UCA News Network The US State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices criticized Asian nations for failing to improve human rights situations. Released on Tuesday, the report accused Israeli forces of extrajudicial killings; enforced disappearance; torture, and cruel treatment of people amid the ongoing war with Hamas. China has been accused of genocide for targeting predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang. Impunity for violence and rights abuses by police and militia in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan was cite ..read more

PM Modi with Australian, US and Japanese leaders in 2022 – YashSD/shutterstock.com – Photo: 2024 By Herbert Wulf BONN, Germany | 24 April 2024 (IDN) — India votes. In the world’s largest democracy, with almost a billion voters, parliamentary elections are being held from April 19 to June 1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to be granted a third five-year term, and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can count on an overwhelming majority. The West—the US, the EU, Germany, Japan, Australia and many other countries—are courting the Indian government and vying for India’s partnership, for ..read more

By Matthew B. Arnold It has often been noted that Myanmar’s revolution lacks a single high command and with it no grand strategy. This observation has frequently been used to argue that Myanmar’s revolution is unviable and the military cannot be defeated, with a negotiated settlement the only positive outcome. Centralized instigation and control for Myanmar’s Spring Revolution were never necessary given it emerged as a bottom-up uprising driven by the population at large. New actors emerged and older ones helped carry it forward, but it’s always maintained an ethos of ‘collective leadership ..read more

A student is arrested during a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the University of Texas at Austin on April 24, 2024. Brandon Bell/Getty Images Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, University of New Orleans Interrogations of university leaders spearheaded by conservative congressional representatives. Calls from right-wing senators for troops to intervene in campus demonstrations. Hundreds of student and faculty arrests, with nonviolent dissenters thrown to the ground, tear-gassed and tased. We’ve been here before. In my book “Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America ..read more

Wasantha Rupasinghe : While hundreds of millions of workers and rural poor in India struggle to make ends meet and some two hundred million people suffer from malnourishment, the income share of India’s wealthiest 1 percent has risen to among the highest anywhere in the world. According to the latest World Inequality Database Paper on India, which was published last month under the title “Income and wealth inequality in India 1922-2023,” India’s top 1% now gorge on a larger share of the national income than do their counterparts in many of what have hitherto been considered among the world’s m ..read more

LOKESH BAG Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’ tries to bring the story of the iconic Punjabi singer to the screen, but unfortunately falls short in its exploration of the complex caste and societal issues that shaped Chamkila’s life and legacy. Imtiaz continuously displays the statement “his songs were Ashleel or obscene” on screen. It predisposes the audience against Chamkila and hinders their ability to watch the movie objectively. This portrayal confines Chamkila to a box and steers the audience towards the belief that he was targeted because of his ‘obscene’ songs. Chamkila was more tha ..read more

An Indian shows her identity papers and signs a polling register before casting her vote on April 26 in the southern state of Kerala.   © AP KIRAN SHARMA, Nikkei staff writerApril 26, 2024 15:13 JST NEW DELHI — Indians in 13 states and federally-governed territories started voting Friday in the second phase of the seven-part general election, with all eyes fixed on politically crucial states that will play a key role in the formation of the next government. More than 1,200 candidates are in the fray in this phase, in which nearly 90 of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, the lo ..read more

by Sadia Korobi A shadow of doubt and anxiety hangs over Bangladesh about India’s plans to institute a pan-India National Register of Citizens (NRC). The complex demographics of Bangladesh and its long and porous border with India are at the core of the issue. People frequently travel across to exchange commodities, work informal jobs, and visit family members. The possibility of the NRC’s implementation, however, threatens to upset this balance. While the two countries’ relationship has been characterized by times of harmony and conflict, the relationship seems to be in i ..read more

The arrests of more than a hundred Columbia University students, who were protesting against Israel’s actions in Gaza, shed more light on arguably the most energetic pro-Palestinian movement in the US: the one taking places on college campuses around the country. Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October, in response to terrorist attacks by Hamas, students have launched protests, sit-ins and, most recently, encampments, in a wave they hope will encourage universities to divest from companies which have ties to Israel’s military. How divestment became a ‘clarion c ..read more

Children swim in a pond during a heatwave in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on April 17. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman / AFP) By Emran Hossain Poultry farm owner Salauddin Bhuiyan Selim closed two of three farms each containing about 1,000 birds last week in Narayanganj district near Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. The unfortunate closures came as the owner of the Bhuiyan Agro farm found birds dying one after another as a deadly heatwave hit Bangladesh. Across the South Asian nation known for its humid and warm climate influenced by the monsoon, temperatures have hovered between 36-42 degrees C ..read more