Angry face


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Our cartoonist's viewpoint


 

Balochistan is dying out

Mazhar Arif

The bodies surface quietly, like corks bobbing up in the dark. They come in twos and threes, a few times a week, dumped on desolate mountains or empty city roads, bearing the scars of great cruelty.

 

Shrinking space for minorities!

Dr. Qaisar Abbas

The other day, while going through my daily reading quota, I came across two different narratives related to two contemporary Muslim societies on a single theme of how they treat their...

 

Coloniality of power & rights

Zafaryab Ahmed

The concept of human rights is a construct based on a notion of relationship between an individual and society, but of a legally circumscribed individual: An individual whose action is limited to conform to...

 

Flashpoint women rites

Waseem Altaf

On October 19, 2010, 75 women on an Islamic airliner (Gulf Air) traveling to perform Hajj were off boarded at Quaid-e-Azam International Airport Karachi, as they were not having a mehram or...

 

Violence is the greatest challenge to development, says WDR 2011

Shahidur Rashid Talukdar COMMENTARY

The recently released World Bank report on Conflict, Security, and Development upholds the popular view that political instability and violence have serious repercussions on peace, progress, and prosperity. Violence, the World Development Report (WDR) 2011 asserts, poses the greatest threat to development. While poverty is on the decline for much of the world, WDR (2011) observes, countries affected by violence are lagging behind. The multidimensional consequences of violence include human and socio-economic aspects. The costs can be both direct - loss of life, disability, and destruction and indirect - prevention from participation in economic activities, social and political instability, and massive displacement. The most vulnerable groups in society, tied to...

 

No more such operations, please

Zubair Torwali DEBATE

Brig Retired Shaukat Qadir’s article—No need for NWA operations—in an esteemed daily on June 3 had all the ‘relevant’ arguments against the likely military operation in NWA which our establishment still carries regarding the militancy and its use as strategic policy. Like him I am also against the military operations but my observations would be of a common Pakistani who knows nothing of the much assured importance of the use of religion in the contours of national security, which in theory is supposed to be the sole responsibility of those whom the nation nourishes on their national exchequer either in the form of higher inflation, ignorance or national disintegration. Before going further we should ask ourselves: are real and effective military...

 

A letter to Shahbaz Sharif

Abdul Khaliq ECONOMY

Dear Mr. Shahbaz Sharif!  A few days back you announced that “the nation should refuse to accept foreign aid as it had been proved to be a “poison” for the national sovereignty and its integrity. We have mortgaged our sovereignty by accepting foreign aid; therefore the nation had to break the “begging bowl” to live as an independent nation”.
Your words sound music to my ears, and I am much happy with your “radical position”. I respect your good intention, but do these really mean something more than usual political rhetoric as your party record speaks something different from your latest position. I still remember the qarz otaroo, mulk soonwaroo (repay debts to mend the country) campaign, launched by your party soon after the Atomic blasts in 1998. Many people contributed to this campaign by donating their meager savings. We never heard much about this campaign later.

 

The natives getting restless

Mujahid Hussain SITUATION

Recent events have caused the army and its intelligence wing to be exposed to criticism in a manner never seen before in this country. This estrangement does not apply to the religious right alone anymore, who were already angry because of their one dimensional view on the war on terror. Both the religious and the left wing parties have felt emotions of betrayal and anger towards the army for different reasons. The liberal intellectuals who support the army in the war on terror, have expressed concerns about the duplicity and the modus operandi of the intelligence agencies. Usama Bin Ladin's death in Abbottabad, Mehran Base Attack, successive drone attacks, and now the killing of a youth by the Rangers in Karachi in public, has caused the decibel levels to rise as never before. The less than complimentary views about the army expressed by Asma Jahangir...

 

Imam Kalashnikov

Hakim Hazik SATIRE

Imam ul Ummat, the chosen of God and the leader of the faithful, Sheikh Mikhael Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was born in the sacred region of Altai, in the Vilayat of Russia in 1919. He saw action on the Western front, against the infidel Panzer division, which led to confusion and catastrophe in the legions of the Faith. He retired therefore to his Black Sea dacha to ponder over the grave challenges facing the Ummah. After deep reflection and intense meditation, he was led by the God Almighty to the path of success and salvation. He became the inventor of the AK 47 sub machine gun. This epochal invention has become the most prized possession of the Ummah over the years. East of Urals, it has achieved an iconic status among countless believers in the Hindukush, Gandhara and...

 

Media madness

Farooq Sulehria PROBING HEADLINES

Honesty is the soul of credibility while truth is credibility personified. Credibility for any media outlet is what faith is to a believer. It is a battle media have to continuously fight. Nothing damages the credibility a free media like covert relationships with the corridors of power. However, not in the Absurdistan of a country we call Pakistan. Here, credibility is the first virtue sacrificed at the altar of motivation. Counting on audience’s gullibility, Pinocchio School of journalism believes that conspiracy theories would hide anchorpersons’ long noses only if the theory is fantastic enough. Pakistani media, print as well as electronic, cut a sorry figure after the Bombay attacks. They have become an even...

 

In the ‘City of lights’, thousands of electricity workers fight for their jobs

Adaner Usmani EXCLUSIVE

For almost fifty days, Karachi has played host to a trenchant display of working-class militancy. 4,500 workers from the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) have found themselves waging a rearguard battle against management’s decision to sack them from jobs many have held for decades. A twenty-day hunger strike has been followed by days of continuous protests, one city-wide strike, and, since Thursday, an open-ended protest camp on the road ringing the corporation’s head office. KESC, controversially privatized by the Musharraf dictatorship some six years ago after over fifty years of public ownership, has been run since 2008 by a management team appointed by Abraaj Capital, a UAE-based private equity firm. And despite lofty proclamations that competent, foreign investors...

 

Pakistan: On minority rights

Dr. Masood Ashraf Raja ANALYSIS

After the brutal murder of Shahbaz Bhatti, Ms. Asiya Nasir, a Christian member of Pakistani National Assembly, made a courageous and passionate speech in the national assembly. [The speech can be viewed using this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cT4oGIWXfQ4]. I have watched this speech numerous times, for in its tragic appeal also lies an incipient hope for a better Pakistan. In the wake of Shahbaz Bahtti’s murder, Ms. Nasir puts the very question of what constitutes a Pakistani under a serious challenge. This question about the nature of a Pakistani identity is crucial, for it can decide the fate and future of Pakistani nation-state. Ms. Nasir, one could say, in her historical retrieval of the contributions and sacrifices...

 

For Nazir Abbasi

Dr. Muhammad Ayub

Below is a Punjabi poem by Dr Mohammad Ayub. English translation is by Hakim Hazik from justicedeniedpk.com. This poem is in the memory of Nazir Abbasi, who was martyred resisting the tyranny of Zia ul Haq.

 


The war you don't see
 
An Arab springtime: Samir Amin

The year 2011 began with a series of shattering, wrathful explosions from the Arab peoples. Is this springtime the inception of a second ‘awakening of the Arab world?’ Or will these revolts bog down and finally prove abortive – as was the case with the first episode of that awakening, which was evoked in my book L'Eveil du Sud (Paris: Le temps des cerises, 2008). If the first hypothesis is confirmed, the forward movement of the Arab world will necessarily become part of the movement to go beyond imperialist capitalism on the world scale. Failure would keep the Arab world in its current status as a submissive periphery, prohibiting its elevation to the rank of an active participant in shaping the world.

It is always dangerous to generalize about the ‘Arab world,’ thus ignoring the diversity of objective conditions characterizing each country of that world. So I will concentrate the following reflections on Egypt, which is easily recognized as playing and having always played a major role in the general evolution of its region.

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Extremists openly plans to kill Ahmadis: AHRC

The Asian Human Rights Commission has received information from Faisalabad city of Punjab province, the second largest industrial and commercial city of the country that a plan has been chalked out to kill the owners and their family members of 36 commercial and industrial establishments belonging to Ahmadiyya community. The plan includes the people working in those establishments which means more than 150 persons are targeted. Doctors and other professionals are not exempt from this threat. For two weeks now pamphlets and advertisements have been distributed calling the citizens to kill people from the Ahmadis community. This should be done in the open and crowded market places as a Jihad (holy war). Killing, beating and punishing them would be rewarded by God. The pamphlets were published by the All Pakistan Student Khatm-e-Nabowat Federation and were issued by the information department of Aalmi Majlis-e-Khatm-eNabowat Shafaat-e- Muhammadi with their phone numbers and email address.

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Bangladesh’s last chance: David Montero

Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, launched a coordinated assault in January 2010 on the Islamist order that has gripped her country for 30 years. She attacked its legal foundation. In 1979, Islamists had hijacked control of the state, amended the constitution, and transformed Bangladesh from a secular country to an Islamic republic. Through the Supreme Court, Hasina retrieved it: she nullified the 1979 amendment, and the world’s third largest Muslim nation became a secular republic again.

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A run on Grameen Bank’s integrity: Patrick Bond

Bangladesh’s once-legendary banking environment is now fatally polluted. The rot is spreading so fast and far that the entire global microfinance industry is threatened. Controversy ranges far beyond poisonous local politics, the factor most often cited by those despondent about Grameen Bank’s worsening crisis.

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LPP & NSF activists threatened by security agencies

LPP and NSF comrades are being threatened by the secret agencies since yesterday. People introducing themselves from Special Branch have visited Comrade Farooq Tariq's and Azra Shad's homes and have asked about their whereabouts. Comrade Rana Aslam LPP Lahore General Secretary, Azra Shad member Central Executive Committee LPP, Comrade Irfan Choudhry General Secretary of NSF Punjab have received calls from unknown persons and have been asked about their whereabouts, their home addresses and future activities about demonstration against Military.

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