Stories written by Sanjay Suri
Sanjay Suri has been chief editor since December 2009. He was earlier editor for the Europe and Mediterranean region since 2002. His responsibilities through this period included coverage of the Iraq invasion and the conditions there since. Some other major developments he has covered include the Lebanon war and continuing conflicts in the Middle East. He has also written for IPS through the period on issues of rights and development.
Prior to joining IPS, Sanjay was Europe editor for the Indo-Asian News Service, covering developments in Europe of interest to South Asian readers, and correspondent for the Outlook weekly magazine. Assignments included coverage of the 9/11 attacks from New York and Washington. Before taking on that assignment in 1990, he was with the Indian Express newspaper in Delhi, as sub-editor, chief sub-editor, crime correspondent, chief reporter and then political correspondent.
Reporting assignments through this period included coverage of terrorism and rights in Punjab and Delhi, including Operation Bluestar in Amritsar, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the rioting that followed. This led to legal challenge to several ruling party leaders and depositions in inquiry commissions. Other assignments have included reporting on cases of blindings in Rajasthan, and the abuse of children in Tihar jail in Delhi, one of the biggest prisons in India. That report was taken as a petition by the Supreme Court, which then ordered lasting reforms in the prison system.
Sanjay has an M.A. in English literature from the University of Delhi, followed by a second master’s degree in social and organisational psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has also completed media studies at Stanford University in California. Sanjay is author of ‘Brideless in Wembley’, an account of the immigration experiences of Indians in Britain.
It is with too much ease that we all sometimes use the word 'revolution'. Because all too often the change being championed is one that too many others simply do not notice. But that isn't the case here: the change pushed for at the G8 summit in Italy, and at other such forums, is no less than revolutionary, and can only be seen as historic.
There is a reason that eight and five do not add up to 13 when it comes to the G8. And it is not just that the five developing countries that now attend the summit of the eight mighty ones as a matter of course are less rich. It's because they have their own way to go, and parallel with the G8 meet, their own summit to attend.
The underside of the global economic recession is a worldwide repression of rights, Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan warned Thursday at the launch of the human rights group's 2009 report.
It seemed like a lot of money at the time. The leaders of the group of eight richest countries, the G8, met in Gleneagles in Scotland and announced 50 billion dollars in new aid, half of that for Africa and half for the rest of the world.
The ease with which leaders spoke of trillions of dollars at the G20 summit in London Thursday was no doubt intended to signal to the world just how serious leaders are about getting the economy right again. That these fabulous figures may never add up is another matter.
There is on the face of it a fairness in the language hanging over the G20 summit that is quite seductive. "A global crisis requires a global solution," everyone who matters seems to be saying, at least towards the richer end of the G20 spectrum. Such talk is getting louder by the day as heads of state and government head for a meeting in London Thursday to address the global economic crisis.
If the draft declaration of the G20 meeting in London is anything to go by, the most specific outcome of this summit is that there will be another one later in the year.
Governments made their pledges over the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000, but it is civil society that could, more than anyone else, hold them to that promise. Salil Shetty, a civil society man coming as the head of ActionAid to head the UN millennium campaign, believes civil society has moved in from the margins; it is now at the heart of the world campaign for delivering these, and other rights.
This time, more than in years before, Christmas is so much more about Santa Claus than about Jesus Christ. Santa has after all, the power to move markets in ways that poor Jesus never contemplated.
The older the democracy, the less there seems to be now of freedom of expression and right to information, according to a new study by the London-based group Article 19.
Better crops on the one hand, and nuclear power on the other might be, you would think, at extreme ends of the technological, and for some, even the moral spectrum. But it could be time to make agriculture more nuclear.
The cynics do not exactly have a pleasant surprise waiting for them, but there are indications that the Accra Agenda for Action could be leading to the beginning of some action on gender equality in aid.
Forget all those Gross Domestic Product rankings for a moment. Think, as a new survey in Africa sets out, of ranking countries by how friendly they are to children.
It is rather obvious that women are about half the population; it's just as obvious that in underdeveloped places they carry more than half their share of the burden. So how much of development aid gets to women? The unfortunate answer to that question is another question: who knows.
For every one in 50 people around the world to make a point of standing up somewhere on the planet to say the same kind of thing adds up to a lot of people. More than any mass mobilisation on any issue ever before.
Millions are being called to quite literally stand up for their rights in a global day of action against poverty Friday this week. The organisers are hoping that this simultaneous protest will be a step to collective power.
Medical reports seen by IPS appear to confirm the testimony of IPS Gaza correspondent Mohammed Omer of physical abuse at the hands of Israelis last month.