Month: June 2011

Source: The Guardian

This is not an ideal beginning. I bump into Arundhati Roy as we are both heading for the loo in the foyer of the large building that houses her publisher Penguin’s offices. There are some authors, V S Naipaul say, with whom this could be awkward. But not Roy, who makes me feel instantly at ease. A few minutes later, her publicist settles us in a small, bare room. As we take our positions on either side of a narrow desk I liken it to an interrogation suite. But she says that in India, interrogation rooms are a good deal less salubrious than this. read more

Source: Al Jazeera

A high-level international commission has declared the global “war on drugs” to be a failure, and has urged countries to consider legalising certain drugs, including cannabis, in a bid to undermine organised crime.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, in its report released on Thursday, called for a new approach to the current strategy of reducing drug abuse by strictly criminalising drugs and incarcerating users.

It said the new approach should focus on battling the criminal cartels that control the drug trade, rather than targeting drug users. read more