Tag Archives: Indian Government

Bad ideas, Centre watch, Countryside, Ecologies, Government, Identities, Movements, Politics, religion, Violence-Conflict

Statement Against Genocide and Deportation of Rohingya Muslims

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Violence is sweeping Myanmar and in a short span of two weeks lakhs of ethnic Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh and thousands have lost their lives. Satellite data shows, large parts of the Rakhine state, home to most of the Burmese Rohingya population have been set on fire, and murders, rape, arson, loot and forced displacement of the Rohingya population is taking place on a scale, that should be alarming for all humanity. Even the UN secretary general has called out to Mayanmar to end violence against the Rohingya and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu has urged Mayanmar state Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out against the persecution of the Rohingya. The tragedy facing the Rohingya is of an unprecedented scale and needs to be addressed with a sense of utmost urgency.

As Indian citizens, we need to break the silence on ethnic violence against the Rohingya and the unconstitutional proposed deportation of a wide and long-residing Rohingya community from India, to certain death that awaits them in Myanmar. The Rohingyas have been living as a peaceful refugee community in various parts of India since the 1970s, with no criminal records or history of crime. Let us not be a part of this genocide. Let us stand up for justice and humanity, and raise our voice against the killings, displacement and deportation of the Rohingya!

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Government, Violence-Conflict

Issues in sri lanka today: A primer for activists in india

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Originally written for the forthcoming Human Rights Forum Bulletin

Very often issues related to sri lanka are spoken in a manner that is disjointed from one another. We often do not have a clear holistic picture. Many of the problems in stands vis-à-vis sri lanka come from this lack. We need a holistic picture not just of the present situation but of past histories. The holistic picture needs to be rigorous and honest; based on continuous work on the area and gathering of knowledge. In the case of sri lanka, as in many other things in the world, the significance of this cannot be stressed enough. We barely have any reports that have come out of sri lanka that are either biased or have had to struggle to expose many things and those concerned have often paid a heavy price; sometimes the price has been their life.

A friend from sri lanka, who lives in Colombo, recently commented that, right now, the situation is worse than during the war in some senses. The surveillance and the hidden violence is so intense and widespread that it is hard to escape it and there is never enough warning. The quest to turn sri lanka into a Sinhala Buddhist nation governed by a fascist is well underway. All of this being done under the garb of democracy; a garb that has not been hard to look right through. Continue reading Issues in sri lanka today: A primer for activists in india →

Genders, Identities, Politics, Violence-Conflict

Statement of Indian Women’s Rights Activists in Solidarity with Women in Sri Lanka

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It’s been more than two years since the supposed end of the war in Sri Lanka. The issues of concern are many, particularly with regard to the period after the end of direct combat. The Sri Lankan government has been abysmal in acknowledging the range of human rights violations that have been committed by the armed forces, which has been documented without a kernel of doubt by the United Nations report as well as the Channel 4 documentary. This documentation has been made in spite of circumstances where any neutral observation of the last stages of the conflict was made impossible by the Sri Lankan government and its army.

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Centre watch, Government, Law, Politics, Right watch

An Aid to Surveillance

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Guest post by USHA RAMANATHAN

The air is thick with schemes that will enable the state, and its agencies, to identify every resident, and to track what they are doing. A Home Ministry project for creating a National Population Register which will be prepared along with the 2011 Census has been propelled through its pilot stage. Now, an ambitious programme has been launched to load all the residents of the country on to a data base, providing each of us with a unique identity number. What  distinguishes this exercise from any other undertaken so far?

First of all, the intention is provide a Unique Identity Number to the whole population, including the just born.  The state is to have data on each individual literally from birth to death; and beyond, for a person’s UID is not destroyed at death, merely dis-abled. The numbers are to be so generated that it will not have to be repeated for between a hundred and two hundred years. Continue reading An Aid to Surveillance →