India

In the last week of July, the Indian Campaign to Ban Landmines and the International Red Cross held meetings with members of Parliament and ambassadors in New Delhi including Bangladesh, Canada, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka. On 1 August, a seminar for the elected members of Maharashtra Assembly (State Parliament) was held. Information and material provided by the CMC was distributed, with the screening of a short film. Bahamd Shawaki Khalil, a Lebanese exchange student, participated in EIF activities in India and attended public meetings with parliamentarians, bureaucrats and NGOs. Bahamd is a medical student who will spend two months with Indian Campaign to Ban Landmines with the German IPPNW student exchange programme.

The Indian campaign also held a press conference and a press release was sent to all national and regional newspapers in English, Hindi and some regional languages.

Dr. Balkrishna Kurvey, IIPDEP, iipdep_ngp@sancharnet.in

The Control Arms Foundation of India joined hundreds of organisations worldwide to celebrate this historic milestone of Entry Into Force of the Convention on Cluster Munition in New Delhi.

On 2 August, 2010 a press conference took place at 12.30 pm at Press Club of India, located at 1, Raisina Road, New Delhi followed by a Drumming Activity called, "Beat the Dhol, India join the Call" at India Gate at 3 pm. Several civil society organisations, students, academics, strategic and defence analysts etc took part in the proceedings. During the action, hundreds of pamphlets in both english and hindi to celebrate the entry into force were distributed.
Later a memorandum was submitted to the Indian Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs urging the Indian government to support the process to ban cluster bombs.

Binalakshmi Nepram, Control Arms Foundation of India Binalakshmi@gmail.com

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