Open dialogue on mediation for peace

How can the international community better act to halt attacks on aid workers and hijacking of vital supplies, while ensuring humanitarian access to vulnerable civilian populations caught in the midst of violent conflicts?  In the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue’s (HD Centre) latest podcast, Mr Dennis McNamara, Senior Humanitarian Adviser at the HD Centre, argues that humanitarian mediation offers both a means to reduce conflict-related suffering, while potentially feeding in to wider conflict mediation efforts at the political level. Read the rest of this entry »

When armed conflict linked to the Maoist insurgency started in the country in 1996, the populist movement was not only targeted at changing political paradigms but was also against poverty, inequality and the exclusion of marginalised groups (including women) from mainstream governance. Thus it was also known as the “people’s war”. Women constituted 40 per cent of the Maoist rebel forces at a time when state law prohibited women as combatants within the Nepal Army. Read the rest of this entry »

As a child, I grew up in India’s Northeast state of Manipur thinking that all citizens of this country are equal. And then as I grew up and started understanding the country and its politics, I discovered that some Indians are less equal than other Indians.
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