STUDENTS and lawyers have been at the forefront of the movement for democracy in Pakistan. The entry of students, some from elite rivate institutions, is perhaps a harbinger of things to come. Protests, hunger strikes and various forms of civil disobedience have ontinued in universities across Punjab, despite increasing government pressure to silence the students’ movement. Police have baton-charged rallies, arrested students and roughed-up faculty at the University of Punjab. Interestingly, the splintered student movement wasn’t just found on the campuses of public universities, the traditional source for student uprisings. This time around, it was private university students who led the charge.
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___________________________________________________________________________________Afghan villagers make electricity
AS night falls in Nad Ali district, a humming sound can be heard in the air. Small turbines fixed in local canals work throughout the evening, providing light and warmth to village homes. The people generating their own hydroelectric power have provided the equipment and labour themselves, but complain the government is trying to tax them. Helmand is comparatively well-off when it comes to energy, with the powerful Kajaki hydroelectric station theoretically capable of providing enough power for neighbouring Kandahar as well. The United States is funding a major reconstruction of the dam and power station, a project that will ultimately cost up to $ 500 million.
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___________________________________________________________________________________THE same South Asian friend who a few months ago had berated the Guadelopeans as lazy and good- or-nothing, ventured to comment this weekend that the French couples who had paid thousands of Euros to Zoe’s Ark for 103 Chadian children were innocent. The French media mostly shared his perspective.Driving home that evening it struck me that this argument, of error in good faith, has been used so often by Western media (and European civilisation in general) that even the rest of the world has come to believe in the white man’s innocence and good intentions as a priori, in exactly the same fashion as he has come to believe that every African (or Asian, Latino…
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___________________________________________________________________________________SAYED Mustafa Kazemi, 45, a prominent Afghan politician and former minister, was killed in a suicidebombing on November 6. He was one of Afghanistan’s most competent and capable politicianswith a talent for ‘bridging’ the visions of opposition parties and the international community. In 1992, just before Afghanistan ’s bloody civil war, Sayed Mustafa Kazemi – then the aide de camp to a prominent Afghan Jihadi commander – was tasked with organising a high-level meeting between two of Afghanistan’s most prominent leaders. Both leaders insisted that the other visit him at his location. The meeting never happened and the fighting that ensued resulted in over 50,000 deaths and the complete destruction of Kabul.
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___________________________________________________________________________________NEW York has the most extensive public transport system in the US so it isn’t a surprise to see rickshaws sailing through a busy street. New Yorkers call the vehicle a ‘pedicab.’ The rickshaws are popular with tourists. It enables them to see and learn about the city in a slower, languorous and more intimate manner. Buses and taxis are too hasty. The subway, of course, doesn’t even qualify.
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___________________________________________________________________________________Herat women shine in education
FATIMA, mother of five, sits in a tent, sweating in the heat. She is not alone: there are 40 other women with her, all of them busy with the alphabet. “I really want to learn to read and write,” she said. Fatima lives in Dadshan village, in a district of Herat Province that is remote from the splendours of the capital city. Enrolling in the literacy course was not easy: in addition to coping with the demands of her large family, she had to convince her husband, a farmer for whom literacy, especially for women, seemed a luxury. But Fatima persisted, and the joy of her accomplishment shows in her face as she carefully traces her letters.
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___________________________________________________________________________________IF a fictional story began like this: once upon a time an American President appointed a British Prime Minister, who had helped him start the Iraq War against the Baathist regime to help adjust the unjust tyranny of the Sunni minority against the Shia majority, as the Envoy Special of the Great Western Powers to resolve the long standing issues between the Muslims and the Jews, the Arabs and the Israelis, tearing up the Middle East… the story would sound as bizarre as this Proustian sentence, but in reality it sounds perfectly normal – even predictable – given the nature of the realpolitik that rules the world.
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___________________________________________________________________________________FEW people in Shanghai ever imagine that their future will depend on the ocean's rising tides. Images of China's most forward-looking city being engulfed by seawaters have not stirred public imagination as yet. But if Shanghai residents display philosophical nonchalance in refusing to contemplate the worst, city fathers and local experts know they are racing against time to win a knotty battle with global warming.
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___________________________________________________________________________________WHY are AIDS and public health activists crying foul at the G8's generous pledge of $60 billion to fightdiseases such as AIDS, TB and malaria? Leaders of the eight richest countries meeting in the German seaside resort of Heiligendamm from June 6 to 8, seemed to give considerable thought to the infectious diseases that claim more than six million lives every year and are devastating communities and economies, particularly in Africa.
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___________________________________________________________________________________THE exhibition, “Design for the Other 90%”, at the Smithsonian is as problematic as it is enlightening. Organised by Cynthia E Smith, it features the work done by designers to serve the world’s population afflicted with poverty and deprivation. But located as it is on plush lawns the gap between the haves and the have-nots could not be more stark and disturbing.
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___________________________________________________________________________________South Korea’s new Indian heroes
INDIA is in the eyes of Gwangju this year. All over this beautiful and ancient city there are huge banners and posters and the national flag of South Korea fluttering in the breeze. In the midst of this display, there is one face which strikes a chord in India, that of Irom Sharmila, the stoic 'satyagrahi' from Manipur, on peaceful fast for seven years, protesting against the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA),1958.
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___________________________________________________________________________________Nepal gets a network for HIV positive women
PURNIMA (name changed) has a message for HIV positive women.“Learn to demand your rights,” she says, “Do not let yourself become a victim of society with its misconceptions that HIV positive women are bad. You can be a change agent if you have a strong will to live and save others.” Neat rooms with beds for thirteen, a small kitchen, a cosy dining room and a spacious complex to give privacy to crisis patients – this has become Purnima’s work which she enjoys immensely.
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___________________________________________________________________________________Sri Lanka’s green tsunami village
IN 2004, in the aftermath of the tsunami, Sarvodaya, a well-known NGO in the island, started reconstruction rushing to the rescue of survivors. It carefully managed its flow of funds and focused on reinforcing partnerships with the government and external agencies. The NGO was keen to carry out a longterm development plan.
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SURPRISINGLY, the school history curriculum in Britain for 11-14 year olds does not give much weightage to Britain's imperial conquests in the 18th and 19th century. It is not compulsory to teach the Empire's history! The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) of Britain assesses the school syllabus every few years, and it was only in November 2006 that they realised that the Empire's history has been ignored in British schools for decades.Top
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Quaint heritage by the seasideTHE tiny village of Ranidhera in Chhattisgarh’s Kabir Dham district has never known what it is to have electricity and has experienced no develop-ment. But when lights do go on in the huts of its 120 households at the end of February, Ranidhera will be catapulted into a world class league of users of renewable energy.
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WHEN Nahar Alam left Bangladesh in 1993 to start a new life in the United States little did she know how nightmarish pursuing the American dream would be. A victim of domestic violence, she wanted to leave behind her painful past when she came to the US. Nahar had heard that families from the Indian sub-continent looked for housekeepers coming from the same area.___________________________________________________________________________________ .
Nepal’s gutsy trailblazer radio
MOST young radio journalists today probably don’t know what a long and hard battle it was ten years ago to liberate Nepal’s air waves and to create public space for radio.Top
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