This release was put out by AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL on 1 June
On 24 May 2012, India’s human rights record came under renewed international scrutiny during its second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council. Amnesty International welcomes the recommendations made to India by the reviewing states, many of which reflect concerns raised previously by the organization.
Amnesty International is disappointed, however, that despite India’s assertion that it sees the UPR mechanism as one of “constructive engagement,” the government did not immediately accept any of the recommendations made, some of which were put forward in 2008 during India’s first UPR. Amnesty International urges India to demonstrate by September 2012, a genuine resolve to deliver on its outstanding human rights commitments and the UPR recommendations, when the report on India’s second UPR is formally adopted at the 21st session of the Human Rights Council. Continue reading India must deliver on its repeated commitments to the human rights council: Amnesty International
In which I interview “Anonymous India” who have organised a
This release comes from the JAMIA TEACHERS’ SOLIDARITY ASSOCIATION



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At last, the real anxieties lurking behind what has come to be called the “Ambedkar cartoon” controversy are out in the open. It is hideously clear by now that MPs “uniting across parties” are acting as one only to protect themselves from public scrutiny, debate and criticism. It turns out, as some of us suspected all along, that the “sentiments” that have been “hurt” this time are the easily bruised egos of our elected representatives.
The uproar over what is being referred to as the ‘Ambedkar cartoon’ in the class XI textbook prepared by NCERT first began over a month ago, that is to say, almost six years after the books have been in circulation, been taught and received high praise for their lively style and a critical pedagogical approach (more on this below). It was a political party – one of the factions of the Republican Party of India – that decided to kick up a ruckus over ‘the issue’ – that is, the ‘affront’ to Dr Ambedkar that the cartoon in question supposedly constitutes, and the resultant ‘hurt sentiments’ that it has caused. Very soon everyone began to fall in line, and practically every member of our august Parliament was vying with one other to prove that they were indeed more hurt than their colleagues. One of them, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan has even demanded that the
The Times of India did not hear of any dead people because Monsanto paid for the taxi from the city to the village for its reporter. Or is that all that Monsanto paid for? P Sainath in The Hindu:
As Japan shut down its last reactor, the Koodankulam project is to go critical in ten days. Because Japan depends on local consensus for its nuclear decisions, unlike the World’s Largest Democracy, the views of Japanese people counts for something. Thousands of Japanese marched in celebrations to celebrate the switching off of the last of Japan’s 50 nuclear reactors on Saturday May 5th. 
