J. Venkatesan
The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would be failing in its duty if it permitted any citizen to be forcibly subjected to narco-analysis, brain mapping and polygraph tests in violation of his privacy. Notwithstanding the fact that its judgment would benefit hardened criminals who had no regard for societal values, the court had a constitutional right to protect the rights of citizens.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan said: “One of the main functions of constitutionally prescribed rights is to safeguard the interests of citizens in their interactions with the government. As guardians of these rights, we will be failing in our duty if we permit any citizen to be forcibly subjected to these tests.”
By Siddharth Varadarajan
The history of India-Pakistan relations is full of examples of leaders from both countries travelling to distant points on the globe — from Tashkent and New York to Sharm el-Sheikh and Havana — to meet each other only to end up standing still. Meetings held in the subcontinent, on the other hand, have invariably led to breakthroughs, big and small. Think Simla and Lahore, Islamabad and Delhi. Each of these encounters produced conceptual breakthroughs that briefly carried some promise of momentum before being swamped by the forces of inertia, dead habit, treachery or bad faith that are the constants in this cursed relationship.
To the list of promising South Asian summits can now be added the name of Thimphu, where Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani met on Thursday. Defying naysayers within their respective establishments and wider strategic communities, the two Prime Ministers crafted a simple but elegant formula for breaking the current impasse, thereby ensuring that the process of engagement — stuck for several months — now has some chance of moving ahead. The Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Ministers have been tasked with meeting each other to assess the current state of the relationship and identify the reasons for the trust deficit. This is to be the first step in what will eventually lead to a dialogue process aimed at discussing and resolving all outstanding issues and disputes.
On behalf of the members of South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a democratic regional network of human rights defenders committed to the promotion and protection of human rights at both national and regional levels, we welcome the convening of the Summit of Heads of State of SAARC countries in Thimphu from 28th – 29th April 2010.
South Asians share a common history and culture of tolerance and pluralism. Our ideals represent the principles of peace, democracy, secularism and human security as the basis of our diverse nationhoods. But our region remains backward and one of the poorest because of our divisiveness and intolerance of differences.
We the members of social movements, civil society organizations, labour unions, peasant movements, other working people’s organizations and women’s groups have gathered here in Delhi from 20th April to 23rd April, 2010 as part of the process of Peoples SAARC to forge a vision for a People’s Union of South Asia. This year’s Peoples’ SAARC is a culmination of a process of more than a decade. It reaffirms the South Asian Peoples commitment to creating a better South Asia free from all forms of discrimination, exclusion and domination. It also calls for the peoples of all SAARC countries to struggle against militarism and jingoism. It calls for equal respect among all countries irrespective of size, and power.
All our countries are suffering the economic travails of neo-liberal economic policies. Poverty and exclusion have increased and the already marginalized , particularly women and the girl child have suffered more. It is time that we develop new paradigms of peaceful equitable, and sustainable paths of development that truly reflect the economic potential of our countries and meet the need of our peoples. SAARC countries must ensure the rights of all workers, especially women and Dalit workers in accordance with international standards including ILO conventions, international covenants and national constitutions .Fisher peoples’ rights to fish in territorial waters be recognized and legally protected through proper mechanisms. Innocent fisherfolk incarcerated for wandering into neighbouring, sometimes disputed, territorial waters be immediately released and the presence of deep sea trawlers and foreign vessels should be banned as these are depleting fish stock and pursuing an unsustainable path apart from severely diminishing the catch of the ordinary fisherfolk.
Siddharth Varadarajan
Forget Kashmir and terrorism or even Afghanistan and water, the current stalemate between India and Pakistan is all down to one word. Both countries publicly say that Dialogue is the only way forward. Yet each is paralysed by the name ‘Composite’. New Delhi is so allergic to it that it will not accept its use, while Islamabad has become so attached to the C word that it insists there can be nothing else.
This Indian allergy and Pakistani attachment is paradoxical, since the composite dialogue approach has suited India more than it has Pakistan. Under the guise of moving ahead simultaneously on all issues, the framework has allowed progress on trade and other subjects considered important by New Delhi, even as the status quo on major disputes like Kashmir and Siachen — key concerns for Islamabad — has held. Of course, the dialogue did not end cross-border terrorism or extinguish the links between the Pakistani security agencies and violent extremism as some on the Indian side might have hoped. But that was always an improbable shot given the DNA of the Pakistani establishment. Over time, India has realised the best way to deal with the threat of terror is by strengthening its internal capabilities while utilising engagement as a lever for influencing Pakistan’s behaviour over the long run.
22-23 April 2010
VENUE: Jawaharlal Nehru University
School of Social Sciences Auditorium
On 22-23 April 2010, more than 150 activists representing democratic organisations from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Maldives and about 350 activists from India will converge in the Indian capital for a conference entitled “Assembly towards Union of South Asian Peoples”.
Also joining the conference are several serving parliamentarians of South Asia, including Binda Pandey from Nepal; Senator Malik from Pakistan and Mani Shankar Aiyer from India – together they would lead debates around the question of a strong “South Asian Identity” leading to people’s collaborative action and campaigns across borders for just peace and development in the region.
With a pledge to motivate the young activists, students & filmmakers to have a better understanding of the cross-cutting issues across South Asia – a 3 day long festival with 12 outstanding documentaries titled Travelling Film South Asia (TFSA) 2010 was held in Dhaka last February (11th -13th). These films were selected from 35 documentaries screened in the competitive section of Film South Asia ’09, the seventh edition of the festival of Southasian documentaries held in Kathmandu from 17-20 October 2009.
Documentaries screened in the session are ‘The Last Rites’ by Yasmine Kabir, ‘The Promised Land’ by Tanvir Mokammel, ‘Afghan Girls Can Kick’ by Bahareh Hosseini & ‘The Battle for Pakistan’ by Maheen Zia, ‘Come to My Country: Journeys with Kabir and Friends’ by Shabnam Virmani, ‘Children of God’ by Yi Seung-jun, ‘In Search of the Riyal’ by Kesang Tseten, ‘Mayomi by Carol Salter, ‘Out of Thin Air’ by Samreen Farooqui & Shabani Hassanwalia, ‘Saamam’ by Ramachandran K, ‘The Salt Stories’ by Lalit Vachani and ‘The Way of the Road’ by Ben Campbell & Cosmo Campbell.
If major civilisations make contributions to world history, then the Indian civilisation’s contributions include caste, caste discrimination, caste segregation, and caste-motivated brutality; the anniversary of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s birth, April 14, provides an occasion to look at some of the ways governments respond to caste discrimination.
It appears too, that wherever substantial numbers of people of Indian descent settle, caste discrimination appears. Even the British House of Lords was sufficiently exercised about caste discrimination in the United Kingdom to debate it for specific proscription when the new Equality Bill, now the Equality Act 2010, recently came before them. Although this time the House of Lords did not include caste specifically, the government’s earlier statement that the Equality and Human Rights Commission had been asked to research the issue drew the peers’ rebuke that the Commission in fact said they had not been asked to do the relevant research; the government were also accused of consulting only with upper-caste groups of British Hindus.
South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) vehemently condemn the action taken by the Government of Bangladesh to ban the photo exhibition of extra judicial killings in Dhaka. This is a violation of a citizen’s right to freedom of expression.
Hours before the exhibition was due to open at a special ceremony in Dhaka, Police closed down the Drik Picture Library on Monday, 22nd March 2010. The exhibition, “Crossfire,” by Shahidul Alam, features photographs based on Drik’s case studies relating to the alleged extra-judicial killings by the Rapid Action Battalion of Bangladesh. The reason for the closure of this exhibition, as stated by the police, was that the exhibition had no official permission to open and that it would “create anarchy”. From this day onwards police officers have been stationed at the gates every day to stop people from entering the exhibition.