situação no Nepal e o interesse da Turquia no Bangladesh

Editorial que escrevi no sexto número da revista Think South Asia, que edito com o apoio do South Asia Democratic Forum:

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Nepal is the country we chose to focus on this time. With about 27 million people and landlocked between India and China, Nepal has in Kathmandu its capital and also the headquarters of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, also known by the acronym SAARC. It is interesting indeed to see Nepal´s recent societal changes, in the common people as in the political elites. After a very good country profile by S. M. Hasan, Dr Siegfried Wolf from Heidelberg tells us more about the possible role of Nepal in regional cooperation, making reference to a very useful survey report South Asia Democratic Forum conducted in Nepal in 2011, in partnership with Gallup Europe. As Mr Malik Saqib Ali says in his article about economic integration, South Asia has 23% of the people in the world, 5% of its soil mass, and only 3% of the world’s total GDP. But as the Chair of SADF’s Board of Advisors, Professor Subrata Mitra, told us in the previous edition of Think South Asia, in 1b.C. 

India was responsible for 33% of the GNP of the whole World. So, there is no doubt South Asia is nowadays the prototype of the land of opportunities. In this number of Think South Asia we publish the 2nd part of the interview, and no one should miss this reading. To read the 1st, part you have to read last December’s edition of Think South Asia: http://sadf.eu/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/thinksouthasia05.pdf

But back to South Asia, by what we can see, it is of major importance to empower an organisation such as SAARC. Nepal can play a role here, but we shall wait for their constitutional elections this Spring in order to 

analyse what we can expect from Nepal in the next years. You can find SADF’s report on Nepal in our website, here: http://sadf.eu/home/2012/04/insightssouth-asia-nepal-survey-2011-results/

As South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF) could not miss the chance to highlight the genocide of Bangladesh in the 70’s, in January we promoted a conference in the French Senate in Paris hosted by Mrs Senator MarieNoëlle Lienemann. Some of the texts about that tragedy are very well presented in this magazine by Mr Paulo Casaca and Mr Modfidul Hoque from the Liberation War Museum of Bangladesh. I must add that on the 23rd of December the President of Turkey Mr Abdullah Gül wrote a letter to the President of Bangladesh Mr Zillur Rahman, asking for clemency to the accused under trial in the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh for the “sake of peace in the society”. This trial begun in order to bring to justice the victims of the biggest genocide that happened after the Holocaust, causing more than 3 million deaths. I personally am against death penalty in each and every case, but this curious intromission of the President of Turkey on behalf of the war criminal Ghulam Azam is something that we must take note and be aware of further developments.

Finally, I should give a last word of gratitude to Benedict XVI, who will resign as Pope in the end of this month. Thanks to this Pope, the symbolic case of Asia Bibi got universal dimension of human rights pressure against the blasphemy law in Pakistan. So, for that as for many other things, I must leave here my deepest thanks for everything His Holiness has done for South Asia on behalf of the Christian communities in particular and for the religious freedom in general.

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Publicado no site do South Asia Democratic Forum: www.sadf.eu

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthAsiaDemocraticForum

Para fazer o download da revista Think South Asia 06: http://sadf.eu/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/thinksouthasia06.pdf

Índia pode liderar cooperação na Ásia do Sul

Editorial que escrevi no quinto número da revista Think South Asia, que edito com o apoio do South Asia Democratic Forum, apresentando a Índia como um país de oportunidades e futuro:

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Imagine the overall population of Europe and the Americas, all put together. Have you imagined that already? Well believe it or not South Asia, as a region, has even more people than that, which is reason enough to pay attention to its development and potentials. The western countries seem to be obsessed with the financial and economic crisis, but on the other side of the world there is a new land of opportunities asking for support and economic cooperation. Five hundred years after Vasco da Gama and seven hundred years after Marco Polo, we must peacefully rediscover the Indian Ocean and the trade opportunities within the SAARC countries that could help us in leaving the crisis behind. This time, the focus of Think South Asia is on India. It seems paradoxical to put the focus on such a big country, and maybe it is. We will certainly have to come back to Indian issues, perhaps analysing them through the smaller realities at the state-level. But this time we analyse India as a whole, and we try also to see it in the international context.

One of the things that always impresses me is how this huge country with so many different people and potential tensions could be maintained and is growing with the institutional framework of a stable liberal democracy. Professor Subrata Mitra, whose reputation and authority on this issue is well-known, gives us an interesting perspective in his interview. For editorial reasons it will be published in two parts: this one here, and the second in our next issue of Think South Asia in January 2013.

This issue we have a small country profile of India, where we can check out the basic facts about the nation. The Executive Director of the South Asia Democratic Forum, Mr Paulo Casaca, goes further and analyses with precision the main issues around the Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and India.

Regarding India’s relations, we have a piece on this topic from Ms Cátia Rodrigues (Policy Adviser in South Asia Democratic Forum) making reference to India’s relations with China, while Dr Siegfried Wolf from Heidelberg University writes about India’s relations with Pakistan after the last terrorist attack in Mumbai. Also concerning China there is a very interesting article from Mr Marco Rossi, who calls our attention to Chinese interests and movements in South Asia.

In the spotlight we have Doctor Massouda Jalal quoting C. S. Lewis with a very eloquent message about Afghanistan, analysing the situation deeply and also making recommendations to fix what is broken. The way Doctor Jalal begins could not be clearer: “democracy and talibanism cannot co-exist because they are antithetical to one another. (...) Thus, to assume that Taliban will embrace peace is an unforgivable mistake.”

Following Doctor Jalal’s article, we have a short interview with Ms Cláudia Pera, who works as the administrative manager of South Asia Democratic Forum, giving her thoughts on women’s issues and her
experience while accompanying Doctor Jalal is her last visit to Europe. Ms Pera sets out the scenario in quite a comprehensive way I’m sure you will agree.

The issue of indigenous people’s rights and their protection through the rule of law is very well explained by Mr S. M. Hasan from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. Finally, we have Professor Wolfgang Peter Zingel alerting us on the issue of food security in South Asia and the concrete need for a deeper regional cooperation.

We hope you enjoy this edition of Think South Asia and we wish you a joyful season, especially for your children, who are the ones giving us the most complete perspectives of hope for our future, whether in South Asia, Europe, or anywhere else in the world.

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Publicado no site do South Asia Democratic Forum: www.sadf.eu
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthAsiaDemocraticForum

Para fazer o download da revista Think South Asia 02: http://sadf.eu/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/thinksouthasia05.pdf