Written by Constanze Ruprecht and Bobby Ramakant Growing number of civil society networks for peace, health and human rights from around the world are unifying their call for federal democracy in Myanmar. In a joint statement condemning the Coup d’état in Burma (after an online South Asia Solidarity Forum for federal democracy in Myanmar), over a hundred of these individuals,[Read More...]
On February 1, 2021 the Qatar based TV outlet, Al Jazeera aired a tele documentary, “All the Prime Minister’s Men.” The tele documentary that included several sting operations involving convicted fugitive brothers of the Bangladesh Army Chief, General Aziz Ahmed depicted multiple layers of abuse and corruption – money laundering, extortion, bribery, extra judicial killing, disappearances, and arbitrary arrests of[Read More...]
Fears of a military takeover in Myanmar came true in the early hours of 1 February when the powerful army resorted to a series of measures which included detention of the State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other senior government leaders, followed by the declaration of a state of emergency in the country. The commander-in-chief of[Read More...]
In more ways than one, South Asia has been pushed back to the 1940’s. If we were to take stock of the situation in the entire subcontinent, we can easily find out that we have made little progress and have got stuck in the status-quo mud for the past three-quarters of a century. Besides providing a binding social order, the[Read More...]
The route India took has been bullying and it ultimately isolated India. By treating Nepali politicians as shabby buffoons to be pampered one day and collared another day, India badly exposed itself. A belief got entrenched in the Nepalese mind that we are a dangerous neighbour with evil intentions, undependable and far too self-centred and cynical. Tragically, this was despite[Read More...]
Bhutto fell victim to a delusion, common to all tin pot dictators; he started taking his own bombast seriously and made a critical mistake. He called a conference of all the nuclear physicists of the country and demanded that they produce a workable nuclear device in the next four to five years. The nuclear scientists in Pakistan were, one and[Read More...]
In the 18th century, American legal scholar and politician Alexander Hamilton had famously said that the judiciary is the “least dangerous” branch, having “no influence over either the sword or the purse,”. What he meant was that the judiciary, in those days, was least capable of defending itself against intrusion by other dominant organs of the state. Judicial independence, i.e., the[Read More...]
Engagement with South Asian history often occurs either through the Eurocentric divisions of core and periphery or through the irredentist nation-states’ paradigm. However, South Asian history is a complex one, beyond the linearities of colonial narratives and territorial borders. For example, recent scholarship on Tibet has underscored some complexities of South Asian history. It has been marked with the question[Read More...]
Sri Lanka’s Tamils, victims of genocide perpetrated by the majority Sinhala Governments since independence in 1948, appear to be poised to continue to live with miseries also partly contributed by the rivalries and inactions of the leaders of the Tamils who are busy engaged in election and parliamentary politics disregarding the political mess and lingering problems of the Tamils. 17 Tamil[Read More...]
The ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) suffered a vertical split on December 23, 2020, with the rival factions of the party led by the two chairmen claiming their faction to be the authentic NCP in separate central committee meetings held in Kathmandu, the capital city. The faction led by Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal removed KP Sharma Oli from the post[Read More...]
