The High Court of Bangladesh recently declared all forms of extrajudicial punishment illegal. Fatwas, or religious judgments fall under the domain of the ruling. Therefore, fatwas, as a form of extrajudicial punishment have been deemed illegal in Bangladesh. The Daily Star reports; “Anyone involved, present or taking part in or assisting any such conviction or […]
If it wasn’t sufficiently clear before, it should be now: the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik e- Taliban) are out to bring down the ‘apostate” government in Islamabad, piece, region by region, piece by piece. It were as if the Taliban were only moved to refute the writ and authority of the central government, which it thinks […]
Over the last couple of months, news has been in pouring in about ‘honor killings’ in the northern States of Punjab and Haryana. Numerous couples have been killed mostly by family members on the orders of the ‘khap panchyats’ because they eloped, married outside their caste or within the same ‘gotra’. The problem is not […]
Apropos my last post, a work of art entitled “1945-1998” by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto. This piece is one part of a larger project of his on nuclear explosions. More on Hashimoto and the project here.
Recent reports from the Japan have, once again, complicated the history of Japan’s seemingly steadfast commitment to its Three Non-Nuclear principles – non-production, non-possession, and non-introduction of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. (It is important to note that this is not the end-all, be-all of Japan’s nuclear stance: the four pillars of Japan’s nuclear policy […]
Al Jazeera English’s 101 East series has put together another astounding, heart breaking piece on Bangladeshi culture, its sociology. This time around, film makers sponsored by Al Jazeera have examined the wide spread phenomenon of violence that so often churns along with the covert exchange of property rights that is tagged euphemistically in cities and […]
Cambodia – My colleague, Sean Patrick Murphy, over at FB’s Global Film Review blog, has an interesting post about a new documentary, “S21, The Khmer Rogue Killing Machine”. The documentary interviews former Khmer Rogue members who worked at the infamous S21 prison camp, where various crimes against humanity were committed during the reign of Pol […]
Tensions have mounted in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) during the past month. The people’s protests became unmanageable for the state government and the Army was called in to flag march in the state on July 7th. The recent round of anti-India protests were triggered by the killing of 15 people by […]
Can the BNP stand behind former allies who might be prosecuted for committing war crimes against their own people? This question must now float high on the list of questions BNP leadership is asking while strategizing a fecund and energized return to power. The BNP has recently struck out in support of the three top leaders […]
The Indian government’s decision to raise fuel prices last month resulted in some opposition-led large scale protests on Monday.
The issue that is handily, wrenchingly, confounding the Pakistani military is the one that has long confounded the NATO command in Afghanistan. That issue, that problem has been canvassed well in a recent New York Times article . The issue is this: How can one separate out the enemy from the friendly citizen? No real answer […]
In a recent press conference Mian Nawaz Sharif – the head of the largest opposition Party Pakistan Muslim League-N (PMLN) – claimed that terrorism in Pakistan is a result of government’s foreign policies. Sharif made the comments two days after two terrorist suicide bombers had attacked the most popular Sufi shrine in Punjab. The province […]
Journalist Joel Stein gets into some hot water for his column on Indian Americans in Time Magazine.
The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in India seems to believe in the slogan of ‘the more the merrier’. It appears that Cabinets in the era of coalition governments were not enough trouble for the UPA. It has added another dimension of complexity by frequently constituting Group of Ministers (GoMs) to decide on official policies. […]
Salman Masood recently wrote a very interesting blog post for the New York Times At War blog. The U.S. has passed along 3 F-16 fighter planes to the Pakistani Air Force; the transfer has caused much strutting fan fare and has germinated a crashing wave crop of billowing, swollen chests. Citing reportage in Dawn, the […]
