An estimated 730,000 Rohingyas had crossed into Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh three years ago in order to flee the persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Although the Rohingyas, who are currently residing in Bangladeshi camps as refugees, wish to return to their homes in Rakhine State, very little has been done to create a safe environment for their return. The challenges facing the Rohingya people, described by the United Nations as[Read More…]
With a long collective history and geographical proximity, the goal of forming an integrated vision for South Asian countries seems like a natural outcome. The South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), formed in 1985, was an ambitious move to fulfil the goal of South Asian solidarity. The aim of SAARC was to “strengthen cooperation among themselves to accelerate economic[Read More…]
When the United Nations was created after the World War II, one of its purposes was spelt out in Article 1 [2] of the UN Charter as:” To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples “ And Article 55 of the UN Charter provides that, “With a view to[Read More…]
An unassailable present Rajapakshas Government could rule for another ten years and possibly more if the 20th Amendment finds its way in the Constitution. An entrenched dynastic rule appears to be looming partly contributed by dishevelled and splintered opposition from UNP and United Peoples Action parties along with contribution from the disunitedly wrangling self-centered Tamil political parties numbering seventeen with seventeen leaders[Read More…]
Doha peace talks, held in September of 2020, between the Afghan government and Taliban, led by peace council chairman Abdullah Abdullah and Mullah Baradar Akhund respectively, is a remarkable advancement towards the establishment of peace in Afghanistan, despite the fact that it is still difficult to say about when the ongoing conflicts started with the USA invasion in 2001 after[Read More…]
Ever since Pakistan has signalled its wish to make Gilgit-Baltistan fifth province, not only have Pakistan’s own political outfits been in a state of disarray, but it has reportedly become a major ‘issue of concern’ in India’s military and political leadership. Various aspects of adopting a new military strategy are being deliberated upon. In the border region of Ladakh, where[Read More…]
I don’t know who drew this this rape-map of Bangladesh, but this is a telling geography of rape epidemic which as can be see here, has spread widely and reached every nook and corner of the country. The scrolls on each district which are in vernacular are appeals to the predators from the rape victims – desperate pleas to dissuade[Read More…]
The Universal Declaration for Human Rights [UDHR] was adopted on 10th December 1948 by the United Nations at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. The UDHR contains thirty Articles. Articles 1 and 2 outline the philosophical claim of the UDHR and emphasise that human beings are born free in equal dignity and are entitled to all rights and freedoms without[Read More…]
Pakistan’s ailing former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday accused the country’s powerful military of political interference, saying in a televised speech from exile in London that the military had rigged the 2018 vote that brought the country’s current prime minister Imran Khan to power. An AP report by Munir Ahmed said: The 70-year-old Sharif has had a long uneasy[Read More…]
An AP report from Kabul said: Afghanistan’s dwindling community of Sikhs and Hindus is shrinking to its lowest levels. With growing threats from the local Islamic State affiliate, many are choosing to leave the country of their birth to escape the insecurity and a once-thriving community of as many as 250,000 members now counts fewer than 700. The community’s numbers[Read More…]
There is no denying of the fact that the Tamils in Sri Lanka have been at the receiving end by the successive Governments in power and targeted in the agenda of GENOCIDE including structural GENOCIDE since the time of independence in 1948. Their history since then is dotted with state discrimination and marginalization aided with legislations like the SINHALA ONLY[Read More…]
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has announced to make Gilgit-Baltistan, a part of the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, as the fifth province of Pakistan on September 17, 2020, making it the new hot spot in the region. India retorted by saying that ‘Government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus-standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it. India[Read More…]
The deep state in Pakistan is no more a mere conglomerate of civil bureaucracy, army, intelligence, and/or other administrative agencies. The ‘state within the state’ has also its predictable partners in religious constituencies across the country. There is a growing concern now if the judiciary is also becoming a partner of the deep state congregation. A few years back, a[Read More…]
by Punsara Amarasinghe & Eshan Jayawardane Sri Lanka has been often portrayed as being in the crossroads of geopolitical encounters with powerful nations throughout its history and its unique geographic location in Indian ocean closer to the Indian mainland, yet distinct from it has made the island’s destiny extremely intertwined with India. Sri Lanka’s own historical identity is the[Read More…]
President Gotabaya’s throne speech on August 20, 2020 as expected does not spring any surprise or disappointments to the minorities particularly Tamils as it is a frank and forthright speech which is crowning Buddhism and Sinhalese and expressing his gratitude to them for their endorsement to his pledges. The two-third majority of SLPP in the Parliament was made possible due[Read More…]
During his stint in power as Pakistan’s prime minister until July 2017, Nawaz Sharif had nurtured cordial working relationship with India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi. This, along with his role in Kargil conflict of 1999 with India, was precisely the reason why Pakistan’s military establishment turned against him and he was eventually disqualified[Read More…]
Journalists in Jashore, a bordering district in Bangladesh, have observed the death anniversary of slain journalist RM Saiful Alam Mukul, editor of local daily Runner on August 30. It was his 22nd anniversary of death. On July 16, they observed the death anniversary of another journalist Shamsur Rahman, former special correspondent of Bangla daily Janakantho and also stringer of BBC[Read More…]
British imperialism was not accidental but a planned scheme of things to perpetuate its cultural and political dominance over the weak and most vulnerable people of the globe. Its aims were no different in the Sub-Continent of India-Pakistan. The immediate focal aim was to destroy the existing culture of the established Mughal Empire and divide and rule the whole of[Read More…]
In view of the prevalent political deadlock, growth-oriented economic development, or growth-without-development – which is simultaneously stagnating and misleading due to inflated GDP growth estimate by the Government – and the absence of the rule of law and accountability of the government, especially since 2007, Bangladesh finds itself in a political cul-de-sac. Why so? The prevalent stalemate under a one-party[Read More…]
The ongoing peace process provided an opportunity for Afghan factions to unite and undo all the wrongs committed against them in the past 20 years. Unfortunately, the internal strife of Afghanis has again prevailed over this opportunity. Explicitly, compelled by the upcoming election promise, the US wishes to withdraw forces from Afghanistan. China and Pakistan are earnestly pushing the peace[Read More…]
Eidul Azha, a sacrificial festival for the Muslim, is due in Bangladesh on Saturday and many other countries. It is one of the two largest Islamic festivals. The majority Muslim Bangladesh celebrates the religious gala with due festive mood and share sacrificial meats with other Muslims, especially the poor. This year the Eidul Azha knocks the door of the Muslims[Read More…]
Tamils in Sri Lanka especially in the North and East are now living between the devil and deep sea. Heavy presence of the military [to the ratio of one soldier to every four civilians 1: 4] and on the other side they are scared of the Covid-19. The President is determined to hold the election on August 05, 2020 without taking[Read More…]
The forthcoming general election on August 5th 2020 is crucial for the Tamils for their survival as a race and lives with respect, equal rights and dignity, and as a nation in Sri Lanka as Rajapaksas. Ranil Wickermasinghe. Sajith Premadasa and Buddhist clergy are openly advocating and moving to establish a Sinhala Buddhist unitary state in Sri Lanka. The Tamils[Read More…]
Although neither the puppet and illegitimate government of Sheikh Hasina nor the pro-Indian Deep State, which has been running Bangladesh for the last twelve years, gathered enough courage to broadcast or publish the transcript of the video interview of Lt General (ret) Chowdhury Hasan Sarwardy with a US-based journalist, Kanak Sarwar, on 14th July, yet the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) department[Read More…]
Bangladesh since its birth has gone through too many intra-military and intra-civilian conflicts to mention in one breath. As on 14th July, Bangladeshi Lt General (ret) Chowdhury Hasan Sarwardy revealed in a bold and candid video interview from Dhaka with Kanak Sarwar, a Bangladeshi American journalist in New York (who fled the country of his birth and now lives in[Read More…]
Waiting for Godot is a play written by French playwright Samuel Beckett, which I watched on the television several years back. In the play- two characters- Vladimir and Estragon- were seen engaged in a variety of discussions and encounters while waiting for Godot, who never arrives. The play premiered in Paris on 5th January in 1953. Relative and colleagues of[Read More…]
From some of the heaviest rains in a decade that has created monsoon flood, a third of Bangladesh is already underwater, and at least 1.5 million people are already affected, marooned or have left their homes for higher ground along with their cattle and other belongings with villages and roads flooded. Almost four million people have been hit by this[Read More…]
Torrential rainfall for the past three days has triggered floods and landslides in different parts of Nepal, claiming more than 40 lives and displacing thousands of families in western Nepal. Narayani and other major rivers have swollen due to the continuous downpour. Meteorological Department on Friday had forecast that the monsoon rains would last for another three days. Twenty-seven[Read More…]
Gotabaya Rajapakshe the first time President, an Army veteran has proved himself as guardian of Sinhala Buddhist heritage and champion of the Armed forces. He openly and loudly said NO to Tamil political party TNA} for devolution or power sharing and the full implementation of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987. In his vocabulary devolution has become a bad[Read More…]
Taranidhi Regmi, 37, of Morang, lives in Kathmandu and runs Sunbarshi bookstore in Dhapasi and delivers literary books to about 90 bookstores across the country within two or three days of its publication. When Covid-19 started to linger a month ago, he posted a photo of himself milking a cow in his home on his Facebook page. During this time,[Read More…]
We know things are not going well in regards to India’s relationship with China. On 5th/6th May, China captured around sixty square kilometre of Indian territory in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, which is strategically important to all the three countries in the region, China, India, and Pakistan. On 14th/15th June, around twenty Indian soldiers, including a colonel, were literally[Read More…]
In a text message, mobile phone operator Robi asked me, other users as well, to stay with it saying that the government has imposed 15 per cent taxes on talks. National Democratic Front’ president Dr MA Karim and general secretary Brigadier General (retired) M Jahangir Hussain in a joint statement rejecting the national budget for the fiscal year 2020-2021, saying[Read More…]
Co-Written by Abhay Jain and Sandeep Pandey Unable to resolve its border disputes with Pakistan and China, India has now managed to create a dispute with Nepal in the process of building a road to Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet through areas which are claimed by Nepal. History has taught us that such disputes will require disproportionate attention and resources and[Read More…]
Alarm bells are ringing and heard from various quarters about the direction of Sri Lanka being piloted by the military machine of Rajapakahe’s clan led by the military mindset President Gotabaya Rajapakshe who has a penchant to in tolerate criticism and opposition from any source and not hesitating to eliminate them by any means. President Gotabaya was not involved in[Read More…]
Dear Dr. Momen: I write this to draw your attention to your recent interview with an Indian weekly The Week , published on May 31, 2020, which all of our common friends and other Bangladeshis at home and abroad have found very gratuitous, objectionable, as it grossly undermines truth, and tarnishes the image of Bangladesh, which you represent as the[Read More…]
Rohingya people, who have no identity of their own, are now facing another danger. Pandemic COVID-19 took away one of the Rohingya, who took shelter at a camp at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh on the wake of genocide in their own land in Myanmar. United News of Bangladesh reported that the man died from coronavirus infection while undergoing treatment at[Read More…]
This is Part-5 of a series of articles on a crisis in India-Nepal relations. Part-4 was titled India-Nepal Border Dispute : The International Ramifications. It mainly dealt with attempts made in vain to topple a communist regime, the NCP-Oli-led Nepal govt, and the international context and import of the still unfolding controversy. This one, Part-5, focuses on US hegemonic role[Read More…]
This is Part-4 of a series of articles on a crisis in India-Nepal relations that led to mutual allegations of a cartographic war, and smacked of being a part of cold war against China. It is a still unfolding controversy, being reported and analysed exclusively for the readers of Countercurrent.org. Part-4 now being published, deals with the international context and[Read More…]
(This is part-3 of an article on India Nepal relations. Part-1 and Part 2 were published on May 24 and 26 respectively.) In Nepal, despite apparent unanimity, the new map adopted and announced got stuck up as a Constitutional Amendment was needed, which required two-thirds majority. Two parties, Nepali Congress and a Madhesi-based new party created some obstacles, though[Read More…]
(This is Part-2 of a two-part Report; this one deals with various dimensions of the issue. Part-1 was published on May24, with the title, India-Nepal Border Issue Raked Up, Relations Strained Once Again.) Even as Covid-19 health crisis, and its cascading effect on the economic crisis — both are aggravating in India — are upsetting Modi Government’s claims and calculations[Read More…]
(This is Part-1 of a two-part article) “ We remain committed to resolving the border issue,” said Anurag Srivastava, India’s Official Spokesperson. “If the coronavirus was an obstacle for negotiations between friendly nations, then we were surprised that it wasn’t an obstacle for this decision (inauguration of the link road). ..This wasn’t the time to create unnecessary controversy which can[Read More…]
The pandemic Covid-19 which originated in Wuhan province, China sometime in December 2019 made its cruel impact as a global deadly disease in January 2020 declared as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. It then spread to other countries causing fear, panic and deaths. Currently more than 3.5 millions have been infected with about 240,000 deaths reported. Sri Lanka reported[Read More…]
While the number of reported cases of the new coronavirus in India and Pakistan remains in the low thousands, but concerns are growing about the capacity of healthcare system to deal with the potential threat in both countries. In both countries, it seems to be a major test for the Narendra Modi led government and power less PM of Pakistan,[Read More…]
“Dance on broken glass; Build castles with shattered dreams Wear your tears like precious pearls. Proud. Strong. Unshakable.” –Anita Krizaan At such a time as ours, I can identify with the first three lines, but not the last three. As I read the poem, I utter instead, “Ah, what dark tunnels are we crossing?” I can’t believe that it has[Read More…]
Hotchpotch is my favourite food. But hotchpotch in service is not good, rather more than bad. In combating COVID -19, hotchpotch is seen everywhere in Bangladesh. Theft of relief materials by ruling Awami League men has become a regular phenomenon in the country. Shortage of testing kits for COVID -19 is another problem. American national Sally Dugman, who is noted[Read More…]
Introduction There have been a series of peace attempts to solve the civil war by political arrangements until the Rajapaksa regime decided to declare war against LTTE in 2006. The first peace rounds marked by Bandaranaike and Chelvanayagam in 1957. The Senanayake- Chelvanayagam peace talks in 1965 followed by Round Table conference 1983, All-Party conference 1984, Thimpu Bhutan talks 1985,[Read More…]
The cloudy Tuesday’s dawn brought nothing- no rain, no nor’wester, but a smiling morning – a sunny day. Nor’wester is a seasonal storm in Bangladesh, the West Bengal in India as well. It sweeps over the region in Baishakh, the first month of Bangla calendar. Very often, it comes on the first day of the month. Defying hassles Bangla speaking[Read More…]
President Gotabaya’s pardon of a convicted criminal and let him loose and prowl free on the streets is only a licence and encouragement for him and other similar minded criminals to embark on a revengeful killing spree emboldened due to the guarantee of state protection and impunity. The prosecution of Sunil Ratnayake managed to miraculously wade through the many pitfalls[Read More…]
Spring, the best season, is twinkling Bangladesh. Mango pods adore trees here and there across the country. Hopes are pinching dreams for big profit. In this flashy season optimism of Bangladeshis has been grabbed by a scare – COVID -19. Yes, ruling of coronavirus has been started the country. It has already occupied several places of the delta country- Bangladesh.[Read More…]
Contrary to the common belief that Government of Bangladesh has been least prepared and that its responses to COVID-19 have been ad hoc and impulsive, it is important to note that the government did have an elaborate plan, ‘National Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID – 19’ and that the Plan was prepared under the guidance of the Directorate General[Read More…]
President Gotabaya Rajapaksha’s pardon and release of former Army Sergeant Ratnayake who was sentenced to death in 2015 for the brutal murder of 8 Tamil civilians including children in December 2000 is an expected act from an alleged war criminal Gotabaya as he is only fulfilling his election pledge made in October 2019 when he promised “That all military[Read More…]
The Sri Lankan state which co-sponsored United Nations Human Rights Council Resolutions 30/1 in September 2015 failed to bring transitional justice or progress on substantial issues but bought time and space, now after so many Resolutions and delays unilaterally withdrew from the co-sponsorship. Lack of political will is shown by both the consensus path Wikramasinghe-Sirisena regime and current confrontational path[Read More…]
With COVID-19 virus declared as a pandemic, spreading across countries including South Asia, people are being advised to live in isolation. Claiming more than 6500 deaths worldwide and more than 1.67 lakh confirmed cases and counting, the novel virus has affected every sector and thus demands coordinated action. In the wake of this medical emergency, it is the wit of[Read More…]
Late President JR Jayewardene of Sri Lanka after allowing and being complicit in the massacres of Tamils in the 1977, 1983 pogroms and justifying them as a normal reaction of Sinhalese to take revenge on innocent Tamils, hurriedly passed the 6th amendment to the constitution in August 1983 to stifle the voice of Tamils. The amendment’s important sections are under:- Article. 157“No[Read More…]
Bangladesh has seen an increase in terrorist activity in recent years, including attacks on foreigners, activists and religious minorities. Perpetrators of these attacks have included people from privileged backgrounds. News reports indicate they were all motivated by the idea that Islam is under attack by secularists and must be defended. This is significant in a country that was founded in[Read More…]
Old debate centering army in Pakistan politics has reemerged following remarks by the country’s Prime Minister Imran Khan. A report in Pakistan’s leading daily The Dawn said: “Opposition parties have taken exception to the reported remarks of Prime Minister Imran Khan that the army knows who is corrupt in the country, terming the statement ‘irresponsible’.” The report by Amir Wasim[Read More…]
It is election year for Sri Lanka. A general election has to be held before August 5th 2020 for a new Government to rule the polarized and divided country of majority Sinhalese and minorities with Tamils and Sinhalese politically pitted against each other for the last 72 years. This election is unique and historical as the President Gotabaya and his[Read More…]
The Mass Uprising of 1969 In the book A Soldier’s Debt (ASD), the author thought Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon was the greatest event of 1969. He then quickly added the following lines: “One hundred and twenty-five thousand miles below that historic moon walk, the Bengalis of East Pakistan started a renewed but aggressive, at times violent, march for their rights. It[Read More…]
This is my eyewitness account of events, which took place in erstwhile East Pakistan, exactly 51 years back in January-February 1969. Although not fully comparable with what 1789 signifies for France, yet 1969 signalled the beginning of some revolutionary changes in the history of Pakistan. It witnessed the end of Ayub Khan’s decade of “guided democracy”, and the end of[Read More…]
There is no denying of the fact that Tamils in Sri Lanka have been at the receiving end since 1949, when power was transferred to the majority Sinhala Government. Successive Sinhala Governments continued and still continue the marginalisation of minorities to achieve their goal of a SINHALA-BUDDHIST STATE. Peaceful protests, non-violent and violent campaigns were ruthlessly crushed by the 99%[Read More…]
A Japanese adage rightly says that “A close neighbor is better than a distant relative”. A country can change its friends but altering neighbors is simply out of the question. Neighbors either they are belligerent or peaceful; the state ought to take a proactive and inclusive foreign policy for a conducive environment. Pakistan and India, thus, are fortunate; both states[Read More…]
Persecution of minorities is a perennial problem in the South Asian region. Muslims in India, Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Tamils in Sri Lanka are under the dark shadow of majoritarianism. Countries in the region seem to have found new interest in the minority questions of neighbours; and the issue has got new dimension. Nowadays, the heads of the two[Read More…]
“Injustice in the end produces independence.”–Voltaire The people of East Bengal, who are majority Muslims, suffered injustice for ages. After the fall of Plassey in 1757, they came under the wrath of the British and its Hindu surrogates. When the British left in 1947, partitioning India on religious divide, East Bengal became part of Pakistan, their condition was no[Read More…]
Taking into consideration the statements by the Sri Lankan President and the top officials regarding justice to the Tamils seems to be a deadlock. The only way out from this is to initiate a UN sponsored referendum in the North and East of Sri Lanka, for which the co-sponsored countries of the UNHRC Resolution 30/1 and other member countries in[Read More…]
As late as the 16th century, the Chinese indigenised “mandarin”, a variant of Sanskrit “mantri”, Malay “mantiri” via Portuguese “mandarim”, which stands for minister, counsellor, or a very high government official. Chinese mandarins were highly educated, well-groomed, powerful, and influential people having sharp intellect and immaculate mannerism. Their attire, mannerism, and language represented the mainstream of Chinese high culture encompassing[Read More…]
The Singapore success is attributed to their leader LEE KUAN YEW developing a society where each race appreciate and respect that of others, encouraged to preserve its unique culture and traditions, let alone that of the majority. It’s fostering such an approach for a multi-race society enabled them to go forward. LEE KUAN YEW was the first Prime Minister of[Read More…]
The Supreme Court of Pakistan Thursday (Nov 28) limited the three years extension in the term of Army Chief of Staff General (COAS) Qamar Javed Bajwa to six month. A three-member court bench led by the Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, who retires in less than one month, on Wednesday (Nov. 27) suspended Prime Minister Imran Khan’s August 2019[Read More…]
The island nation: Sri Lanka began to increasingly feature in discussions on the Indo- Pacific geopolitical environment in recent years, particularly in the light of Chinese led Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) and as a nation which has been occupying a strategic location astride the Indian Ocean lines of communication. Sri Lanka has been attracting the interests of major powers[Read More…]
Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe and Eshan Jayawardane Civilizational influence in shaping national political consciousness is an indispensable factor that one cannot deny or completely abandon albeit how rationalized or tries to be radical he is. The Oath ceremony of the president of the US is traditionally culminated by pledging alliance to the US constitution and God and the people in[Read More…]
The Presidential election on November 16, 2019 will usher in a new President, either Gotabaya Rajapaksha or Sajith Premadasa. Intensive campaign with promises suiting the locations and people are pouring from candidates to woo the voters, particularly Tamils by Sajith Premadasa. The promises thrown before Tamils will have a short life span as their deaths will be a certainty once[Read More…]
The cat is finally out of the bag. The secretly well-kept decision of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to back Sajith Premadasa of the United National Party is now disclosed 10 days before the election, after playing the hide and seek and cat and mouse games. TNA leadership particularly Sumanthiran and Sampanthan have been making often confusing and conflicting statements hiding[Read More…]
This is a review of an academic article by Ali Gowher (aka Gowher Rizvi), who is the International affairs Adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh. I strongly believe Rizvi’s partisan vies and unsubstantiated assertions have marred the quality of the academic exercise. Had Mujib’s Soviet-style one-party dictatorship (the BAKSAL regime) survived a decade or so, what is Bangladesh[Read More…]
Whither the BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party)?Let’s Still Identify with It, the Largest Political Party of Bangladesh, to Confront the Ongoing BAL (Bangladesh Awami League) Brutality on All Fronts “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” That is how the 30-yr old Prince Hamlet of Denmark is deeply and frightfully pondering over whether to continue to live a[Read More…]
Pakistan on Monday (Oct 7) established the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority to speed up the delayed projects as Prime Minister Imran Khan arrived in Beijing The establishment of CPEC Authority was aimed at accelerating the pace of CPEC related activities. Multi-billion dollar CPEC was launched in 2015 and several projects under the first phase are close to completion.[Read More…]
Amid rising tension over Kashmir between the two nuclear neighbors, India and Pakistan, a new US study examines how such an hypothetical future nuclear conflict would have consequences that could ripple across the globe. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan could, over the span of less than a week, kill 50 to 125 million people that is more than[Read More…]
by Zia Mian, Abdul H. Nayyar, Sandeep Pandey, M. V. Ramana On September 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This appearance will come at a time of great concern about the increasingly hostile relationship between their two countries. At the heart of[Read More…]
One may or may not like cricket – not the worm, but the game – or even, could be someone like a typical Frenchman or woman who doesn’t understand the game, or pretends he/she doesn’t have any clues as to what British men (and now women too) do with a ball, two bats, and six sticks, inserted into the[Read More…]
President Maithripala Sirisena on Monday [August 18, 2019] named a General accused of war crimes as Commander of the Sri Lankan Army, sparking concern over the appointment that the UN later termed “deeply troubling”. What the United Nations is saying? “I am deeply troubled by the appointment of Lieutenant-General Shavendra Silva as Commander of the Sri Lankan Army, despite the[Read More…]
Amid mounting tension over India’s annexation of Kashmir, Pakistan has successfully carried out the night training launch of a surface to surface ballistic missile. The missile “is capable of delivering multiple types of warheads up to 290 kilometres”, said military media spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor via a tweet, which also included a video of the launch. The missile is[Read More…]
Indo-Pakistan relations have almost never been all-smooth, least of all since the 1990s if not earlier, post the worsening of the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. This was also the decade when collective efforts for people-to-people contact gained pace, with peace activists on both sides of the border coming together at forums like the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace[Read More…]
The specter of nuclear war haunts tensions between India and Pakistan, and the disputed territory of Kashmir could provide the spark that lights South Asia’s nuclear fuse, warns Strafor, a geopolitical intelligence think tank that provides strategic analysis and forecasting to individuals and organizations around the world. With passions again running high in Kashmir, the stakes for the region and[Read More…]
As far as Tamils are concerned the forthcoming elections [Presidential and Parliamentary] is not going to solve any of the burning problems faced by the Tamils since independence, in 1948. Since independence Tamils and Tamil leaders were betrayed, cheated by the two major political parties United National Party UNP and Sri Lanka Freedom Party [SLFP] As far as Tamils are[Read More…]
Has civilization taught us to be more friendly towards one another? Asked Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and intellectual and explains further: …Within the herd we are more friendly to each other than are many species of animals, but in our attitude towards those outside the herd, in spite of all that has been done by moralists and religious teachers,[Read More…]
Post independence Sri Lanka brought in several official dispositions that gave preference to the Sinhalese majority. The Sinhala Only Act introduced by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) government of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in 1956, for example, recognized Sinhalese as the only official language of the country. The 1950s also saw the launching of several development projects by[Read More…]
The U.S. is reopening the military aid plug to Pakistan within a week of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan meeting Donald Trump, the President of the U.S. The Pentagon is notifying its decision to approve $125 million technical and logistic support for Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jets. The aid resumption, made at the “request” of Pakistan, was disclosed by a Pentagon[Read More…]
The government of Bangladesh under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed keeps rattling the growth at 8-9% over the past few years, but the statistics do not tally with the global benchmarks, which find the actual number lower by up to 2 points. The lower figure may still look impressive, but the existence of glaring discrepancies in the development calculations rarely meet the[Read More…]
There are hardly two opinions that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Banks were implementing predatory economic policies of the West. The poor countries are now in the IMF and World Bank debt trap. The rise in debt has been swelled, with external sovereign loans to developing country governments more than doubling from $191 billion per year in[Read More…]
Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe & Prof.Sanjay Rajhans When Indian national Mr. Kulbushan Jadhav was arrested in 2016 by Pakistan alleging him as a RAW operative andthe reaction came from New Delhi was based on their interest in providing consular access to Mr. Jadhav and strongly denied any espionage link. Nevertheless the judgment given by a military tribunal in Pakistan[Read More…]
Torrential monsoon rain induced floods, landslides, collapse of buildings and houses, lighting, etc. have already taken a heavy price in the South Asia region. The disaster has created havoc in the life of the people in regions of Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Severe floods and lightning have claimed the lives of more than 650 people across India, Nepal, Bangladesh[Read More…]
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Wednesday (July 17) rejected India’s request to ‘acquit, release and return’ of its national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was sentenced by Pakistan on charges of espionage, however, asked Pakistan to provide him consular access. President of the ICJ Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf from Somalia read out the operational part of the decision in a[Read More…]
A NOTE FROM THE NO FIRE ZONE [Book by Kass Ghayouri] Dr. Varatharajan who was on duty inside the ‘NO FIRE ZONE” during the genocidal war laments: “That night I cried, Tamil civilians died, Dead bodies I eyed, I did not have pride, There was no war guide, Tamils forced to hide, The Sri Lankan army lied, Took[Read More…]
Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe & Eshan Jayawardene The predictions made by larger number of academics based in Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta about Indian General elections vouching that NarendraModi would not get his second term as prime minister were shattered in reality as Modi could uphold his strong position better than the previous time resulting a steeping success of his Bharatiya[Read More…]
On the invitation of Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani arrived in Pakistan on 27th June for a two-day visit aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries. The premier of Pakistan and President Ghani held a one-on-one meeting, in which an overall regional situation and matters pertaining to bilateral cooperation in various sectors, were discussed.[Read More…]
The United States on Tuesday (July 2) declared Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as a global terrorist organization. The US State Department said it was classifying the BLA as a global terrorist group, making it a crime for anyone in the United States to assist the militants and freezing any US assets they may have. “The BLA is an armed separatist[Read More…]
“Civilizations as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction.” — Gustave Le Bon “Mass politics occurs when large numbers of people engage in political activity outside of the procedures and rules instituted by a society to govern political action. Mass politics in democratic society therefore is[Read More…]
The Islamic State group in Afghanistan is a “very worrisome” threat to the United States, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, said. He also added “ISIS in Afghanistan certainly has aspirations to attack the United States.” On 13th of June, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near a police vehicle in the capital of eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, killing at least[Read More…]
The government of Pakistan on Friday (June 21) appointed an 11-member Commission of Inquiry to determine if increase in external debt between 2008 and 2018 was justified by infrastructure development program or misused by public office-holders of the last two governments of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. Headed by Deputy Chairman of the National Accountability Bureau[Read More…]
Tamils have little interest in reconciliation without resolution of the political issues. Proper reconciliation can come only after a political solution is found… With successive Governments refusing to acknowledge, let alone address the political issues that lie at the core of the conflict, the alienation of Tamils will remain high. In the circumstances, reconciliation remains a distant dream. An internationally[Read More…]
Pakistan’s self-exiled leader Altaf Hussain was arrested on Tuesday (June 11) from his residence in London. He was arrested in an early morning raid by a team of the Scotland Yard. The arrest has sent shockwaves across Pakistan as Hussain once ruled Karachi, the country’s commercial capital, with an iron fist, shutting down the entire city in mere seconds with[Read More…]
Former president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari was arrested Monday (June 10) by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in mega money laundering case. Asif Zardari was taken to NAB office in Rawalpindi where he was shifted to cell no 2. The former president will be presented before the accountability court on Tuesday where the NAB will appeal for his remand.[Read More…]
Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa has signed death warrants for two army and one civil officer on charges of espionage and leakage of sensitive information to foreign agencies prejudicial to the national security, the army announced Thursday (May 30). Lieutenant General (retd) Javed Iqbal Awan was awarded 14 years rigorous imprisonment by the Field[Read More…]
On 14 and 15 May 2019, revenge violence broke out in a number of towns in Sri Lanka against Muslim shopkeepers by Christians motivated by the Easter Sunday attacks on three Christian churches, two Roman Catholic and one Protestant. The Easter church attacks were carried out by a recently formed militant Muslim militia most of whose members have now been[Read More…]
The people have to pay dearly and long for the sins and crimes of their leaders – Lee Kuan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore. After appointing an ex-IMF official as Finance Minister and another ex-IMF official as State Bank of Pakistan Governor, the government of Pakistan has assured the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of increasing electricity and gas prices[Read More…]
Easter is the day when it is said, the Christ resurrected again. Devotees celebrate because they believe the Christ was crucified for them. Whether he is a myth or reality, it does not mean but one fact is clear, the life of Christ is inspiring and suggest love conquer all. As I thought of calling friends, the events and devastation[Read More…]
Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinhe and Eshan Jayawardane Man’s association with faith is the most inexplicable thing in the world which gives no clues of comprehending its very nature. Even the most powerful men in world history were known to be shaky and crumbled before the creed they ardently believed. In the annals of Roman history we find emperors like Hadrian[Read More…]
It’s still the most dangerous border on Earth. Yet compared to the recent tweets of President Donald Trump, it remains a marginal news story. That doesn’t for a moment diminish the chance that the globe’s first (and possibly ultimate) nuclear conflagration could break out along that 480-mile border known as the Line of Control (and, given the history that surrounds[Read More…]
The glorious War for Liberation in Bangladesh turned powerful with the participation of people – the downtrodden, the exploited. They came from poverty-ruled rural areas; they came from machine shops chained to capital; they came from educational institutions – teachers and students primarily identifying with the aspiration of the exploited. To this huge human spirit, the bell of liberty was[Read More…]
In our generation, perhaps rarely any of one might have read it or heard about it. In my small collection of biographies, there is a purple coloured hardbound, with pagesturned to smoke yellow biography published eighty-eight years back by George Allen and Unwin Limited, 40 Museum Street, London. It has a foreword by father of Indian Nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.[Read More…]
(The fourth Chinese veto in preventing declaration of Masood Azhar as a global terrorist is not only a rebuff but the signal of an additional factor in the very basic Kashmir problem!) The recent incident in Pulwama which drew condemnation from all over the world was attributed by the Indian authorities to Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-[Read More…]
How many of us remember the post emergency era famous quote that “Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee can win election from any constituency in Pakistan”; whilst he was the foreign minister in Sri Morarji Bhai’s cabinet in 1977? Remember that India had just won a conclusive war in 1971 courtesy of Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s government. The wound of Bangladesh’s creation by[Read More…]
The Oxford Dictionary defines shame as “a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour”. It could be self-inflicted, or an act committed by others leading to a loss of self-respect or self-esteem. “Shame on you” is something no respectful human being wants to hear from anyone. Self-respecting victims of shame sometimes kill[Read More…]
A dark and menacing cloud of a possible war that had been hanging over India and Pakistan in the last few days was leading to despair and fatalism not only in India and Pakistan but almost all over the world due to the nuclear arsenal the two countries possess. Ian Helfand, a US physician associated with the International Physicians for[Read More…]
(People raising a pitch for going to War probably forget that any conflict now in the sub-continent would be the last War for this entire region!) It is an established fact of the world history that wars have never solved any problems but have on the contrary destroyed civilisations. The sub-continent has witnessed three major wars in last 70 years[Read More…]
Political atmosphere in the country rapidly changed after 14th Feb Pulwama terror incident. Warlike situation emerged and war mongers had a field day. War hysteria was created in Pakistan as well as India. There was air strike on terrorist training centre of Jaish-e-Muhammad at Balakot by Indian Air Force. Next day, Pakistan too launched air strike crossing Indian territory. Indian Air Force[Read More…]
The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) notes with grave concern the ongoing conflicts between neighboring India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons together with all the three delivery platforms ensuring a “second strike” capability in case of being hit by a “first strike”. To recall, the present phase was triggered by an abominable suicide blast – following[Read More…]
The role of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the region has become more important with the announcement of CPEC. The upcoming hub of Gwadar is all set to change the shape of international trade in South Asia. In order to resolve key issues and to bring peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan consistently been holding dialogues with Taliban on the request of Trump.[Read More…]
India and Pakistan seem to have just got over playing “War War” on the February 26 and 27, 2019 testing aerial capabilities of each other and in the end declaring victory. In the absence of hard evidences and credible sources, both the sides have sold their own version of the story to save their faces and let the people make[Read More…]
Whole thing started with Pulwama in Kashmir in Indian Kashmir where a suicide bomber attacked an Indian army convoy and killed 40 soldiers. The incident has happened in the wake of upcoming general election in India which also coincides with Modi’s plummeting popularity that have made some people looking at this sad incident beyond the obvious. There is nothing more[Read More…]
It’s ironic that I found out about India’s air strikes across the line of control, inside Pakistani territory, from a friend in New Delhi. Surbhi Dewan and I were texting each other, late at night on Monday, February 25, about the passing of her grandmother, Leela Dewan, one of the beautiful women who shared their testimony about the partition of[Read More…]
Early morning on Friday, I was eagerly waiting to read ‘Dastavez’ published in “Roznama Rashtriya Sahara”, Urdu. I was shocked to find a sentence added to my original draft in the published copy, calling surgical strike ” necessary” Dastavez is published every week on Friday in almost all editions of Roznama Rashtriya Sahara. For last one year, I have quite[Read More…]
Dear Gowher: In hindsight, I think I should have written this letter ten years back, days after you became the International Affairs Adviser to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. I am sorry, I failed miserably to perform my duty as a friend towards a very good old friend on time. I should have advised you what I thought and still[Read More…]
Further to the recent tensions between India and Pakistan, the appeal below is being released today on behalf of more than 500 Indian signatories from many different walks of life – students, teachers, economists, journalists, lawyers, industrialists, writers, actors, choreographers, photographers, physicists, homemakers, retired bureaucrats, diplomats, judges, the armed forces. This flood of endorsements was received within less than 24[Read More…]
Last night my 11 year old son asked me, “Abba, if war breaks out between India and Pakistan can we go to some other country? What will we do if they drop a nuclear bomb?” I told him that it’s not possible to go to another country. They won’t accept us. However, I assured him that there will be no[Read More…]
Escalating tensions between the two nuclear armed South Asian neighbours, Pakistan carried out an air strike inside India in retaliation to the air strike carried out by India in Balakot yesterday. In the ensuing air battle an Indian Airforce Pilot was captured by Pakistan. Pakistan claimed that they shot down two Indian fighter jets. They claimed that one of the[Read More…]
The air strikes in Balakot, Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, by the Indian Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jets set in motion waves of jubilation in India and a deluge of anger and war cry in Pakistan. Launched in the early hours of 26 February, the ‘surgical strikes 2.0,’ as it has been characterized by the Indian media, came in less[Read More…]
All of Tamatarland was in great turmoil. There had been a vile attack on its security forces by a suicide-bomber, who had sneaked past dozens of heavily guarded checkpoints and murdered over two dozen Tamatarland soldiers. It was later claimed the culprit was a local Muli, trained and sent by Mataristan, the neighbouring and enemy nation. Not surprisingly, Tamatars across[Read More…]
The news that the Indian Air Force (IAF) has launched an airstrike on the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror camps crossing the Line of Control (LOC), in the wee hours of Tuesday, was well-received by those anxiously waiting for military action in the wake of the Pulwama incident. The “befitting reply” from IAF came 11 days after JeM, a Pakistan-based militant group,[Read More…]
Notwithstanding the claims and counter-claims of India and Pakistan, one thing is now acknowledged from both sides that the Indian Air Force planes entered the Pakistani territory and returned back safely. That is pretty embarrassing for the Pakistani authorities – both the Prime Minister Imran Khan who, only a few days back, promised retaliation and the Army Chief, General Qamar[Read More…]
Raising the spectre of another war between nuclear armed South Asian neighbours, India and Pakistan, Indian airforce carried out air strike across the Line of Control (LoC) today morning. The strike was carried out at around 3:30 this morning by 12 Mirage 2000 fighter jets. The aircraft dropped 1,000 kg laser-guided bombs on a major terror camp across the Line[Read More…]
The Pulwama attack has yet again brought India-Pakistan relations to a new low. The hopes that the stalled dialogue will resume after Indian elections appear to be remote now. Unless there is a global pressure on both countries to resolve Kashmir issue peacefully through negotiations, it seems that both countries are heading towards a major showdown. And in this atmosphere[Read More…]
Saturday morning, I woke up to many a disturbing news on the grapevine. From the Masjid door to long waiting at the bakers’ shop for hot loaves of traditional bread, lots of news about frightening rattling of aeroplanes and helicopters from 2 A.M in Srinagar, deployment of hundreds of additional companies’ of paramilitary troops in Kashmir to the mid-night crackdown[Read More…]
Collaboration by: JB Graves, Syed Mujtaba According to Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “there is almost total impunity for enforced disappearances” in Kashmir. Enforced disappearance are particularly cruel and subversive to human rights in that they usurp the power of democratic institutions by detaining people without causality. States by law require transparency[Read More…]
It may be reading tea leaves but analysis of the walk-up to Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit and his sojourn in Islamabad suggests that Pakistan may be about to fight battles on two fronts rather than just the Indian one in the wake of this month’s attacks in Kashmir. Prince Mohammed’s expressions of unconditional support for Pakistan coupled[Read More…]
Many treaties and agreements in international relations are the natural outcome of conflicts and wars between two or more players. In India-Pakistan relations too, the two major agreements signed between them, the Tashkent Declaration (1966) and the Shimla Pact (1972) were the follow-up of negotiations started in the wake of the 1965 and 1971 wars. But the Lahore Declaration, signed[Read More…]
I have been watching silently some ‘fake’ nationalists on social media and news channels for a few days now. I can’t anymore because now things are on a non sense level. First of all, some of these people don’t even know that CRPF is not army. It is paramilitary force which comes under Ministry of Home Affairs. Jawans of CRPF[Read More…]
They have fought wars and played games against each other. They have done everything in their capacity to destroy each other. They are in arms race despite being poor. Apparently they are being exploited by a third party as a result of their conflicts. However they do help each other in election time. If together, they can be growing powers[Read More…]
During Imran Khan’s four-month sit-in and political demonstrations in front of the parliament in Islamabad from August to December 2014, the allegations of election rigging and the demand for electoral reforms were simply a smokescreen. A question would naturally arise in the minds of curious observers of Pakistan’s politics that what prompted Imran Khan to make a sudden volte-face when[Read More…]
Kashmir, a contentious region since 1947, has been claimed by both Pakistan and India; war, skirmishes, treaties, posturing, the UN, and the threat of nuclear war have cycled between periods of tension and cooperation that have perpetuated both the security dilemma and détente. The independence of India and Pakistan gave birth to regional competition for control over the outlying territory[Read More…]
I went to participate in a candle light homage paying event at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s statue organised by about 200 dalit students on Hazratganj main crossing in Lucknow on 16 February, 2019 evening, two days after the dastardly terrorist act in Pulwana, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 37 Central Reserve Polica Forces’ personnel was killed. While the condolence meeting by[Read More…]
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s three-nation tour of Asia is as much about demonstrating he stands tall – despite Western criticism of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the war in Yemen – as it is about exploiting geopolitical and economic opportunity. Prince Mohammed is betting on the optics of his visit to Pakistan, India, and China offsetting[Read More…]
In a momentous decision on July 28, 2017, then Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from holding public office by the country’s apex court on the flimsy pretext of holding an “Iqama” (a work permit) for a Dubai-based company, and was subsequently given a ten-year imprisonment sentence, though the latter decision is subject to appeal. Subsequently, sham elections[Read More…]
‘How many Deaths will it take till we know That too many people have died?’ PIPFPD is shocked and saddened by the loss of lives of 44 CRPF personnel in a militant attack in Lethapora, Pulwama, Jammu & Kashmir. The gruesome manner in which an explosives laden vehicle, driven by a suicide bomber, rammed into a CRPF convoy and the[Read More…]
When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi next week, the elephant in the room is likely to be what weighs more: the issues the two men agree on or the ones that divide them. As a matter of principle, Prince Mohammed and Mr. Modi are likely to take their strategic partnership to a new[Read More…]
As the Jamaat-e-Islami’s founder Maulana Abul A’la Maududi (1903-1979) despised democracy, so do all his adherents. Soon after establishing the Jamaat in 1941, he admired Mussolini and considered him to be his role model. He also called himself the “Amir” or “Dictator/Fuherer” of the Jamaat-e-Islami. The JI chiefs in Bangladesh and Pakistan are still called “Amir”. So, the JI is[Read More…]
Towards Understanding the Current Affairs Prime Minister Imran Khan impressed the constituents to imagine the phenomenon of “change” as a driving force for future-making. Was the political power a motivating factor to influence the curious minds of the masses or was it an exercise in self-propagated approach to gain success at a critical juncture of Pakistan’s contemporary history? For too[Read More…]
History proves Tamils a homeland [North and East of Sri Lanka] The Kingdom of Jaffna had included a vast region. its boundary has said that Jaffna Kingdom was not confined to the Jaffna Peninsula. It had included the following areas namely Valikamam, Vadamarachi, Thenmarachi, Islands and the parts of Vanni from Mannar to Trincomalee(Perera,S.G.trans, 1930, p.51). The Ariyasakkaravatties, had made[Read More…]
The “Language Movement” of erstwhile East Bengal/East Pakistan and Bangladesh today was more than a language movement, it was a cultural-political movement for Bangladesh. No wonder, even after the Pakistan Constitution of 1956 had guaranteed Bengali as one of the two state languages along with Urdu, East Bengalis continued to mourn the deaths of half-a-dozen martyrs, who got killed by[Read More…]
“Equality, Human dignity and Social justice” – the visionof independent Bangladesh, stipulated at the Proclamation of Independence by the Bangladesh Government-in-Exile on 17th April, 1971 in Mujibnagar In recent times, similar to Trump’s ‘Making America Great Again’ (an exclusionary ultra-right slogan) or Modi’s ‘Achche Din’ (promise of good days through Hindutva ideology that seeks to establish the hegemony of Hindus[Read More…]
Sheikh M Abdullah in his autobiography [“Blazing Chinar” (Gulshan Books (2016) Chapter 30 titled “Mohammad Ali Jinnah & Myself” at pages 220-231] briefly mentions of an interesting criminal case of 1930s that for peculiarity of its facts had attracted attention of the whole of Kashmir. The Chapter does not divulge the full facts of the case which are, however, adumbrated[Read More…]
The political history of Tamils who inhabited the island before the arrival of Vijaya in 543 BC, a legendary prince, still to be proved by real and documented evidence, has been tarnished with the record of betrayals, pogroms, genocide and massacres in the hands of successive Sri Lankan Governments since 1948.Numerous articles and books have detailed these events locally[Read More…]
It would be a silly question indeed to ask why December 25th is celebrated. On the other hand, one could ask why it is a national holiday in Pakistan, for it is not because it’s Christmas. By an unusual coincidence it happens to be the birthday of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of the country. Exactly how Pakistan came[Read More…]
The Anti-Corruption Court in Islamabad on Monday (December 24) sentenced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to seven years in prison for graft, while a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) constituted on the orders of the Supreme Court to investigate the multi-billion rupees fake accounts scam, has held former President Asif Zardari responsible for the suspicious transactions. Nawaz Sharif could not prove[Read More…]
History is replete with examples of political grandstanding by arrogant leaders. At the same time it’s also full of landmark opportunities that they came across to make major course correction. However, no politician worth his tuft has ever had the guts to choose the latter and create history. The territorial dispute over Kashmir between India & Pakistan is one such[Read More…]
The Pakistani and Indian Diaspora came together in Surrey to celebrate the opening of the Kartarpur corridor, which will provide Sikhs access to their historical gurdwara across the international border. The founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, spent the final years of his life in Kartarpur, located close to the now fenced Indo-Pak border in Pakistan. On the 550th birth anniversary[Read More…]
Class struggle defined traverse of the Baangaalee people’s victory-1971 in Bangladesh. The people’s War for Liberation achieved the victory by defeating Pakistan in 1971. Dynamics of class struggle also determined pace and forms of the political and other struggles the Baangaalee people were waging since August 14, 1947, the day the British colonial rulers transferred the bifurcated sub-continent to their[Read More…]
People choose various methods of resistance when dealing with ideological issues – from outright belligerence and violence to democratic collectivism. It depends on their perspective, beliefs, or sometimes there is just a selfish agenda. In the long run such methods cannot provide solutions for serious issues which hang on for years, like an incurable ailment which drains the human condition. Let us deal specifically[Read More…]
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has responded to Monday’s appeal court ruling by concentrating state power in his own hands and working with senior state bureaucrats to directly manage the government. The interim court order was in response to a petition disputing the president’s October 26 sacking of Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister. Sirisena replaced him with former president Mahinda[Read More…]
(The opening of Kartarpur Corridor practically signifies a breach in the artificial security barriers created by the two countries to keep their people apart) An interesting short entry in Wikipedia about the corridor sums up the motive behind theproject. “The Kartarpur Corridor is a proposed border corridor between India and Pakistan, connecting the Sikh shrines of Dera Baba Nanak Sahib (located in Punjab, India) and Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur (in Punjab, Pakistan). The[Read More…]
Let Line of Control (LOC) be a line of peace-Mr. Manmohan Singh,ex-Prime Minister of India. The end of the British rule paved way for the freedom of the masses at the time of independence. However, it was at the cost of the economic and socio-political exploitation of the masses. The division of the British colony into the two states[Read More…]
Though political disputes could have been resolved politically without breaking human sentiments and emotions, but India and Pakistan could not do this during last 71 years. These political disputes have been made personal and resulted as loss of lives, of people, of soldiers and various kinds of misunderstandings, stereotypes and hatred that got developed in minds of people gradually on[Read More…]
The 2018 Bangladesh General Election scheduled on December 30, 2018 marks the end of two consecutive terms of the ruling Awami League (AL), first ever by any political party since 1991, the year when parliamentary democracy was re-introduced in the country through a mass movement against a military dictatorship. AL’s decade long rule has witnessed both good and bad. During[Read More…]
A major TV network of Pakistan, SAMA, has strongly advocated for recognition of the Jewish entity, Israel, by the government of Imran Khan. Anchor of a popular SAMA program Khara Sach (Naked Truth), Mubashir Luqman, Monday (Nov 19) called on the government of Pakistan to recognize Israel because Saudi Arabia is about to recognize and “we should do before them.”[Read More…]
Yesterday Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena blatantly violated the country’s constitution and dissolved parliament almost two years before its term officially ends. According to the gazette notification issued last night, new elections will be held on January 5 and the new parliament convened on January 17. Sirisena’s anti-democratic actions came just two weeks after he sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe[Read More…]
Pakistan is on the turmoil at the moment. In a historic judgment Pakistan Supreme Court acquitted Asia Bibi, a Dalit Christian woman who was sentenced to death by the lower courts for the charges of blasphemy. The court judgment has created an unprecedented crisis in Pakistan as the Mullahs and other Islamic fanatics have taken to the street and asking[Read More…]
In a replay of 1977 anti-government demonstration against the government of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the government of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is facing violent protests by religious parties to destabilize the newly elected government. In 1977, the so-called Pakistan National Alliance, comprising three main religious parties – Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP), some other[Read More…]
On Friday evening, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq was found dead in his Rawalpindi residence. The assassination was as gruesome as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He was stabbed multiple times in chest, stomach and forehead. Sami-ul-Haq was widely known as the “father of the Taliban” because he was a renowned religious cleric who used to administer[Read More…]
(The way the situation is developing some strategists feel that there may be a “Limited” War between the two neighbours before the 2019 General Election!) Dr.Nishank Motwani,a Visiting Fellow at the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, the Australian National University, and Consulting Researcher for Armed Conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), wrote an article, “Be Prepared for an[Read More…]
Sri Lanka has landed itself in an unexpected, unprecedented crisis with the President Maithripala Sirisena taking decisions having tricky political implications. Citing differences over a host of issues, Sirisena cast out Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, dismissed the cabinet and suspended Parliament. President’s extraordinary move to suspend Parliament and appoint Mahinda Rajapaksa as new Prime Minister raised many eyebrows in Sri[Read More…]
The death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is proving to be a blessing in disguise for cash- strapped Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Mr. Khan’s blessing is also likely to offer Saudi Arabia geopolitical advantage. On the principle of all good things are three, Mr. Khan struck gold on his second visit to the kingdom since coming to office in[Read More…]
After weeks of speculation, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday (Oct 23) stepped forward with a $6 billion bailout package for Pakistan’s ailing economy. The package includes $3 billion balance of payments support and another $3bn in deferred payments on oil imports. The Saudi package may provide breathing space to the government for dealing with economic challenges, but would not be[Read More…]
Russian troops are participating in joint exercises with the Pakistani army in the northern Pakistani town of Pabbi, 20 miles from the historic town Peshawar. A statement from the Pakistan army’s media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) pointed out that this is the third round of joint Pak-Russia exercise since 2016. The second Pak-Russia joint training exercise was held in[Read More…]
Desperate for funding to fend off a financial crisis fuelled in part by mounting debt to China, Pakistan is playing a complicated game of poker that could hand Saudi Arabia a strategic victory in its bitter feud with Iran at the People’s Republic’s expense. The Pakistani moves threaten a key leg of the USD60 billion plus Chinese investment in the[Read More…]
Tharparkar is a district of Sindh province in Pakistan where Hindus live in majority. Most of them are Bheels, Meghwar, Kolhi, Jogis and other marginalized communities within Hindus. The life status of these communities is extremely bad because of lack of good governance in this desert. Tharparkar is a deserted area which is why the life of most of the[Read More…]
Once again India-Pakistan relations are getting enmeshed in the emergent ‘neo-cold war between Washington and Moscow. Since Donald John Trump took over as President of the United States, it has become more than obvious. The two countries are apparently yet to learn lesson from the past- that it was they joining the cold war politics, which immensely contributed to[Read More…]
Nepal and China have made a significant step in bilateral relations by finalizing the text of the protocol to the proposed agreement that would help facilitate Nepal to use Chinese sea and land ports for third country trade. This has come as a sequel to the signing of the Transit and Transportation Agreement by Prime Minister K P Oli two[Read More…]
(The most important confidence building measure between India and Pakistan initiated in April, 2005 has virtually become an unbearable ordeal for the passengers!) It was for the first time since the establishment of a ceasefire line in 1947 (present LOC or the line of control) that people were allowed to cross from both the sides in April, 2005. Even though[Read More…]
(Gurrinder Chadha’s film Viceroy’s House released last year reveals Churchill to be the real author of the conspiracy to partition India as well as Kashmir!) Last year a British Indian Director, Gurinder Chadha released a movie “Viceroy’s House” about the partition of India. The feature film is based on the goings-on at Viceroy’s House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan) in Delhi. The[Read More…]
Operation Cactus is often remembered as one of the finest piece of military activity ever conducted by the Indian Armed Forces. It was a response move towards the open distress call made by the Maldivian government, which was about to overthrown by the mercenary force backed by the People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). It was an iconic operation,[Read More…]
4th BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Summit is being held in Kathmandu on 30-31 August under the theme, ‘Towards a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable Bay of Bengal region.’ The summit is held at a time when the countries under the grouping, i.e., Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bhutan and Thailand are all[Read More…]
Co-Written by Peer Bilal Baba and M. Altaf Imran Khan was born in 1952 in Lahore into a well off Pashtun family. He received an oxford university education studying politics and economics but his real passion was sports. He began, as most greats do playing at a very early age in Pakistan and then continuing in England. And even today[Read More…]
Criticism of Pakistan’s anti-money laundering and terrorism finance regime by the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) is likely to complicate incoming Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan’s efforts to tackle his country’s financial crisis. Addressing the criticism of the 41-nation APG, which reports to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism watchdog that earlier[Read More…]
Lord Mountbatten, then Viceroy of India, describes the 15th August as ‘the most remarkable and inspiring day of my life’…. He was asked to become the Governor-General of India after independence, which he accepted for a limited transitional period… Viceroy’s personal report no. 17, dated 16th August, 1947, marked as Top Secret and Personal, says : “ At 6 p.m.[Read More…]
Dear Neighbour, ” A Happy Independence Day! In these festive times in our two countries, as we both celebrate our Independence anniversaries, my pleasure in writing to you. Even though International Border, Working Boundary and LOC may be dividing and killing us, the fact remains that we are so similar and hence it is important to rejoice at our shared[Read More…]
An offer by a Saudi-backed bank to lend financially strapped Pakistan US$4 billion is likely intended to bolster Saudi influence when former international cricket player Imran Khan is sworn in in the coming week as the South Asian country’s next prime minister. The offer was most immediately related to a statement by Asad Umar, Pakistan’s new finance minister-in-waiting, that Pakistan[Read More…]
As a political scientist interested in studying civil conflicts and postconflictretirement and reintegration of rebels, I was in Nepal this July to study the process of peaceful transition of the Maoist movement in the country. In 2006, after ten years of armed struggle, the Nepal Maoists embraced electoral democracy after signing a Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The people of Nepal voted[Read More…]
Bangladesh student spirit marched ahead of the mainstream politics as streams of school students overflowed Dhaka roads recently – beginning from the last day of July. The unprecedented heroic move is historic and significant as it turned out flowers were blooming in the urban monsoon setting. Then, usual in a society super-charged with factional conflicts within dominating classes and with[Read More…]
Road rage in Bangladesh is not new. And not new is death due to road rage. The new phenomenon is the student spirit has stood against road rage. To the students, life matters. A movement against road rage has recently been carried out by the students in Dhaka. They stood for life. And they stood against disregard to life. It[Read More…]
“With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.” ― Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The elections are over and now it is Imran Khan the 19th Prime Minister of Pakistan . Prior to the elections process there were some horrific acts of terrorism that spoiled the election process but the courage of the[Read More…]
Are the New National Elections a Prelude to Change? People have spoken out loud and quite logically, Imran Khan is the elected candidate to lead a futuristic system of political governance. To discard the incurable resentment against the former indicted criminals turned politicians, people of Pakistan have rejected them at the ballot box. The July 25 national elections under a[Read More…]
Pakistani prime minister-in waiting Imran Khan’s ability to chart his own course as well as his relationship with the country’s powerful military is likely to be tested the moment he walks into his new office. Pakistan’s most fundamental problems loom large and are likely to demand his immediate attention. He probably will have to turn to the International Monetary Fund[Read More…]
Pakistan has a new prime minister. A remarkable man: a remarkable history-making career in cricket leading to numerous awards and records; a remarkable politician, mocked when he started, who after a 22-year struggle has reached the pinnacle of power. Bringing home the 1992 World Cup as captain of the Pakistan cricket team made him a national hero. His achievements in[Read More…]
The state of Pakistan is now poised for a change, as predicted by many in the context of the General Elections held on 25 July. Though Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s victory is not decisive, there is a general feeling that given the lead in the race, PTI under the leadership of Imran Khan will form a government. The provinces will also[Read More…]
Tariq Ali, whilst having a lunch in Knightsbridge with the Pakistani cricket colossus, Imran Khan, suggested that retirement should not be too problematic for him. (Khan had seemed gloomy, deep in thought about post-retirement prospects at the age of 30.) Consider, posed Ali, film, or at the very least funding for a film institute. “You could be an enabler or[Read More…]
Tamils all over the world will be commemorating the 35th anniversary of the HOLOCAUST 1983 where theTamils Shops, Offices and Restaurants in the Capital’s crowded City Centre and Main Streets were burnt while the Police looked on, thousands of houses ransacked and burnt, sometimes with women and children inside. 25th July was the fateful day for Tamil people in Sri[Read More…]
Since terrorists mostly outsmart law-enforcers and their victims, counterterrorism (CT) is an arduous tightrope walking. Effective CT requires governments, law-enforcers, and all potential victims of terrorism to understand what terrorism is all about. However, false flag operations, cry wolves, and politically motivated persecution of wrong people, and even invasions of the wrong countries have become very challenging to successful CT[Read More…]
This month’s inauguration of a fibreoptic cable linking Pakistan with China could prove to be a double-edged sword. Constructed by Chinese conglomerate Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd, the cable is likely to enhance both Pakistan’s information communication technology infrastructure as well as the influence of Chinese authoritarianism at a moment that basic freedoms in Pakistan are on the defensive. The $44[Read More…]
A virulently anti-Shiite, Saudi-backed candidate for parliament in Pakistan’s July 25 election symbolizes the country’s effort to reconcile contradictory policy objectives in an all but impossible attempt to keep domestic forces and foreign allies happy. Ramzan Mengal’s candidacy highlights Pakistan’s convoluted relationship to Islamic militants at a time that the country risks being blacklisted by an international anti-money laundering[Read More…]
Are the Pakistanis living in a Fantasy World? The logic of July 25 parliamentary elections in Pakistan is questionable as being a ceremonial stunt to undermine the reality of a highly corrupted and disoriented political culture. For decades, Pakistan lacks systematic working capacity to organize fair and honest election campaigns representing the interest of the masses. Foremost, the intent to[Read More…]
Increased Pakistani dependence on China to help it avert resorting to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid a financial and economic crisis spotlights fears that the terms of Chinese investment in massive Belt and Road-related projects would not pass international muster. Concerns that China’s US$ 50 billion plus investment in Pakistani infrastructure and energy, the Belt and Road’s crown[Read More…]
The tiny Himalayan State Nepal continues to be economically vulnerable, primarily because of its geopolitical status as a land-locked country. This is the case with all land-locked countries across the world that do not have direct access to the seas. As the UN Committee for Development Policy says, these countries’ “ability to competitively trade in goods largely depends on political[Read More…]
Until 2008, Bangladesh elections did not attract much attention in Indiaand at the same, within Bangladesh, India never figured as an important factor in any of its election discussions, neither.This changed since 2008. Although seeds of the change were sownmore immediately in the aftermath of the end of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) rule in 2006, its origin goes back[Read More…]
The India Pakistan Friendship and Peace March from Ahmedabad to Nada Bet during 19 to 29 June, 2018 concluded successfully even though Ahmedabad Police detained the marchers for about 3 hours at the beginning as soon as it started from Gandhi Ashram and Border Security Force didn’t give permission to the march at the fag end from Nadeshwari Mata Mandir[Read More…]
The Pakistani government’s removal of a virulently anti-Shiite militant from its terrorism list at the very moment that an international money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog was deciding to put the country on a watchlist highlights Pakistan’s struggle to come to grips with militancy. The decision by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that was reported by Pakistani media but[Read More…]
Why Jailing of Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Did Not Become A News In This Part of Asia “Ordered disorder, planned caprice, And dehumanised humanity…” – Brecht (The Exception and the Rule) (Quoted in http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2012/04/29/the-mad-men-of-dambulla/) “I have done my duty towards the country,” Gnanasara told reporters as he boarded the bus taking him to prison. “Why should I regret?” (https://in.reuters.com/article/sri-lanka-monk-sentence/sri-lanka-jails-extremist-buddhist-monk-for-six-months-over-threats-to-woman-idINKBN1JA1BW) I Rarely[Read More…]
In Pakistan, it is rare of rarest happenings when a spy chief in the office or out of office is publicly summoned to GHQ the headquarters of Pakistan Army, Rawalpindi to explain his conduct. A host of army generals in the country created by Jinnah ‘through his indomitable will’ from General Mohammad Asghar Khan, ‘Generals in Pakistan Politics (1958- 1982)[Read More…]
The Sri Lankan State runs on Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism, the Maha Sanga and the Buddhist Clergy. The Sri Lankan State has to obtain the blessings of these people to enact any laws regarding devolution of powers to the Tamils in the North and East of Sri Lanka and the participation of foreign judges to investigate the war crimes committed by[Read More…]
Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe & Eshan Jayawardena The Palk Bay, a narrow strip of water separating the state of Tamil Nadu in India from the Northern Province of Sri Lanka, has historically provided rich fishing grounds for both countries. However, the region has become a highly contested site in recent decades, with the conflict taking on a new dimension since[Read More…]
As its term of office nears completion, Pakistan’s scandal-ridden government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League (N), unveiled a pro-business budget last Friday in which the needs and concerns of the country’s working class and rural poor find no expression. Among the most striking features of Rs5.9 trillion ($51 billion) federal budget for 2018-2019 are the cuts to development programs[Read More…]
The Sunni-Shi’a conflict in the Middle East region is essentially a political conflict between the Gulf Arab autocrats and Iran for regional dominance which is being presented to lay Muslims in the veneer of religiosity. Saudi Arabia, which has been vying for power as the leader of Sunni bloc against the Shi’a-led Iran in the regional geopolitics, was staunchly against[Read More…]
7 youth and trade union activists have been abducted by the army and Sindh Rangers after participating in rally in support of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) outside the Karachi Press Club on Sunday. They were picked up immediately following the demonstration in Karachi, which had been called to express solidarity with a PTM rally in Lahore that was held[Read More…]
In Afghanistan in two separate attacks more than sixty people have died. The major attack took place in Kabul at a voter registration centre which has claimed lives of more than fifty people. Kabul attack was made by a bomber on foot at electoral registration centre. Elections in Afghanistan are due in October and the registration process for the voters[Read More…]
Manzoor Pashteen swears by his commitment and dedication to the cause of Pashtuns who continue to be the victims of an endless war. In the CIA-instigated Afghan Jihad, they had a massive image makeover: from the British colonialists’ categorisation as uncivilised brutes they became celebrated warriors wedded to a holy cause fighting the Communist Russia. Even the Hollywood, that[Read More…]
Historically speaking, from the massacres in Bangladesh in 1971 to the training and arming of Afghan jihadists during the Soviet-Afghan war throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and then launching ill-conceived military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas under American pressure, leading to the displacement of millions of Pashtun tribesmen, the single biggest issue in Pakistan has been the interference of army[Read More…]
The head of the commission on missing persons, Justice (r) Javed Iqbal, significantly downplayed the role of the country’s military and intelligence agencies in “enforced disappearances” of Pashtun and Baloch people while briefing the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights on Monday. Iqbal’s attempt to absolve Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus of its responsibility for missing persons was made against the[Read More…]
A series of deadly accidents has claimed the lives of 11 coal miners in Pakistan since late March. The tragic deaths of the miners once again demonstrates the dismal state of worker safety in the country. The accidents also highlight the deeply exploitative character of the mining industry, which after years of privatization is now dominated by private corporations.[Read More…]
A 5-day-long sit-in by lady health workers (LHW) in Lahore came to an end on Friday, after the Punjab government agreed to the workers’ main demands. The demonstration by LHWs took place on Mall Road, one of Lahore’s busiest areas. The workers showed tremendous determination during the course of their struggle, with some hospitalized due to dehydration. One health worker[Read More…]
As there are multiple narratives about the Partition of 1947, so are there multiple theories about the emergence of Bangladesh. One school of thought tells us there was nothing inevitable about the emergence of Bangladesh; its birth could be averted had the main actors, Bhutto, Yahya, Mujib and some others behaved differently. The other narrative highlights the fundamental differences[Read More…]
Even after seventy years of Partition, the discourse as to who, Jinnah or Nehru, Indian Muslim League or Indian National Congress, was responsible for division of the Indian subcontinent. There are divergent views. Some blame Muslim League, some Congress while others both. Every one of these views has some arguments to put before us. From Congress point of view, since[Read More…]
His kidneys gave him away when he was 73 years young. Perhaps we needed a couple of decades more of his conscious life; another side, equally loving but a tad more compassionate, thinks perhaps he would have been better off leaving us 40 years ago thus avoiding all the tortures, solitary confinements, indignities, suicide of his beloved spouse who had[Read More…]
On Monday, the government of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, officially banned children’s dance performances at all public and private schools. The Punjab School Education Department (PSED) announced that the ban will be applied to all school events, including talents shows, parents’ days and teachers’ days. The education department has also warned that it will suspend the license of any[Read More…]
In Pakistan’s context, the national security establishment originally meant civil-military bureaucracy. Though over the years, civil bureaucracy has taken a backseat and now “the establishment” is defined as military’s top brass that has dictated Pakistan’s security and defense policy since its inception. Paradoxically, security establishments do not have ideologies, they simply have interests. For instance, the General Ayub-led administration in[Read More…]
Sri Lankans were looked for a change with sanguine hopes on good governance, reconciliation and development when the current president MaithripalaSirisenacame into power in 2015. However the greatexpectations yearned by Sri Lankans began to fade away with the lethargic, inefficient rule of the new government and the most recent ethnictension in the island has become its’ worst nightmare. The anti-Muslim[Read More…]
India and Pakistan have earned a ‘sad and bad distinction.’ Perhaps in the world, only these two nations since their birth as independent countries are endlessly engaged in war of attrition. The two important South Asian players, now nuclear powers have continuously been exchanging mortar shells and fighting battles along the line Jammu and Kashmir. The line drawn by the[Read More…]
Since long time Sinhalese Extremists such as Bodhu Bala Sena, Sinhala Ravaya and Sinhala Lay(lion blood) have been very tactfully propagating racism and violence against Sri Lankan Muslims. In that long process recently few clashes between two groups occurred on 22nd February based on a minor traffic accident between a lorry and a three wheeler in Teldeniya near kandy. Due[Read More…]
The continuous firing on the Line of Control and the Indo-Pak border looks ominous and could spiral out of control with disastrous consequences! Recently, there have been numerous statements from leaders as well as defence services officers of the two neighbouring countries in the Indian sub-continent about the escalating situation on the border. Saner people have been repeatedly emphasizing that[Read More…]
Somedays back, I found a passionately written petition in my mail box appealing for ending tension on the line vivisecting Jammu and Kashmir (LOC). The petition from a journalist friend from Jammu was addressed to Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan. The appeal on behalf of the citizen of Jammu and Kashmir rightly ‘apprehend that the growing tension will[Read More…]
Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe & Eshan Jayawardane The enigmatic nature of Sri Lanka was once again manifested by overall results of the recently held local election. The landslide victory marked by Former president Mahinda Rajapakshe’s newly established political party “People’s Front”(Podu Jana Peramuna) has disorientated the two main political parties of the island. In fact the local election was delayed[Read More…]
The fast deteriorating security situation between India and Pakistan has created a sinister possibility of a destructive conflict unless big powers step in to diffuse the situation The recent attack on Sujwan Army camp in Jammu coupled with the shelling and firing on the border is an indicator of a fast deteriorating security situation between India and Pakistan. In fact,[Read More…]
In a joint calling attention petition, over 130 eminent citizens of the divided State of Jammu and Kashmir urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to resume ceasefire along the Line of Control and begin the process of dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue by including all the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This[Read More…]
The role of religion in politics is as contentious today as it was about hundreds of years ago. The question still haunts the civilization today as it used to once upon a time. The west, for its part, has been successful in separating religion from politics or the church from politics, to which they still adhere amid the wave of[Read More…]
Asma Jahangir (1952-2018), the leading Human Rights activist of Pakistan who influenced generations of activists in South Asia is no more. She died in Lahore due to a cardiac arrest. A sad news for all those who has stood for the human rights protection and enhancement of the humane values in the contemporary world. Whenever any issue of human rights[Read More…]
Is it not ironic that two very similar insurgencies have simultaneously been going on in Pakistan for the last several years: the Baloch insurgency in the Balochistan province and the insurgency of the Pashtun tribesmen in the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering the US-occupied Afghanistan. While the Pakistani neoliberal elites fully sympathize with the oppressed Baloch nationalists, when[Read More…]
Photos of grieving women and old men hugging the casket soldier killed on the Jammu and Kashmir border skirmish are appearing on the front pages of newspapers almost every day. Dressed in battle fatigues and bullet proof jackets, Indian army jawans and personnel of the Border Security Forces are constantly moving through border hamlets and paddy fields to take[Read More…]
A suicide bomber killed at least 11 Pakistani army soldiers and injured 13 at an army camp in Sawat Valley on Saturday (Feb 3). An army Captain was among those who died in the bombing. Army officials in Swat told the press that the soldiers were playing a volleyball match outside their base camp in Kabal in lower Swat[Read More…]
Co-Written by Punsara Amarasinghe & Eshan Mandara Jayawardane Chinese presence in Sri Lanka was not emerged out of the blue in the island’s recent political past. Having located in a crucial geographic location in maritime silk route Sri Lankan history claims a long standing affinity with China in its rich history. However Sino Sri Lankan relations in the post independent[Read More…]
Since 2015, Sri Lanka has been governed by a Unity Government comprising of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party of the President and United National Party of the Prime Minister. In the run up to local elections (scheduled in February 2018)preserving the presidency and the power and privilege it brings with it has become a political necessity for the Sri Lankan[Read More…]
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov has said that his country was supplying military equipment to Pakistan. Morgulov’s statement came on Thursday (Jan 18) in a geo-political conference organized jointly by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and an Indian think-tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF). The Russian Minister was joined in the discussion by the Indian Minister of State[Read More…]
The recent dastardly incidents of the rape and murder of Zainab in Kasur, Pakistan, Ayesha in Mardan, Pakistan, Asifa in Kathua, two young girls in Jind and Panipat in Harayana, and also the unabated rape incidents in other parts of India, have and must shock us all. Here in Kashmir, as we are yet to come to terms with the[Read More…]
The murder of a Pashtun man in Karachi by the Sindh police last week has brought renewed attention to the brutal practices of Pakistan’s police and security forces. According to his relatives, Naqeebullah Mehsud, a 27-year-old from the war-torn region of South Waziristan, was kidnapped by plainclothes police officers in Karachi earlier this month. On January 16, Mehsud’s family was[Read More…]
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said Saturday (Jan 13) that Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat’s remarks about Pakistan amount to “invitation for nuclear encounter”. Asif was reacting to Rawat’s Wednesday remark that his forces are ready to call Pakistan’s “nuclear bluff” and cross the border to carry out any operation if asked by the government. “We will[Read More…]
(The only meeting ground between the two Asian countries of India and Pakistan is the extreme poverty of the masses on the two sides of the divide!) It has been reported that the National Security Advisors of India and Pakistan met in Thailand on December 27, secretly! The meeting is reported to have been useful and it is claimed that[Read More…]
Pakistan’s alliance with the United States seems to be coming towards an end following the US decision to suspend security aid, Pakistan Minister of Foreign Affairs Khawaja Asif told the Wall Street Journal on Friday (Jan. 5). Asif said he believes the US-Pakistan relations are now at risk, especially after the tensions heightened and moods turned sour when President Donald Trump[Read More…]
A day after bitter criticism of Pakistan from President Donald Trump, China supported Pakistan by lauding its efforts for “outstanding contribution against terrorism” which should be acknowledged by “the international community”. At the regular press conference of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, on Tuesday was asked: US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the US has[Read More…]
In recent weeks, as much of the Pakistani media remained fixated on the internecine squabbles of the country’s ruling elites, authorities in Sindh have been brutally cracking down on sections of workers and farmers in the province who’ve had the temerity to defend their rights and fight for improved living standards and working conditions. On December 25, primary, secondary[Read More…]
Dear Iqbal: You, and I, and all our common friends know we are very close and good friends since our Dhaka College days (1964-1966). You also met my parents, and they always liked you a lot. My late mother, not long before her death in this September, asked me about you. She mentioned seeing you on TV, and even[Read More…]
Nepal’s electoral victory of the left alliance is of great relief for the people of that country as we hope that the country will have a stable government which could focus on the basic issues of the people and move ahead rebuilding its society based on equality, liberty and fraternity. It is fortunate that Nepal’s constituent assembly as well as[Read More…]
In Pakistan, there are three distinct categories of militants: the Afghanistan-focused Pashtun militants; the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants; and foreign terrorists including the Arab militants of al-Qaeda, the Uzbek insurgents of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Uighur rebels of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The foreign, transnational terrorists number only in a few hundreds and are hence inconsequential.[Read More…]
In a momentous decision on 28 July, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was disqualified from holding public office by the country’s Supreme Court on the flimsy pretext of holding an ‘Iqama’ (a work permit) for a Dubai-based company. Although it is generally assumed the revelations in the Panama Papers, that Nawaz Sharif and his family members own offshore companies, led[Read More…]
The predicament of Imran Khan’s fanboys has been somewhat like the pubescent girl who falls head over heels in love with a promiscuous playboy; and when her family and friends try to knock some sense into her by telling her that your sweetheart is cheating on you, instead of heeding to their well-meaning advice, she thinks they are jealous of[Read More…]
India’s immediate past President Pranab Mukherjee (82) in his The Coalition Years, 1996-2012 – his twelfth book – tells his own tale about the last 16 years of his experience in active politics until 2012, when he became the President of the Republic. He was in active politics for 43 years (1969-2012), holding important positions as MP; Leader of[Read More…]
While democracy has become problematic in several countries, on 5th January 2014, Bangladesh crossed the threshold of “illiberal democracy” to enter the domain of “authoritarian dynastic democracy” under Indian tutelage. The symptoms of the disease called “Orwellian State” are already visible here. The fictional Big Brother of Nineteen Eighty-Four is already breathing on the neck of Bangladesh, from across[Read More…]
To some, the title of my column today might be utterly ridiculous, as it suggests it’s time for Bangladesh to have a foreign policy. They might raise eyebrows at my suggestion that, Bangladesh is going without any foreign policy, since 2009. To them, Bangladesh has a sound foreign policy under a seasoned career diplomat as Foreign Minister, and an[Read More…]
Recently, the Islamic State’s purported “terror franchises” in Afghanistan and Pakistan have claimed a spate of bombings against the Shi’a and Barelvi Muslims who are regarded as heretics by Takfiris. But to contend that the Islamic State is responsible for suicide blasts in Pakistan and Afghanistan is to declare that the Taliban are responsible for the sectarian war in Syria[Read More…]
Although people often conflate democracy and liberalism but there is a fine distinction between politics and culture; a democratic system of governance falls in the category of politics, while liberalism, as a value system, falls under the rubric of culture. When we say that Islam and democracy are inconsistent, we make a category mistake as serious as the Islamists’ misconception[Read More…]
There is much attention on the plight of the Roghingas in the media these days. Rohingas are an ethnic population of over one million Sunni Muslims living in Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine state. They are being persecuted by their own government and the United Nations has called them as the world’s most persecuted community. Since last one decade, scores of Rohingyas[Read More…]
This land is a mark on the forehead
A bullet yet to be drenched in red
Where death comes in split peels of seconds
Licking its bleached teeth tasting
Yet of yesterday’s slaughters
And the world exhales a bad breath –
ROHINGYA
The world stares in SILENCE
It’s a tale of creation, a tale of struggle. It’s a narration of survival, a narration of lesson to survive. Sundarban Sramajeebee Haaspaataal, the Sunderbans Toilers’ Hospital, is the central character in the story. It’s a social organization in all its senses. It has been built up bit by bit with dream-love-labor-sacrifice-patience of many human beings. Farm laborers, poor peasants,[Read More…]
A silent genocide of Myanmar (also known as Burma) Muslims is in progress. Such is the urgency shown by Burmese Govt. to annihilate its Rohingya Muslims that it has even used Gunship helicopters to fire lethal & heavy ammunition on fleeing Muslims. The international community is a mute spectator to the organized holocaust and 57 Muslim Countries, except with[Read More…]
A few reports Dawn, a leading newspaper from Pakistan, carries are not only revealing and startling; but significant and meaningful also. Most of the reports cited below are from the newspaper’s September 6, 2017 issue. Foreign minister speaks: We acted like a proxy A report said: “Following the BRICS nations’ ‘regional security concern’ over the militant groups allegedly based[Read More…]
K.P Sasi is a film maker, writer, activist and cartoonist. He can be reached at kpsasi36@gmail.com
The sad thing about democracy is that every time you vote, a politician wins and for Bangladesh its tryst with ‘democracy’ its politicians have been anything but happy. Most Bangladeshis feel that they have been betrayed by their politicians especially by their leaderships. They have witnessed how their leaders that sought votes and got themselves elected through democratic frameworks[Read More…]
PM of Iceland David Gunlaughsson became the first political prey of the sprouting Panama papers tax scandal after the disclosures drew demonstrations against him. The panama papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5 files from the data base of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. Mossacle Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the[Read More…]
It’s an important question if the removal of Nawaz Sharif from office is just another Pakistani Prime Minister’s meeting his nemesis, or it’s another unceremonious removal of a head of government for all the wrong reasons and excuses! We know, since the assassination of the first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951, no Pakistani Prime Minister has been[Read More…]
Pakistan’s three times Prime Minister and a businessman turned politician Nawaz Sharif has been declared disqualified by the apex court in Pakistan in corruption case. The petition was initiated by cricketer turned politician Imran Khan and others. In a country like Pakistan where political culture is of lower quality and the constitutionalism is still to take roots and most of[Read More…]
Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif’s third term in power ended Friday (July 28) unceremoniously after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding public office in a landmark unanimous decision on the so-called Panama Papers case. “The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) shall issue a notification disqualifying Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif from being a member of the[Read More…]
In Multan a 17 years girl was ordered to be raped by panchayat because his brother had raped another girl. Thus revenge rape was ordered by the kangaroo court. The incident took place and innocent girl was raped according to the order issued by panchayat. According to CNN “the Village elders in Pakistan ordered the rape of a 17-year-old girl[Read More…]
Mashal Khan, a 23 year old journalism student was seized from his dorm room by a mob that stripped and beat him, then shot him dead on 13 April 2017 in Mardan in North West Pakistan. Khan was accused of offending Islam (Rasmussen and Baloch 2017). In the month of May 2017, a mob attacked a police station demanding that[Read More…]
The Supreme Court of Pakistan is expected to decide the fate of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif when it takes up the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report on Monday, July 17. The JIT has charged the ruling family with perjury, having disproportionate income and living beyond their means. Two judges of the court have already declared the Prime Minister as not[Read More…]
A Group of GMOA members and the medical faculty undergraduates were on their way to pelt stones on SAITM building in Malabe. On the way, they saw Lord Buddha meditating under a ‘Bo’ tree. They all went to him and told ‘Oh, Most Venerable! We are on our way to pelt stones at SAITM in order to protect the standard[Read More…]
Ivor Jennings, who was primarily responsible for drafting our Constitution upon gaining Independence from the British, handed us a secular constitution. Multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural as Ceylon was then and now is, the Jennings Constitution safeguarded certain rights of the country’s minorities in no uncertain fashion. It was commonly known as Soulbury Constitution and consisted of The Ceylon Independence Act,[Read More…]
Since 2013, Sri Lanka has been witnessing a spike in targeted attacks on the Muslim and Christian minorities by hard-line Sinhala-Buddhist groups. It began with a fringe organisation’s campaign against halal certification, forcing shops to stop selling meat labelled for Islamic guidelines. A series of attacks on mosques and shops owned by Muslims followed. Within a year, violent communal clashes[Read More…]
Citizens enable the modern democratic State. With all its highs and lows and the complexity, democracy enables citizens to actively participate in the process of governing. Although democratic system allows citizens to actively participate in the governing process, it is up to the citizens to take that decision whether to participate in the governing or not. While social, political and[Read More…]
The last few decades has seen the rise of religious nationalism, fascism, conservative right wing politicsall over the world. As these authoritarian forces of hate and repression rise inexorably, it is no longer tenable toconfine resistance or struggles for social change entirely within the boundaries of the nation-state. The fact is that national borders are modern day mirages, conjured up[Read More…]
Presently the Physical Climate in Kashmir and the rest of the sub-continent is quite unpredictable and could turn scary! There has been a significant change in the physical climate both in the entire sub-continent and the Valley of Kashmir. Apparently it is part of the global climate change. In the middle of June it has snowed on Baderwah Mountains and[Read More…]
South Asian progressive activists came together in Surrey, Canada this evening to denounce ongoing state violence against oppressed communities and minorities in India on the occasion of 50 years of Naxalbari uprising. At a rally organized by Radical Desi, speakers were unanimous in their criticism of the growing attacks on Dalits, Adivasis and religious minorities under the right wing Modi[Read More…]
Official reactions to the recent incidents on the Indo-Pak border ( killing of Indian jawans, the death sentence passed on an Indian national by the Pakistan judiciary , the incessant cross-border firings), follow a predictable pattern. At the diplomatic level, the foreign secretaries of the two states, perpetually miffed with each other, exchange angry notes. At the military level, the [Read More…]
The head of the Iranian armed forces warned Islamabad on Monday (May 8) that Tehran would hit bases inside Pakistan if the government does not confront militants who carry out cross-border attacks. Ten Iranian border guards were killed by militants on April 26. Iran said Jaish-al-Adl (the Army of Justice), a militant group, had shot the guards with long-range[Read More…]
Interestingly, “interesting” is an English expression, which may hide one’s actual opinion about something one considers “interesting”. What I read in Bangladesh media in the last one month is very “interesting” to me. Stories that I read are absurd, bizarre, entertaining, frightful, and sickening. I learnt from media reports and articles that there’s nothing immoral, or impossible in Bangladesh today.[Read More…]
Every society has certain taboos – cultural/religious, social, and political – set apart and designated as restricted or forbidden to associate with, or even to bring in ordinary discussion. The Rohingya issue (for some strange reasons) seems to be such a taboo in Bangladesh. Both people and government here don’t want to go beyond certain limits to have a[Read More…]
North-eastern region of India has always been a tumultuous region since 1947. Also, this is one of the most backward regions in terms of economic and political development. It helped giving birth to the insurgency in the area, which once again, hampered its growth. It is a landlocked and mountainous region, while Bangladesh is almost situated between it and[Read More…]
How does one move on with all this deep, searing pain over the mob lynching of a body that bore a beautiful heart and a precious mind? And with our senses still reeling, we hear of at least two more horror stories of blasphemy related violence. Grueling as it is, one has to navigate a path out of the all-consuming[Read More…]
China has renamed six places in Arunachal Pradesh in retaliation against the Dalai Lama’s visit to India’s easternmost state. The move is apparently aimed at reaffirming Beijing’s territorial sovereignty to the region. China’s civil affairs ministry carried out the name changes on April 13, a day after the Dalai Lama left Arunachal Pradesh following a nine-day high-profile visit. The[Read More…]
‘If you are black or you are brown or you are gay or you are lesbian or you are Trans or you are Introvert , Anyone that is treating you unkindly , It’s only because they are afraid or they have been taught to be afraid of how important you are. Because being different means you make a difference. so[Read More…]
It definitely looks like law enforcement in Bangladesh–as also apparently in many other countries, e.g. reference: the British Home Minister’s recent opinions regarding social media, not forgetting similar persistent efforts in the US–is going through a phase that maybe described as mid-life crisis. That’s the time when people—especially men, we’re told, but lots of women too though theirs are[Read More…]
“Portraying the current crisis [the political development in 1971-Pakistan] as something from the theater of the absurd, he [Bhutto] observed that framing a constitution for Pakistan without the participation of the PPP [Pakistan People’s Party] would be ‘like staging Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark’.” (Richard Sisson and Leo E Rose, War and Secession, Pakistan, India and the Creation of[Read More…]
It has happened again! In the wake of the latest rounds of ISIS terror attacks in Bangladesh, authorities in the country have again started denying the existence of any ISIS terror network there. Rejecting any ISIS involvement in terror attacks in Bangladesh as “propaganda”, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Kamal poses the question: “Why will the ISIS come here?” One wonders if[Read More…]
The biggest fault in democracy, as it is practiced all over the world, is the election campaign funding part, because the individuals and corporations that finance an election campaign always have ulterior motives: that is, they treat political funding as investment from which they intend to make profits by influencing executive policy and legislation. In Pakistan’s political system, there are[Read More…]
Aspiration for unchained participation in all walks of life is at the core of the spirit of Ekushey February, the Language Day observed on February 21 by the Baangaalees, and now observed as International Mother Language Day throughout the world. Aspiration for unchained participation is the spirit peoples nourish transcending time and ages all around the world as it’s a[Read More…]
“The partition of 1947 should not have divided the people of the subcontinent. Today, they look divided because Pakistan and India have been denying the logic of geography, history and shared culture. This policy is harming vital interests of people. Both need peace, democratic governance and respect for pluralism. They must eastablish cordial relations and exploit all possible means of[Read More…]
Ever since tensions again escalated between the government of Myanmar and the Rohingya people on October 2016 and the reinvigorated persecution of the minority group that followed, thousands of Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh — the United Nations humanitarian office’s most recent estimate is 69,000. Scores of them have, meanwhile, been seen begging on the streets between Ukhia and Tekhnaf[Read More…]
Corruption became so integral to Bangladesh that consecutively for five years (2001-2005) it remained the most corrupt country in the world. However, we hear things have changed for the better. On the one hand, the country has become self-sufficient in food; on the other, it’s no longer the most corrupt nation on earth, officially! Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s human development index has[Read More…]
As government leaders sashay between paltering and prevarication—as they’re wont to do around the world—the people get bombarded, often everyday, with a substantive number of stunners. Just like Mr. President in the United States is doing right now and hogging all the klieg lights. But of course it isn’t only the politicians who are adept—or irresistibly tempted—in taking recourse to[Read More…]
The US National Intelligence Council has predicted a nuclear war between India and Pakistan in 2028. The prediction came in the Council report released recently under the title: Global Trends: Paradox of Progress. Every four years since 1997, the National Intelligence Council has published an unclassified strategic assessment of how key trends and uncertainties might shape the world over the[Read More…]
Guwahati: Killing of media persons in the Indian subcontinent is no unusual happening as it annually losses around ten journalists to assailants. India, Pakistan and Afghanistan often lead the list of victims with additional inputs from Bangladesh and Myanmar, where Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Tibet (under China) and Nepal normally maintain their no-journo killing index. Myanmar (also known as Burma[Read More…]
On November 1 of last year, a horrific fire at the Gadani shipbreaking yard in the Pakistani province of Balochistan claimed the lives of at least 32 workers, leaving scores of others with life-altering injuries, including severe burns. In the more than two months since the accident, government officials have turned a blind eye to the long-suffering workers’ demands for[Read More…]
Since women and men don’t live by bread alone it obviously follows that they can’t live only by economics either. And even that is coming under pressure for any number of causes in recent times. Humans, by nature and as has been repeatedly proven over historical time, seek after a point certain intangibles and perhaps even the metaphysical, verging[Read More…]
Toba Tek Singh: On January 8, Aaghaz-e-Dosti, a joint Indo-Pak Friendship initiative, launched its 5th Indo-Pak Peace Calendar in Toba Tek Singh in collaboration with Youth for Human Rights Pakistan. Aaghaz-e-Dosti has started series of calendar launch on 1st January from Lahore and in the series, these Peace Calendars will be launched in several others cities of Pakistan and India[Read More…]
Apparently, and especially as gleaned from the verbal declarations of the leaders of myriad types and various ranks, the government in Bangladesh has assumed a schizophrenic tendency. It wants its political adversaries to participate in electoral processes yet, simultaneously, they keep up a persistent drumbeat of negative proclamations. And more often than not the edicts are unadulterated confections of the[Read More…]
The Battle Cry: Independence is humanity’s yearning. Independence is humanity’s lifeline. Independence is bud for humanity’s blooming. Rangalal Bandyopadhyay, a poet from Bengal under British boot, affirmed the position with two questions: Shaadheenataa-heenataay ke baacheete chay …? Daashatta-sreenkhal balo ke pareebe pay …, is there anyone liking a life without independence? is there anyone willing to have a shackled[Read More…]
While the horror of barbaric incident of October 28, when militants aided by the Pakistani Army had mutilated the body of 30-year-old sepoy Mandeep Singh is still fresh in our memory, yet in another gory instance on November 22 the body of another Indian soldier, Prabhu Singh of 57 Rashtriya Rifles, was found in savagely mutilated state in Machhil sector along[Read More…]
Persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar is continuing with impunityand without a break. Dieng and Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, have confirmed these atrocities and “requested independent UN investigations on the alleged ‘ethnic cleansing’ and other mass atrocities in the Rohingya region of Rakhine State”. But Aung San Suu Kyi has remained defiant to an extent[Read More…]
(Why should the fate of Kashmiris be tied up with the establishment of Indo-Pak friendship?) There are some very common refrains in regard to the solving of the most intractable and the longest pending political problem of Kashmir. In the global context, it is the necessity for a peaceful dialogue between the two neighbouring countries, India and Pakistan, to solve[Read More…]
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has now cleared the name of Lt. General Qamar Javed Bajwa as the new chief of the army staff who is set to replace the Army chief Raheel Sharif whose three year term is to end on the 29th of this month. The appointment thus rests to all the speculations about the selection of new[Read More…]
As part of our aim to embed critical thinking and peace, Aaghaz-e-Dosti through interview series – “Voices for Peace” features inspiring peace personalities who have worked significantly for Indo-Pak Peace. We start this series with Ms. Kia Scherr, an inspiring Peace Personality. She is known to the world as the 26/11 (Mumbai attack of 2008) victims’ family member who forgave[Read More…]
In a note sent to me few days ago, a retired captain of Indian army wrote that soldiers are not enemies of each other. They just follow instructions and take war as task. He also shared his own experience wherein during his posting at Hussainiwala Indo-Pak border and on Nathula Indo-China border, he used to enjoy and exchange greetings with[Read More…]
Recently, Muslim mob attacks on Hindu houses and temples in Nasirnagar (Brahmanbaria) and elsewhere in Goplaganj, Chittagong, and Sunamganj districts in Bangladesh have drawn wide media attention, within and outside the country. I can’t agree more with Daily Star’s editorial (Nov 2) that Government inaction would only embolden the bigots; and that: “any mix of politics and faith cannot[Read More…]
A brutal anti-Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) military operation continues behind the smoke screen as electronic and print media has been barred from reporting the extra-judicial killings by the paramilitary forces in Karachi and elsewhere in the volatile Sindh province. Tellingly on Wednesday (11/9), the Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, presided over a “security meeting” of military officials to[Read More…]
Shuttle and excessive diplomacy of western world especially the ‘Tuesday Group’s activities deteriorated 2006-2007 political situation in Bangladesh. Additionally, it was possible to declare the State of Emergency by Army Chief Lt. General Moeen U. Ahmed with the help of Military Secretary to the President (MSP) Major General Aminul Katim using the letter of UN Resident coordinator in Dhaka Renata Lok Dessallien, which[Read More…]
Recognition of womens’ dignity, health, education, work, and political inclusion are some of the prerequisite actions for gender equality, however, despite of such acceptance, women either at work or domestic life face mental, physical and emotional harassment by working colleagues, life partners and blood relations. Even the worst is that all this shameful is conceived and dealt as normal routine[Read More…]
The paradox is easy to spot. Running water is Nepal’s strongest asset at the moment, not only for investors in hydroelectric power plants, but also for communities that still lack electricity. Nevertheless, a steady stream of disputes has arisen between local populations, the government, and an increasing number of hydro plants that are meant to create electrical currents out of[Read More…]
In Myanmar government has decided to arm and train the non Muslim local people in order to enhance the security in the Rakhine State where the ethnic problems between the Rohingya Muslims and Buddhist residents prevail. The move is being treated as to crush the Rohingya Muslims who have been denied any substantial rights within the state and the ethnic[Read More…]
It’s absurd! It’s preposterous to suggest that around 40 per cent of Bangladeshis favour suicide terrorism. Yet this is what some American think tanks and “expert analysts” have recently come up with in their reports, to the detriment of Bangladesh’s reputation. Muslims in Bangladesh – around 90 per cent of the population – are peaceful, liberal, devotional, and even[Read More…]
At lease 59 cadets were killed and more than 116 injured as terrorists attack the Police Training College in Quetta, Pakistan, in one of the deadliest extremist attacks this year. Three gunmen burst into the sprawling academy, targeting sleeping quarters home to some 700 recruits, and sent terrified young men aged between 15 and 25 fleeing, Dawn News reported.[Read More…]
Be it conventional or non-conventional, the war in both terms is a great catastrophe for the humanity. When we turn the annals of human history great wars have been fought to colonize and conquer the territories but all ended up with the massive humanitarian crisis. The first and second world war may have redrawn the world map and christened new[Read More…]
India’s 29 September cross-LOC strike was conducted professionally, as expected of the apolitical army of the Indian Republic. Pakistan’s predictable response is denial of its ever having happened. It could have been left at that, but government and the opposition (such as it is), encouraged by TRP-hungry TV channels provoking certain publicity-hungry military veterans, have been using the apolitical army’s[Read More…]
This past summer witnessed yet another people’s uprising in one of the longest running, and most ruthless, military occupations in modern times: the Indian occupation of Kashmir. The callous indifference to decades-old Indian atrocities against the people of Kashmir, including well-documented incidences of torture, disappearances, ‘encounter killings,’ rapes, and outright massacres, ought to put the international community to shame. This,[Read More…]
(The widely projected “Surgical Strikes”according to many commentators have political objectives within the country rather than military objectives across the border!) Recently Captain Amrinder Singh, the Congress leader from Punjab took a TV team to the border to show that everything was normal and there was no war like situation. A video about the visit has been posted on the[Read More…]
Recently Indian Motion Producers Association (IMPPA) took a decision to ban Pakistani artists and technicians from working in Indian films until normalcy returns. The pretext of the ban is the terrorist attack on an army camp in Uri allegedly carried by JeM, killing 20 army personnel. The attack created poignant enragement and attracted widespread condemnation, which it must. Terrorism[Read More…]
The context of nationalism in India has lately been supercharged- post India’s ‘Surgical Strike inside PoK’ in view of repeated Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks in India – the latest of which, in a significant way, was Uri terror attack. The so-called claims, counterclaims and ‘independent’ global media coverage have made it complex and confusing for the ordinary citizens, considering both[Read More…]
Time has come to unite against the Yuddhists in India and Pakistan and to generate a strong public message that the sensational mainstream media, the corrupt army officials, and the politicians with their dwindling power mechanism and shrinking images on both sides do not own the share market of our freedom, peace and harmony. Time has come to isolate the Yuddhists on both sides. If the people across the boundaries can not protect their peace, then who else can?
The decision of Indian Motion Pictures Association (IMPA) to ban Pakistani artists and technicians from working in India is a reflection of politics preceding art. The implications could go beyond and may widen the Indo-Pakistan cultural contacts. The more widening of the divide between the two, the better it serves the communal agenda of the Hindutva brigade.
The persons creating the War Hysteria should first get educated about the consequences of a present day war especially between the nuclear armed countries!
Over the last week or so, there is an increasingly shrill demand coming from the hawkish ‘foreign policy advocates’ and the right wing war mongers that as a “fitting reply” to the tragic killing of 18 of our soldiers in the condemnable Uri attack on Sept.18, India should abrogate the 1960 Indus Water Treaty between the two countries, thereby ‘choking[Read More…]
Tension between nuclear armed South Asian neighbours India and Pakistan continues to mount after terrorists on Sunday night attacked an army camp in Baramulla in Northern Kashmir killing constable Nitin of 40th battalion of the BSF and the injuring constable Pulwinder of the same battalion. According to news reports the terrorists are likely to have escaped taking advantage of night[Read More…]
The short answer to the above question is, both! Recent bout started with Uri, the Indian border post at the Kashmir front. 18 Indian soldiers were killed by across-the-border assailants. India blames Pakistan and Pakistan denies and says it is the work of the disaffected Kashmiri insurgents. In the ensuing row India is winning diplomatically, Pakistan is rambling madly and[Read More…]
Indian Army conducts surgical strikes. The Government thumps its chest. The media debates that this is the way to respond. The media channels compete debating this issue and try to increase their TRP ratings. Discussions get carried out on how skillfully the surgical strikes were carried out and comparisons made with similar strikes by Israel and United States.The urban middle[Read More…]
It was a day of quiet on the India-Pakistan front except for the sporadic gunfire exchanged between the two sides in the Akhnoor sector of the international border in Jammu and Kashmir. On the other hand, it is a worrying sign to see no diplomatic efforts being taken up by both the sides to diffuse the tension. The South Asian[Read More…]
The India-Pakistan relations remain tensed after India’s surgical strikes across the Line of Control Wednesday night. India admitted that one of its soldiers is in Pakistan’s custody. The army says that 22-year-old soldier Chandu Babulal Chauhan strayed into Pakistani territory “inadvertently” on Thursday and was captured. According to the army Chauhan, a soldier of the Rashtriya Rifles, did not take[Read More…]
We, the people of India and Pakistan, stand in solidarity with each other to speak out against war in any form because, in war, we are all losers regardless of who might appear to win. We hope that the elected representatives of both countries will exercise restraint, and act with wisdom, in the interests of lasting peace in our region,[Read More…]
Responding to nationalist clamouring for retaliatory strike against Pakistan in response to attack on Uri army camp on September 18th, Indian Army conducted surgical strikes across the LoC on Wednesday night, the DGMO said on Thursday in a press briefing. “Significant casualties have been caused in these strikes,” DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh said adding, “the operation has now ended.”[Read More…]
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights announced that Ms Rita Izsák Ndiaye, UN Special Rapporteur on minority issueson problems faced by minorities in various countries, is to visit Sri Lanka from 10 to 20 October 2016. Her first three years term as the special Rapporteur started on 1st August 2011. She was given another three years on the[Read More…]
Is it not ironic that two very similar insurgencies have simultaneously been going on in Pakistan for the last several years: the Baloch insurgency in the Balochistan province and the insurgency of the Pashtun tribesmen in the tribal areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province bordering the United States-occupied Afghanistan. The Pakistani neoliberals fully sympathize with the oppressed Baloch nationalists but when it[Read More…]
My Dear Prime Minister, I am constrained to write to you, because of the recent developments in Jammu and Kashmir, the attack on our air station in Pathankot , and now in Uri, where we have lost precious lives not to mention the many injured. The lack of response by India to the latest attack, has clearly been due in[Read More…]
Pakistan- India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) PIPFPD expresses its concern over the growing tensions between India and Pakistan following militants’ attack on strategically important army base in Uri, Jammu & Kashmir. The leadership of both the countries needs to urgently act towards defusing the tense scenario rather than fuelling it. We appeal to the saner voices of[Read More…]
Indian government’s recent decision to provide shelter to the secessionist Baloch leaders has internationalized the issue of low intensity civil war in Pakistan’s largest province of Balochistan where the army of Pakistan has launched a brutal operation to control the rebellion of Baloch nationalists. On Friday, CNN-News18 quoted Indian official sources as saying that India is all set to[Read More…]
Prime Minister Modi’s bringing up “Balochistan” during his 15th August address was criticised, especially since he omitted to mention the on-going, acute crisis in Kashmir. While the validity of criticism of omission may hold good, mentioning Balochistan could be a calculated move to reverse India’s traditional passivity against Pakistan’s aggressive India policy. India’s turning a spotlight on Balochistan has the[Read More…]
Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi, a rare orator and one of the few strong individuals ever produced in post-partition Bharat has expressed his displeasure with the way the Pakistan authorities are handling the cause of Balochistan. The alarming expressions were a part of his Independence Day speech. Subsequent to his speech, many Indian pundits have come out with their[Read More…]
Dear Mr. President, The wave of political enthusiasm which generates hope for a nation sans, bribery & corruption, mismanagement of the state resources, and the cunning culture of bureaucracy, in general the culture of cheating the ordinary citizen, is sadly being shattering and flattening, though you are still managing to keep the high tone in the course correction. It is[Read More…]
The recent bout of terrorist attacks in Pakistan reminds us once again that it is one of the worst victims of terrorism perpetrated by religious extremist groups claiming their adherence to what they call the puritan Islam. According to Global Terrorism Index the top 5 countries affected by terrorism include Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria accounting for 78 percent[Read More…]
Preposterous! you say. Take a closer look: The countries have now been independent for 69 years. Just a few days before the recent Independence Day(s) festivities — the two countries have a difference of opinion on when and celebrate on different days — a man named Matibool returning home from a night shift as a security guard was run[Read More…]
Sri Lanka with one of the worst records in human rights violations has come up with a positive step. It has passed the missing person bill with some amendments in unanimous way. The bill was passed with the support of TNA and JVP. The passed bill has certain good features; it will try to search and identify about 65000 missing[Read More…]
Quetta hospital bomb blast, killing more than 90 people, is the latest grim reminder to the ceaseless violence in Pakistan’s strife-torn volatile province of Balochistan. The deafening blast that ripped through scores of mourners in a Quetta hospital on Monday (August 8) has killed at least 93 people, mainly lawyers, in this year’s bloodiest terror attack in Pakistan. The massive[Read More…]
The state of Pakistan is all set to unleash its iron fist by promulgating laws that curb free speech. This is a proactive step taken by the State to muzzle criticism and silence dissent. Freedom of speech and expression form the bedrock upon which the pillars of democracy stand; this freedom allows the public to air grievances and to[Read More…]
Locals and foreigners in Dhaka formally grieved for the victims of the Gulshan Attack one month after the incident. The local and international reaction to the July 1 terror attack at Gulshan has been far more intensive than the collective reaction to all the previous terror attacks in Bangladesh since 1999; there had never been any such mass grieving for[Read More…]
Joya Chatterjee’s path breaking work, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947, shows how decisive was the minority Bengali Hindu community’s role in the secondary partition of Bengal in 1947, so is Neeti Nair’s Changing Homelands: Hindu Politics and the Partition of India (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 2011) another seminal study of the minority Punjabi Hindu community’s important role in the partition of the Punjab between India and Pakistan
Before the signing of the Iran nuclear deal last year, BBC’s defense correspondent, Mark Urban, alleged in a report [1] that Pakistan’s military has made a clandestine deal with Saudi Arabia that in the event of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Pakistan would provide ready-made nuclear warheads along with delivery systems to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it should be remembered that[Read More…]
It was a classic instance of bolting the barn door after the horse had made its getaway… But wait, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s begin at the beginning. Without any sliver of doubt it can be unequivocally declared that almost the entire fault for the enhanced mayhem—with its concomitant loss of precious lives—in Bangladesh should justifiably be[Read More…]
Arresting of an intelligence officer attached to Sri Lanka Army over the murder of late Lasantha Wickramatunge has sparked questions about the underworld of the state, and questioned the very ruling elements of the government. The investigation of this blatantly committed daylight murder has turned into yet another all-consuming matter in the political arena. Flies are around, bugs are moving,[Read More…]
The predicament of Imran Khan’s fanboys has been somewhat like the pubescent girl who falls head over heels in love with a promiscuous playboy; and when her friends try to knock some sense into her by telling her that your sweetheart is cheating on you, instead of opening her eyes up, she thinks that her friends are jealous of her[Read More…]
It was yet another period of dark days in the history of Jamaica, where gobbled and devoured political parties along with other interest groups were instigating and fueling brutal civil war. The people in the country had no escape but to pray for their last moments of life to be lived in peace. Both political parties were using gangsters to[Read More…]
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ― Albert Camus Here is the disastrous and forlorn situation that many are facing in the post-conflict situation in Sri Lanka. Seven years have been passed but the wounds of the bloody conflict keep putrefying society due to absence of healing. In his recent[Read More…]
Interesting but frightening reports are coming out from the mainstream media in India on the ongoing ideological covert operations by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria known as ISIS or ISIL or IS, in Sri Lanka. Almost all news stories are able to quote the Indian intelligence sources anonymously, while those news pieces have been dramatically decorating the imminent threats.[Read More…]
This is [ Pakistan] a good country. It’s just run by bad people – Abdul Sattar Edhi The most fundamental question every human being at least one time in life will ask himself/herself is – ‘what is the meaning of the life?’ There is no fixed answer to this question but in fact, the answer is itself is a representation[Read More…]
The article will critically examine and explore the recent Dhaka café terror attack. It will specifically examine the role of the law enforcement agencies in handling the crisis and will question the effectiveness and appropriateness of law enforcers’ interventions. In addressing this issue, the key focus will remain whether the human rights of victims and perpetrators were respected (Masferrer[Read More…]
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is here in Colombo on a two day official visit. It has been very interesting and a pinking diplomatic relationship that Sri Lanka as a sovereign nation has developed since the ancient times with the Republic. Whatever may the recorded history placed before us be, one thing is certain and that is that China[Read More…]
In a terrorist attack near a mass Eid prayer gathering in Kishoreganj in Bangladesh two policeman and a woman were killed and 13 people were wounded. One attacker had been shot dead. Three terrorists were arrested, one of them injured. A group of terrorists reportedly attacked one of the policemen with a knife and threw homemade bombs at a school[Read More…]
Bangladeshi politicians, analysts, intellectuals, and media should do the following three things for the sake of durable peace and order in the country: a) stop denying the existence of terrorism, as there is hardly any country without terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, in the post-9/11 world; b) fight terrorism not only with force but also through education and mass motivation; and c) do not think of gaining political leverage by falsely implicating political rivals or personal adversaries as terrorist agents. Terrorists gain most in divided and fractured countries. Examples abound.
It is two months since the government controlled by Aung San Suu Kyi took charge in Myanmar. The elections that brought her to power were free despite western fears that the military regime would not allow freedom. The question being asked today is “to what extent will Myanmar change?” Amid what look like earth shattering events is there continuity with[Read More…]
According to Dilip Kashmir is the root cause of enduring enmity between India and Pakistan. Three wars have been fought by the rivals on this, “toxic bone of contention”. He quotes President Bill Clinton who called the India Pakistan border in Kashmir as the most dangerous place on Earth! The most worrisome aspect is the Indian Cold Start doctrine involving massive tank thrusts and Pakistan’s response with the tactical nuclear weapons at the disposal of the field commanders. A limited encounter can rapidly escalate and result in a total nuclear exchange. It is a more worrisome scenario than Richter Scale 8 earthquake!
Of late, terrorists or unknown assailants have killed freethinking writers and bloggers, a couple of foreign nationals, and two LGBT activists in Bangladesh, around 36 people since February 2015. And almost ritualistically, killers have been bragging about their acts, and proclaiming to be al Qaeda, ISIS, Ansar al-Islam, or Ansarullah Bangla Team affiliates. Interestingly, some Bangladeshi politicians claim (a) various[Read More…]
A Bangladeshi MP – who paradoxically represents the ruling coalition as well as its opposition in the parliament – recently played the proverbial role of the judge, jury and prosecutor. He and his associates publicly tortured and humiliated a headmaster of a local school at Narayanganj, for his “blasphemous” comments against Islam. I don’t want to discuss the alleged blasphemy[Read More…]
The attitude towards murder is one thing on which hardly any progress can be made in Sri Lanka. Murder is regarded as quite normal and not something to worry too much about. This attitude is also something that should worry everyone. It is this attitude we see in the proposed Office of Missing Persons (OMP). In most cases, the simple[Read More…]
Karl Marx, among other critics of imperialism, had some kind words for British colonial rule in India, especially in regard to the prevalent rule of law in the colony. The civil and criminal laws, as evolved in Bangladesh – as in all the former British colonies, worldwide – are based on the British Common Law. However, barring a handful of[Read More…]
Land Rights And Ending Hunger 
Comrade Juno’s struggle 
Is present the golden age of Dalit politics? 
Curfew in Philadelphia following two nights of protests, looting, 172 arrests 
The Battle for the Soul of Islam 
Time for a serious discussion on interfaith relationship issues 
Retired Couple Persecuted For Their Faith In Christianity 
Mangal Turbine –Neglected Innovation of Great Potential 
Google meets the Sherman Act 
Resurgence of Socialism in Bolivia 
Ending Regime Change – in Bolivia and the World 
Gandhi & Aesthetics 
Women Are Vulnerably ‘Locked Down’ Amid The Pandemonium Of Global Pandemic 
Film & Family – Partition & Thereafter 
Dalit Lives Matter! A Cry to Rage Against the Horrifying Violence of Saffron Terror in India 
World on fire 2020: Experts explain the global wildfire crisis 
Notes on US presidential election: Show of a politics [Part II] 
A Purple Poem 
Class Consciousness in the Age of COVID 
Debunking the Myths 
Riot, looting continues for 2nd night in Philadelphia following fatal police shooting, troops mobilized 
Caste In Heaven: Can Shudras And Dalits Find Moksha In Brahminism? 
Make Mankind Great Again! 
Dictatorship And Democracy As Loaded Language: Anti-Communist Cold-War Propaganda 
“Sugar” 
Menstrual Hygiene – Talk about what’s not comfortable! 
So You want to ally with the Dalit Rights Movement? 
Crunch Time 
How the War Came Home, Big Time – Perspectives From a Military Spouse 
Notes on US presidential election: Show of a politics 
Bhima Koregaon Case: A Critical Appraisal : Our Call – Free them All 
Ensuring Mental Health For All 
The Proletarian Uprising of Punnapra-Vayalar: 74 Years Later 
‘Night March – Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas’ 
Is it time to revisit the measures in India to prevent cruelty against animals? Stand With Stan: Release All Accused In The Bhima Koregaon Case 
Cultivated Lunacy, Nuclear Deterrence and Banning the Nuke 
70 Years after China and the DPRK Defeated the United States in Korea 
Hindutva: A Political and Economic Project of Shared Lies of Brahmanical Caste and Class Order in India 
Phenomenal Surge of Domestic Violence/Gender Violence: The Shadow Pandemic of Humanity 
This article is based on the 25th Chandrashekar Memorial Lecture delivered on 20 September 2020. The original lecture was delivered in Hindi and the event was organized by Punashcha, the Indian People’s Theater Association (IPTA) and Koshish. Friends, comrades gathered here; I am very honoured to be invited to deliver the Chandrashekhar Memorial Lecture this year but I cannot say[Read More…]
