- News source:
- 8 March 2010
- Nepalnews.com
The political standing of women has “improved” in Nepal in comparison to many countries in Asia and the Pacific where works are being done to enhance women’s participation in politics, according to a new Asia Pacific Human Development Report on Gender.
“The political voice of women has improved in Nepal with the recent secured 1/3 quota in the Constituent Assembly. In comparison, only about 1/3 of countries in Asia and the Pacific have quota systems to enhance women’s participation in politics,” says the report titled, “Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific” launched on the occasion of International Women’s Day in the capital on Monday.
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- News source:
- 8 March 2010
- IPS
- By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI – With assured backing from India’s main opposition groups, the ruling Congress party hopes to see voted through in the upper house of Parliament Monday a bill reserving 33 percent of seats in national and provincial legislatures for women.
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- News source:
- updated 25 February 2010
- New America Foundation
- By Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann
This research was last updated on February 25, 2010. For a full analysis of the repercussions and results of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, please click here for “The Year of the Drone,” by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, February 24, 2010.
The research on these pages… draws only on accounts from reliable media organizations with deep reporting capabilities in Pakistan, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, accounts by major news services and networks—the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, and the BBC—and reports in the leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan—the Daily Times, Dawn, and the News—as well as those from Geo TV, the largest independent Pakistani television network.
Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 18 in 2010, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 834 and 1,216 individuals, of whom around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent.
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- News source:
- 19 February 2010
- AFP
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka said Friday it plans to release all detained Tamil Tiger child soldiers by the end of May and re-unite them with their families.
Government forces defeated the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May last year, ending their 37-year fight for a Tamil homeland in the north of the country.
Over 500 child soldiers surrendered to the army and were produced before a court before being enlisted in a one-year rehabilitation programme.
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- News source:
- 12 February 2010
- Radio Australia
- By David Chen with Vijay Anand, president, 5th Pillar; Anupama Jha, executive director, Transparency International India
For many Indians, bribing corrupt officials is a way of life. Last year, international corruption watchdog Transparency International said almost four million Indian families had to bribe officials for access to basic services. India also dropped in Transparency’s corruption index from 72nd to 85th in a list of 180 countries. now Indians are fighting corruption using a novel idea – the zero rupee.
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- News source:
- 8 February 2010
- VOA
- By Steve Herman | New Delhi
Nepal has discharged all of the under-aged combatants from the army of the former Maoist rebels. That is being hailed as the closing of a critical chapter for the peace process in the poor, landlocked country between China and India.
More than 200 former child soldiers boarded buses in the rugged highlands of mid-western Nepal for a ride back into civilian life.
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- News source:
- The Cooperative
- By Andrew Hinton
Two-thirds of India’s population of a billion people live in the nation’s 800,000 villages. Despite India’s economic growth, the disparities between wealth and poverty are huge. Many villagers migrate to the cities in search of work and end up begging on the streets. South Indian bank manager J S Parthiban set out to do something to help their economic circumstances. He encouraged beggars to open bank accounts in New Delhi, and pioneered micro-loans to villagers in his home state of Tamil Nadu…. see 3 minute film
- News source:
- 7 January 2010
- BBC
Thousands of former Maoist child soldiers in Nepal have begun leaving camps for ex-rebels where they have been held since a 2006 peace accord.
Some 200 young men and women were freed at a ceremony in central Nepal.
The children have been in UN-monitored camps with other ex-rebels. The release is a key part of the peace process.
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- News source:
- originally published 22 December 2009
- IPS
- By Daksha Warty
RANMALA, India – The villages of Ranmala, Nandagane, Shirgaon and Mengdewadi, in Pune, Sangli and Satara districts, western India, have one thing in common.
They are all headed by female sarpanches (village chiefs), and what a difference it has made.
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- News source:
- 24 December 2009
- REPUBLICA
KATHMANDU – The European Union in a press statement on Thursday has said that it would like to continue being “deeply engaged†in Nepal and is always “eager to support the existing partnership.†The EU also pledged a “renewed support†to the Nepal government in its ongoing endeavors to write a new constitution and ensure peace and stability.
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- News source:
- 21 December 2009
- UN Dispatch
- By Alanna Shaikh
Scientific American has a cheery article on up their website right now, estimating the global impact of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. The result: sunlight is reduced, the planet cools, and the growing season shortens. Drought ensues. The ozone layer erodes. Global agriculture is decimated.
Aside from the way it will haunt your nightmares, it’s a very interesting article. It brings up come points that we all tend to forget…
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- News source:
- 16 December 2009
- UN News Centre
The United Nations, the Nepalese Government and Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) today signed an action plan to accelerate the release of nearly 3,000 child soldiers who served in the Maoist army during the country’s decade-long civil war and remain in temporary camps three years after a peace deal ended the conflict.
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- News source:
- 16 December 2009
- Morung Express
- By Suhasini Haidar
Opportunities, says ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, multiply as they are seized. A leader doesn’t just make things happen, he is able to see when destiny beckons and the stars are lined up in the right constellation. Then the opportunity for resolution and a chance to change the course of history presents itself.
As the shots hit Hurriyat leader Fazl Haq Qureshi coming out of a mosque in Srinagar this month, but missed their mark in stopping the dialogue process between the Hurriyat and the Centre, it was one more indicator that the opportunity for a resolution in Jammu and Kashmir is presenting itself. A window of rare opportunity to break a twenty-year-old cycle of violence that must be seized.
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- News source:
- 14 December 2009
- Reuters AlertNet Blogs
- By Saleemul Huq
I have been working on climate change for many years, first as a researcher in my native Bangladesh and later as head of the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development, and as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
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- News source:
- 7 December 2009
- Republica
- By DR HARI BANSHA DULAL
Sumit Sharma Sameer, in Unfinished Journey: A Story of a Nation, provides a good overview of hope, anxiety, and frustration of the young generation clamoring for meaningful and viable change in Nepal. From evolution of the state to faltering of the peace process, it tries to capture the lapses on part of the political parties to translate opportunities into actions. Sameer raises an interesting question about armed movements’ ability to actually free people. Do they really liberate people?
Armed movements never free people. Like in the case of Nepal, it elevates the stature of those that initiate them, but society as a whole, is caught in an endless, and to a large extent, needless rebellion.
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- News source:
- 23-29 November 2009
- TRANSCENT Media Service
- By Jake Lynch
The news that the Government of Sri Lanka is to close the internment camps where thousands of Tamils were illegally detained, following the end of the country’s civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels six months ago, is testimony to the effect of international pressure.
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- News source:
- 16 November 2009
- The Moderate Voice
- By Ziad Haider | Guest post
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent three-day visit to Islamabad and Lahore highlighted the ongoing challenge of conducting diplomacy in Pakistan. For a nation whose partnership is vital to U.S. security, the fact that 64% of Pakistanis view the U.S. as an enemy represents no small problem. As the White House reassesses its “Af-Pak†strategy, it is important to clearly define U.S. interests in Pakistan and to chart a new course in US-Pakistani relations that places a greater emphasis on diplomacy.
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- News source:
- 22 October 2009
- Pambazuka News
- By Yash Tandon interviewed by Pambazuka News
In an interview with Pambazuka News, Yash Tandon discusses the problems of ‘development aid’, his differences with Dambisa Moyo’s arguments in ‘Dead Aid’, the importance of Southern countries’ right to autonomy and his own book, ‘Ending Aid Dependence’.
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- News source:
- 18 October 2009
- IPS
- By Beena Sarwar
KABUL – ‘Give peace a chance’ may just be another cliché for many, but for women who have suffered the ravages of war, endless strife and other forms of conflict, joining hands to find meaningful solutions to their collective aspiration lends it a whole new meaning.
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