Maruthamunai is a village situated 2.3 km away from the north of Kalmunai at the 390 mile post in the administrative division of Kalmunai Divisional Secretariat. It belongs to the Ampara District of the Eastern Province. Maruthamunai has been known for its family-based and factory-based handloom weavers throughout the years. According to the report of the Eastern Social Mobilizing Organization …

Cambridge, Massachusetts – Several months ago, President Barack Obama made a historic speech in Cairo seeking to redefine relations between America and the Muslim world. I would like to respond to that speech. Sixteen years ago, Samuel Huntington published an essay proposing that after the Cold War, civilisations, religions and cultures would become the defining feature of international relations and …

Of late the religious minorities in India have been subjected to discrimination, harassment and atrocities of all kinds. Not many such incidents are brought to the notice of the law-enforcing authorities, for; those at the helm of affairs by and large belong to majority-community, otherwise known as Hindu community. Even those incidents that are highlighted are either manipulated or hushed …

Ahead of a planned nuclear meeting in Vienna, Iran slammed the West’s use of the language of “sanctions and threats” against its nuclear program. “So far western powers have achieved nothing by resorting to the language of threats and sanctions against Iran. The West is aware that this language is obsolete and useless,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told reporters …

Countercurrents.org The rising tide of communal violence from the decade of 1980 has consolidated the communal politics, politics in the name of religion. The party riding on the chariot of religious nationalism became the second largest party and tasted power at center for six long years and is now entrenched in few states and is knocking at the door of …

Is there a threat of Talibanisation engulfing the entire region?I think it has already engulfed our region. I think there’s a need for a very clear thinking (on this issue of Talibanisation). In India, there are two kinds of terrorism: one is Islamic terrorism and the other Maoist terrorism. But this term terrorism, we must ask, what do they mean …