A Hajj first timer, Saju, is pissed about getting written permission from her husband to make the sacred journey to Mecca. “You don’t ask your husband for anything these days,” she says, soft-spoken and indignant. “It’s unheard of.”

Since Shiites have no restriction on single women going for the Hajj,...

Prison conditions worldwide are worse than the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture could have imagined. So he said, while presenting his latest findings from detention centers in different regions. Jails without air, toilets and food are not rare.

The UN produces a steady stream of reports every year...

Every summer, when Chandrika Gaipai returns home, she describes a rugby ball to her mother. "It looks like a dinosaur's egg," she says.

Gaipai enlightens her tribal settlement by drawing elaborate sketches in the dust about the game. "There is no television here so my people can't even imagine...

"So when does a revolution happen," a fellow journalist asked, as we talked about situation in Iran and Pakistan. 'Revolution' is a big word. Its watered down version could be, when do people say enough is enough?

Why have Pakistanis endured decades of bad politics and their violent consequences? Why...

The "responsibility to protect" is the United Nation's latest attempt to shield people against mass atrocities. Professor Noam Chomsky warned the General Assembly that powerful states would use "humanitarian intervention" to exploit the weaker nations -- but this time there were very few takers.

R2P

So far,...

She came all the way from Switzerland to join the three-day hunger strike a block away from the United Nations. "They're my people and it is my cause," says Monel, a 60-year old nurse who did jail-time under the Shah and then clashed with the Islamic regime.

A few...

What happened in Darfur? The "G" word has been tossed around. As the dust settles, more voices are challenging the mainstream verdict of genocide.

In 2004, the United States called Darfur a "genocide" and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. issued its first "genocide emergency." Next year, a United...

Taner Akcam is one of the first scholars of Turkish origin to speak and write about the killing of one and half million Armenians by the Ottoman government during the First World War. Many academics and historians have been charged under Law 301 - which makes insulting "Turkishness" a crime.

The United Nations has failed to deliver international peace and security. Power politics and national interest have crippled the Security Council even as humanitarian crises claimed millions of lives. The purpose and relevance of the UN is being contested.

The League of Democracies has been proposed as an alternate...

Johana Bhuiyan wears a long white skirt. Her hair and neck are wrapped in a pink and white hijab falling over a long sleeved white shirt. Shell-pink shoes finish the look. "A few years year ago it would take me ages to put together an outfit," confesses Bhuiyan, 16, from...

Gaza is a tough case for international law. After the legal wrangling is over and blame is assigned, where will the lawyers and petitioners go to seek justice? Who will try these cases and where?

More than 1,300 Palestinians died in the 22 day fighting on the strip that also...

He wasn't a "good Muslim." So, the Iranian state-run television channel rejected Massud Imani. The journalist then applied to the United States for media studies. The US embassy in Turkey found him "too Muslim" and rejected his visa application. Imani, 36, enrolled at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and has lived...