Attacks on school children by the Taliban in Pakistan are a familiar news item. The bewilderment that has been felt across the world highlights how complex the picture really is. The brutal attack on the school in Peshawar on the 16th of December 2014 in which 132 children and 9 staff died two years after the shooting of Malala Yousafzai on her way to school in October 2012 highlights the
2014 has been a year of commemorations and remembrances of the events of 1984. June 2014 marked the 30th anniversary of Operation Blue Star, the code name for the Indian army storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Operation Blue Star is also referred to as the second ghallughara (transl. carnage, holocaust).[1] November 2014 marked the 30th anniversary of the anti-Sikh pogroms which followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi who
On 25 November I was contacted by Monocle Radio, who wanted to hear my views on the massive cleanup of Kathmandu that took place during the run-up to that city’s hosting of the 18th SAARC summit (see http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2014/11/pictures-kathmandu-20m-facelift-2014112392617611.html). The interviewer asked me where the Government of Nepal might have found the $20m it is said to have spent on this project, and I think I disappointed him by saying that
Prof. Lawrence Sáez (Professor in the Political Economy of Asia at SOAS) delivered a talk on ‘The 2014 Indian elections and their impact on the region’ at Pakistan Institute of International Affairs. Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2014. http://www.dawn.com/news/1146860/bjp-appeasing-non-hindutva-voters-to-broaden-support-base
PV Rajagopal is associated with the Ekta Parishad, the largest Gandhian non-violent movement for land rights in India today. The levels of deprivation of the rural poor in India are truly shocking. Their key livelihood resources, such as land, forest and water, have been steadily transferred to national and multinational corporations, sometimes by force. I have written up to 70 letters to the Prime Minister and have undertaken 1-year long