Extremist Hindutva worming its way into the minds of the Indian masses ismaking intolerance look like a good habit. The leopard does not change its spots. It was a given that the Hindu Right in In dia would be the vanguard of intolerance, and at the end of one year in power that is exactly how it is.

Fringe extremists on both sides of the India-Pakistan border are feeding off each other to kill, maim and brutalise their people in the name of religion.

It does not matter whether they are Muslim or Hindu, conservative forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India seem to have founda common enemy: Women. 0ne of the first things the Taliban did when they seized power in Afghanistan in 1996 was to impose restrictions on women. They were ordered to leave the public arena: going to work was not allowed, “inappropriate” clothing was banned, driving was taboo. One woman was actually beaten to death because she had accidentally exposed her arm while driving.

Intolerance is the result of self-indulgence, and when religions turn their back on their founding ideals. A standard thesaurus list of the syn onyms for "intolerance" would in clude words such as "bigotry", "prejudice", "partiality", "fanaticism", "dogmatism", "racism", "jingoism", "sexism", "bias", "injustice", "umbrage", "discrimination", "high-handedness", "narrow-mindedness", "nepotism", and so on. Each of these terms denotes base characteristics that are antitheses to the development of a just and democratic society.

The past is not always something to be proud about. Deep down, we are all mongrels. There is always an element of shame hidden in history, and such is the case of the Hindu as well. The past is not always something to be proud about. Deep down, we are all mongrels. There is always an element of shame hidden in history, and such is the case of the Hindu as well.

Balti angst I want to make a correction to a letter in Himal's November 1998 issue which gave the population of Baltis as 2.2 million. According to the 1998 census, it is in fact 0.83 million. I would also like to take this opportunity to add to what the writer had to say about the precarious situation in which the Balti people are today.

Little Lanka’s investments in sports paid off at the Bangkok Asian Games. Now, its athletes have their sights on the Sydney Olympics next year. The 13th Asian Games in Bangkok in December 1998, billed the last “great games” of the century, may well have been the dawn of a new and a more exciting era for South Asian athletics. The Subcontinent’s sportsmen and women gave reigning champion, China, a run for their money at the Asian track and field events.

Vinod Mishra (1947-98) What Mao Tse-Tung was to the Chinese, Vinod Mishra, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) was for millions in Bihar. And when he died in late December 1998, more than 50,000 of them gathered in Patna to bid goodbye to their leader: journalists, poets, academics, activists, politicians and thousands of peasants and landless labourers.

Short report on a unique meeting in Colombo of people from both sides of the dam divide. For the first time in the region, and possibly anywhere in the world, speakers from both sides of the often-bitter development debate put their case at a public hearing on large dams and alternatives organised by the World Commission on Dams (WCD in Colombo last December. The Commission was formed in January 1998 to review the development effectiveness of large dams and to evolve standards and criteria for their building, and is comprised of representatives from both sides of the dam debate.

As Nepal prepared for general elections in May, the results of a country-wide opinion poll created quite a stir when it was published in mid-April. The poll, seeking to find out how voters assess the country's politics, political parties and politicians, was the first of its kind and scope in Nepal. Conducted by the research group ORG-MARG Nepal in late February and early March for the media organisation Himal Association, some of the poll findings came as a total surprise.

INDIA With the BJP having come to power at the centre, and having emerged as a formidable force all over North India, Christians are now fast joining Muslims and Dalits as one of the principal victims of Hindutva terror. Recent months have witnessed a sharp escalation of attacks on Christian priests and nuns, and the destruction of churches, particularly in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. More recently, in Orissa, an Australian missionary and his two sons were set ablaze by a mob reportedly shouting “Bajrang Dal Zindabad”.

SRI LANKA CHRISTIANS FORM 2.3 percent of India's population and 2 percent of Pakistan's, while they account for 7.6 percent of Sri Lanka. But unlike in Pakistan, where Christians have been under siege due to the country's blasphemy laws or in India, where they have recently been targetted for attacks by Hindu extremists, the relatively well-off Christians of Sri Lanka have managed to achieve a state of equilibrium with the islands Buddhists and Hindus.

NEPAL "THERE WAS no reason for the police to shoot at all. We were just demonstrating on the streets, when all of a sudden, bullets began raining down on us." Thus described Ram Chandra Maharjan the events at his hilltop hometown of Kirtipur in Kathmandu Valley during the 1990 People's Movement.

SRI LANKA THE KILINOCHCHI disaster in September 1998 was the exclamation mark at the end of the Sri Lankan government's failed strategy to capture the Jaffna-Vavuniya highway, help Tamil moderates establish a political beacbhead in the Jaffna peninsula, and force the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) to negotiate on its (the government's) terms.

Interviewing Benazir WITH A last proud flourish at Benazir's chandeliers, my minder let me out of the Prime Minister's Residence and into the garden, where the interview was to take place. There we sat for ten minutes in mock-Regency chairs beneath the mock-Mexican hacienda, before the familiar silhouette appeared at the top of the lawns. On instinct, like schoolboys waiting for the headmistress, we stood up.

He has been burnt in effigy in Agra, people have threatened to "bash him up" others have offered him bribes to drop a case. Meet Mahesh Chander Mehta, India's one-man environment protection force.

I LIKE Myanmarese press releases, redolent with righteousness and, yes, hard data. And so, more was my happiness when I received this information regarding an attack on a Myanmarese patrol vessel by a Thai boat. The former was at North Latitude 9 degree 57 minutes and East Longitude 98 degrees 27 minutes, while the latter was located "well within Myanrnar waters at North Latitude 9 degrees 55 minutes and East Longitude 98 degrees 27 minutes".

An intense account of how a Gurkha colonel made Nepal his home. Since my first meeting with Lt Col J.P. Cross over five years ago at his modest house in the central Nepal town of Pokhara, I have been loath to use the word "unique". We were sitting together in his front study, in near darkness to ease his failing eyes, and discussing the involvement of Nepali citizens in the British Army. 

Peter Marsden's book on the Taliban helps unravel some of the chaos in Afghanistan, and provides lessons for a Subcontinent awash in jingoism. After two decades of conflict, Afghanis wanted peace, and some security. It was hardly surprising then, that in the October of 1994, "a small group of students from religious schools decided to rise against these leaders in order to alleviate the sufferings of the residents of Kandahar Province".

“India Lives in several centuries simultaneously…”  Tim Sebastian talked to Shabana Azmi in London for the BBC's Hardtalk Interview just after the film, Fire, was released in India. Excerpts: