My cousin, the suicide bomber

by Sahar Saba, 01 Jan 2010, Communalism Combat

A brutalised Afghan society does not know whether to mourn or to celebrate death.

For the rest of the world the victims of the Afghan war remain nameless and faceless. Not for us in Afghanistan. I myself have mourned a number of such victims, including my own uncle, my father’s brother. Three weeks back there was yet another suicide blast which killed only the bomber and his accomplice. The suicide bomber was reportedly on his way to ambush German troops in the north of Afghanistan. He was being driven to the potential scene of action on motorbike by his accomplice. On their way they were asked to stop at a police check post. Instead of stopping, they attempted to escape and were fired at. The biker lost his balance and both fell, setting off the explosives packed into a suicide jacket. Both died on the spot. Either the suicide bomber or his accomplice was my cousin, Abdul Latif. He was 22.

Behind the concern

by Ashish Kothari, 26 February 2010, Frontline

In the name of national security, a FICCI report makes a thinly veiled argument to open up central India for exploitation by corporations.

Just when India needs to ramp up its industrial machine to lock in growth and when foreign companies are joining the party, the naxalites are clashing with the mining and steel companies essential for India's long-term success.

Capitalism exposed

by Chris Mcgreal, 26 February 2010, Frontline

After the gun culture and the Iraq war, Michael Moore is now taking on an entire political and economic system in his latest documentary.

So what message does the man who once planned to become a priest have? "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy".

Capitalism : a Love story seems the natural culmination of all his other films, an overarching look at the insidious control of Wall Street and corporate interests over politics and lives. Its timing is exquisite, coming in the wake of the biggest financial collapse in living memory.

Violence or Non-Violence?

by Satya Sagar, 10 Jan 2010, Frontier

The reason why the Maoists get so much play from the government and national media is precisely because of their regular use and explicit promotion of armed action as a means to further their cause. The same national political elite and media that calls on the Maoists to enter the mainstream, abjure violence and work within the framework of the Indian Constitution, would not pay any attention to their demands at all if the latter really give up the gun.

Just look around India right now and there are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of social activists and groups working peacefully and democratically on a range of important issues for many years. There are movements against forced displacement, struggles for land and forest rights, education and health facilities or the rights of oppressed castes and ethnic minorities – some of them successful, many of them not so. All are dismissed by those in power as not 'threatening enough' to be taken seriously. Ironically or deliberately, for all its official abhorrence of violent means, the Indian State and its faithful media are promoting the perverse idea that 'if you want to be heard, you have to use the gun'.