The political leadership of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) [1] is engaging in unconditional peace talks on behalf of the decades-old Assamese insurgency with India’s central government. Assam is considered vital to the Indian economy due to its crude oil, coal reserves, vast tea industry and its geographical connection to the rest of northeast India’s isolated states to the Indian “mainland.” The Delhi-initiated peace talks have caused a grave split within the ULFA movement between its Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and its military commander Paresh Barua who is protesting the negotiations from exile in either China or Burma. Rajkhowa along with Pradip Gogoi, ULFA’s vice chairman, and six other members of the outfit’s leadership have been released from detention in Guwahati, the northeast Indian state of Assam’s commercial capital, to meet with top officials from India’s Home ministry as well as leaders from the Assam state government (The Telegraph [Kolkata], February 9). For the time being, ULFA has been divided by what the Indian government dub’s “pro-talk” and “anti-talk” factions led by Rajkhowa and Barua respectively.
The International Labour Organisation has done well to include a draft convention on decent work for domestic workers in the agenda for the 100th session of the International Labour Conference, scheduled for June. For centuries the domestic workers have lived along the margins of the international workforce. Well-documented reports by the ILO and other organisations point to the universality of their woes. Entirely informal in nature, domestic work, as its most anguished state, is nothing but a form of slavery, at its best, it is dogged by uncertainty. The most common failing by societies is the exploitation of this ubiquitious group of workers. Data available with the ILO suggest that domestic work ranges from four per cent to 10 per cent of total employment in developing economies and between one per cent and 2.5 per cent in industrial countries. As the ILO’s 2010 report, ‘Decent work for domestic workers’, points out, this section of the workforce is “undervalued and poorly regulated” and a major part of it is “overworked, underpaid and unprotected.” An international convention backed by the ILO is an overdue move towards mainstreaming this long-neglected workforce.
South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional network of human rights defenders, joins the messages of solidarity expressed throughout the world to mark International Women’s Day on March 8th, 2011.
The South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) condemns the assassination of the Federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, expressing grief, and alarm at his murder and calling it a manifestation of growing intolerance in society.
Lahore, March 03, 2011: SAHR has condemned the assassination of the Pakistan Federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, expressing grief, and alarm at his murder and calling it a manifestation of growing intolerance in society. His murder marks the latest attack on a high-profile Pakistani figure, following the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who had urged reforms in the blasphemy laws that provides for the death penalty. The Federal Minister was assassinated by unknown gunmen in broad daylight in Islamabad while he was on his way to work. He died before his body could be taken to a hospital nearby. Reports are now coming in of groups claiming responsibility and warning others who talk about reforms to blasphemy laws.
By Dr. Vijaya Samaraweera Religious belief is readily acknowledged to be a purely personal matter. Yet, the social nature of religion transforms religious beliefs into distinguishing social markers, and when religions enter the political space and acquire influence and power,…