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.
Parents call it the strawberry coloured nightmare. In the suburbs of Cape Town in South Africa they call it 'tik'. Something that mimics the effect of adrenalin. The news feature on 'tik' explores its dangerous spread, interviewing parents and others who talk about the devastation this addiction is bringing to homes and lives. 'Tik' is coloured pink, we learn, to make it more attractive to teenagers.
While the big debate continues about oil prices, the alternatives to oil and the development of biofuels, scattered groups are finding new successes in generating all the energy they need, doing it cleanly - and now doing it on an impressive scale.
The annual report of Amnesty International (AI) released Wednesday holds the United States responsible for setting world standards on human rights - and then failing in that task.
With clashing civilisations, as with clashing people, there's one strategy that works: talk your way out of it. Just how is, of course, the more difficult question.
The headlines over suspension of Pakistan from the Commonwealth conceal some of the nuances of this action. The nuances were born of considerable differences that surfaced within the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) that finally took the decision.
Commonwealth ministers warned Pakistani dictator General Pervez Musharraf Monday that Pakistan would face part suspension from the Commonwealth if he did not lift emergency, and all that went with it.
Just about ten cents in a dollar actually counts within the massive figures of U.S. aid to Iraq, according to the Commitment to Development Index released Wednesday.
On the face of it, nothing really 'happened' at the Civicus world assembly, other than the announcement that secretary-general Kumi Naidoo would quit. But that announcement did not need a world assembly. Perhaps the symbolic locking up in a cage to draw attention to civil society activists was something supplied by way of a 'happening'. The rest was, and was expected to be, no more than talk.
When, came the question from a Ugandan delegate at a Civicus world assembly meeting in Glasgow, will the West ever stop giving aid on unequal terms? "We are unequal by the fact that, speaking as a donor, we are providing the funds," said Jan-Petter Holtedahl from the civil society department at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.
That shortcut has been waiting a while, to be used more often. That governments and other donors in the North begin to fund civil society in the South directly, and not route the money through northern NGOs.
It might be an unexpected tribute to Paul Wolfowitz that he departed leaving the World Bank a little more civil society like. It might just happen, going by some suggestions John Garrison, senior civil society specialist with the World Bank, made at the Civicus world assembly in Glasgow Friday.
Some retired engineers in the Pakistani port city Karachi figured they'd had enough of corruption in the awarding of contracts. They found support from the Partnership for Transparency Fund, no more then 23,000 dollars, to do no more than watch a process of awarding of contracts in a 100 million dollar project of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board.
Some retired engineers in the Pakistani port city Karachi figured they'd had enough of corruption in the awarding of contracts. They found support from the Partnership for Transparency Fund, no more then 23,000 dollars, to do no more than watch a process of awarding of contracts in a 100 million dollar project of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board.
New defence is being considered for defenders of civil society rights by the nearly 1,000 participants in the Civicus world assembly under way in Glasgow this week.
Long word, "accountability". Been around a long time as well. Why then, Civicus secretary-general Kumi Naidoo asked at the opening plenary of the Civicus World Assembly in Glasgow, is it only now becoming current?
That boring old truism, that people are judged by the company they keep, must be true also of leaders. Because that is where outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair hit his tragic flaw - he kept rather close company with U.S. President George W. Bush.
The photographers clicked madly away when Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland sat down at the same end of the table as Gerry Adams, leader of the Sinn Fein party in a new power sharing agreement.
Military forces from Western powers are fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, but it is the policies of these very governments that is boosting the Taliban, going by several indications over recent days.