violence

 Thousands of indigenous people were left homeless as their shanty houses were burnt to ashes on February 19th and 20th. In the attacks, committed by members of the majority Bengali speaking population in the presence of law enforcers, two people including a woman were killed and more than 50 injured, while 357 houses were set ablaze across 11 villages.

I've been travelling in South Asia for the past week or so and have recently been discussing women's rights and situations with a female relative.  She was quite pessimistic about anything changing any time soon.  But she agreed that things have changed generation to generation and will continue to do so.

As such, I found this story about several girls (women?) taking it upon themselves to beat the %hit out of someone committing sexual assault on the plane quite good.  It's an Indigo Air flight from Bombay to Jaipur, if you're curious.

A few weeks back, in a meeting with a political advisor of a bilateral development organization, I discovered a new phrase ‘discipline in violence’. He used the phrase while talking about the unruliness and fundamentalism within the state security apparatus. The phrase hit me – I wasn’t sure how there can be discipline in violence; in my mind an image of a methodical violent person emerged. I also thought about well organized acts of violence, something along planned ethnic cleansing or systemic violence against women on grounds of morality.

Tehelka offers an in depth look with multiple perspectives on the state violence in Lalgarh, West Bengal, and its implications.  Among the most disturbing aspects of what they write about is how the release of anyone remotely accused of Maoism, whether or not there is any truth to the notion, is increasingly politically verboten.  Coming on the heels of the much belated release of Binayak Sen and the announcement of a very large escalation of the Indian government's attempts to eliminate 'Maoism', it seems to me that the silent war on the poor and disempowered has shifte

Riots in Birmingham between the English Defence League and people who don't like English fascism (h/t to Pickled Politics):

Published apology in the Daily Star.  Those of us who have national allegiances could take notes on this:

We reject the Pakistani state and army's claim that these atrocities were committed in our name.