• A massive strike saw the closure of shops all around India on Thursday, in protest of a new policy to allow big-box retailers into the country.  On Sunday, a landmine attack reportedly by Maoist rebels in eastern India struck the convoy of a senior politician, killing ten policemen and a young boy. The Atlantic ran an interesting piece on Anna Hazare, the man who led a nonviolent national movement against corruption who threatened to starve himself to death if the government fails to enact the anti-corruption reforms he seeks. The death toll at the Bangladesh-India border continue to mount three months after the Indian government instructed its border security forces to stop shooting civilians suspected of being undocumented migrants. On Sunday, Maoist rebels reportedly killed 11 people in attacks across the eastern Indian state after their leader died in a gun battle with security forces last week. On Monday, India urged social network companies, including Facebook, Twitter and Google to remove offensive material, amid complaints of censorship.
• Security forces in Afghanistanface a $4 billion funding shortfall after 2014, when they are supposed to take over the main responsibility for fighting the insurgency, raising concerns over whether the government will have the resources to keep the Taliban at bay. On Wednesday, Bulgaria announced its plan to reduce its military presence in Afghanistan by cutting its 600 troops there by three fourths by the end of 2014. On Thursday, NATO killed two Pakistani men who were reportedly gathering wood in Afghanistan; and two ISAF service members were killed in roadside bomb attacks. On Friday, a suicide bomber killed at least one and injured dozens in Logar province; and a British soldier was dismissed from the army after stabbing a 10-year-old Afghan boy in his kidneys with a bayonet for no reason. On Saturday, three ISAF soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in the east of the country; and six armed insurgents were killed and six others arrested in joint operations by the Afghan police and army, and coalition forces in Takhar, Kandahar and Herat provinces. On Sunday, multiple alleged insurgents were killed and two wounded during coalition airstrike in the eastern part of the country; and the ISAF announced that they had lost control of a surveillance drone flying over western Afghanistan last week and that it may be the one Iran said it had shot down over its own airspace.  On Monday, two ISAF service members were killed in attacks by alleged insurgents in the south; and a roadside bomb killed five civilians in the southern Uruzgan province. On Tuesday, more than 50 worshippers were killed and another 150 others injured in a suicide bomb attack on a Shi ite shrine in Kabul. On Wednesday, 19 civilians were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Kabul.
• The military in Pakistan gave clearance on Friday for commanders in areas along the border with Afg

[continued at http://apeaceofconflict.com/2011/12/08/this-week-in-asian-conflict-...]