Asia Pacific Forum

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India's Anti-Rape Movement

We rebroadcast Aniruddha Das' January 14, 2013 segment on protests in Delhi and across India in response to the horrific gang rape of a young woman on a bus, and the government's reaction. We bring you a report back from the heart of the protest, with Mallika Dutt, founder and president of the international women's and human rights organization Breakthrough. Amrita Basu, gender and women's studies professor at Amherst College, joins us to discuss the growing anti-rape movement in India.

Guests

Mallika Dutt is founder, president, and CEO of Breakthrough and a leading innovator in human rights, multimedia, and culture change.
Amreeta Basu is the Domenic J. Paino 1955 Professor of Political Science And Women's and Gender Studies at Amherst College. She specialises in South Asian politics with a particular interest in women's movements and other social movements.

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South Asian Domestic Workers Claim Their Rights

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India-US diplomatic relations are experiencing some turbulence following the arrest of diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York City in December, 2013. Khobragade allegedly underpaid her housekeeper and is accused of visa fraud. Tonight we will hear from people working to help domestic workers organize and resist in creative ways. We will be joined by former domestic worker, Nahar Alam who founded Andolan, a South Asian workers organization in Queens, and Yalinidream, an artist who worked with the women of Andolan for one year to create their first theatre piece. Alam and Yalinidream will share stories of South Asian domestic workers' resistance and organizing and talk about the documentary Claiming Our Voice, that features them both.

Guests

Nahar Alam has been an organizer in the United States and Bangladesh for almost 20 years. Nahar works towards a vision in which all workers are treated with respect and their rights are enforced. Nahar is an ex-domestic worker and a domestic violence survivor. She works directly with workers and lawyers on Andolan’s cases, and gives presentations and trainings to workers, law students and other organizations serving the community Nahar represented Andolan at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001. She also helped develop the Streetwise Cultural Diversity Curriculum for the New York Police Department in 2001. She was also a Revson Fellow at the Columbia University during the 2003-2004 academic year, where she focused on gender studies.
Lankan Tamil Blood, Manchester Born, Texas bred and Brooklyn steeped, YaliniDream's work has been performed at venues such as NYC's Lincoln Center and New York Live Arts (formerly Dance Theater Workshop). She has facilitated workshops for war affected communities in Sri Lankan Refugee camps in Tamil Nadu as well as war affected communities in Mannar, Vavuniya & Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. She facilitated a theatrical storytelling project with Andolan, an organizing center run by and for low income South Asian women workers in Queens, NY.

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Gaiutra Bahadur at the Page Turner Festival

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In October, Gaiutra Bahadur spoke on a panel presented by the Asian American Writer's Workshop's Page Turner literary festival. In a sweeping work of historical narrative, Gaiutra Bahadur traces the steps of her great grandmother’s voyage from colonial India to Guiana as a so-called “coolie” or indentured servant. Through meticulous research and raw storytelling, Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture, recasts a humble woman’s life of hardship in a fresh light, exploring the crossroads between Asian migration and slavery, revealing how gender and sexuality intersected with the social turmoil of the emergent Indian diaspora. We’ll also hear a clip from a panel discussion with authors Raquel Cepeda and Vivek Bald, who have told their own stories by weaving the history of their diaspora with their own personal migration experiences, moderated by Carolina Gonzalez. This segment was produced and edited by APF's Michelle Chen.

Music

"Somos Asiaticos" by Chris Iijima and Nobuko Joanne Miyamoto (More info...)

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This program is brought to you by Zhaleh Afshar, Michelle Chen, Aniruddha Das and Naureen Shah of the APF collective.

For more information on APF and our programs, or to order a CD copy of a show, please contact us via:

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Shows: January 6, 2014

Listen to the Entire Show!

India's Anti-Rape Movement

Guests

Related Categories

South Asian Domestic Workers Claim Their Rights

Guests

Related Categories

Gaiutra Bahadur at the Page Turner Festival

Music

Related Categories

This program is brought to you by Zhaleh Afshar, Michelle Chen, Aniruddha Das and Naureen Shah of the APF collective.

For more information on APF and our programs, or to order a CD copy of a show, please contact us via: