India

Despite the hopes of a bi-nodal party system since 1998, a secular alternative, reduced from being the second option in 1977 to the Third Front within a decade, has not ceased to linger in the background. It remains a parking space for satraps in search of greater role in national politics than their regional space would afford them.

After the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks many expected the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to benefit in the general elections. This was based on both the party’s emphasis on security and on the assumption that the attack would stir up anti-Muslim sentiments.

Some of the Offices of of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Asia describe their work in the following short films.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation’s regional office in New Delhi coordinates the work of the foundation in India since 2002 with a focus on natural resources and sustainable development, minorities and gender in India’s democracy and supporting the role of Indian civil society in regional and international fora.

Through their social and political empowerment women in Asia have actively determined their own lives – notwithstanding traditionally inclined societies that define the general living conditions of women, often at the cost of equal and self-determined opportunities.

The ecosystems in far reaching regions of Asia are severely endangered. The heedless exploitation of natural resources and the incessant destruction of nature threaten the basic living standards of vast numbers of people.