RT @mariamdurrani: Because of a gun threat in school seen on social media, my 8th grader and her friends have decided to stay home. Apparen… Tweeted 2 hours ago
RT @southasiapeace: Resolution: We at Southasia Peace Action Network, Sapan, urge governments in Southasia to work towards convening an off… Tweeted 10 hours ago
RT @SapanNews: Southasia Peace Action Network, Sapan, a group of over 40 organisations and hundreds of individuals from Southasia and the d… Tweeted 10 hours ago
RT @SapanNews: Noted journalists, peace activists and community leaders from across Southasia and the diaspora participated in Sapan's 2nd… Tweeted 10 hours ago
RT @AndrewBuncombe: So, amid the various reports, either looking back to the lies told about Saddam alleged WMD, or else detailing what lif… Tweeted 10 hours ago
RT @AndrewBuncombe: What about the leader of Israel addressing US Congress to denounce the US’s president’s policy of making a deal with Ir… Tweeted 10 hours ago
RT @AndrewBuncombe: The British military keeps a tally; among the 179 is a schoolfriend who joined the Royal Navy, Lt Anthony King, and who… Tweeted 10 hours ago
RT @AndrewBuncombe: So does the Pentagon, along with other Western nations who were part of what was termed “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. When… Tweeted 10 hours ago
RT @AndrewBuncombe: A year before the invasion, US general Tommy Franks, commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), said: “You k… Tweeted 10 hours ago
RT @AndrewBuncombe: One of the many tragedies of the invasion of Iraq launched 20 years ago this month, is that even now we don’t know how… Tweeted 10 hours ago
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RT @SapanNews: Acclaimed Canadian journalist Lyse Doucet OBE, OC was honoured by Southasia Peace Action Network (Sapan) for her courage and… Tweeted 1 day ago
Finding ‘a way of looking inwards, confronting my own demons, and competing with my own best self”‘
My keynote speech at the first affinity graduation celebration for AAPI – Asian American and Pacific Islander / APIDA: Asian Pacific Islander Desi-American – at Harvard University, 23 May 2022
With my mother Prof. Zakia Sarwar, plus Harvard School of Education graduatesafter the ceremony: Najwa Maqbool and Nishant Singh from India, and Nigel Gray from Sri Lanka.Their families couldn’t make it so we were glad to be there for them. Photo: Lipofskyphoto.com
Beena Sarwar, video and text of speech below. Also published in Sapan News Network
Meant to share this earlier – great discussion last weekend on the rights of the incarcerated in South Asia, organised by Sapan, the South Asia Peace Action Network. Besides human rights advocates and experts, there were testimonies from those who have suffered incarceration, and presentations from Sapan volunteers about prison conditions and best practices in the region. The issues raised are relevant beyond the region. Hope we can keep the momentum going – and we need help to do that. Please like, comment, share and post about this issue that affects all of society. Thank you.
Participants turned on cameras at the end for a group photo. Collage by Aekta Kapoor, eShe magazine.
29 August 2021: “If the government becomes the monster that it can be, then the belly of the beast contains the people in jail”, said Nepali journalist Kanak Mani Dixit, speaking at a regional session on the rights of the incarcerated in South Asia, particularly in light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
He was among the prominent activists, legal experts, concerned citizens, and formerly incarcerated persons across the region who came together online to discuss the issue on Sunday, 29 August 2021, under the umbrella of Sapan, the South Asia Peace Action Network, of which he is a founding member.
Held a day before the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, 30 August, the meeting underlined the need to recognise enforced disappearance as a distinct crime. The recent commemoration of World Humanitarian Day on 19 August also pegged the need for compassion and empathy for vulnerable communities. The tragic situation in Afghanistan further highlights the need for solidarity in the region and to insist on upholding human rights principles.
The event featured gut-wrenching testimonies in various languages from those who have experienced incarceration in the region, including those who were picked up but not produced before the courts for months or years. Those who fill the prisons tend to be the poorest of the poor as many pointed out.
This is a followup report to a piece I did in May about a Pakistani Hindu family that migrated to India but wants to go home to Pakistan, made more desperate after a personal tragedy. This not about patriotism or religion but humanity. p.s. I sent this report to several media houses. It’s been published in The News, NayaDaur, South Asia Monitor,The Wire, Aman Ki Asha, Pakistan Today, Vibes of India, and its Gujrati portal and others. Note the credit at the end — Sapan News. This report may be a soft launch for syndicated service I’ve long dreamt of. Sapan News is linked with the South Asia Peace Action Network, Sapan, recently initiated by some of us. Check it out! Grateful for your support.
A couple of weeks ago, Ajeet Kumar borrowed a car and took his children on a rare outing: Coping with bereavement and desperate to go home. Photo: Supplied.
A Pakistani Hindu stuck in India with three children after his wife died in April is pleading with the authorities to let him return to before Independence Day, August 14.
“Mein TooT gaya huN – I am broken,” says Ajeet Kumar Nagdev, 41, speaking on phone in Urdu from Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh. His wife Rekha Kumari, 38, died on April 22, a day before the last Attari-Wagah border opening. “What can I do? The children break me, but I have to get up and keep going.”
Struggling to look after them, fearful of what will happen if one of them gets sick or if something happens to him, Nagdev feels trapped. He worries about their schooling. They miss their mother.
There have been over 300,000 Covid-related deaths this year in the USA alone, and the numbers are still rising as many deniers refuse to take basic precautions like wearing masks. Asymptomatic carriers — no signs of illness — can be infected and infect others. The second wave is well under way. So many losses.
Here’s a recent oped by pediatricians in the Boston area, pleading for the public to stay home: We’re Pediatricians In A Pandemic. We Shouldn’t Be Taking Care Of Your Grandparents. A new confusing disease they’re seeing is multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, MIS-C. In Karachi, Dr Darayus Gazder at Ziauddin Hospital describes the same thing, seeing children “who post-COVID develop multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which is worse than adult onset COVID” (emphasis mine).
This has been a hard and heavy year. #Gratitude for all we still have. #Hope#Love
Tweet after hearing of another tragedy in the family: Sajid Rizwan Ansari, 36, died in his sleep of a heart attack
So many personal losses this year. Grateful to have spent time with friends and loved ones in Pakistan last winter. Several have since departed this world. There’s sadness also about the departure of some whom I hadn’t seen in years, like my second cousin Khalid Afzal in London, an early victim of Covid-19. In Allahabad, family friend and mentor Comrade Ziaul Haq (Munnan Chacha) passed on in November, joining his wife Dr Rehana who departed a week after his 100th birthday barely a month earlier. My mother’s college friend Inkesar Nawaz died suddenly in Lahore of a heart attack.
Updated screenshot of my piece in Washington Post. Editors replaced the earlier photo after…
…I conveyed the feedback that he doesn’t normally wear a ‘topi’ (religious skull cap) and this photo highlighted religiosity in Pakistan which is not relevant to the topic.
But even if he is granted bail now – after over 100 days of being denied his liberty and that too at a time of Covid — this will be a minor victory achieved at a huge cost, not only for Rahman, but also for media freedom and democracy in Pakistan.
Journeys to democracy 