Pri's blog

I now travel on a British passport.  This is the result of 10 years (almost)in the UK, working as the Executive Secretary/Team Leader of the Secretariat of the International Forum on Rural Transport and Development, when the Secretariat was based in the UK and hosted by Practical Action Consultants.  This means that to most countries in the world, I don’t need a visa.  So while colleagues from Sri Lanka, Kenya, Nepal  and India spend inordinate amounts of time filling in visa forms and at consulates submitting passports and retrieving them, I am more than likely to be able to waltz into an immigration queue in most countries and get my British passport stamped with an entry visa without much ado.  Of course there are some exceptions. The Jewel in the Crown, is naturally one such. And, I discovered on Friday night, so is Australia.  This outpost of the British Commonwealth, that still recognizes Her Majesty as the Head of State, needs all British...

There is always some discussion going on in smaller and wider circles that I am privy to about power, privilege and discrimination.  And recently we have the #MeToo campaign on violence against women which exposes how many women have encountered sexual harassment and violence in their lives.   Even if this expos é is limited to  women on facebook and twitter, the number is quite (unsurprisingly) staggering.   More than a little disconcerted however,  that young feminists are questioning the right of men, even queer men, to post the #MeToo  hashtag.  Violence is an expression of the abuse of power whatever form it takes, and we should be against violence in all its manifestations, irrespective of who is the perpetrator or who is the victim.  The wonderful Tanaka Mhishi, sole representative of the next generation in our rather unproductive family tree, survived a date rape, and turned his experience into a writing/performing theat...