Stories about South Asia from March, 2013
Majority Religion In A Country Is A Curse
Sri Lankan blogger Patta Pal Boru opines that the majority religion in a country is a curse as the simple weight of the established religion (inertia) gets people thinking about...
Dear Xenophobic Policeman, Fancy a Drink?
Blogger Mizohican from Mizoram, India has invited a Mumbai police officer who mistook him for a Nepali and used a xenophobic slur at him for drinks to talk things out.
Maldives Rape Victim's Flogging Sentence Touches Off Anti-Tourism Campaign
Global outrage is growing against a Maldives court's verdict to flog a 15-year-old girl who is originally a victim of rape and sexual abuse. More than one million people have signed a petition created by the campaign website Avaaz.org, urging Maldivian authorities to protect the girl.
Google's Bangladeshi Independence Doodle
Aminul Islam Sajib reports that Google featured Bangladeshi National Flag as a Doodle on the occasion of the Independence Day of Bangladesh (26th March, 1971) which was a long time...
Can India Win The Fight Against Tuberculosis?
24th March is observed as World Tuberculosis Day and this year, the various stakeholders dedicated to fight tuberculosis - government agencies, the medical community, NGOs and health activists, took time out to take stock of how India was faring in it's fight against the dreaded disease.
Nepal’s Politics in Crisis Once Again
Nepal’s political parties have again failed to respect the people's mandate to elect a prime minister and instead have installed Chief Justice (CJ) Khila Raj Regmi as the head executive...
Fixing Taps to Save Water In India
Author and painter Aabid Surti may have won awards for his writing and art, but he has also made a mark in another field: water conservation. For the last seven years, the 77-year-old has spent his Sundays going to apartments in Mumbai, and volunteering to fix leaking taps.
Strike On Facebook Protesting Strikes
In recent months continuous strikes (Hartal) by political parties have paralyzed Bangladesh. A number of Facebook users have had enough and called for a Facebook strike on 23rd of March...
Hardline Buddhists Drive Sri Lanka to Drop Muslim Halal Labeling
Religious tensions in Sri Lanka are on the rise after Islamic clerics facing massive protests from militant Buddhists put an end to the island's widespread halal food labeling system.
Brides Traded In India As Sex Commodities
The blog on India's Gendercide posts a video which shows shocking stats of bride trafficking, the Indian version of domestic sex-trafficking.
Jailed For Exposing Moral Policing, Indian TV Reporter Gets Bail
Television journalist Naveen Soorinje, who was arrested on November 7, 2012 after exposing a shocking incident of moral policing and assault on a group of young men and women by members of a far right-wing fringe group in Mangalore, India, was finally granted bail yesterday by the Karnataka High Court.
Revenge Attacks Target Bangladesh Hindus for Islamist Leader's Death Sentence
Bangladesh's Hindus have come under attack as Islamists, angry over the death sentence handed down to top Jamaat-e-Islami party leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi by a special war crimes tribunal, engage in a fiery rampage nationwide.
Parveen Rehman Killed, Pakistan's Largest Slum Loses its Guardian Angel
Parveen Rehman, a leading social worker in Pakistan was shot dead close to the country's largest slum Orangi, in Karachi were she had worked tirelessly for three decades. A trained architect, Parveen documented land in the ever-growing city to protect it from Karachi's notorious land mafia, who she had been receiving death threats from for years.
Angry Mob Torches Christian Neighbourhood in Pakistan
Riled by blasphemy charges, a Muslim mob of 3,000, torched 100 houses in Joseph Colony, a largely Christian neighbourhood in Pakistan's second largest city Lahore, on Saturday, March 9, 2013.
Indian Censor Board Restricts Papilio Buddha, A Gandhi Critic Movie
Papilio Buddha, a Malaylam language feature film, had initially been banned by the Indian censor board for defaming the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi until it got cleared for screening with the “adult” certification. Netizens question the decision of the censor board and the underlying reason.
TV Journalist Attacked In Maldives
Ibrahim ‘Aswad’ Waheed, Head of News of Raaje TV, an independent television channel, was attacked by unidentified persons recently in the Maldivian capital Male. Maldivian journalists joined in protests demanding...
The State of Torture in the World in 2013
On January 23, 2013, an excerpt from the annual report of l'ACAT-France, A World of Torture 2013, makes a fresh assessment of the state of torture in the world [fr]:...
How India Should Approach Website Blocking
In recent months blocking of urls has been much debated in India. Nikhil Pahwa at MediaNama, who is not fond of blocking content on the Internet, suggests how India should...
All About Social Curation
Gaurav Mishra explains social curation and describes how Media, organizations and brands can curate contents to drive social engagement.
Changing Attitudes on Child Marriage in India
In rural India, two out of five girls are child brides. Though Indian law has made child marriage illegal, girls and boys bonded by traditional social norms and values are most likely to get married early defying the legislations. But the situation is changing as a number of women, who had been married as children, are speaking out against child marriage.