UN Says Kyrgyz Journalist Should be Freed

On a recent morning in Bazar-Korgon, southern Kyrgyzstan, Khadicha Askarova was giving hasty instructions to her daughter about what needed to be packed.

Afghan Schools Left Unprotected by Government & International Community

Attacks on Afghan schools tripled between 2017 and 2018, according to a UNICEF report released last week: from 68 attacks to 192 in 2018. This figure seems unlikely to decrease as the Afghan government prepares to use schools once again for political activity in the upcoming election.

What Standardised Testing Doesn’t Tell Us About Learning

When we look at learning outcomes for children, we only look at standardised tests, ignoring any indigenous knowledge, language, or problem solving strategies they might have.

India’s Most Significant Innovations Have Roots in Civil Society

When we look at some of the things we take for granted in India today, there is a common thread to all of them. Every single one. They all originated from civil society.

Modi Cruises with Ease as Prime Minister of India for a Second Term

The boy who sold tea at railway platforms for a living has become the Prime Minister of world’s largest democracy for the second time. Narendra Dhamodaradas Modi, incumbent Prime Minister and leader of the BJP secured a second chance to be the Prime Minister at Indian elections which took place recently. The election was perhaps the largest held in any part of the world with 39 days of polling and involving as many as 900 million voters.

The New Face of Activism: Youth

Rather than waiting for adults to act, more young girls and boys are standing up and speaking out on the world’s pressing issues.

Modernity Triumphs over Feudalism in India

“We worked for the poor and they voted us back to power,” was the explanation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi made to newly-elected legislators on Saturday, May 25, on the spectacular win scored by his nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India’s just concluded general elections.

Does God Hate Women? A Bangladeshi Murder Case

On 6 April, nineteen-year-old Nusrat Jahan Rafi was by a fellow student brought to the roof of their school. She told Nusrat that a friend of hers was beaten up there. Unknown to Nusrat, Moni who was four months pregnant at the time, had earlier bought burqas and gloves for three of the men who were awaiting them on the roof. Another girl, Umma, was already there beckoning Nusrat to come up. However, when Nusrat entered the roof Umma threw her down and tied her legs. The burqa-dressed men surrounded the defenseless Nusrat, demanding her to withdraw accusations of sexual harassment against the schools´headmaster. When Nusrat refused to give in, one of the men held her head down, while another poured kerosene over her and set her on fire.

As Fathers Die, Kashmir’s Children Become Breadwinners

Mubeen Ahmad was nine years old when his mother sold him into service to a mechanic for the petty sum of few thousand Indian rupees. His mother had found it hard to support the family after his father, a labourer, was killed during one of the anti-India protests in Jammu and Kashmir in 2008.

Rural Education: Moving Past “Poor Solutions for Poor People”

Communities are treated as passive recipients, giving them no say in the functioning of their schools. Here's why this needs to change.

Want Social Change? Give Communities More Agency

No external force can bring about real change in society. Only the community itself can.

Massacre of the Innocents: Whereto from Here?

We have been here before. This blooded precipice is familiar, this looming abyss. What is unfamiliar, what renders the Easter Sunday massacre most vile and truly nightmarish is the total absence of any knowable rationality.

Muslim Terrorists Heading Towards a Jihadist Hell Hole

The history of terrorism in Sri Lanka reveals a clear pattern. The first to take up arms in the post-Independent era were the misguided Sinhala youth. They were educated youth desperately running in search of a quick solution to establish their classless paradise. Their violence did not take them anywhere.

Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Carnage: Quo Vadis?

I returned from attending a three-hour Easter Sunday mass at the Fordham University Church around midnight New York time on April 20, 2019, when my phone rang and a colleague asked me what’s going on in Sri Lanka? I said what is going on? He said there were a series of coordinated terrorist bombings with multiple fatalities and scores of injuries in my native country. For the next four and a half hours I was on the phone trying to piece together what happened, including reaching out to Sri Lanka’s Secretary of Defence Hemasiri Fernando.

Empowering Girls Through Sport

For too long, women and girls have been excluded from the playing field—literally. But now, many are paving the way in the fight against gender inequality through sports.

Climbing the Coconut Value Chain in the Pacific

In the Pacific, coconut is king. Known as the ‘tree of life’, locals make use of every part of the tree to survive – the fruit for eating, husks for fuelling fires, fronds for making multiuse baskets, and the trunk for building houses.

Lessons From China: Fostering Agricultural Growth and Poverty Reduction

As China has moved from a poor isolated country to a major player in the world economic and political sphere, developing countries need to learn how to engage.  

Pakistan’s Battle Against Climate Change

Pakistan, which has been listed as the 7th most vulnerable country affected by climate change, is now seriously tackling the vagaries of weather, both at the official as well as non-official level. Pursuant to an initiative launched by the Pakistan Parliament’s Upper House, the Senate, which specially entrusted a sub-Committee of the Standing Committee on Climate Change to focus on “Green and Clean” Islamabad, media, civil society and students have taken up the cudgels on combating climate change.

Brunei’s Shariah Code & the New Stone Age

Over a week ago – on April 3 – Brunei, the tiny South East Asian kingdom on the island of Borneo, announced its citizens would face the full force of the Shariah law.

Q&A: 607 Island Atolls Means it’s Hard to Distribute Leprosy Healthcare to All Micronesians

During his 22-year career in the health sector, Marcus Samo has seen the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) suffer from an increased burden of disease while at the same time the resources to address them have either remained the same or decreased.

Missing Data & Inefficient Drug Distribution Tops List of Micronesia’s Leprosy Challenges

It’s a good day for Dexter, a 25-year-old fisherman from Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. He’s just been told that he is cured of leprosy.