Conflict

Humanitarian medical aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has stopped its mental health services in Kashmir due to increasing violence and a round-the-clock curfew. Kashmir has been rocked by public protests for the last three months. MSF teams have had no access to the hospitals to continue conducting the counselling sessions in view of the strict curfew is in place in several parts of Jammu and Kashmir state for close to a week. No person without a valid curfew pass is allowed...

Two leading organisations have signed a memorandum of understanding to ensure a better protection of the Virunga National Park, a World Heritage site in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The agreement, between UN-HABITAT and WWF, marks the first time the two agencies with different mandates have joined hands in an effort to pursue the same goal of recognising their mutual interest in the management of the Virunga National Park, and other protected areas. The two organisations will...

When it comes to Kashmir, you need to reconcile yourself to a few facts. First, you know as little about the goings-on there as the Indian news media condescends to tell you. And second, you know as much about the happenings there as you delve through alternative sources for news. And a corollary to the first would be that you believe as much rubbish as media wants you to. If you thought from the coverage both in the print and broadcast media that Kashmir was finally in the news, well, here’s...

It's the kind of news item that tends to get buried under others of heavier national importance; for it hardly has any news value that any journalist worth one's salt would ascribe to it. This particular news item one read was about 36 former militants being appointed on Saturday as constables in the Jammu and Kashmir police. No big deal, that. In any case, nothing new about such a measure either. It is not the news item in itself that is a cause for worry – reading between its lines is, and...

In July I received a mail from a journalist who wanted to pitch me an interesting story idea from Kashmir. The mail was directed to an account I hardly check. Not that it would have made much difference since Newswatch carries only content that has something to do with the news media. I gather she pitched the story to many publications. The story, let me tell you, never saw the light of day anywhere in this country where Kashmir is such an emotively jingoistic issue. Close to a month later, the...

Subir Ghosh: The issue of issue of unity among the Nagas is one of the most written-about subjects. I have raised the issue of the surrenders in 1973 and 1975. Then there was the Phizo-Sakhrie conflict. Do you think such dissension has affected the Naga cause? Thuingaleng Muivah: The question of unity is everywhere in all struggles. It is unavoidable. We believe in revolutionary philosophy. It is through contradictions that the realities are revealed and straightened out. It is not peculiar to...

Subir Ghosh: The birth of Naga nationalism is seen by many as the submision of a memorandum to the Simon Commission in 1929. Do you agree that the formation of the Naga Club was the first concrete step towards Naga nationalism? Thuingaleng Muivah: It would be a serious mistake if one thinks that the submission of a memorandum to the Simon Commission in 1929 was the birth of Naga nationalism. The Nagas' history did not start with this incident. Alien forces in the past had met with stiff...

Subir Ghosh: The Kuki-Naga clash will never end it seems. What do you think your role is in this context? What is your assessment of this issue? Thuingaleng Muivah: The so-called Kuki-Naga clash is a pure and simple creation of the Indian government. It is an utterly miscalculated venture since the sole motive behind it is to make the Kukis fight against the Nagas. What a proxy war! But, expecting what? And, from whom? However, most of the Indian Press took sides with the Kukis and ran...

Man, if you are stressed out, you can easily go and rape and practically get away with it these days. No, not by hoodwinking the law, or by finding ways to cirumvent the system. In fact, the law will be on your side and be pretty sympathetic too. A US soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy has been given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others. James Michael Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian...

The frantic air-dashes by Union home ministry officials to Assam is telling. The possibility of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence fishing in the troubled demographic waters of the state is not a mere bogey any more. What was an impending threat only a few years back is now a reality. What was a pernicious pathogen till yesterday, has today infected the host and spread to such an extent that its debilitating effects are already beginning to show. The days of crying wolf for politicians are...