by Binalakshmi Nepram-Mentschel
- India -

In July I spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in honor of the tens of thousands of people who have lost their lives to gun violence in my part of the world. The very fact that I spoke before such an influential decision-making body is testimony to how I, and millions of others worldwide, have survived violence caused by unregulated arms trade and have chosen a life dedicated to the cause of peace.

by Binalakshmi Nepram Mentschel
- India -

Our world is hovering at the edge of an abyss, driven there by man’s unreason. One crisis is cresting on top of another… The sinister developments in the advance towards the brink of disaster all interact, worsened by the calamitous threat - namely the arms race and militarization. These essentially ethical problems of wars, weapons, and tools of violence have existed since time immemorial, but in the present era they have been deeply aggravated and will continue to be aggravated if a halt is not called for. – Nobel Peace Laureate Alva Myrdal

May 24th is celebrated globally as International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament. This article was written in honor of the many women who have campaigned tirelessly for global peace.

by Binalakshmi Nepram-Mentschel
India

In Part I of Binalakshmi’s report on small arms proliferation, she explores the cultural, political and geographical factors that make North East India a hotbed for the small arms trade. – Ed.

• A village in North East India. Photograph by Binalakshmi Nepram-Mentschel •

Prevalence of War Economies in North East India

There are thousands of para-military troops armed with weapons based in North East India. Crores, or tens of millions of rupees (hundreds of thousands of US dollars) go into maintaining the troops and the various war machines, specifically, weapons, tanks, bullet proof vehicles, patrol helicopters, etc. Though until now no study has been done to estimate the costs of the heavy militarization of India's North East, the truth is there for all to see. Without doubt, a war economy exists in the region.

by Binalakshmi Nepram-Mentschel
India

The human society is now drifting in the direction of a self-contradictory, multi-layered ‘new middle age”.. a world in which the significance of territoriality declines and the range of the claimed authorities and conflicting types of legitimization expands dramatically … a world defined by the spread of plagues of private violence and permanent ‘civil war’ sanctioned by uncontrolled powers – new warlords, pirates, gun runners, gangsters, sects – to which the modern state was supposed to have put an end.
- John Keane, Reflections on Violence