Stories that Matter

From:  Anjuman Ara Begum   Date: Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 12:48 PM Subject: Re: [se-gen] DISCUSSION:Inputs for Preparing the IV and V Alternative Report on the UN CEDAW.Reply by 30 June 2012 To: Gender Community Dear friends, Thank you very much for the call for discussion on alternative reports for CEDAW. North East India (States of Aranuchal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura), is a region that is home to 40 million people belonging to 213 different tribal groups. It has been experienced armed conflict for the last six decades resulting in a high level of militarization and protracted internal conflict. The counter-insurgency policies of successive Indian governments have resulted in widespread human rights abuses. I would like to draw your attention to several issues of crucial importance to the people of Northeast India. First, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958 grants the Indian armed forces extraordinary powers in designated “di

From:  Anjuman Ara Begum [mailto: anju.azad@gmail.com ] Sent:  21 August 2012 03:53 To:  Gender Community Subject:  Re: [se-gen] QUERY: Inclusion of Women in Political Parties of India-Examples; Experiences. Moderators’ Note:   Dear Members, We have kept the  QUERY  on  Inclusion of Women in Political Parties of India  open until further notice. Today’s response is from Anjuman Ara Begum (Guwahati). Anjuman has taken a peek into the inclusion (rather exclusion) of Muslim women in political parties in Assam and Nagaland. We hope to be back with some more responses. Greetings, Malika Dear Members, I welcome and appreciate the discussion on women’s political participation’ on Gender Community’s e-platform. Sometime back I did some field study on the political participation of women in north east India and would like to share my findings and experiences. Inclusion of Muslim Women in Political Parties in Assam In Assam, participation of women in politics is comp

Voices of Survivors Anjuman Ara Begum In any conflict women and children are the worst sufferers. Conflict makes a woman to suffer as victims, survivors, witnesses, negotiators, coping household heads. Women’s roles changes in conflict situation but not necessarily gender relations. Recent ethnic riots on BTAD areas are well known now to people. Electronic media brought the news to world over. As on August 31, 2012 about two lakh 50 thousand people were sheltered in school house turned relief camps. In the month of July 2012, the number of displaced people was about four lakh fifty thousand, largest displacement after independence as pointed out by many scholars. As a part of the fact finding team I visited the affected area twice. Once as a part of the a peace and solidarity mission comprised of activists from all over India that visited the trouble torn areas of the Western Assam with the objective of ‘assessing the situation, meeting the inmates of both the communities in t