Anti-Bush protests in Pune city

2nd March 2006
Over 400 activists, peacelovers and students from Pune city joined the echoes of other voices of the anti-imperialist peoples all over the world - in the US, UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Australia, South Korea, and many others who, in recent months, have spoken "Bush Go Home! Get out of our country!" Bush was in India for two days to sign a nuclear deal with the Indian government; despite continuing oppositions both within the US and India, and also at the international levels – both governmental and popular. While red carpets were rolled out by the government of India to welcome this ‘distinguished’ dignitary, large sections of people were out on the streets asking this guest of honour to “Go Back!”

It’s not the usual privilege of a visiting dignitary to face such openpublic wrath. But then Bush is no ordinary dignitary either. He is the head ofthe most powerful state of today’s world – the only ‘superpower’, so to say.That’s precisely why the Indian government was so excited. And, rather paradoxically, it’s precisely the crass display of gross, and awesome, military‘power’ that makes Bush perhaps the greatest hate figure in the contemporaryworld. In the eyes of too many, he is the nastiest criminal around.

In Pune, the CITU and 15 other organisations marched from Swargate to the Municipal Corporation. Carrying placards and banners, and shouting anti-Bush slogans, they walked from Jedhe Sataue at Swargate upto the PMC and then had meeting there. Delia, Chandamma and Pradip of Lok Raj Sanghatan, one of the participating organisations in the protest carried the following slogan: Butcher Bush You are not our guest ! You are not welcome ! We all unitedly oppose Bush's visit to India !

The peaceloving people of India, and Pune like all those in the world, stood up and said NO!

Gandhi in California

The 2006 Latino Peace Pilgrimage to End the Iraq War
By David Howard t r u t h o u t Perspective
Saturday 11 March 2006
Seventy-six years ago, on March 12, 1930, Mohandas Gandhi began the Salt Satyagraha, a seemingly quixotic journey of nonviolent protest against omnipotent empire, a march to the sea powered by what Gandhi called his inner vision. Joined by thousands of ordinary Indians, Gandhi walked 400 kilometers (241 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat.
On March 12, 2006, the seventy-sixth anniversary of the Salt March, as the world suffers the intended and unintended consequences of a hideous war of aggression against Iraq, Latino conscientious objectors and parents of fallen soldiers begin their own two-week march of nonviolent protest.
Like Gandhi in India, they will walk 241 California miles between Tijuana on the Mexican border and the Pacific Bay city of San Francisco. Each stop on the march for peace and justice is important to the history of the Latino movimiento: la frontera, the border between North and South, privilege and poverty; La Paz, the burial site of Caesar Chavez; Camp Pendleton, where generations of troops have trained for the killing fields of Southeast Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The march will end in San Francisco's Mission District on March 26-27, where participants will donate blood for both soldiers and civilians in Iraq.
The leaders of the march are Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose Marine Corps son was among the first US soldiers to die in the Iraq War; Pablo Paredes, the Navy seaman who was court-martialed for refusing to board an Iraq-bound ship; Camilo Mejiaa, who chose military prison over redeployment in Iraq; and Aidan Delgado, who was granted conscientious objector status while stationed at Abu Ghraib prison.
We in Ventura County, California, will honor these peace marchers in the spirit of Gandhi, King, Parks, Chavez and Huerta. On Monday, March 20, we will house them in the sanctuary of Oxnard's Congregation for Peace. We will walk with them to teach our children at Oxnard High School. We will join them in protest in front of Oxnard's military recruitment office, and we will arrive together at the County Government Center to call upon attorneys, judges and elected officials to help us end the war.
No one knows when the Iraq War will end. No one knows who among the children at Oxnard High School will heed Gandhi's message and who will fall prey to a multi-billion-dollar military propaganda program hell-bent on persuading them to fight.
But we do know that 75 years from now, our great grandchildren will remember our grain of salt. They will stand at our humble milestones and recall how we contributed our drop of blood, sweat and salt tears to help end an obscene war of immense cruelty and folly. They will remember not because our gestures are unique or grandiose, but because they reflect a perennial vision of peace transmitted across borders, cultures and religions. A vision worth a mere grain of salt; a vision that shakes the foundations of empire.
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David Howard is co-chair of Ventura County Citizens for Peaceful Resolution/CPR

Intl.Youth Congress for World Peace Pune 2006

Pune, February 19, 2006

THE INTERNATIONAL YOUTH CONGRESS ON WORLD PEACE PUNE was held on, 19th February 2006 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. SIMS, Kirkee, Pune -3. The Objectives were:
To promote means and ways to promote Peace and Harmony in all Religions all over the world thought an International Youth Congress; as youth constitute the richest wealth of every country. It was jointly organized by Top Management Consortium, Pune University, Symbiosis International., Sadhu Vaswani Mission, and MIT World Peace Centre .

Nearly 300 young students from different countries studying in Pune participated. An essay contest titled Role of Youth in Promoting peace was conducted in which 35 students participated and ten best student essays were presented during the conference. Delia Maria from FOGM screened all the essays and selected the best ones. She also helped organise the conference. Thankamma, Delia and Sheela attended the conference and set up a Gandhi table outside the venue to distribute youth badges and leaflets containing a message from Codepink for an online petition saying no to the Iraqi war. Look for photos in the photo gallery.

For more details contact:
World Foundation on Reverence for All Life, Malhotra Bhavan, 116
Koregaon Park, Pune 411 001
Tel: 020-26135919, 25671802 Fax: 020-26633380
e-mail: reverence@wminet.net
Visit: www.reverence.info

Film Amu based on Sikh riots screened in Pune

The Committee for Peoples Empowerment (Lok Raj Sanghatan)screened the internationally acclaimed and national award winning film AMU on 13th December at the Film Archives Pune, to celebrate Human Rights Day 2005. Over 300 activists, students and social workers from Pune city viewed the film.

The film is by Shonali Bose. Amu is one of the bravest political film by any Indian director in years because it deals with a subject that most Indians have forgotten, - the anti Sikh pogrom that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984. Twenty years after the riots, Shonali Bose attempts to recreate some of the horrors without sentimentality. As you watch a hapless Sikh being dragged off to be scalped, his cries of “Mainey ki kitha?” (what did I do?) makes you recall Kashmir, Gujarat and the Mandal riots where innocent died. Bold and moving performances are given by Brinda Karat and Konkona Sen Sharma.

Delia, Thankamma and Sheela of the FOGM assisted LRS in organising the show.