalcy [in Kashmir]
7. India: SAHMAT Statement in support of Journalists
8. India: A simple proposal on food security - development economists open letter to Prime Minister
9. India: On outrageous lies, collective fears and hopeless dreams of Unique Identification Authority of India (Taha Mehmood)
10. AMU blocks Facebook, says it ‘hurts religious sentiments’ ( report in Indian Express)

International: 
11. Facing the World Water Forum, We Look Forward and Maintain Hope (Marcela Olivera)
12. Israel Faces an Army of the Ultra-Orthodox (Charlotte Silver)
13. Cairo University bans Oscar-winning Iranian film "under pressure from Islamist students" (Egypt Independent)

14. Announcements:
(1) First AK Ramanujan Lecture and seminar (New, Delhi, 21 March 2012)
(2) IXIth International Conference on Labour History (New Delhi, March 22-24, 2012)
(3) M.N. Roy Memorial  Lecture (New Delhi, 24 March 2012)
(4) Jan Sansad / People's Parliament by social movement initiatives (New Delhi, 23 March 2012)
(5) 5th South Asia Economic Summit - Call for Abstracts (deadline 


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1. SRI LANKA: KALEIDOSCOPE OF INJUSTICES
by Jawed Naqvi
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(dawn.com)

CHANNEL 4’s new exposé of the Sinhalese army’s unspeakable atrocities against Sri Lankan Tamils should put the focus not only on that country’s scant respect for the Geneva Conventions, it must shine the light on Colombo’s partners in a crime which was no less in its enormity than a near-successful attempt at ethnic cleansing.

The culprits most outstandingly include Pakistan and China chiefly because they armed and advised the government of President Rajapakse to carry out the war that ended in a gut-wrenching climax.

The world’s civilised men and women should call to account the role played by the United States and India among those that looked away when women and children were being slaughtered or raped and victory trophies videographed by jubilant soldiers.

One such memento has fortunately found its way into the safe hands of the British broadcaster and has set off a delayed debate in the Indian parliament. Tamil MPs are questioning New Delhi’s aloofness from a UN move to nail the Sri Lankan government.

The debate is of a piece with other cosmetic overtures the world makes year-round, 24/7 towards calamitous dénouements that stalk ordinary people.

Nothing much will come out of the Indian debate if the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finds non-Tamil allies to sustain its precarious majority in parliament. If not, New Delhi will be compelled to censure Sri Lanka, something it doesn’t really wish to do, not the least because Sri Lanka deliberately doesn’t tinker with India’s military depredations in Kashmir and other restive regions.

Callum Macrae, director of the film Killing Fields to be shown by Channel 4, says the cold-blooded murder of a young son of Velupillai Prabhakaran by government troops is only one more proof of a pattern of executions that were carried out at the behest of Colombo’s top leadership. Even the US commandos left alone the wives and children of Osama bin Laden.

What really emerges from the charges against the Sri Lanka government and its rejoinder by denial is an international charade about injustices.

For example, the Indian parliament was once a major forum to discuss international struggles. On Wednesday, however, as Tamil MPs shed mock tears over the outrage in Jaffna, there was not a whimper of protest, not even from the left parties, over yet another act of butchery unleashed by Israel on the Palestinians in Gaza.

Did we hear a bleat out of Pakistan against the aerial murder of innocents as it occasionally protests about its own? The reason for me to mention Pakistan on Palestine is linked to the Sri Lankan perfidy.

Remember that Gen Musharraf was on his way back from Colombo after handing over a hefty cheque and promise of arms to the Sri Lankan government when he hit the ground running to stage the coup. I asked Gen Musharraf at a news conference in Islamabad soon after he took power why he had two sets of principles about freedom struggles. He supported the Kashmiris but opposed the Tamils. He said it was not Pakistan’s policy to interfere in another country’s affairs.

That was rubbish. He had just come home after interfering in another country’s domestic stand-off by arming one side against the other. Recent reports suggest Islamabad is willing to live with the back-burner treatment the Kashmir dispute is now getting. Once a staunch supporter of Palestinians it now looks to the Saudis to show the way.

True, times have changed; the Cold War has ended; the Soviet Union has collapsed; the market called the shots (till it shot itself in the foot) and unequal wars became the beacons of hope for a global middle-class utopia. True, there is growing compulsion for every vulnerable Third World country to line up behind the remaining superpower.

The story of the last two decades of the Middle East reads much like an Agatha Christie novel about vendetta and perfect murder. Saddam Hussein and Qadhafi opposed the Saudis and their Fahd plan for peace with Israel. They were dragged out and killed by western protégés.

Hafez Assad was the third key opponent of the Fahd plan that aimed to give the Palestinians municipal rights in their homeland.

His son and current ruler of Syria is in the crosshairs. And then there would be none, or so the thinking goes.

As far as South Asia goes, there is something foul about the nature of quarrels that break out between the seven or eight neighbours. But prospects of peace between them seem just as sinister. Let’s go back to the year Saarc was founded in Dhaka in 1985. Who were the representatives of the member states? Gen Ziaul Haq, Gen Ershad, King Birendra, the Bhutan king, President Gayoom and Prime Minister Jayewardene.

Two military dictators, two absolute monarchs, an autocrat who had locked out his opponent from politics, and a president who never allowed any opposition to be formed on his archipelago.

In this motley group, India’s Rajiv Gandhi with his three-fourths majority in parliament shone like a ray of hope. But look closely: he had won the election following the worst post-Partition communal polarisation in India. It had followed the death of his mother and vendetta killings with state support of thousands of Sikhs by bizarre Congress nationalists.

Has the nature of the beast undergone a change because a new system of superficially democratic governance has come about here or there? Has the character of the state changed, say in Pakistan, because the military is perceived as weak before a civilian government? Let me apply a litmus test.

Suppose one day, with all the bonhomie between the traders of India and Pakistan, some businessmen in Karachi decide to import vast quantities of bauxite from India. Suppose the bauxite, as has happened elsewhere since the days of Columbus, could only be procured by vanquishing its native owners. What would the fleece be worth? What if a Musharraf clone decides to support the Indian state against the tribal people of Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, as China and the US did with Pol Pot?

The kaleidoscope of injustices throws up countless changing images. Just roll the mirrors with your attention intact.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.


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2. NEPAL:  BAN KI-MOON AND HIS PROPOSED NEPAL TRIP: A VITUPERATIVE ASSESSMENT
by Kanak Mani Dixit
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sacw.net - 16 March 2012
[Please also see my column 'Bhannai Parda' in Nagarik daily of 16 March 2012 (3 Chait 2068) titled: "Biswako Naaso Lumbini."
Available at:
http://www.nagariknews.com/opinions/98-opinion/38036-2012-03-16-04-47-28.html ]

Chairman of the CPN (Maoist) Pushpa Kamal Dahal wants to utilise the announced trip by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in late April 2012 to ‘cleanse’ himself of the blood of thousands, without having to express remorse. He took our society into a physically cruel and economically devastating ‘people’s war’ that has pauperised our society for 15 years running. Since coming above ground in 2006, he has prevaricated and cheated on the peace process, going against the promises made to the Nepali people and the international community. On BBC Radio Nepali Service, he openly stated that the directive of his party during the war years had been “to eliminate, but without torture”. He enthusiastically employed child soldiers during the conflict. 

Chairman Dahal lied to the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) and revelled in the deceit, as when he gleefully conceded, in the ‘Shaktikhor videotape’, that the Maoists had had no more than 7-8000 fighters while underground but had managed to bamboozle the UN to count 19,000-plus. There are few who doubt that UNMIN and its Department of Political Affairs (DPA) headquarters served to appease the Maoists through acts and omissions, and the prejudiced reports to the Security Council which privileged the Maoist party while under-appreciating the position of the democratic, parliamentary parties. As things stand, with the unrepentant and unreformed Maoist party ready to advantage of Ban Ki-moon’s visit, the United Nations will only be compounding the mistakes of the late and unlamented UNMIN if he comes unaware of Nepal's reality.

Trial Baloon. After criticism of the Lumbini tryst between Secretary-General Ban and the Maoist chairman erupted, there seems to have been some backtracking from New York. Some news items in the Kathmandu press have reported that SG Ban may now come on a mission related more to peace and constitution-building, rather than on an exclusive Lumbini visit. Even that may not be such a good idea, given UNMIN’s terrible record in Nepal, and it is unlikely that UN apparatchiks understand the levels to which the Maoists are able to take propaganda advantage of a possible Ban visit. Chairman Dahal visited the UN Secretariat in New York in November 2011, and according to the Nepali Permanent Mission to the UN, SG Ban had accepted the invitation to visit Lumbini and play a proactive role on Lumbini as suggested by the Maoist chair.

It is becoming clearer that the announcement of the impending visit in Kathmandu was treated by the SG’s office as a trial balloon, with deniability intact. The announcements the Maoist Chairman and other members of the delegation (including Minendra Risal of the Nepali Congress) that the Secretary General would co-chair the Lumbini meeting with Dahal was never denied by New York. This must be said: the SG should never have met Chairman Dahal in the first place given the latter’s unreformed position against peace and democracy despite a half-decade ‘grace period’, and his record since 2006 which is out there for all to see.

Whodunit? It is unclear exactly who has been advising the Secretary-General on this April trip, but given the tilt of the DPA (as evidenced in the brash statements of the Under-Secretary-General B. Lynn Pascoe when he came to Nepal in March 2010), it may well be functionaries in that office. It was the Maoists who continuously violated provisions of the peace process, whereas the international community, led by UNMIN, sought to lay blame proportionately “on all parties”.

Incidentally, it has come out in the last month that what was reported back then was indeed true: the Maoists cheated on UNMIN by keeping at least 3000 hardcore fighters out of the camps and established the Young Communist League (YCL). This has come out now only because the ‘fake fighters’ received golden handshakes as part of the rehabilitation package, and the YCL members remonstrated by going public about what had happened back in 2007. With such chicanery played out against the Nepali public and the UN, and the trend continuing, why would the Secretary-General’s advisors want him to come to Nepal in what would become a trip to legitimise all the misdeeds of Pushpa Kamal Dahal, past and present. It is also possible that, rather than the UN officials, it was a certain Mr. Kwak (friend of Ban Ki-moon) and his spouse, a member of the South Korean Parliament, who played a role in skirting official channels to get the SG to agree to this Lumbini sojourn.

Nepal and North Korea. A trip by SG Ban to Nepal at a time when the Maoists continue to brazenly commit fraud in the peace process would needlessly give the Maoist chieftain a laurel that he does not deserve. The test for the UN is to see where the suffering people are at this point, and Dahal’s role in getting them there. The Maoist chairman has continued to speak in multiple tongues to multiple constituencies, while looting the exchequer, threatening all independent thinkers and delaying the peace process as a means to blackmail the Nepali public and the other political parties to signing on to an undemocratic constitution. Secretary Ban should understand that the Maoist's own draft constitution, unveiled by Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai a couple of years ago, would leave Nepal uncomfortably similar to North Korea. Meanwhile, while PKD speaks sweetly of having ‘reformed’ when with the diplomats, to the party faithful he insists that the radical communist goal of “state capture” is still on, only that it will now be achieved through a combination of “street action and control of legislature and state mechanisms” (“sadak, satta ra sadan”). 

The Luxury of Distance. Only those who live in other countries and continents (or plan to retire there) have the luxury of maintaining that the Maoists of Nepali will not fulfil their bluster in terms of state capture, an undemocratic constitution or absolute unaccountability and general amnesty for atrocities. We have seen what Chairman Dahal is capable of – in his push for ethnic federalism, which could bring the house down in communitarian tensions; his amassing of wealth; his willingness to steal the paychecks of his own ex-combatants in the cantonments; his penchant for personal glorification; his triplespeak. He is a demagogue of the first order, and when it is a matter of the future of our society, there should be no embarrassment in making these charges and repeating them.

What we seek is a UCPN (Maoist-Democratic) if at all possible, but not the party that we know till today as UCPN (Maoist). Similarly, we want a democratic constitution, not just any constitution written under duress during a period when one party (the largest) has retained its private force. The parliamentary parties and democratic civil society extended their hand towards the Maoists in 2005-06 to bring them above ground only to stop the bloodshed, but many in the international community make the mistake of thinking that there was agreement that the Maoists represented a ‘transformative force’.
 
Writing the Constitution. A trip by Secretary-General Ban would legitimise the Maoist prevarication of the last three and a half years on the peace process. It would also reward the Maoist Chairman in a way that will embolden him to push through his own version of the new constitution. Why would the Secretary-General want to be thus supportive of Dahal, when the chairman’s intentions are so clear. He is desperate for the imprimatur of legitimacy which the Ban Ki-moon visit would provide, and he seeks to use Lumbini as the lure. We would have hoped that the SG would not have fallen for the gambit, rather than for him to have to backtrack after the extent of disquiet in Nepal was/is revealed. We are at a critical point in the constitution-writing process, and the Maoists have the propaganda tools to turn the SG’s trip to their advantage, whatever the pre-conditions attached to the trip. Those who have lived in Eastern Europe or some other radical dictatorial regimes would perhaps understand what we are talking about. Does the SG’s Office have enough of a handle on the ‘vernacular’ political discourse in Nepal to have the confidence that it knows what is going on?

Maoist Underdog?! The quintessential error made by many international observers is to believe that the Maoists are the underdogs in Nepal, as indeed they happen to be everywhere else in the world, including in neighbouring India. What is missed is that, in the particular evolution of the Nepali polity after the People’s Movement of 2006, the Maoists are part of the state establishment whether in government (as now) or in the opposition. The Nepali Maobaadi are not underdogs, but topdogs, as the largest party in Parliament, with full control of the government machinery, besides being the richest political party around. Take, as an example, the fact that the party has more SUV vehicles at its command than all the other political parties combined, multiplied by 50 or more. How the Maoists became the largest party in the Parliament is a story of its own which will be written up by political historians when the dust settles, and it is the greatness of the Nepali public and the parliamentary parties that they accepted both the elections and the results as part of the ‘peace process’. 

Remorse. On violence, Dahal remains personally unrepentant, or remorseless, to this day. The same goes for his party, which has not taken the high road to democratic transformation, not done what the trust and goodwill extended by Nepali society demanded – i.e., a formal, public renunciation of political violence as a tool of politics as enshrined in the party’s documents. Political violence remains the party’s guiding principle as the leadership calls for ‘revolt’ and ‘state capture’. The Secretary-General’s office needs to be reminded of the atrocities meted out under Dahal’s orders during the conflict – the gouging of eyes, crushing of kneecaps, public floggings and killings. These were meant to cow down the populace in order to be able to claim ‘people’s support’, and the trick was to make an example of any local leader, schoolteacher or village head by a public declaration of the victim as a ‘people’s enemy’ and a subsequent, publicly ‘elimination’ (safaya).

Has the Maoist chairman done anything to distance himself from this past, in word and deed? No. The proof is seen in how he works tirelessly on the agenda of general amnesty for atrocities committed, to the extent that the image of the entire party rank-and-file is being dragged down by the perpetrators in its midst who are being protected by the leadership. The murderers, torturers, abductors and extortionists are very much part of Dahal’s entourage, and because he does not have the courage to confront them, the chairman is leading the Maoist push for a general amnesty – against all international norms of which the United Nations is the repository.

The perpetrators from state-side (the former Royal Nepal Army, the Armed Police and Nepal Police) must be investigated and prosecuted as required, the same as with perpetrators who are members of the Maoist party, who committed war crimes against combatants, killed innocents, or utilised child soldiers. All perpetrators must be brought to justice after the excavation of truth, unless the victims or victims' families are willing to forgive the perpetrators. Instead, the Maoist leader is intent today on mandating ‘general amnesty’ under the proposed Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As things stand, they are also bound to pad the Commission with prejudicial political appointees to such an extent that it becomes ineffective. While the perpetrators from the security forces must be dragged out of service and retirement for prosecution, we must recognise the danger posed by Maoist perpetrators who are on the loose, because they are the ones who plan to rule society as politicians for decades to come.

Victims. The victims of wartime atrocities, and their familes, meanwhile, are very much in Kathmandu. Today, even the Maoist supporters who are victims of state atrocities are beginning to question their party’s stance, and its campaign for general amnesty which would let all perpetrators off the hook. Under such circumstances, it would be advisable for the SG’s Office to be careful as it designs the proposed Nepal trip, if is to happen at this time, to ensure that it does not hurt the sensibility of victims in a country where the UCPN (Maoist) has kept the peace process from coming to a successful conclusion, and where it seeks no justice for victims. Surely SG Ban’s advisors would not want conditions where the victims protest a visit by the Secretary-General. This would be a sad state of affairs in a country where the UN is enjoys such high regard for six decades of development work, where the only hiccup was the short UNMIN interlude.

The Murderer. Do the Secretary-General’s advisors keep track of events in Nepal as they occur, which they should if they would like to plan an official visit to a country in transition? For example, do they know that Bal Krishna Dhungel, a murderer convicted by the Supreme Court in an ‘honour killing’, has been put forward by the prime minister for presidential pardon as a political victim? This man is a member of the Constituent Assembly and walks about threatening all and sundry, including the press. Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai himself provides cover to the murderer, once even driving him in his official car to the Assembly.

Last week, Dhungel was taken by Chairman Dahal in his own helicopter to attend a Maoist mass meeting in Okhaldhunga, the very place where the murder happened. Sharing the platform and helicopter with a convicted murderer was the Maoist Chairman’s answer to the United Nations, the international community at large and the Nepali people – an indication of what his values (or rather the absence thereof) are that this moment. He took Dhungel to Okhaldhunga even as the Secretary-General’s April visit was announced in the press. The Parliament is presently engaged in drafting regulations which would suspend those being investigated for criminal offenses, but a week ago Dahal made a suggestion to other leaders in so many words, “Let us draft the regulations in such a way that Shyam Sundar Gupta [a leader from the plains under investigation for abduction] is suspended but not Bal Krishna Dhungel.” There you have it, the base level of a leader who has no sensitivity to murder.
[. . .]
FULL TEXT HERE: http://www.sacw.net/article2588.html 

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3. PAKISTAN: STOP VIOLENCE IN THE NAME OF RELIGION 
An appeal from Citizens for Democracy
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[An appeal from Citizens for Democracy (CFD). Citizens for Democracy (CFD) is an umbrella group of professional organizations, political parties, trade unions and individuals outraged by the consistent misuse and abuse of the ‘blasphemy laws’ and of religion in politics. 
For more information, please contact: cfd.pak at gmail.com ]

PAKISTAN: Stop violence in the name of religion

The Father of the nation Muhammad Ali Jinnah told the nation in his speech to the Constituent Assembly on Aug 11, 1947, "You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed --that has nothing to do with the business of the State." Sadly, this nation is today witnessing calls to demolish places of worships, killings and abduction in the name of religion, abductions and forced conversions (particularly of the Hindu community in Sindh) and a flood of hate mongering activities.

We urge you to intervene and stop the killing of Pakistan's religious communities, specifically target killings those belonging to the Sunni
(Barelvi), Shia (including Hazara) and Ahmadi communities who are facing a virtual genocide simply for following their religious beliefs and practices.

The attacks on the 12 Rabiul Awal processions cities around Pakistan are evidence of the menace of bigotry and intolerance, as are the target killings of Shias in Kohistan, Parachinar and Mastaung and violence against Ahmadis. The government must act with all its might to put a stop to this. This needs to be done NOW.

The activities of the so-called Difa-e-Pakistan Council, a coalition comprising several ‘religious parties’ including some banned organizations whose views don’t resonate with the majority but are able to use their armed status and street power to attack others with impunity, need to be curtailed before it becomes the Destroy Pakistan

Council.
1. We strongly condemn these threats of violence and urge the establishment of a code of ethics across the board that prohibits any religious or political party supporting those who victimize others.
2. The Government must ensure that the banned terrorist organizationsare not able to operate and harm or threaten peaceful citizens.
3. The Government, both at the Federal and Provincial levels, must take immediate action against violence, threats and intimidation, especially those in the name of religion.
4. There is urgent need to institute a witness protection plan; the police must be empowered, enabled and de-politicized in order to act against those who violate basic human rights and engage in criminal acts in Pakistan.
5. The government must employ the full force of the law to ensure that no one attacks or threatens members of any community simply for following their religious beliefs and practices.

We hope that the government and all political parties will wake up to the growing evil of intolerance and bigotry that is fast turning into a monster and act up before it eats up the very foundations of our society.

Sincerely,

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PLEASE SEND THE LETTERS TO:

1. Mr. Yousuf Raza Gillani,
Prime Minister
Prime Minister House
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Fax: +92 51 922 1596
Tel: +92 51 920 6111
E-mail: secretary at cabinet.gov.pk

2. Chaudhry Nisar Ahmed Khan
Leader of the Opposition,
National Assembly of Pakistan
PML-N Secretariat,
20-H, Street# 10,
F-8/3,
Islamabad
PAKISTAN
Tel: +92 51 9221118, 9
Fax: +92 51 9221128
Email: pmln.media at yahoo.com

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4. PAKISTAN: CONCERN ABOUT NEW BID TO CENSOR THE INTERNET: HRCP, FIDH
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March 13, 2012

HRCP press release

Lahore, March 13: On the occasion of the international day of action against Internet censorship, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organisation, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), have expressed deep concern over an attempt by the Ministry of Information Technology in Pakistan to further restrict freedom of expression, creativity and peaceful thought on the Internet, by projecting an extensive filtering system that will, if implemented, allow authorities to block up to 50 million “undesirable” URLs at the national level.

The National ICT R&D Fund of the Ministry of Information Technology released in February a call inviting academia/research institutions, companies, organizations to submit, by 16 March 2012, a proposal for the set-up of a filtering system. The call claims that Internet access in Pakistan is mostly unrestricted and unfiltered, so that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and backbone providers in the country need a high-performance system to block millions of URLs containing “undesirable” content as notified by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

“Censorship is already very tight in Pakistan; 13,000 websites considered guilty of publishing adult and blasphemous content have already been blocked. On 14 November 2011, authorities requested mobile operators to censor the content of SMS and ban 1,600 words and expressions. Over the last summer, operators received the order to submit lists of Internet users trying to escape censorship, which corresponds to a system of surveillance”, said Zohra Yusuf, HRCP chairperson.

In his annual report to the UN General Assembly in 2011, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, stressed that “as a general rule, there should be as little restriction as possible to the flow of information on the Internet, except under a few, very exceptional and limited circumstances prescribed by international law for the protection of other human rights”.

The Special Rapporteur also recommended that if restrictions are imposed, States must “provide full details regarding the necessity and justification for blocking a particular website, and determination of what content should be blocked should be undertaken by a competent judicial authority or a body which is independent of any political, commercial, or other unwarranted influences to ensure that blocking is not used as a means of censorship”.

“International law imposes a high threshold over the types of expression that could be legitimately restricted, such as incitement to racial hatred or child pornography, but restrictions on expressions and opinions on the mere ground that they are critical of the government or objectionable to prevailing social norms are not compatible with Pakistan’s obligation under international law to protect freedom of expression,” said Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH president.

FIDH and HRCP request the government of Pakistan to put on hold the set-up of the filtering system and ensure that the measure does not end up institutionalizing Internet censorship and surveillance and is consistent with Pakistan’s obligation to protect the freedom of expression.

Civil society and human rights groups should be consulted in an inclusive manner and their recommendations duly included in the project’s terms of reference.

The decision on what content should be blocked must not be left to the whims of bureaucrats. An independent judicial body should determine the necessity and justification for blocking a particular website to prevent arbitrary restrictions. Forums for appeal against the decisions of such a body should also be provided.

Zohra Yusuf
HRCP chairperson

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5. INDIA: THE COMMUNAL BANDWAGON ROLLS ON
by Madanjeet Singh
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(the Hindu, 16 March 2012)

Religious bigots are making a mockery of India's secular Constitution and agnostic philosophical traditions; they must be challenged.

A French journalist who read the manuscript of my book, Cultures & Vultures, wondered how my atheist beliefs and Sikh religion could coexist with “spiritual India.”

My atheism is not unrelated to the Sikh religion, which was originally based on Hindu philosophy. I referred to the weekly Gita lectures by S. Radhakrishnan as Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University. Students gasped upon learning from the philosopher that most classical systems of Hindu philosophy, with the exception of Uttara Mimansa, also called Vedanta, do not acknowledge the existence of god. He stated that Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkya, Yoga, Purva Mimansa and the earlier beliefs, Brihaspati's Charvaka, Mahavira's Jainism, and Theravada Buddhism were all agnostic. Gautama Siddhartha the Buddha (c. 563-483 BC) touched the Earth as the witness of his Enlightenment.

Romila Thapar reiterated this at a meeting held to revise UNESCO's History of Mankind. The eminent historian said the Charvakas were the earliest exponents of atheist materialism in “spiritual India.” They rejected as absurd all super-sensible things as “destiny,” “soul,” or “after-life.” Ajita Keshakambalin, a contemporary of the Buddha, proclaimed that humans go from dust to dust, ashes to ashes, earth to earth, and “there is no other world than this one.” He termed the authors of the Vedas “buffoons, knaves, and demons.”

It is amazing how Keshakambalin's notions transcended 25 centuries, and in our own time was invoked by E.V. Ramasamy, an atheist and a bitter critic of the Vedas. He led thousands of men and women in street processions to parody Hindu gods and goddesses. UNESCO awarded him with an unprecedented citation: “The prophet of the new age, the Socrates of South Asia, father of social reform movement and arch enemy of ignorance, superstitions, meaningless customs and base manners.” Until his death in 1973, people in India were freely able to speak their mind. Dalits could publicly condemn the Manusmriti without being branded “anti-national.” People would laugh at Aubrey Menen's Ramayana, in which he speculated that Sita was not abducted but eloped with Ravana, the handsome Lankan king. The former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi, an atheist, pooh-poohed the theory that monkeys built the Rama Sethu bridge across the Gulf of Mannar. He asked: “What Ram? Who is this Ram? From which engineering college did Ram graduate?”

Vote banks

The Hindutva political agenda rejected the traditional agnostic philosophical systems of Hinduism, beginning with atheism. Targeting vote banks, they accused my friend M.F. Husain of painting “obscene” images of Hindu goddesses — traditionally depicted naked in temples and shrines. The Hindu Personal Law Board offered Rs.51 crore as reward to anyone who would behead the great artist. Activists of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad vandalised his Mumbai home and offered money, even gold bricks, to anyone who would blind Husain and cut off his hands — as in some Koranic verses that call on Muslims “to kill infidels and chop off their heads and fingers.”

The Islamic “fling stones” (from those who stone ‘infidels' during the Haj pilgrimage) jumped on to the communal bandwagon of the Sangh Parivar “fundoos” (as nicknamed by the writer Githa Hariharan). The All India Ulema Council protested against the screening of Husain's Meenaxi, in which a song lauds a woman's beauty using words that occur in an Islamic hymn that defines the persona of Prophet Mohammad. Thus threatened, the film was withdrawn from cinemas.

It was against this backdrop that I picked up cudgels against Taqi Raza Khan, head of the All-India Ibtehad Council, which wanted Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen deported from India for criticising Shariah laws that violate women's rights. He offered Rs.5 lakh to anyone who would behead (qatal) her. She had been granted a residence permit in 2005 to live and work in Kolkata, a city that she loves for its cultural environment. Taslima had won the 2004 UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence.

Taqi Raza Khan found unexpected allies during the 2007 West Bengal local body elections when some Congress workers looking for Muslim votes provoked a demonstration against her along with the CPI(M). On November 22, the police escorted her out of Kolkata. She was flown to Jaipur and on the same day taken to Delhi and kept in ‘solitary confinement.' Outraged by the human rights violation, I contacted a number of government officials, and for weeks engaged in correspondence with political leaders including Jyoti Basu. When all those efforts, including a threat to go on a hunger strike, failed, I wrote to Manmohan Singh pleading that Taslima's expulsion from Kolkata was contrary to India's cultural tradition. I drew his attention to the 5th century Ajanta painting of the king of the Sibis, who saved a dove by giving an equal weight of his own flesh to the hawk that wanted to kill it.

The Prime Minister invariably acknowledges my communications, but the transparent sincerity and poignancy of his two-page letter dated April 4, 2008 was unprecedented. The concluding paragraph reaffirmed India's secular ideals and respect for human rights and dignity. He wrote: “India's glorious traditions of welcoming people irrespective of caste and creed, community and religion will continue, whatever be the odds. The atmosphere of hate being perpetrated by a small segment within the country will not prevent us from persisting with this tradition. We recognise Taslima Nasreen's right to remain in a country of her choice, viz., India in this case. She should also have the option to choose whichever city or state she chooses.” Taslima was delighted as it would enable her to stay on as my guest in New Delhi for as long as she wishes.

A farce

My optimism that the letter had finally snuffed out the political farce of hurt religious feeling was belied when Taslima's book Nirbasan (Exile) was barred from the Kolkata Book Fair. Before that, Deoband members prevented Salman Rushdie from attending the Jaipur Literary Festival. The bigots replayed the ludicrous drama, and took the initiative to file cases against four delegates for their “intention” to read out from The Satanic Verses, pushing Indian jurisprudence into the quagmire of endless interpretation of the freedom of expression under Article 19(2).

The courts cannot break the stranglehold of religious bigotry so long as the fundoos and fling stones define the communal terms of reference and ignore India's agnostic civilisation, the source of our secular Constitution. I inherited my secular ideals from my mother Sumitra Kaur, who died on March 18, 1987. On top of the packet containing the Sikh Adi Granth was a photograph of Swami Vivekananda addressing university students in the United States; a hand-drawn sketch of the ‘Mother' of the Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry; and a miniature painting of the Sufi sage Mian Mir who laid the foundation stone of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The Sikh holy book contains verses of both Hindu and Muslim saints — Kabir, Namdev, Sheikh Farid and other devotees of a God whom they were unwilling and unable to delimit by means of a sectarian description.

Guru Nanak's Sikhism was inspired by India's multicultural civilisation that reflected the norms of India's traditional agnostic philosophy. He decried the caste system, empty religious ritual, pilgrimages and miracles. With his two life-long disciples, Bala, a Hindu, and Mardana, a Muslim rabab player, he built the religious edifice, as it were with “Hindu bricks and Muslim mortar of Sufi Islam,” as Khushwant Singh wrote in The History of the Sikhs.

My secular and atheist sentiments are deeply offended. I am consulting advocates on the possibility of moving against the bigots for making a mockery of India's secular Constitution and agnostic philosophy.

(UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Madanjeet Singh is the founder of the South Asia Foundation.) 

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6. INDIA: PUDR STATEMENT - IMPUNITY AS THE FLIP SIDE OF NORMALCY
=======================================
March 5, 2012

PEOPLE’S UNION OF DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS

Press Release 5th March 2012

Peoples Union for Democratic Rights is outraged at the brazen claim advanced by the Indian Army that let alone sanction for prosecution, no civil administration can even register a FIR against army personnel without sanction of the Central government. During the hearing on CBI’s complaint against the army for shielding their personnel accused of fake encounter (following the Chattisinghpora massacre of thirty-six Sikhs on 19-20 March 2000), the Supreme Court questioned the army about it. The Court asked why the Army neither let the civil court prosecute seven officers and jawans accused of killing five locals of Pathribal nor court martial them. In response, the counsel for the army reportedly said, ‘We cannot take over the case. The armed forces are bound to protect their men.’ Thus, twelve years after the crime was committed, the apex court is deciding whether or not the army is correct in shielding killers.

The Pathribal killing of 25 March 2000 has had a chequered history, not the least because the army fought to prevent CBI from prosecuting its personnel. Nine days later, on 3 April 2000, people protesting Pathribal killings were fired at by the CRPF at Barakpora, killing seven and injuring fifteen persons. Two days later, the National Conference government ordered an enquiry and DNA samples were taken. In March 2002, it was found that the samples had been tampered with. By April 2002, it became clear that the five killed were not ‘foreigners’, let alone militants, but only five out of seventeen local villagers picked up between 21-24 March 2000 by the army in the name of tracking the culprits of the Chattisinghpora massacre of Sikhs. It was only in November 2002 that the Justice GA Kuchay Commission was constituted to enquire into the entire incident and, following its report in December 2002, the state government asked CBI in January 2003 to take up the investigation. CBI submitted its finding accusing five army personnel of seven Rashtriya Rifles including one Braigadier, a Lt Colonel and two Majors, apart from a Subedar, of the heinous crime. Once CBI filed a charge-sheet and prosecution was to begin in the sessions court, the Army challenged it on the grounds that the Central government’s sanction had not been obtained for prosecuting its personnel. And it is this matter which is being heard by the apex court twelve years after the incident.

This case once again brings focus on the critical issue of impunity provided by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. A debate has been raging around whether to withdraw AFSPA from four out of the twenty-two districts where it is in force. On 21 October 2011, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir had famously said that ‘within the next few days’, AFSPA and Disturbed Area Act would be revoked from four districts. He also claimed that once the council of ministers advise the state Governor to revoke AFSPA and DAA, he is obliged to follow that advice. However, the union law ministry held otherwise, that the Governor of J&K is empowered to overrule any decision on this matter offered by the council of ministers and that on his/her discretion the Governor can take a decision about whether to remove AFSPA and DAA. This has also lifted the veil of autonomy which J&K allegedly enjoys under Article 370.

With even partial lifting of AFSPA and DAA ruled out and with the army pitching for immunity from investigation of its role in an incident by a civilian agency, the issue of impunity as well as de-militarisation of J&K, i.e., rollback of extraordinary laws and reduction as well as withdrawal of Armed Force of the Union from so called ‘internal security’ duties has been pushed into a distant future.

PUDR is aware that mere withdrawal of AFSPA will in itself not end the state of impunity. The regime of impunity covers the state police force whose senior most officer implicated in custodial killing escapes prosecution because no magistrate dares order registration of the crime naming him. The same force also claim that there is ‘social sanction’ for extra-judicial killings such as that of human rights activist Jalil Andrabi. They also believe in ‘brain draining’ Kashmiri youth of any idea of ‘Azaadi’. This highlights that ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same’. Neither is there any movement to resolve the J&K dispute nor is there any relaxation in the tight control the authorities maintain where freedom of expression, assembly and association are concerned. The obtrusive security force presence still maintains surveillance of public and private lives of people.

PUDR, therefore, expresses its deep concern at the policy of drift that has taken over and apathy of the authorities when it comes to a crackdown on acts of brutal crime committed by security forces. This has come to define India’s policy on J&K where even the elected representatives or the representative government are powerless to bring the perpetrators of heinous crimes to justice and helpless to end the state of impunity. This brings out how a colonial approach seems to prevail where J&K is concerned, one where constitutional propriety and political wisdom are given a go-by in order, as the army’s counter-insurgency doctrine suggests, in order to ‘transform the will and attitude’ of the people.

Paramjeet Singh and Preeti Chauhan
(Secretaries PUDR)

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7. INDIA: SAHMAT STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF JOURNALISTS
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SAHMAT
29, Feroze Shah Road , New Delhi -110001
Telephone- 23381276/ 23070787
e-mail-sahmat8 at yahoo.com

12.3.2012

We are greatly disturbed by the recent crude attempts by the Delhi Police under the aegis of the Home Ministry to muzzle the press in Delhi. Following the blatantly high handed arrest of journalist Mohammad Ahmed Qazmi there was an attempt to enter the house of Frontline Bureau Chief John Cherian on Sunday on the specious plea of a hoax call. These independent journalists whose professional integrity is above reproach are being targeted to create a fear psychosis.

We are convinced that if such attempts are not resisted, all independent creative and scholarly activity and exchange will come under attack. We call upon all sections of the intelligensia to come forward to resist such attempts.

We fully support the campaign of the DUJ and others to condemn these acts and do justice to the arrested journalist Mohammad Ahmed Qazmi and take action against the police personnel involved in the John Cherian case.

Ram Rahman       Veer Munshi                  Prof. Prabhat Patnaik
M.K.Raina           Madhu Prasad               Prof. C.P.Chandrasekhar
Sohail Hashmi      Prof. D.N.Jha                 Prof. Anil Bhatty
Dr. P.K.Shukla     Indira Chandrasekhar 


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8. INDIA: A SIMPLE PROPOSAL ON FOOD SECURITY
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Eminent development economists write an open letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Dr. Manmohan Singh

Prime Minister of India

March 12, 2012

Dear Prime Minister,

We welcome the tabling of a National Food Security Bill in the Lok Sabha as an important step towards the elimination of hunger and undernutrition in India. However, we feel that the Bill in its current form has some serious shortcomings. We are writing to propose a simpler and more effective framework for the Public Distribution System (PDS), which requires only minor amendments of the Bill.

The Bill relies on a complicated three-way division of the population between “priority,” “general” and excluded households. This division, we feel, is problematic for several reasons. First, there is no clarity as to how these different groups are to be identified, and we have serious doubts about the possibility of devising a practical, fair and effective method of doing it. Second, with PDS benefits largely restricted to priority households, this approach would have many of the weaknesses of “BPL targeting,” which has proved so unreliable and divisive in the past. Third, this rigid framework, based on selection criteria and other parameters prescribed by the Central Government, would undermine the positive trend towards a more inclusive PDS in many states. Last but not least, this framework is confusing — simplicity and transparency are essential for the success of this historic legislation.

We submit that it would be simpler, safer and more effective to abolish the distinction between general and priority households, and give the same PDS entitlements to all households outside the excluded category. This would dispense with the need for a complicated identification process, except for the use of exclusion criteria, which is relatively straightforward. The risk of exclusion errors would be small. And everyone would be able to understand this framework, making it much more likely to succeed. (The poorest households would continue to receive special support under the Antyodaya programme.)

The attached note, “Simplifying the National Food Security Bill <http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/00948/Simplifying_the_NFS_948744a.pdf>,”
presents a more detailed outline of this proposal. As explained in this note, this approach could go a long way even without additional resources (compared with the current version of the Bill).

We, the signatories of this letter, take different views on other aspects of the Bill, especially PDS reforms, including alternative models of subsidy delivery such as food coupons or cash transfers. The Bill, best thought of as an enabling legislation, should facilitate informed scrutiny of these alternatives without imposing a rigid model across the country. As far as the issue raised in this letter is concerned, we unanimously believe that simplifying the framework is essential for the success of the Bill.

We urge you to consider this proposal.

Yours sincerely,

Dilip Abreu (Princeton University);
Pulapre Balakrishnan (Director, Centre for Development Studies,Thiruvananthapuram);
Abhijit Banerjee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology);
Sangeeta Bansal (Jawaharlal Nehru University);
Pranab Bardhan (University of California, Berkeley);
V. Bhaskar (University College, London);
Ashwini Deshpande (Delhi School of Economics);
Bina Agarwal (Director, Institute of Economic Growth);
Mahendra Dev (Director, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research);
Jean Drèze (Allahabad University);
Bhaskar Dutta (Warwick University);
Maitreesh Ghatak (London School of Economics);
Deepti Goel (Delhi School of Economics);
Ashima Goyal (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research);
Himanshu (Jawaharlal Nehru University);
Rajshri Jayaraman (European School of Management and Technology, Berlin);
K.P. Kannan (former Director, Centre for Development Studies,
Thiruvananthapuram);
Anirban Kar (Delhi School of Economics);
Reetika Khera (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi);
Ashok Kotwal (University of British Columbia);
Srijit Mishra (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research);
Dilip Mookherjee (Boston University);
K. Nagaraj (Asian College of Journalism);
R. Nagaraj (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research);
Sudha Narayanan (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research);
Pulin Nayak (Delhi School of Economics);
Rohini Pande (Harvard University);
Kirit Parikh (Chairman, Integrated Research and Action for Development);
Bharat Ramaswamy (Indian Statistical Institute);
Debraj Ray (New York University);
Atul Sarma (former Vice-Chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi University);
Abhijit Sen (Member, Planning Commission);
K. Sundaram (Delhi School of Economics);
Jeemol Unni (Director, Institute of Rural Management, Anand);
Sujata Visaria (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology);
Vijay Vyas (Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister).

(All the signatories are development economists.)

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9. ON OUTRAGEOUS LIES, COLLECTIVE FEARS AND HOPELESS DREAMS OF UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION AUTHORITY OF INDIA (UIDAI)
by Taha Mehmood
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sacw.net - 15 March 2012

UIDAI is lying to a billion Indians. And the plain truth is that people running the show at UIDAI are aware of the humongous scale of social catastrophe, which a project like UID could unleash in India. Behind the mask of a cool and confident exterior, some UIDAI officials seems to be constantly grappling with feelings of immense insecurity and uncertainty. We can get a sense of their feelings by closely reading the draft National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010.
[. . .]
http://www.sacw.net/article2587.html

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10. INDIA: AMU BLOCKS FACEBOOK, SAYS IT ‘HURTS RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS’
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The Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) administration has blocked Facebook on the campus, claiming that the content posted on the social networking website could hurt religious sentiments.

University spokesperson Rahat Abrar said: “It has been done keeping in mind the objectionable posts related to Islam on Facebook. It hurts the religious sentiments of Muslims and it may flare up passions.”
Interestingly, Abrar himself has a Facebook account.
The order to block the site was issued a fortnight ago, but there was no official announcement in this regard. When the site did not open in various departments, people called up the university’s computer centre and were informed that the site has been blocked.
AMU has its own internet facility on the campus, which is available at various departments of studies, engineering college, medical college, polytechnic, faculty and the library. Those using this facility can no longer access Facebook.
President, Central University Research Scholars’ Association, Jasim Mohammad said the university’s decision was “curtailment” of their freedom. “Facebook is not only an entertainment medium, we often remain connected with other research scholars abroad through it. It is a Talibani diktat by the administration,” he said.
Sources said the decision may have been prompted by the use of Facebook by students for mobilising opinion against the university administration on various issues. There is an AMU community account that uploads news related to the university.
In April 2011, following the death of a student leading to sine die closure, the AMU Community had launched a ‘Remove V-C’ campaign on Facebook. A campaign for restoration of the students’ union was also launched.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/amu-blocks-facebook-says-it-hurts-religious-sentiments/923486/



INTERNATIONAL
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11. FACING THE WORLD WATER FORUM, WE LOOK FORWARD AND MAINTAIN HOPE (MARCELA OLIVERA)
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[Today begins the World Water Forum <http://www.worldwaterforum6.org/en/> in Marseilles, France, a week-long trade-show and platform for the world’s most powerful water corporations to promote their profit-oriented solutions to the global water crisis. The event, which occurs ever three years, has been one of the primary venues pushing water privatization. Alternet
<http://climate-connections.org/2012/03/12/facing-the-world-water-forum-we-look-forward-and-maintain-hope-a-climate-connections-exclusive/Fixing%20Our%20Water%20Crisis%20Can%27t%20Be%20Done%20by%20the%20Corporations%20that%20Are%20Exacerbating%20It>
published a series of articles I wrote after the 2009 forum in Istanbul, resulting in a Project Censored Award
<http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/23-activists-slam-world-water-forum-as-a-corporate-driven-fraud/>.

Colleagues from Italy produced produced a terrific film called H2O:
Turkish Connection <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQf_9zFeNBg>, that documents the violence that marked that forum.
For the several years when the focus of my work was on water privatization, I had the pleasure and honor of working with La Red VIDA <http://laredvida.org/noticias.php?tipo_noticia=Noticia>, or InterAmerican Network for the Defense of the Human Right to Water, and its Secretariat, Bolivian water activist Marcela Olivera. Among other projects, Marcela and I, along with our colleagues at Other Worlds <http://www.otherworldsarepossible.org/> and Transnational Institute <http://www.tni.org/category/issues/resistance-alternatives/water-justice>, worked together to produce the book, Changing the Flow: Water Movements in Latin America <http://globaljusticeecology.org/publications.php?ID=270> -- to this day, the best resource for understanding the diverse perspectives of popular movements in Latin America on the water issue. (Note the cover photo, by GJEP’s Orin Langelle, shot at the 4^th World Water Forum, in Mexico City: for more on that forum, with photos, see this article <http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/for_money_or_for_life/> I wrote at the time.)
To mark the beginning of this year’s World Water Forum, and the Alternative World Water Forum <http://www.fame2012.org/en/>, March 14-17, Climate Connections is proud to publish the following original commentary from Marcela Olivera.
-- Jeff Conant, for GJEP ]

A Climate Connections Exclusive

FACING THE WORLD WATER FORUM, WE LOOK FORWARD AND MAINTAIN HOPE
By Marcela Olivera

The media tells us that 8 million people die every year from illnesses related to water; that more than a billion people lack access to potable water; and that more than 2.4 billion do not have access to sanitation.
These grave numbers, revised upward every three years, are cited by the World Water Council as the reason for convening their tri-annual World Water Forum. While the Water Forum, billed with a strong corporate flavor as an “international multi-stakeholder platform,” has a different character than the annual Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the results are largely the same: a lot of talking, perhaps even a lot of good intentions, but little action, and universal frustration.
So it is that the Sixth World Water Forum opens today (March 12-17) in Marseille, France. At $1000 for participants from wealthy nations, and about $450 for participants from the ‘under-developed countries,’ the cost of attending makes the forum inaccesible to those who come from the countries of the Global South.
And so it is that every three years those of us who believe this Forum to be illegitimate gather together to denounce it. And every three years, over the course of many months, organizations and movements from around the World come together to hold the Alternative World Water Forum. We have done so previously, in Kyoto in 2003, in Mexico City in 2006, and in Istanbul in 2009. Now, in 2012, in Marseilles, the last details for this year’s convening are being worked out.
The challenges facing our social movements are enormous. The greatest of these challenges is the construction of viable alternatives to the dominant economy and to the regime of natural resource management that is based on extraction, exploitation, and extreme energy.
The questions are clear, the answers diverse and complex. For example, who should convene these fora? If the World Water Council has no legitimate right to push decisions regarding global water issues, does the United Nations? We are struggling to put water in public hands— but is it truly public when the State controls it? Or when it is in the hands of us, the people? How can we create conditions where State-managed water systems coexist with systems developed and managed by the community? How can we get beyond the demagoguery that dominates the discourse of human rights and the Human Right to Water? In the cases of Bolivia and Ecuador, how can we advance the defense of Mother Earth and her natural Rights when the practical demands of running a country within a global economy are in direct contradiction to ecological concerns?
Wherever we are headed, the world continues turning, and it will not stop in Marseille. Throughout the Americas, discontent is on the rise in the face of governments left, right and center, red, green and pink. We are witnesses, not to a series of isolated uprisings, but to a global movement against the unwarranted ambition of the corporate agenda, and in defense of the Commons.
In Chile, the population of Ays?n has risen up and put state authorities in checkmate, because the government of Sebastian Pi?era remembers them only when it comes time to launch a hydroelectric project.
In Ecuador, March 8, International Women’s Day, marked the launch of the National March for Life and the Dignity of the People. The march, convened by the National Confederation of Indigenous Nations of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONAIE) and other sectors, seeks to unmask the neoliberal policies of the Correa administration and the ongoing criminalization of the indigenous peoples’ movement. The march, which began in the province of Zamora and will end in Quito on World Water Day, March 22,  is also in defense of the Constitution of Montecristi and the approval of the revolutionary agrarian law and the popular water law.
Not long ago in Peru, a similar March for Water ended with the alignment of new social sectors following the approval by the government of Ollanta Humala of mining projects in Cajamarca, in the face of widespread resistance and discontent.
In Bolivia, the peoples of the Indigenous Territory and National Park Isiboro Secure (TIPNIS) are preparing their ninth march against the Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos highway that the Morales government continues to promote as part of the interoceanic corridor to unite Brazil to Chile.
In the United States, the Occupy movement has been evicted from the plazas, but has expanded to the neighborhoods and other public spaces in the form of workshops, gatherings, and assemblies that may easily come to be more of a threat to the authorities, and teh authroitarians, than the simple occupation of public spaces.
Hours before the beginning of the World Water Forum in Marseille, reflecting on what is happening in our countries, I feel a kind of anger that it is an affair like this—a gathering of corporate elites— that brings us together, again. Every three years we unite to delegitimize and denounce this profit-oriented trade fair that is built on our backs by the corporations that make up the World Water Forum. It shouldn’t be this way.
But, I maintain hope: the day will come when we will gather together not to respond to the destructive agenda of the corporate elites, but because we see the way forward, because we have a clear, common agenda; because we are called by solidarity to do so. We will gather together because we will have learned not only from our defeats, but from our victories.
At the end of the day, we will join together because we desire to do so, as brothers and sisters on this planet we call Earth, and because it is our legitimate right.

-- Marcela Olivera, Marseille, France, March, 2012 
Marcela Olivera is a Bolivian water rights activist, based in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Currently she is a Visiting Global Associate of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. 


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12. ISRAEL FACES AN ARMY OF THE ULTRA-ORTHODOX
by Charlotte Silver
======================================

JERUSALEM, Mar 11, 2012 (IPS) - The High Court of Justice in Israel has annulled the 2002 Tal Law that had allowed Yeshiva students - scholars of Jewish religious texts - to avoid an otherwise mandatory service in the Israeli army. While politicians on the left and right welcome the court’s decision, the Haredim community considers it an assault on their way of life. 
The Haredim are also known as the “ultra-Orthodox” and represent around 10 percent of the country, which has a population of nearly eight million.
The law in its current form gives students of the Yeshiva the choice at age 22 to continue their religious studies or enlist in the IDF. All other non-Arab citizens are required to serve two to three years in the Israel Defence Force after the age of 18. The ten-year-old law has been extended repeatedly. Now, with the court’s recent ruling, the law is set to expire this August.
Organisations and political parties in opposition to the law have argued that it is unfair to exempt a significant portion of Israeli society from civic and military service.
“We must share the burden of our duties and our rights. If you want equal rights you should have equal duties,” Tal Nachom, speaker of the far right nationalist party Yisrael Beitenu, told IPS. Enlistment in the IDF has been steadily decreasing since 2002 as a result of religious and medical exemptions.
Critics of the Tal Law point out that when Israel was established, only 400 exceptional students were exempted from military service. Today that group has swollen to more than 60,000.
However, members of the Israeli Haredim community - the primary beneficiaries of the law - argue that the court’s decision is an attack on religious life in Israel.
“The judges don’t know what they’re talking about because they are coming from a secular background and don’t know the rules of Judaism.  They shouldn’t be making these decisions,” Rabbi Simon Hurwitz told IPS.
Rabbi Hurwitz moved to Israel nearly 39 years ago from Baltimore in the U.S. He explains that after living a mostly secular life in America, he became observant after being properly exposed to Judaism.
The Haredim adhere strictly to the rules laid out in the Shulchan Aruch - also called the Code of Jewish Law - separating them culturally from most communities. Some examples of what sets the Haredim apart from other Israelis are a requirement not to possess television sets or access the Internet, in order to avoid offensive material.
Women and men’s attire must conform to strict regulations. In addition, Zionism for the Haredim is justified by religious entitlement above nationalism.
“It’s hard for me to imagine Zionism without a religious base. What does it come from? Nationalism? That just sounds racist to me,” said Rabbi Hurwitz.
At stake with the cancellation of the Tal Law is more than just forced enlistment in the army. At the core of the debate is a battle for power and security between the Haredim and the rest of Israeli society. While secular Israelis find themselves discomfited by the Haredim’s high growth rate and political mobilisation, the latter see themselves as a threatened minority.
Studies indicate that the birth rate among the Haredi is nearly three
times that of the rest of Israel
<http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/archive/list/item/?id=2932&year=2007&month=07>;
predictions estimate that by 2020 the Haredi community will constitute 17 percent of the Israeli population.
Many in Israel view the Haredim as a drain on the Israeli economy. While they still constitute a small portion of society, they receive a disproportionate amount of state subsidies. Because men consider their occupation a study of the Torah and women are systematically undereducated, they are one of the poorest communities in Israel. Sixty percent of the Haredim community live in poverty compared to only 10 percent of the rest of the non-Arab Israeli population.
Indeed the International Monetary Fund published a report last month
<http://www.haaretz.com/business/imf-if-arabs-and-haredim-worked-gdp-would-grow-by-15-1.412766>
that warned of the peril this growing impoverished community poses to the Israeli economy.
Conversely, the Haredim believe their contribution to Israeli society to be vital. Rabbi Hurwitz sees studying the Torah as itself a national service. “Morality is a part of society. Without a moral compass how will you keep a society above water?”
Because the Haredim are dependent on a selective state welfare system, they are vulnerable to the changing winds of public attitude.
The rising tension between the Haredim and the rest of Israeli society is clearly evident in Bet Shemesh, a town of 80,000 that lies 30 kilometres west of Jerusalem. Currently, 40 percent of the town identify themselves as Haredi.
Called a “mixed city”, Bet Shemesh has been the site of cultural clashes. It was originally one of Israel’s first development towns, but since the 1990s, it has been the destination of both modern Orthodox immigrants from North America and Haredi Israelis. Now, the two groups are finding each other as infelicitous neighbours.
Last January, the city made national news after an extremist from the Haredi community verbally attacked an eight-year old Orthodox girl on her way to school, spitting on her and shouting epithets at her regarding her “immodest” dress.
Since members of the Orthodox, non-Haredi community built a local national religious school for girls on the border of the Haredi part of the city, relations between the two communities have become increasingly strained.
“The school is telling them this is where your expansion stops,” explains Dr. Yoel Finkelman, a lecturer in contemporary Jewry at Bar Illan University.
Finkelman explains that the new, state-of-the art school building stands in stark contrast to the abysmal conditions of the Haredim’s educational facilities.
“In Bet Shemesh two classrooms are born every week, and the majority are ultra-Orthodox babies,” Shmuel Greenberg, the deputy-mayor of the city, told Haaretz.
However, this growing need within the Haredim community is not being met with adequate services. In fact, religious schools in the country are facing economic woes now more than ever.
“The government has been cutting funding for years and years. Just last week our principles called a meeting to tell us to be very frugal with materials. We are having a lot of money problems,” Tzippy Escriz, a teacher at a religious school in Jerusalem, told IPS.
“Our schools get less than half the funding that secular public schools get,” she said. “It makes no sense.” (END)

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13. CAIRO UNIVERSITY BANS OSCAR-WINNING IRANIAN FILM "UNDER PRESSURE FROM ISLAMIST STUDENTS"
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Al-Masry Al-Youm
http://www.egyptindependent.com/node/713141

Artists slam university ban of Iranian film
AFP
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 19:45

Egyptian artists have condemned a decision by Cairo University to ban the screening of an Oscar-winning Iranian film under pressure from Islamist students who said it propagates Shia ideas.
The Front for Creativity, a coalition calling for freedom of expression in the arts, said the decision to ban "A Separation" was a "catastrophe that showed "the extent of extremism reached by some students in our universities."
The Islamist students who demanded the ban "must remember that their voice [was brought about by] a revolution that calls for freedom, so it is shameful that they suppress this freedom," the artists said in a statement.
Islamists, long banned or oppressed under President Hosni Mubarak, have become more vocal and assertive since the uprising that toppled the veteran strongman last year, raising some fears among secularists and Christians.
They clinched almost three-quarters of the seats in recent parliamentary elections, and Islamist students have been more openly active on campus.
At Cairo University, the Islamist students who adhere to the Sunni sect pressured authorities into banning the film, saying it propagated Shia thought.
The artists have called for a meeting with the dean of the university as well as with the students to discuss the matter, the group's spokesman, producer Mohammed al-Adl, told AFP.
Directed by Asghar Farhadi, "A Separation" sets out a deep social expose of today's Iran in a simple story starting with a divorce, exploring the themes of love, lies and honor.
Last month, Egyptian censors blocked the screening of a "taboo" film, "Cairo Exit", about a love story between a Christian woman and a Muslim man, a move slammed by filmmakers and critics.
Under Egyptian law, films must obtain a written permit from censorship authorities in order to be screened. Anyone violating the procedure could be sentenced to jail.
Earlier in February, Islamist students at Cairo's Ain Shams University halted the filming of an Egyptian television series protesting against the "indecent" clothing of the actresses.
This came shortly after the Arab world's most famous actor, Adel Imam, received a three-month jail sentence for "defaming Islam" in several roles on stage and screen.


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14. ANNOUNCEMENTS:
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(1) SPEAKING WITH RAMANUJAN

Noted playright, actor and scholar Girish Karnad is to deliver the First AK Ramanujan Lecture, as part of a National Seminar, to be held on March 21, 2012 at Ramjas college, University of Delhi. This seminar is being organized by The History Society Ramjas College, in wake of the recent decision of the Academic Council of Delhi University to suppress AK Ramanujan’s scholarly essay, ’300 Ramayanas’ from the Undergraduate syllabus of the University, and in appreciation of the vast range and depth of AK Ramanujan’s intellectual contributions. The seminar will underline the significance of Ramanujan’s work for the Humanities and the Social Sciences and its importance for the understanding of India’s histories and cultures.

FIRST AK RAMANUJAN LECTURE
by Girish Karnad 
Seminar
Kumkum Roy and Udaya Kumar
Dastangoi
Dastan Jai Ram Ji Ki
Mahmood Farooqui & Danish Hussain

21 March 2012 - 9.45 am to 2.30 pm 
Ramjas College, University of Delhi

see the visuals: http://www.sacw.net/article2586.html

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(2.) The Association of Indian Labour Historians (AILH) invites you to particpate in the IXIth International Conference on Labour History in collaboration with  V.V Giri National Labour Institute on March 22-24, 2012. at V.V Giri National Labour Institute, NOIDA [UP, India]. 

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(3.) M.N.ROY MEMORIAL  LECTURE : 24th March, 2012

  Dear friends,

          21st March 2012-20 March 2013 is the 125th birth anniversary year of MN Roy.

               I am glad to inform you that Prof. Sukhadeo Thorat, Chairman, Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi & Ex-chairman of University Grants Commission, has agreed to deliver MN Roy Memorial Lecture : 2012. The lecture will be held at 5.30 PM, Saturday, 24th March, 2012 at Indian Law Institute, New Delhi (in front of Supreme Court). Detailed programme  shall be communicated soon.

                                                                                      N.D.Pancholi

                                                                For Indian Renaissance Institute

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(4.) JAN SANSAD Monday at 10:00am - Friday, March 23 at 5:00pm at Rajendra Bhawan, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg, New Delhi

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(5.) 5TH SOUTH ASIA ECONOMIC SUMMIT - CALL FOR ABSTRACTS 

Dear All,

Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) will be hosting this year's Fifth South Asia Economic Summit between 17-19th September 2012, we have therefore announced the call for abstracts/papers. This year's theme is 'Making Growth Inclusive and Sustainable in South Asia'.

We encourage original contributions from researchers particularly from South Asian countries who wish to study the various themes proposed in the attached call. For a greater understanding of these themes please find a brief concept note attached. We will appreciate if you can circulate the call amongst peers in order to ensure maximum participation.

Kindly note that the deadline for submission of abstracts is 9th April 2012. In case you require any further clarification please do not hesitate to write to us. We look forward to receiving your contributions soon.

For further information Please contact

Dr. Vaqar Ahmed
Head, Economic Growth Unit
Sustainable Development Policy Institute
Islamabad, Pakistan.

051-2278134

vaqar at sdpi.org


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South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. Newsletter of South Asia Citizens Web: 
www.sacw.net/

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