Articles by Dinyar Godrej

Housing shortages, forced evictions and homelessness – why is global shelter in such a state?

Homes are for living in but they can be sites of great insecurity. Dinyar Godrej makes the case against the scandal of the property marketplace.

Inequality squeezes both how healthy we are and the healthcare we get. Time to get past it, believes Dinyar Godrej.

Clearly articulating her party’s economics policies would be a good start, reckons Dinyar Godrej.

Mental health shouldn’t just be about individuals, we need strong communities too. Dinyar Godrej makes the case.

Supporters plan vigil for anti-arms trade activist Chris Cole, who goes on trial on Monday.

The New Internationalist co-editor speaks about the growth of military spending in an age of austerity.

The ‘war on terror’ saw the west splurge its peace dividend in a frenzy of arms spending. Check out some astonishing facts and figures…

The arms trade tends to have the government’s ear. Why, wonders Dinyar Godrej, when it is so counter-productive?

‘What shall we agree?/That we shall see each other again…’ A passionate poem from our Fire in the Soul anthology now part of a musical performance on oppression and liberation.

Extracts from her first public statements following her release, taken from transcripts of recordings.

I felt a sudden surge of emotion watching the images of Aung San Suu Kyi’s release. I don’t know her, but I know how much she means to the vast majority of Burma’s people.

The death of Jimmy Mubenga on a flight to Angola raises urgent questions about the treatment of asylum seekers.

Following up on the lives of the men we featured in our June Deported! edition.

Put aside an election called by despots as also revolutionary fantasies. We must look elsewhere for hope for Burma, argues Dinyar Godrej.

Fire in the Soul poetry anthology editor on the publishers who hold poets’ work to ransom.

Politicians taking a tough stand on immigration want to keep us in the dark – but Dinyar Godrej explains why we have to hear the stories of those turned away at our borders.

John ‘Bosco’ Nyombi sought sanctuary in the West from persecution in Uganda – only to spend eight years struggling for his rights.

Dinyar Godrej on the damage done.

Total's CEO has a hissy fit

With Dinyar Godrej, whose personal journey as an immigrant reveals some of the faultlines of multiculturalism, making the case for looking beneath the smokescreen of ‘culture clash’.

Faith schools get a bashing even from committed multiculturalists. We talk to one supporter who currently teaches English at a secular school in Australia.

Is there a place for faith schools in a multicultural society? We want to know your views.

A playful Valentine’s Day action campaign in India is highlighting how publicity stunts can boomerang.

The many messages that have been hitting our email boxes in the last few days - the nutty, the sad and the pathetic - reveal a very real anxiety that once the sieges in Mumbai have ended, the city could erupt in communal carnage as it has done in the past.

Bo Kyi of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)  who featured in the Burma mag and subsequently on Radio New Internationalist has just won a Human Rights Defender Award from Human Rights Watch.

The first anniversary of the popular protests against fuel price rises in Burma has come around. And the security forces are stepping up their game, rounding up pro-democracy activists.

Perhaps it’s not unsurprising that when cyclone Nargis struck southern Burma, my thoughts went first to a community of internal refugees close to the Thai border in the north who would have been physically unaffected. These were the people of Wan Bai Pay* who had been graceful in their hospitality to me earlier this year and who had entrusted me with their traumatic stories (of slave labour extracted by Burma’s military, of beatings, murder and rape) with the simple request: ‘Tell the world about us.’ (For more information you can read my report on Wan Bai Pay).

Sometimes the urge to fling the nearest available projectile at the television set can take some suppressing. I found myself struggling when, during the course of a news item on Burma, the anchor mentioned the military junta winning the country’s referendum on a new constitution. A strangulated ‘Aaaargghhh!’ emerged nonethless.

Ever got a bum deal when changing money in a foreign country? Here’s an exchange rate scam to beat them all.

I’ve been reading today’s edition of  propaganda rag The New Light of Myanmar. Normally all the railing against ‘foreign stooges’ and exhortations to ‘national duty’ (ie following the diktats of the ruling generals) is good for a cynical chuckle. But, as the song goes, that joke isn’t funny anymore.

Of all the images that have emerged from cyclone-hit Burma, the most shocking for me were the most long distance ones. NASA released satellite images of the country before and after the cyclone. The ‘after’ image is barely recognizable - the amount of the Irrawaddy delta in the south that is now blue instead of green is staggering. The southern outline of the country bears no relation anymore to what one would expect to see.

Tropical cyclone Nargis – which hit Burma around midnight on Friday – has ruined many parts of a country which already has poor infrastructure due to the history of blundering by its military dictators. Foreign journalists have posed the question: what will the Burmese people think of a regime that rushes armed soldiers onto the streets to quell any signs of protest but which has been sluggish in assisting the thousands in dire need? I doubt the Burmese will be spending much time over that one - they have more pressing worries and they know the true colours of their rulers well enough by now.

Among Rangoon’s six million souls, a few have secret conversations with Dinyar Godrej.

Refugees in Shan state, on the run from the military.

Dinyar Godrej concludes his report: meeting enemies of the State – and looking to the future.

Today over 80 per cent of Burma’s people are Buddhist and the country has the largest number of monks as a percentage of the total population.

The spiraling world food grains crisis has been a long time coming. There have been warnings aplenty, but they didn’t really grab the headlines. The two things that seem to have caught the world’s attention are rising prices (ie food seen in monetary terms) and the social unrest of riots. We rightly fear instability.

Two survivors from Karen state, where the Burmese military has been laying villages to waste, tell their stories.

The ball of activism against DU weapons has been rolling ever onward after our current magazine on the subject.

Will the whole truth about depleted uranium ammunition ever come out? It depends on who’s looking, discovers Dinyar Godrej.

DU: From waste to weapon – a visual guide.

Dinyar Godrej on what truly inspires.

The Body Hunters by Sonia Shah

Scarred: Experiments with violence in Gujarat by Dionne Bunsha

India’s feelgood boomerang.

Dinyar Godrej sniffs at the bait being dangled by the ad biz.

Pili Akili from Tanzania and Amarakoon Disanayaka Piyasena from Sri Lanka talk about living with mental illness in village communities.

People with disabilities in the Majority World want equal rights. Dinyar Godrej on why there is still much to be done.

The Facts

It’s a common sight in Manila to see single male foreigners with young girls on their arms.

Pipedreams from the Philippines.

Determination and hope in Manila, the Philippines.

Dinyar Godrej explains why children should do the talking… and we should listen.

We’re being held to ransom by an industry that makes obscene profits from our wellbeing. Dinyar Godrej on the case against Big Pharma.

The very stuff of life itself is for sale. Dinyar Godrej tells us what we need to know in order to confront the high bidders.