A visit to the hill districts of Dailekh, Kalikot and Jumla in west Nepal in February 2003, three weeks after the declaration of the ceasefire between government and Maoist forces, reveals that the much-touted female involvement in the Maoist movement is ethically problematic for the Communist Party
India lives in its villages, so people say, though the headfirst rush towards urban centres of recent decades has been uprooting the rural landscape. An ongoing migration to cities continues
The recent formation of a government in Sindh involved hectic manipulations by Islamabad and low connivance at the provincial level. Out of the ensuing muddle of volatile and unstable alliances emerged a 31-year-old chief minister with little clout, a 38-year-old governor who just returned to Pakist
At half past noon on 8 January, the originals of Raja Harishchandra, Battleship Potemkin and Achhut Kanya were lost in a nitrate oxide-fuelled inferno in Pune.
Sri Lanka's 14 months of ceasefire have brought monumental changes in the lives of Tamils in the north and east. Challenges remain - both at the political level as well as at ground-level reality - but the foundation for a sustainable peace on the island has been laid. Some impressions of what Jaffa
In mid-December, Amnesty International (AI) released a report holding state security forces accountable for the wide use of summary execution, torture and disappearance in the past year; Al also questioned
Indian Tamils, Ceylonese Tamils, working class Tamils, middle class Tamils... the 'Indians' in Malaysia live in a divided house. Many are poor and will remain so.
Being taken captive with considerable hospitality by would-be émigrés, taking a boat ride up the swollen Ganga delta, and touring Dhaka's richest neighbourhood prove that travel in Bangladesh will be many things, but never a bore.
