Kashmir-Troops open fire on 500 protesting at power plant

Resistance to the brutal Indian state and its imperialist allies continues, in all sections of the country, from the factories of Mumbai, to the forests of  Orissa, to the mountainous regions of  Kashmir and Jammu, where its peoples are fighting for self determination. This article is from Al Jazeera.

Kashmir Power Cut Protest Turns Deadly

“At least one person killed when Indian troops open fire on protesters angered by electricity outages in winter weather.”

January 3, 2012

Troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir have opened fire on hundreds of villagers who were protesting against frequent power cuts, killing one person and injuring two others, police said.

One More Reason for Revolution: Sex Trade in South Asia

“In cross border trafficking, India is a sending, receiving and transit nation. Receiving children from Bangladesh and Nepal and sending women and children to Middle Eastern nations is a daily occurrence.”

“There are more than 400,000 child prostitutes in India.”

“About 5,000-7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked to India every day. 100,000-160,000 Nepalese girls are prostituted in brothels in India.  About 45,000 Nepalese girls are in the brothels of Mumbai  and 40,000 in Kolkata.  Many of the girls are barely 9 or 10 years old.

“Around 200,000 to 250,000 Nepalese women and girls are already in Indian brothels. The girls are sold by poor parents, tricked into fraudulent marriages, or promised employment in towns finally to end up in Indian brothels. They’re locked up for days, starved, beaten and burned with cigarettes until they learn how to serve up to 25 clients a day.”

Trafficking in Asia accounts for a large share of the global volume of trafficked women and children.  In the last two decades, the number of trafficked women and children in Asia has increased alarmingly.

South Asia is considered the most vulnerable region for trafficking because of its large population, large-scale rural-urban migration, bitter poverty and recurrent natural disasters causing widespread desperation.

Women and children are sold, traded, exchanged for sexual slavery and prostitution, and bonded labour across borders, such as from Bangladesh to India, Pakistan, and the Middle East; from Nepal to India; from Burma to Thailand; from Vietnam to Kampuchea; and from the Philippines to Japan.

This article was published by Bangladesh Online  Weeklyblitz.net.

South Asian Women and Children in Danger

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

According to regional media, 27,000 Bangladeshi women and children have been forced into prostitution in Indian brothels only during 1997. Bangladesh and Nepal are the main sources of trafficked children in south Asia, while women from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal are regularly trafficked to Indian and Arab brothels.

Basanta: The Volcano of Revolution in South Asia Today

The Maoist revolution has made a major forward leap — after the initiation of people’s war in Nepal in 1996 and the merger of two major revolutionary streams to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist), in 2004.

The Nepalese people’s revolution has now reached to the threshold of seizing central political power.

In the present era, the proletarian revolution does not remain a phenomenon merely of a single country.

South Asia is becoming a front of collision between two fronts: one formed of the proletariat and their class allies national and international and other alliance formed of the imperialists and their lackeys from the individual countries. A new world in South Asia is now gestating in the womb of this contradiction.

The victory of revolution in South Asia will have a far-reaching implication and become a harbinger to spread the flames of revolution all across the world.

On the other, its defeat will result in a complete demoralisation of the people not only of this region but those all across the globe. In this situation, a strong solidarity to the revolution in South Asia is the need of the day.

The following talk was given on July 2, in Istanbul, during the European Social Forum’s seminar on South Asia’s revolutions.

By Basanta (Indra Mohan Sigdel)
member, Politburo of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Dear comrades and delegates, revolutionary greetings!

I would like to take this opportunity to extend our revolutionary salutation on behalf of our party, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), to the organiser, the European Social Forum, who invited our party to attend this august programme in Istanbul, Turkey.

In addition, I would like to extend our revolutionary greetings to the entire delegates participating in this seminar. I feel honoured to be here with all the delegates from around the world.

But, more than that I would like to utilise this opportunity to share experiences that the working class all across the world has gathered through their valiant struggles against imperialism and its anti-people and neo-colonial policies like privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation, and as well the ruling classes subservient to it.

Discontent Rising Among Youth in Pakistan

Over 70% of Pakistanis work in the informal sector

Countercurrents, December 9, 2009

Report Documents Widespread Frustration, Alienation Of Pakistan’s Youth

by Ali Ismail, WSWS

A new report commissioned by the British Council reveals widespread dissatisfaction and frustration among Pakistani youth. Based on interviews with 1,500 18-29 year-olds from across Pakistan, the report also sheds light on the bleak socio-economic prospects facing the vast majority of young people due to unemployment and underemployment and the lack of basic public services, including quality schooling.

The report warns that unless Pakistan drastically increases access to education and creates millions of new jobs for its young people, social and political upheavals are almost inevitable in coming years.

Currently, Pakistan’s official unemployment rate is about 8 percent, but over 70 percent are employed in the informal sector, where basic labor standards do not apply. The report found that among men who have left school, only 22 percent have full-time jobs. About one-fifth describe themselves as unemployed and most of the rest have unstable jobs. Among women, only 6 percent have a job and the vast majority of the rest describe themselves as housewives.

War of Terror in Pakistan: Interview with Saadia Toor

A War of Terror in Pakistan: Interview with Saadia Toor

by Ashley Smith, MRzine, October 27, 2009

Saadia Toor is an assistant professor at Staten Island College, author of a forthcoming book on Pakistan from Pluto Press, and part of the group Action for a Progressive Pakistan.

The Pakistani Army has launched a major offensive against Taliban forces in the province of Waziristan.  What is behind this assault, and what impact will it have on the people there?

The Army had been warning ever since it attacked in Swat earlier this year that its next move would be in South Waziristan.  This area is incredibly undeveloped and has become a stronghold of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (or TTP), which had been led by Baitullah Mehsud until he was killed in drone attack conducted by the U.S. earlier this year

In the run-up to this assault, there was a series of attacks and suicide attacks on state facilities across Pakistan as a warning to the Army to back off from the incursion.  The TTP took responsibility for most of these.

However, under a lot of pressure from the U.S., and with full U.S. military support, the Pakistani Army has unleashed its terror in South Waziristan.

Just as we witnessed in Swat, the Army is causing another humanitarian catastrophe.  It has already driven 150,000 people from the area, and experts estimate that at least 250,000 people — over half the population — will be forced to flee from the fighting.  The government has stated that it is not going to make any arrangements to accommodate the refugees, because they supposedly all have families they can stay with!