News of January 2009
The first meeting of the Indian Organizing team for Asian Citizens’ Assembly 2010 (ACA 2010) was held on 26th January 2009 in Mumbai on the occasion of the Indian Republic Day.
Before we started we observed a minute of silence for all the people who were killed at the 2008 Mumbai attacks were more than ten coordinated shooting and bombing terrorist attacks across Mumbai, India’s financial capital and its largest city. The attacks, which began on 26 November 2008 and lasted until 29 November, killed at least 173 people and wounded at least 308. The attacks drew widespread condemnation across the world.
The discussion about this sad tragedy in India also led us to think about similar incidents in other Asian countries. The need for a People’s Assembly in Asia was reaffirmed and to bring different stakeholders/actors in Asia on a common platform for sustainable peace.
The members discussed about the learning journey from the China-India-Japan Forum which was held in Japan in July 2008. Everyone was very happy with the outcome of the Forum and the interest of young leaders from all these three countries to participate at the Asian Citizens Assembly 2010. It was noted that this Assembly’s strength would be an intergenerational partnership considering, approximately 60% of the Asian population is youth (those following below the age of 35).
The Japan Forum had brought new challenges so as to how to invite more Asian countries in the dialogue and to determine which key themes the Assembly would focus on in order to achieve our objectives for the same.
The economic meltdown had crippled the interest of donors for funding programmes such as ours and likewise many others working on similar themes globally. But thanks to the support of FPH and other agencies in addition to the determination and passion of all those who are part of this programme has kept us going.
The team has started discussion about the preparatory phase of the Asian Forum : Cross-Cultural Dialogue to be held in China in August 2009.
Global Citizens for Sustainable Development / VEDIKE (Bangalore, India) will jointly play the role of the Secretariat for the Asian Citizens Assembly October 2010 in India.
News of February 2009
In February we had several discussions with key members of the team about logistics and the methodological framework for ACA 2010. The discussions led us to consider perhaps hosting the ACA 2010 in partnership with both private and public universities in Bangalore.
The physical presence of Gustavo Marin in Bangalore really helped the Indian team to see the ACA 2010 through. Both Gustavo Marin and Anugraha John had a two day intense meeting in Bangalore on the themes and the methodological framework. It was then agreed and decided that John will write a paper in consultation with all the Asian partners where they will chart out explaining in detail about the 5E’s : Ethics, Equity, Economy, Education and Ecology which will be the main themes of the Asian Citizens’ Assembly 2010.
In this framework John also proposed the idea of 5E’s = Sustainable Peace and Development which will be reflected in the paper. The main idea was that the sum of whole (all five) and not its part is very important for a sustainable Peace and Development.
In February 2009, the idea of Asian Citizens Assembly 2010 was presented at the World Peace Congress held in Bangalore. And most of the participants were appreciative of the journey that was shaping for the ACA 2010 beginning from the China-India Forum launched in February 2007. The participants also commented and agreed with the ideas of 5E’s as thematic framework for the ACA2010 which was reaffirming.
Proposed Indian Organizing Team members (yet to be confirmed)
- Dr. Siddlingiah - Chair
- Anugraha John – Co-Chair
- Sangeetha Raju – Secretary
- Anuradha Sapte
- Dr. Priti Gupta
- Grishma Lele
- Ashish John
- Smeeta Rangwani
- Vikram Aditya
- Manish Kumar
- Dr. Tapathi Gosh (yet to be confirmed)
Proposed ACA2010 Team members (yet to be confirmed)
- Dr. Siddlingiah - Chair
- Dr. Yue Daiyun – Co-chair
- Mr. Anugraha John – Coordinator
- Mr. Chen Dunfei (China)
- Mr. Benjamin Quinones (Philippines)
- Mr. Denison Jayasooria (Malaysia)
- Ms. Jin Siyan (China)
- Mr. Zhao Baisheng (China)
- Mr. Ilham Issac (Indonesia)
- Ms. Shoko Uchida (Japan)
- Mr. John Clammer (Japan)
- Ms. Tarane Naygan (Iran)
- Ms. Sophia Ji-hye Yoon (Korea)
- Mr. Gustavo Marin
- Mr. Jeevan Kumar (India)
- Mr.Zhao Yifeng (China)
- Ms. Sudha (India)
- Ms. Pinky (Phillipines)
- Mr.Siddhartha (India)
- Ms. Sangeetha Raju / Ms. Smeeta Rangwani (India) - Secretary
the Citizens' Assembly in Asia
Topics
