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Posted by ADP on Saturday, June 1, 2013,
In :
Mubarak Ali
1st PartPakistan
In Search Of Identity
-- Mubarak Ali –
Courtesy toDr. Mubarak Ali’sbook “Pakistan
In Search Of Identity”
Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan
was in search of its separate identity and legitimacy in order to
distinguish itself from India. Compared to India, it was at a disadvantageous
position because it adopted a new name which was unfamiliar to most of the
people of the World .Since its creation it attached no such glamour and romance
to its past civilization ...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, June 1, 2013,
In :
Mubarak Ali
2nd PartPakistan
In Search Of Identity
-- Mubarak Ali –
Two Nation Theory
The Two nation theory is
regarded as the cause for the genesis of Pakistan, and,
therefore, is an important aspect of the Pakistan ideology. The demand for
Pakistan was based on the theory that the Hindus and Muslims were two separate
nations with separate culture and history, therefore, as such they could not
live together. On this assumption, the Indian Muslims demanded a separate
homeland where they could o...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
Ayesha Siddiqa
By Ayesha Siddiqa/ Published: October 31, 2012
The writer is an independent social scientist and author of Military Inc.
The writing of history is indeed an essential art which is
critical to any nation’s emotional, psychological and eventually
material development. But it is also an art that is lost easily,
especially when states begin to treat history writing as a process of
jotting down events and doing linear interpretations....
Development, population growth and a certain mindset are
some of the factors that are destroying the rock art of Swat
By Rafiullah
Khan The past is not only a scarce
resource but it is also the most threatened one. The threat is largely posed by
the process of ‘development’. Pakistan is not an exception to this situation.
This is an alarming situation because in this way the material sources of human
history are being destroyed.
All the rock art sites of the Swat
Valley are vulnerab...
The writer received his bachelor degrees in electrical engineering
and mathematics, as well as masters and Ph.D degrees, from MIT
Agha Waqar Ahmad deserves a medal from the people of Pakistan for
his great service to the nation. In a few short days, he has exposed
just how far Pakistan has fallen into the pit of ignorance and
self-delusion. No practical joker could have demonstrated more
dramatically the true nature of our country’s political leaders, popular
TV a...
Published: May 21, 2012 The writer teaches physics and political science at LUMS. He holds a doctorate in physics from MIT
The honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan says he is losing
patience with the Capital Development Authority (CDA). In a
court-initiated (suo motu) action, he wants a quick rebuilding of the
Jamia Hafsa madrassa, flattened by bulldozers in 2007, after it became
the centre of an insurgency. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Cou...
From the Newspaper | Nadeem F. Paracha | 13th May, 2012/ Source: DAWNCOM
Right after the tragic 9/11 episode, a series of books and debates (on TV) appeared in the US and Europe trying to figure out exactly what had happened. One of the most common expressions reflecting the bafflement that
gripped western societies during the testing period was, ‘why do they
hate us?’
This is when a succession of authors and academics rose angrily to
suggest that ...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
KEVIN A. CLARKE
By KEVIN A. CLARKE AND DAVID M. PRIMO/ Published: March 30, 2012
HOW scientific are the social sciences?
Economists, political scientists and sociologists have long suffered
from an academic inferiority complex: physics envy. They often feel that
their disciplines should be on a par with the “real” sciences and
self-consciously model their work on them, using language (“theory,”
“experiment,” “law”) evocative of physics and che...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
Najam Sethi
The army was constitutionally mandated to be an arm of the
Pakistan state with elected civilians in control of the executive. But
it has seized the commanding heights and subordinated the other organs
of the state to its own unaccountable purposes.
In recent times,
however, something even more sinister has been happening. This is the
creeping growth of the ISI from a small arms-length intelligence
directorate or department of the military (Inter Services Intell...
“NEVER before had been so tragic the links between wealth and weakness,
material resources and moral bankruptcy. Never before in the history of
Islamic peoples had there been so total a separation of political power
and civil society”.
This was Eqbal Ahmad’s anguished judgment in 1982 as Beirut became the
first capital city in the world whose destruction was televized, and
watched by the world week after week. As Israeli artillery and airpower
systematically reduced the city to r...
When
holy warriors wage their jihad, the first casualties are those whose
cause they claim to represent. The poor and oppressed become further
disempowered, and are ultimately crushed under tanks or blown up by
cruise missiles
“Never
before had been so tragic the links between wealth and weakness,
material resources and moral bankruptcy. Never before in the history of
Islamic peoples had there been so total a separation of political power
and civil society”.
On February 9, 2012, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of
the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs
convened a hearing on "Baluchistan" [sic], chaired by Congressman Dana
Rohrabacher (R – CA). I, along with Messrs Ralph Peters, T. Kumar, Ali
Dyan Hasan and Dr. M. Hosseinbor, testified as a witness in that
hearing.
When I agreed to participate, I was told that the hearing was
intended to be a ...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
Arundhati Roy
The prize-winning
author of The God of Small Things talks about why she is drawn to the
Occupy movement and the need to reclaim language and meaning
Arundhati Roy: 'The expropriators should have their wealth expropriated.' Photograph: Sarah Lee
Sitting in a car parked at a gas station on the outskirts of
Houston, Texas, my colleague Michelle holds an audio recorder to my
cellphone. At the other end of the line is Arundhati Roy, author ...
Washington: Pakistani-American
businessman Mansoor Ijaz, who is at the centre of the “memogate”
controversy, has alleged that ‘S Branch’ of Pakistan’s military-run ISI
is so powerful that it can’t be controlled by anyone and wants the US to
take the lead in leashing it.
Saying that the branch along with CT (Counter-terrorism) section were
critical wings of the ISI, Ijaz alleged that the S Branch conspires
intervention in other countries like Afghanistan as well as manipulate...
We're undeterred by recent criticism, and determined to rise to the challenge of accountability – unlike the banks
tester sits outside at the Occupy London camp at St Pauls cathedral. Photograph: Jack MacDonald
Occupy London
is 50 days old on Monday and it's time to take stock. Unlike those
occupations across the world that started off small and were able to
expand gradually, our occupation was born in the full glare of the media
on 15 O...
" Recent
globalisation is a
modern face of
capitalism, which is
always coercive in
nature and increases
insecurity,"
Dr Ejaz Akram of LSE.
ISLAMABAD:
Globalisation, the linking and shrinking of the world into a
global village, has affected indigenous languages badly, as more than
2,400 of the world’s 7,000 languages face extinction. At least 23 of 66
languages in South Asia are end...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
Ayesha Jalal
Striving for beauty through
proximity to God is a theme that has always permeated Muslim poetry in
different historical contexts. Here’s a look at poetics and ethics in
Islamic art.
By Ayesha Jalal | From the Nov. 25, 2011, issue.
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Let the beauty we love be what we do, there are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Thus Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13th century Persian
poet, who has been the object of popular venerati...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
SANDRA BLAKESLEE
On a hot summer day 15 years ago in Parma, Italy, a monkey sat in a
special laboratory chair waiting for researchers to return from lunch.
Thin wires had been implanted in the region of its brain involved in
planning and carrying out movements.
Published: January 10, 2006
Every time the monkey grasped and moved an object, some cells in
that brain region would fire, and a monitor would register a sound:
brrrrrip, brrrrrip, brrrrrip.
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
Najam Sethi
An article in a British paper last month by Mansoor Ijaz, a
Pakistani-American businessman with political connections in Washington,
has taken a toll of the civilian government of President Asif Zardari
in Islamabad. The irony is that it was written to strengthen Mr Zardari
against encroachments by General Ashfaq Kayani.
Mr Ijaz claims
that shortly after the US Navy Seal raid to extract OBL from Abbottabad
on May 2, the Zardari government felt threatened by General Kayani and
sought ou...
Security is a concept that changes with the times, responding to
systemic changes in human governance, priorities, technology, economy as
well as sociology. The most important question is what you want to
secure. A related question is defining the ‘what’ in the above question.
Pakistan appears to be unable to respond to these issues.
The international system based on state sovereignty has undergone sea
changes. Sovereignty as “exclusive jurisdiction over a piece of
territory” (M...
When
people all over Pakistan will be celebrating Eid-ul-Azha, the people of
Balochistan will be mourning their loved ones. The responsibility for
this lies with the Pakistan military, its intelligence agencies and the
Frontier Corps (FC). The entire nation should be ashamed of the
brutalities unleashed by the military against its own people in
Balochistan. Javed Naseer Rind, a young journalist, was abducted in
September and his tortured, bullet-riddled body was found the other day
in...
A recent All Parties Conference
(APC) has formally handed over foreign-cum-Taliban policy to the army. What the
political parties are after is one another’s scalp: their default position is
plotting the downfall of elected governments.
The Pakistan Army is now in a precarious position of either taking the country
out of the terrorist mess or repeating past blunders. If...
For over two decades, Pakistan’s socio-political landscape has been dominated by narratives and actions of the religious right.
Those
concerned by the right’s onslaught and dominance have bemoaned the
decline and defeat of the country’s ‘moderate’ and liberal polities,
rightly complaining that their voices have been drowned.
The
religious right’s growing intolerance, intimidation and sometimes
outright violence (ever since the 1980s), ha...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
Mushtaq Gaadi
“The doctrine of independence is not to be raised to
the level of dogma so as to enable the judiciary to function as a kind
of super-legislature or super-executive.”
Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, member of the drafting committee of the Indian constitution.
THE
survival and consolidation of parliamentary democracy in Pakistan
hinges on how the emergent judicialisation of politics is dealt with and
curtailed in the near future. Judicialisation refers to the profound
shift in power away fr...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
Dr Mohammad Taqi
The Pakistani planners apparently lauded the UN separation of the
Taliban and al Qaeda on the sanctions blacklist. This distinction does
not necessarily mean lifting the sanctions; it in fact sets the stage
for further sanctions against al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists,
especially the India-oriented Punjabi jihadist groups based in
Pakistan’s heartland
In his speech on June 22, 2011, Barack
Obama outlined the drawdown of the US forces from Afghanistan. He
declared his plans to pull o...
Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
In :
Ahmad Ali Khalid
The nuclear weapons programme should have marked the end of Pakistan’s
praetorian state, but it has only entrenched it even further and
emboldened it to pursue proxy-based warfare that has come back to hurt
Pakistan
Pakistan is not a republic, nor is it a theocracy;
rather it is a praetorian state. A praetorian state is one where
political power is concentrated in the hands of a select elite within
the military. Hasan Askari Rizvi, a prominent analyst, writes: “Pakistan
can be desc...
Enforcing a politically sustainable settlement in Balochistan necessitates the reining in and permanent exclusion of the GHQ from the political sphere
The shrill indignation in the media and government circles that emerged around the US Congress resolution on Balochistan has finally exposed the class-based atrocious nature of callous insensitivities of the Pakistani state and civil-military bureaucracy to the value it puts on human life, especially in respect to the ...
It [teaching] is a task that requires that those who commit themselves to teaching develop a certain love not only for others but also of the very process implied in teaching. It is impossible to teach without courage to love, without courage to try a thousand times before giving up. It is impossible to teach without forged, invented, and well—thought—out capacity to love. Paulo Freire
In its glitzy days The Progressive Writers’ Movement, with its emphasi...
Editor’s note: We are cross-posting a five-series article titled “Voices from FATA and the panic” recently published in Daily
Times. In this series Farhat Taj present a Pashtun nationalist
perspective on issues of ethnic and provincial identity and the war on
terror. In particular, she highlights the concerns of the Pashtun
population of FATA and KP about Pakistani state’s policies of strategic
depth and Jihad enterprise.
While
some officials from the government and non-governmental organisations
have only expressed concern over the situation, other individuals,
including former army soldiers, State department officials and members
of the US Congress, have now begun to publicly assert support for an
independent Balochistan. —Photo by Reuters
The United States (US) Committee on Foreign Affairs is set to convene a congressional hearing on Wednes...
The United States (US) Committee on Foreign Affairs is set to convene
a congressional hearing on Wednesday (February 8 2012), for an
exclusive discussion on Balochistan.
The extraordinary event has generated great interest among followers
of Pakistan-US relations, as the allies’ mutual relationship seems to be
deteriorating. T...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, February 16, 2012,
In :
Kamran Shafi
"Courtesy to The Express Tribune"
By Kamran Shafi
The writer is a columnist, a former major of the Pakistan Army and served as press secretary to Benazir Bhutto
At last some sanity! After four weeks of mounting, and scathing
comment in the domestic as well as foreign media, which all of us:
politicians; Askari Qiadat particularly the Sipah Salaar-i-Azam
and the Spymaster; honourable Justices, and us poor luckless citize...
Posted by ADP on Monday, January 30, 2012,
In :
Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The Difa-i-Pakistan rally was a combination of both: the Taliban with
and without beards. The common denominator is that they both support
the establishment’s use of religious bigotry in foreign as well as
domestic policies of Pakistan
Militant outfits known for
close ties with the military establishment of Pakistan held the
Difa-i-Pakistan Conference (Defence of Pakistan Conference) on December
18, 2011. They declared jihad as an obligation for Muslims a...
Posted by ADP on Monday, January 30, 2012,
In :
Mushtaq Gaadi
Against populism
Mushtaq Gaadi | Opinion | From the Newspaper
January 19, 2012 (2 weeks ago)
POPULISM
is the new cloak of right-wing politics in Pakistan. As elsewhere, this
emergent rightist populism is constructed upon the pillars of
hyper-patriotism, xenophobia and rhetoric of anti-politics.
Its
manifest target is the incumbent government, but it potentially
threatens the ongoing democratic transition and the institutional
edifice of parliamentary democracy.
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, January 18, 2012,
In :
Mir Balach Baloch
By
—Mir Balach Baloch
Published: Tuesday, January 17, 2012, Daily Times
In modern times, no government, and particularly an economically
shattered country like Pakistan, could control a massive land and its
people through outdated colonial policies and an oppressive regime
Pakistan’s
strategic heartland and resource-rich province Balochistan is deprived
and suffering from all types of social, political and economic crises.
Unbearably mismanaged and misgoverned by Islamabad’s puppet ...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, January 18, 2012,
In :
Ahmed Shah Azami
By—Ahmad Shah Azami
Published: 18 Jan 2012, The Daily Times
This popular form of Islam is more widespread than the hardline and
extremist version of Wahabiism, which is followed by today’s Taliban and
al Qaeda
A theatre (stage drama) was organised in Peshawar
by the Directorate of Culture, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from January 16 to
January 18 to commemorate the great Pashto sufi poet, Rahman Baba. The
theatre show aimed to give the message of love, peace and tolerance to
the youth of ...
December 28, 2010, Published in " Blogs, The Express Tribune"
While the mullahs in Lahore were waging jihad (at least
through their hateful speeches) many progressive Pakistani and Indians
were praying for peace. PHOTO: REUTERS
I had goosebumps reading the recent news that several criminals gathered in Lahore under the banner of t...
The writer is a director with Hill Road Media and a former editor
of the Mumbai-based English newspaper Mid Day and the Gujarati paper
Divya Bhaskar
aakar.patel@tribune.com.pk
Mansoor Ijaz’s memo to the American Army,
given in the wake of May 2, says 10 things: 1; General Parvez Kayani
was desperate to find someone to blame for being unable to stop America
from killing Osama bin Laden. Pr...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012,
In :
Eqbal Ahmad
By Eqbal Ahmad,
In his letter to Zarb-i-Momin, the Taliban publication, Mr Azam Tariq,
leader of Pakistan's violently sectarian Sipah-i-Sahaba Party, is
ecstatic over his ideological brothers' recent victories. His ecstasy is
shared by Pakistan's national security managers, but for
non-ideological reasons. The attainment of "strategic depth" has been a
prime objective of Pakistan's Afghan policy since the days of General
Ziaul Haq. In recent years the Taliban replaced Gulbadin...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012,
In :
Rabia Ali
By Rabia Ali
Published: December 10, 2011
ABDUCTED: 5,000to 6,000 is the number of people ‘missing’ in Balochistan,
according to the HRCP. PHOTO: REUTERS.
KARACHI: What is happening in the largest province of the country
remains behind a veil of secrecy. There are some who dare to speak, but
only if their privacy is protected. For “to be a Baloch openly is to
embrace death,” says one such woman.
Washington: Pakistani-American
businessman Mansoor Ijaz, who is at the centre of the “memogate”
controversy, has alleged that ‘S Branch’ of Pakistan’s military-run ISI
is so powerful that it can’t be controlled by anyone and wants the US to
take the lead in leashing it.
Saying that the branch along with CT (Counter-terrorism) section were
critical wings of the ISI, Ijaz alleged that the S Branch conspires
intervention in other countries like Afghanistan as well as manipulate...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012,
In :
Kamran Shafi
By Kamran Shafi
Published: December 1, 2011
The writer is a columnist, a former major of the Pakistan Army and served as press secretary to Benazir Bhutto
And will our brass hats not learn that merely striking attitudes is never enough? Take the matter of the Shamsi airbase which the Americans have been asked to vacate inside of 15 days
after Nato helicopters attacked a border post in Mohmand Agency,
killing 26 of ...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012,
In :
Farzana Ali Khan
Contributors:
Farzana Ali Khan
Farzana Ali Khan
SWAT:
Despite losing the Nobel Peace Laureate prize, Malalai Yousafzai, a
grade 8 student from Gulkada, Mingora is determined to fight for the
education of girls an... Continue reading ...
" Recent
globalisation is a
modern face of
capitalism, which is
always coercive in
nature and increases
insecurity,
"
Dr Ejaz Akram of LSE.
ISLAMABAD:
Globalisation, the linking and shrinking of the world into a
global village, has affected indigenous languages badly, as more than
2,400 of the world’s 7,000 languages face extinction. At least 23 of 66
l...
Associated Press |
Posted: Friday, January 13, 2012 12:29 pm
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's powerful army intelligence chief personally intervened to check details surrounding a secret memo asking Washington to rein in Pakistan's military following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the man who made the memo public said Sunday.
Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, flew to London to meet with Mansoor Ijaz
on Oct. 22, l...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 12, 2012,
In :
Faraz Aamer Khan
Pakistan’s
ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Mr. Husain Luckani has been accused by a
Papua New Guinean columnist and businessman, Mr. Manzooro Otto Otanga,
of giving him a secret memo and asking him to deliver it to the chief of
the Papua New Guinean Navy, Admiral Tropico Melon.
Manzooro Otto
Otanga claims that the memo had pleaded that Admiral Melon put pressure
on the Pakistan army, its intelligence agency, the ISI, and on Mr.
Luckani’s mother-in-law because these forces were plann...
LONDON: Pakistan
Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan was recently introduced to
Cameron Munter, American Ambassador to Pakistan, in the presence of
General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the ISI chief, according to sources, The
Sunday Times reported. Imran Khan is said to have gained the backing of
the country’s powerful security establishment, which has grown tired of
the corruption pervading the two traditional political groupings, the
Pakistan People...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 12, 2012,
In :
SANDRA BLAKESLEE
Leigh Wells
MONKEY SEE When a monkey watches a researcher bring an
object—an ice cream cone, for example— to his mouth, the same brain
neurons fire as when the monkey brings a peanut to its own mouth. In the
early 1990's, Italian researchers discovered this phenomenon and named
the cells "mirror neurons."
More Photos >
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, December 7, 2011,
In :
Kamran Shafi
By Kamran Shafi
Courtesy of the "The Express Tribune with the International Tribune"
The writer is a columnist, a former major of the Pakistan Army and served as press secretary to Benazir Bhutto
Amid all this talk of how our sovereignty has been compromised by Memogate,
another Memo, this priceless one signed by none other than the Founder
of the Pakistan Army who first taught the Generals a lesson they never
forgot: how to mount coups d’etat and take over the gov...
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Let the beauty we love be what we do, there are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Thus Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13th century Persian
poet, who has been the object of popular veneration and, overriding
sectarian, ideological and national divisions, a long lasting source of
inspiration for Muslims around the world. With his knowledge of the
inner spiritual recesses of Islam and skillful use of language, he is
u...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, November 19, 2011,
In :
Najam Sethi
By Najam Sethi
An article in a British paper last month by Mansoor Ijaz, a
Pakistani-American businessman with political connections in
Washington, has taken a toll of the civil...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, November 19, 2011,
In :
Dr.Ijaz Khan
Courtesy to: The Express Tribune
The writer is chairman of the Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar
Security is a concept that changes with the times, responding to
systemic changes in human governance, priorities, technology, economy as
well as sociology. The most important question is what you want to
secure. A related question is defining the ‘what’ in the above question.
Pakistan appears to be unable to respond t...
Prior to beginning my lecture, I would like
to
propose some practical suggestions. Just speaking about women's
rights, women's personality and Islam's view of women is very
different from realising the actual value which Islam gives to human
beings, and to women in particular. Most often, we are satisfied by
pointing out that Islam gives great value to science or establishes
progressive rights for women. Unfortunately we never actually use or
benefi...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 27, 2011,
In :
Zubeida Mustafa
Courtesy to "www.dawn.com"
PEARL
S. Buck, the American author who rose to fame because of her graphic
and insightful novels on pre-revolutionary China, once remarked, “If
you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” But
can you understand yesterday if what you learn about it is warped and
one-sided?
That is inevitable when information
of the past comes in the form of history written with a colonial
construction. It portrays events through the prism of the powerful
clas...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 22, 2011,
In :
Farhat Taj
By--Farhat Taj
The PPP is losing space to the religious fanatics and silencing with its
own hands all the sane and principled voices within the ranks of the
party. Shortsighted and insensitive people are running the show in the
party
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has arguably been the
most popular federalist party of Pakistan. The party has been binding
Pakistanis across the ethnic and religious divide with the federation of
Pakistan. It has secular credentials and has been backin...
Posted by ADP on Friday, January 21, 2011,
In :
Nazish Brohi
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Veerji was abducted, assaulted, kept in confinement, and threatened with
the demand that the Kasturi case be retracted otherwise he could be
kidnapped again, with worse consequences. But it is a lesson he has
deliberated over and chosen not to learn
Our hearts are
wrenched, our minds boggled, our eyes scarred, our pockets upturned by
this flood. But like with all other crises, whether terrorist attacks,
rape and killings of women or inflation and price hikes...
Posted by ADP on Friday, January 21, 2011,
In :
Ishtiaq Ahmed
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
On the whole, Singapore’s approach to prevent radicalisation of society
is to actively engage with the religious communities, maintain close
link with their organisations and allow unrestricted religious freedom
to them, yet put limits to such freedom when national interest is
adversely affected
In this essay I would like to share with
the readers the very positive views on the Singapore model of religious
pluralism that I formed during my recently complet...
Posted by ADP on Friday, January 21, 2011,
In :
Ghani Khan
Ghani Khan
Translated by Niala Khalil
O Lovers of Islam! O Political Believer! Today you praise Islam But who was it that you praised yesterday? The face of that same vicious eagle But with new green wings The sharp and rough claws of an eagle
On the doorstep of bad luck Today promises of heaven Yesterday those of hell The same song With new titles
O lovers of Islam O political believers You are full of beauty and piety But your beauty is deceiving and your faith impure Yesterday you were gaining for...
This
article is named after Eknath Easwaran's book A
Man to Match his Mountains,
a biography of Abdul Ghaffar Khan popularly known as Bacha Khan.
There might be found no inclusive similarity between that volume and
this piece of writing. But, however, one thing is certain that Bacha
Khan is heir to the centuries old experiences of his Mountains. His
towering personality is embedded in the legacy of the syncretic and
dialectic process in his land ra...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, October 20, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
The ANP fell on its knees during the signing of the Swat peace deal with
the terrorists. ANP circles have anonymously claimed that suicide
bombers were sent to the top leaders to force them to sign the peace
deal. If they refused, they would have been killed on the spot
It
has been quite a few days now since the top leaders of the Pakhtun
nationalist party, the Awami National Party (ANP), have been issuing
strange statements. The party chief, Asfandyar Khan, described NATO’s
purs...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, October 20, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
Farhat Taj: A survey of Drone Attacks in Pakistan. What
do the people of FATA think?
Courtesy
to "LUBP"
The
Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a think tank of
researchers and political activists from the NWFP and FATA, conducts
research, surveys and collect statistics on various issues concerning
the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorism and human security there. AIRRA
research teams go deep inside Taliban- and Al-Qaeda-occupied areas of
FATA to collect information. Most of ...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, October 9, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
ANALYSIS: An unethical survey on FATA —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The people of FATA perceive state collusion with the Taliban. They want
the termination of this collusion before the military operations. Until
then, they are comfortable with the drone strikes on militant positions
Recently,
a survey was conducted by the New America Foundation (NAF), a US think
tank, and Terror Free Tomorrow (TFT) about the tribal public opinion in
FATA about the war on terror, including the US d...
Posted by ADP on Monday, September 20, 2010,
In :
Howard Zinn
Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress
excerpted from a
People's History of the United StatesBy Howard Zinn
Courtesy to "Third World Traveler"
Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged
from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to
get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his
sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks
ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote
of this in his log:
Posted by ADP on Thursday, September 16, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
ANALYSIS: A gender-blind ‘neo-miratha’ —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Tribal leaders in FATA have been killed along with their female
relatives. The aim of such attacks seems to be to wipe out any
possibility, no matter how remote it may be, of the female heirs taking
up the anti-Taliban struggle
Miratha is a Pashto word that
refers to the now obsolete practice of killing all males, adult and
minors, in a family so that there are no male heirs left to inherit the
family...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, September 16, 2010,
In :
Haider Nizamani
VIEW: Does Pakistan make sense? — II —Haider Nizamani
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
If persistence of Baloch nationalism points towards limited success of
the Pakistani national project, the dilution of Pashtun nationalism
shows that Pakistani identity can co-opt regions by making them economic
and political stakeholders in a united Pakistan
Punjab’s
nationalism is often subsumed in Pakistani nationalism, but there have
been instances in the recent past when Pakistani nationalism di...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, September 16, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Drone attacks: challenging some fabrications —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation
under the Taliban and al Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone
attacks
There is a deep abyss between the perceptions of the
people of Waziristan, the most drone-hit area and the wider Pakistani
society on the other side of the River Indus. For the latter, the US
drone attacks on Waziristan are a violation of Pakistani’s ...
We are not fighting only a military war. It is a war against
mindsets and attitudes that are discriminatory and bigoted. It is
actually a war against a paranoid mindset
Comedy of errors
or a case of what goes around comes around? For years now, human rights
activists have highlighted the plight of the ‘missing persons’. From
demonstrations to contacting politicians to even approaching the
Supreme Court, the familie...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, April 28, 2010,
In :
Zubeida Mustafa
Libraries go out of fashion: By Zubeida Mustafa
Courtesy to “Dawn”
APRIL 23 was the World Book and Copyright Day. We have to be grateful
to DawnNews for taking up the subject of books in its programme ‘
Bolna zaroori hai’.
The media doesn’t find books an exciting topic to discuss. Books don’t
carry the same attraction as cross-border weddings of sport
celebrities. Some television channels were kind enough to carry reports
in their...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, April 27, 2010,
In :
SHIKSHANTAR
Part Two. 2
TEACHING AS A SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITY
Radical pedagogists, such as Paulo
Freire, Neil Postman, bell hooks, and Henry Giroux, challenge the
conventional concepts of a classroom teacher and pedagogy vis-à-vis
schooling and larger political-economic systems. They argue that
teachers must fight the rigidity and conformity of schools and create
genuine spaces for learners to explore and develop their diverse
capacities and talents. Teachers should also use their teaching power
...
Two paradigms of learning: By Dr Shahid Siddiqui
Courtesy to "Dawn"
THERE has always been a difference of opinion about the goals,
dynamics, and assessment of education. This difference has its roots in
competing philosophical positions that construct, justify and
rationalise particular educational approaches.
These positions also inform, inspire, shape and defend the notions of
education, pedagogy and assessm...
There is a need for close cooperation not just between the different
intelligence agencies and the security forces but, most importantly,
between the locals and the agencies. For there is no substitute for
local knowledge and information gathering
The army chief has
rendered an apology. The apology was made for the loss of 70 lives of
Kuki Khel tribe of Tirah Valley in Khyber Agency. The people of the
tribe were understanda...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, April 27, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Kidnapping for ransom: a family’s ordeal —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The Pakistan Army is conducting an operation in Bara, Khyber Agency.
Thousands of people of Bara have become IDPs due to the operation.
Despite the operation, the Mangal Bagh group is active and kidnapping
people for ransom as usual
Various jihadi outfits based in
FATA generate revenues through kidnapping for ransom. One of them is
Bara-based Lashkar-e-Islam led by Mangal Bagh in Khyber Agency.
Vill...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, April 27, 2010,
In :
Daud Khattak
VIEW: Can there be an end to this war? —Daud Khattak
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
If the militants remained on the move with their weaponry, command
and control, and plans of fighting intact, then this anti-terror war is
not going to come to an end in the foreseeable future
Friday’s
attack on a convoy of army soldiers in North Waziristan and the fresh
wave of violence in parts of the newly-renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
signifies that armed Taliban are still as powerful as they were before
the l...
Posted by ADP on Monday, April 19, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Paranoid about Pakhtun ethnic identity —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The people of Hazara have the right to demand a separate province in
their area, but they have no right to dictate a name of their choice on
the overwhelming majority of the Pakhtun
Renaming of the NWFP as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
in the 18th constitutional amendment has led to a wave of violence in
Hazara Division. Eight people have been killed, including policemen on
duty and dozens injured. The PMN-N and t...
IN the Quran, creation is not seen merely as an event which occurred
“at the beginning” but as an ongoing process to which reference is made
a number of times (for instance, in Surah 2:28, 27:64, 29:19-20 and
35:1).
Recognising
the central importance of the theme of divine creation in the Quran,
Toshihiko Izutsu observes in his book God and Man in the Quran: “In
fact, ...
When we see the brutal face of alleged Islamic practices of the
Taliban that subjugates, insults, terrorises and finally kills, we
shake our heads in disbelief. We are collectively as a nation in denial
I
have been debating with myself on whether to write about the resurgent
controversy on the Swat flogging video or not. Much has been written
about it. There are people and groups who passionately advocate that it
was f...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, April 14, 2010,
In :
Andleeb Abbas
VIEW: The media mafia —Andleeb Abbas
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The popular anchorpersons’ power to make or break opinion creates an
arrogance in them that is displayed through condescending sneers and
mocking jeers, inciting their guests to lose their cool and be reduced
to a laughing stock
Extremism in every form and of every
nature is equally dangerous. In a society that seems to have lost its
balance, most things seem to lose control too easily and too soon.
Whether it is religious b...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, April 10, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: A plea for Bara IDPs —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The IDPs request the government to open vocational centres in the
camp for training in employable skills like carpentry, masonry,
welding, electrical wiring, plumbing, etc. The IDPs also request for
vocational centres for income generation and skill development purposes
for the women IDPs, like embroidery and tailoring
There are about 4,000 registered
and 1,300 unregistered Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Bara,
...
Posted by ADP on Monday, April 5, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Mohmand IDPs: forced expulsion? —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The IDPs from Mohmand must not be forced to leave the camp. Let us
not forget that the people of Mohmand Agency, like people from
elsewhere in FATA, are paying the torturous price for the military
establishment’s policy of strategic depth in Afghanistan
About
2,000 registered and 1,000 unregistered Internally Displaced Persons
(IDPs) from Mohmand Agency in FATA are living in Jalozai camp,
Nowshera, for about...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, March 27, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Pak-US dialogue: a Pakhtun perspective —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Basically, the jirga is saying that it does not trust the military
establishment, which is leading the dialogue with the US. The military
establishment will follow the policy of strategic depth in Afghanistan,
which is the key cause of the sufferings of Pakhtuns on both sides of
the Durand Line
Days before the Pak-US strategic dialogue in
Washington on the issue of terrorism, a grand tribal jirg...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, March 20, 2010,
In :
Noam Chomsky
Crisis
and Hope: Theirs and Ours
Noam
Chomsky, Courtesy to "www.chomsky.info"
Boston
Review, September/October 2009
Perhaps I may begin with a few words about the title. There is too much
nuance and variety to make such sharp distinctions as theirs-and-ours,
them-and-us. And neither I nor anyone can presume to speak for "us."
But I will pretend it is possible.
There is also a problem with the term "crisis." Which one? There
are numerous very severe crises, interwo...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, March 20, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Assaulting the Pakhtun culture —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The Pakhtun culture is reflected in Ghaffar Khan’s non-violent
movement, in the mysticism of Rahman Baba’s poetry and in the
romanticism of Ghani Khan’s poetry. This is a society that produced
hundreds of anti-Taliban lashkar leaders all over Pakhtunkhwa who were
target killed because they insisted that Talibanisation is the
antithesis of Pakhtun culture
Essentialism means that
people have an intrinsic ...
It is imperative to understand that we need to win the war and not
just the battle. While we rightly pat ourselves and the police,
military and paramilitary forces for their work, we need to remind
ourselves and them that the war is yet to be won
In the wake of the tragic Lahore
blasts, the discussion of the ethnicity of the Taliban and the success
of the operations against them has received a new impetus. During the...
BEFORE the advent of Islam, many girl children in Arabia were denied
the most fundamental right to live. As stated by Muhammad Asad, “The
barbaric custom of burying female infants alive seems to have been
fairly widespread in pre-Islamic Arabs.”
The
Quran itself refers to this heinous practice in two specific passages.
The first reference is in the context o...
Four percent say Taliban's presence is positive influence
by Julie Ray and Rajesh Srinivasan: Courtesy to " GALLUP
"
This
article is the first of a two-part series that looks at Pakistanis' and
Afghans' views of the Taliban's influence and their respective
countries' efforts to combat terrorism.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Taliban's presence on either side of the
Afghanistan-Pakistan...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, March 13, 2010,
In :
Zubeida Mustafa
Violence in the home - by Zubeida Mustafa
Courtesy to “Dawn”
THE theme of International Women’s Day observed on Monday was ‘equal
rights, equal opportunities and progress for all’. One may well ask if
this ideal can ever be achieved as long as the unequal power
relationship between the sexes, which causes women to become victims of
domestic violence, continues to exist.
Unicef now recognises
that when the home which is supposed to be the safes...
VIEW: Rehabilitation of the Taliban —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Young children were kidnapped by the Taliban and then made to serve
as suicide bombers. These young men, and in the latter part of the
battle young women, became cannon fodder for the Taliban’s heinous
designs. They did not have the freedom to choose their path
At
least 13 people dead in the Lahore blast. On the day that marked the
hundredth anniversary of the International Women’s Day, many wom...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, March 13, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Kamal Mehsud: did the ISPR cheat him? —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Kamal Mehsud’s story is just one of the hundreds of stories of
horror in Waziristan. The other stories are much more brutal and
sinister in terms of the intelligence agencies’ collusion with the
Taliban
Kamal Mehsud was the most famous singer of
Waziristan. He died in January 2010 in a fire that broke out in his
house when his family was away for a wedding ceremony. The family
believes he has...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, March 9, 2010,
In :
Wazhma Frogh
VIEW: We do not learn from history —Wazhma Frogh
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Women’s groups, Afghan civil society organisations and activists
have regularly raised alarm because they are concerned that the
cooption of the Taliban is likely to amount to a loss of the
achievements made over the past nine years
Could we turn the
clock back in Afghanistan and travel through time? If so, then the Bonn
Agreement of 2001 would be the right time and place to present the
Taliban reintegrat...
SURAH 96, verses 1-5, the first revelation received by Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH), links divine bounty to the human ability to read, write and to
know.
The
passage states, “Read in the name of your Sustainer, who has created —
created man out of a germ-cell. Read — for your Sustainer is the Most
Bountiful One, Who has taugh...
BOOK REVIEW: Humanising the monster —by Dr Mohammad Taqi
My life with the Taliban, By Abdul Salam Zaeef
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Translated from Pashto and edited by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn Hurst/Columbia University Press; Pp 331
In
his foreword to Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef’s book, Professor Barnett
Rubin of New York University sets the stage for the launch, ostensibly,
of a refreshingly authentic work of this inaccurate and revisionist
take on contemporary Afghan...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, March 6, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Interpreting tribal leaders of FATA —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Anger against the Pakistan Army and the Taliban is intense and
getting more intense with every passing day and so is disappointment
with the government of Pakistan
I am compiling a list of the tribal
leaders of FATA who have been victims of target killings from 2003
onwards. This is still a work in progress and my estimate is that the
names in the final list would be well over 1,000. There is a wid...
The powerless provincial government in Balochistan, if it has a
modicum of decency, should quit immediately to absolve itself of the
responsibility of exploitation and destruction of Balochistan’s
resources and environment
Nawab Aslam Raisani, Chief
Minister (CM) Balochistan, announced last year that the provincial
cabinet had unanimously decided to cancel an agreement with Tethyan
Copper and Gold Company (TCC) ...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, March 3, 2010,
In :
Zubeida Mustafa
Who pays for education?
By Zubeida Mustafa
Courtesy to "Dawn"
THE US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has urged wealthy
Pakistanis to pay a higher share of taxes to reduce the country’s
dependence on foreign aid.
She
especially pointed to the health and education sectors, which, as her
administration is now realising, are in very poor shape in spite of the
nearly $6bn aid provided by the US to Paki...
The active emergence of a revamped
PML-N supplemented by an alarmist new electronic media can be detected
as a more vocal arrival of the New Right in Pakistan. — Photo by AP
It was called the ‘New Left.’ Emerging
in Britain in the 1950s, the New Left was the left’s disparaging
response to the authoritarian tendencies of Marxism mainly symbolised
by so-called ‘Stalinism’. The New Left revisited Marxist doctrines and
atte...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, March 3, 2010,
In :
Sanaullah Baloch
COMMENT: The Balochistan truth —Sanaullah Baloch
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The increasing rate of preventable maternal mortality is a symptom
of the larger social injustice of discrimination against women.
Thousands of avoidable maternal deaths each year indicate the
government’s unfaithfulness to domestic and international laws
During the recent visit of President
Asif Ali Zardari, due to closure of the roads in Quetta, a poor woman
gave a birth in an auto rickshaw. The situation in Ba...
The
Process of Your Life Should Be the Process of Your Education
Dayal
Chandra Soni
THE
NECESSITY
AND THE ABILITY
TO LEARN
ARE
IMPLICIT
IN HUMAN
NATURE
The
greatest and the most harmful illusion, from which our society is
suffering today, is that ‘schooling’ and ‘education’ are
synonymous. So, the most important task before all thoughtful and
honest citizens in our society is to break this illusion. The origin
and functioning of teaching-learning on this earth is as old as...
Posted by ADP on Monday, March 1, 2010,
In :
Ivan Illich
Twenty-Six Years Later
Ivan Illich in conversation with Majid Rahnema
This conversation was published
in The
Post-development Reader compiled and introduced by Majid
Rahnema with Victoria Bawtree (Zed Books, Fernwood Publishing,
1997).
Majid Rahnema: Ivan, I was already
"contaminated" by many of your ideas on development
and education, when I first read your talk on "Development
as Planned Poverty," later followed by your other great essay
on the Epimethean Man. Like your other writings...
Posted by ADP on Monday, March 1, 2010,
In :
Mubarak Ali
A historical view of terrorism
– By Dr. Mubarak Ali
A STUDY of terrorism from a historical perspective would shed light
on the origin of this phenomenon and the motivation behind it. It has
manifested itself in different hues and colours.
Terrorism has emerged in different circumstances with different aims
and objectives. One of its earliest forms was directed against
individuals when political or religious groups resorted to violence
against people who posed a threat to their e...
What is
Terrorism and How to Fight It? Dr. Tariq
Rahman
Terrorism is defined as the
use of violence without warning at places of one’s own choosing in order to
achieve political aims. There are other such definitions too and all of them
refer to acts such as the hijacking of aircrafts, detonating bombs in public
places, indiscriminate firing upon civilians, derailing trains, demolishing
buildings, releasing dangerous gases in public places and so on. In short, the
definitions refer to the ...
The UNESCO as well as many linguists agree that children
should get their basis schooling in their mother tongue. Pakistani schools, as
I have argued in my article published in this section earlier (Dawn 23 November), generally impose
alien languages upon them. There is, however, one school which makes a
conscious effort at giving respect to a language other than English. As it is
an elitist English-medium institution for small children it h...
Rich people have many myths to defend their privileged
position in life. The ancient Hindus believed in rigid castes. It was one’s
destiny to be born in a privileged caste and only by accepting one’s lot in
life one could hope to be born in a more privileged social position in another
life. Plato actually spoke of teaching people to believe that they had gold,
silver or baser metals in their souls. Thus, the argument was that one need not
do ...
Posted by ADP on Monday, March 1, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: The dauntless heroes of NWFP Police —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The public perceive the police as as much an innocent casualty as
the innocent civilians in the state’s pursuit of strategic goals in
Afghanistan. They see an ethnic discrimination behind the lack of
equipment, and training of the police
A considerable public
perception in the NWFP puts an alarming ethnic perspective on the
rising police casualties in the province. They note that the police
dispr...
We are so consumed with a matter of private faith that we will
accept all ills in a head of state but not the fact that s/he is a
non-Muslim. What right do we have to say that there is equality before
the law in Pakistan when one of our laws bars a Pakistani from a
position on the basis of his/her religion?
We are consumed
by religion. The Muslims amongst us are consumed by Islam whereas the
non-Muslim Pakistanis are consumed ...
Posted by ADP on Friday, February 26, 2010,
In :
Wasif Rizvi
Ascent
of Conflict and the Death of Resolutionby Wasif
Rizvi
Courtesy to "Vimukt Shiksha"
It
seems ironically befitting to elaborate on the theme of "conflict
resolution" in the closing months of the 20th century — which
happens to be by far the most violent and the bloodiest in human
history. More than 80 million people have been killed in direct
warfare in this century, which roughly amounts to about 2200 violent
deaths every single day for the last 100 years. More than 3/4 ...
Posted by ADP on Friday, February 26, 2010,
In :
Samia Saleem
Book review: A book for all —by Samia Saleem
Muhammad: A Prophet for Our TimeBy Karen Armstrong
Harper Collins; Pp 249
Reviled by her critics and applauded
by her admirers, Karen Armstrong has revealed her story-telling skills,
brilliant perception and painstaking research yet another time in
Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. Written expressly with the purpose of
removing misunderstandings about Islam in the West in the aftermath of
9/11, the book goes beyond simply highlighting the to...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, February 25, 2010,
In :
Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich
THE SHADOW
THAT THE FUTURE THROWS
Text based on a
conversation between Nathan Gardels and Ivan Illich in 1989
Gardels: Because
of your radical critique of industrial society fifteen and twenty
years ago in such books as Energy and Equity, Medical
Nemesis, and Towards A History of Needs, you are widely
regarded as a founding thinker of the environmental movement.
Now, many of your
concepts have entered into the vocabulary of the established
institutions of indus...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, February 25, 2010,
In :
Howard Zinn
Drawing the Color Line By Howard Zinn
(Excerpted from "A People's History of the United States," published by Harper & Row, 1990; copyright
1980, by Howard Zinn. This excerpt is reprinted in the national interest of the American people).
A black American writer, J. Saunders Redding, describes the arrival of a ship in North America in
the year 1619:
Sails furled, flag drooping at her rounded stern, she rode the tide in from the sea. She was
a strange ship, indeed, by all accounts, a frigh...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, February 24, 2010,
In :
Dr Manzur Ejaz
WASHINGTON DIARY: Education in mother tongue —Dr Manzur Ejaz
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Research has shown that the students proficient in their mother
tongue are better equipped to learn other languages. Furthermore, it is
apparent that the countries that used mother tongues as medium of
education were better in augmenting and creating knowledge
It
was the International Mother Tongue Day three days ago (February 21). I
want my fellow Punjabis to be tolerant of other religions/sect...
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is in for criticism
for inefficiency and indiscipline. It has failed on all fronts: collection
targets, widening of tax base, countering tax evasion and avoidance,
recovery of arrears, voluntary compliance, reform process and what not.
At the end of the five-year Tax Administration Reform
Project (TARP), the t...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 23, 2010,
In :
Sanaullah Baloch
Constitutional courts
By Sanaullah Baloch Courtesy to "Dawn"
The
crisis of the judiciary versus the executive in the NRO case and the
judges appointment case as well as the judiciary versus the
super-establishment predicament in the missing persons case have once
again highlighted Pakistan’s fragile institutional relations.
Although
inflexible and barely implemented, Pakistan’s constitution does provide
basic guarantees to the rights of individual...
Taliban
and science – An interview with Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy
“Islam and Science Have Parted Ways” Courtesy
to "Middle East Quarterly"
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy (b. 1950) is one of South Asia’s leading
nuclear physicists and perhaps Pakistan’s preeminent intellectual.
Bearer of a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , he
is chairman of the department of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in
Islamabad where, as a high-energy physicist, h...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 23, 2010,
In :
Kaiser Bengali
Lawyers’
struggle: another view by
Kaiser Bengali
Courtesy
to "criticalppp.org"
THE successful movement for the reinstatement of
Iftikhar Chaudhry is being billed as a historic watershed event that
has redefined the politics of the country and, in particular, the
relationship between citizen and state.
Whether this conclusion turns out to be an illusion or
reality will be tested in due course of time. In the meantime, however,
an examination of the composition of the movement rai...
Back
towards tolerance in Pakistani society – by Charles Ferndale and
Kamila Hayat
Here are two articles highlighting the importance of re-discovering
and re-inculcating the seeds of tolerance in Pakistani society and the
region in general.Courtesy
to "www.criticalppp.org"
The path to freedom
Charles Ferndale
Kamila Hyat, in a typically lucid, well-reasoned article, published
in The News on February 11, laments the present ubiquity of intolerance
in ...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 20, 2010,
In :
Mubarak Ali
Past present: Is Sufism relevant to our time? By Mubarak Ali
Courtesy to "Dawn"
There are some people who, in view of the present religious extremism,
believe that if Sufi teachings are revived, religious intolerance and
fundamentalism may be controlled. The attempt to revive the past system
and old ideas is not a new phenomenon. Those societies which are
backward and have no creative and innovative capability to come up with
new ideas ...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 20, 2010,
In :
Hamza Alvi
The
Rise of Religious Fundamentalism in Pakistan – by Hamza Alvi
Courtesy to "Hamza Alavi Internet Archive"
Religious fundamentalism has become a powerful and dangerous force
in Pakistan, due mainly to the opportunism of successive political
leadership that has pandered to it. Militant sectarian religious groups
and parties, led by half-educated and bigoted mullahs,many of them
armed to the teeth, are holding our civil society and the state to
ransom.
Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 20, 2010,
In :
Dr Manzur Ejaz
Sufi chants and revolutions —
by Dr Manzur Ejaz
If one reads Punjabi classical poetry, with no presumption of
Sufism, it is just good poetry of a certain period that has withstood
the test of time. I do not know anybody who would claim that just
reading and singing of this poetry would bring social change
One of our reputable progressive historians asserted in one of his
recently published column that chanting Sufi songs cannot change the
situation: one needs a modern theor...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, February 17, 2010,
In :
Irfan Husain
Morality and atheism
Irfan Husain
Courtesy to "Dawn"
The belief in a god is generally quite low in all the major European countries.—Photo by Reuters
Consider this demographic projection
for the UK, and ponder its implications for a moment: within five
years, the majority of babies will be born to unmarried parents.
However, before you put this down to yet
another example of Western immorality, just remember that all th...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 16, 2010,
In :
Karl Marx
A
CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF
HEGEL'S
PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT
Introduction
by
Karl Marx
Deutsch-Franzosische
Jahrbucher_
February,
1844
For
Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed,
and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.
The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly
oratio pro aris et focis ["speech for the altars and hearths"]
has been refuted. Man, who has found only the reflection of...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 16, 2010,
In :
Robin Hahnel
Capitalist
Globalism In Crisis
Part
One: Boom and Bust
By Robin
Hahnel
Courtesy to "Z-
Magazine"Tuesday, December 01, 1998
[This
essay is part of the ZNet Classics series. Three times a week we will
re-post an article that we think is of timeless importance. This one
was first published December 1, 1998.]
This is the first
article in a three part series on the current global economic Crisis.
Among economic systems capitalism is the
manic-depressive patie...
Seminaries in Muslim
world are popularly known as "Madrasas" which impart
Islamic religious learning. These madrasas created by religious
establishment exert tremendous influence over religious and secular
people alike. The madressas have been existing in our society from
centuries. Their role in the past was to provide moral guidance to
the society besides providing prayer lea...
VIEW: Pakistani Taliban apologists —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad
Courtesy
to "Daily Times"
It is baffling to note how anyone can support and justify the TTP
while at the same time proclaim to be champions of democracy, rule of
law, equality before the law and most of all justice. Or do they mean
justice TTP-style?
One has always believed that confusion
is good as it breeds creativity. This is not merely a position that is
propagated by pop psychology quizzes and agony aunts of newspapers. In
fact...
The revival and promotion of cultural activities will
boost rebuilding
By Rafi Ullah- Courtesy to "The News"
Swat is once again abuzz with activity. The traditional
looks of Mingawara seem to be coming back in the once restive valley. As I
stepped down from the van in Mingawara I found the city open with its
archetypal cheers. Of course, the recent normalcy has infused, once more,
confidence and the spirit...
Posted by ADP on Monday, February 15, 2010,
In :
Wasif Rizvi
Education
In Pakistan
From
Numbers to Learning by WASIF RIZVI
Courtesy
to "EDucate"
The
issues of educational access like the rural schools or girls
education, have been the focus of a fairly extensive public debate in
Pakistan. Since the issues of access are essentially quantitative, so
the bulk of the discourse is on the statistical analysis of the
situation with politicians and policy-makers gasping in horror on the
appallingly low numbers of enrollment and literacy. Surprisin...
Posted by ADP on Monday, February 15, 2010,
In :
Mahatma Gandhi
The Quest for Simplicity: 'My Idea of Swaraj' of mahatma gandhi
It
is a matter of seeing again, if not a return to 0, for emergence to
reoccur. These powers of return, however fluid, are structured at
every level, are matters of power and negotiation. We are supposed to
know, from Internet porn to a U.S. presidential candidate singing
“bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran “ to the tune of the Beach Boys’
“Barbara Ann,” that size matters. But that’s not enough. It is
not enough to lab...
I was in Pakistan in August and had the opportunity to meet the
leaders of the anti-Taliban lashkar (volunteer army) of Bajaur’s
Salarzai tribe. I am honoured that upon my request they travelled from
Bajaur to meet me in Nowshehra and shared with me information about
their anti-Taliban struggle. I am not mentioning their names for
reasons of their security.
The area of the Salarzai tribe is on the border with Afghanistan.
The...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 13, 2010,
In :
Peter McLaren
Icon
of Liberation
Knowing
Freire by Peter McLaren
Courtesy to “EDucate”
“On
May 2, 1997, Paulo Freire died of heart failure. His death unveiled
the hidden ideology that informs the conservative corporate empirical
focus that shapes the Harvard Graduate School of Education, which reasserted
itself when the school concealed the seminar on liberation pedagogy.
Rather than affirming Freire's...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 13, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Zaid Hamid and strategic depth —Farhat Taj
What are we first of all: Muslim or Pakistani? Is our ultimate
commitment with Pakistani citizenship or a global Muslim brotherhood?
What kind of Pakistan should we aim at: a progressive multi-ethnic
social democracy or some kind of medieval caliphate?
FATA continues to be used
and abused as a strategic space by the security establishment of
Pakistan in violent pursuit of strategic depth in Afghanistan. In
short, strategic depth means ...
Posted by ADP on Wednesday, February 10, 2010,
In :
Zubeida Mustafa
No education, no democracy
By Zubeida Mustafa
Courtesy to "Dawn"
THE event organised in Karachi on Jan 9 by the family of Dr Sarwar to
commemorate the legacy of the 1950s’ student movement proved to be
inspiring.
It
was after a long time that people turned up in such large numbers to
remember the past. That was something remarkable as many are busy
trying to cope with the present. They have no time fo...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 6, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
ANALYSIS: Drone attacks and US reputation —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
In terms of the drone attacks, the US must not make any distinction
between al Qaeda and the Taliban. They both have internalised a global
ideology that is anti-civilisation and anti-human
There is
news coming up in the media that al Qaeda in Waziristan may run away to
Yemen in the face of growing drone attacks. The people of Waziristan
have expressed deep concern at this news. They do not want al Qaeda to
run...
Without a political project, there can be no ground on which to
engage questions of power, domination, human suffering and the
possibilities of human struggle.” —Henry Giroux
IN the tradition of the critical paradigm in education, Giroux, like
Paulo Freire, considers education to be a political act that has an
interactive relationship with society.
Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 6, 2010,
In :
Sanaullah Baloch
Islamabad’s ‘gunboat’ policy
By Sanaullah Baloch
Courtesy to "Dawn"
IN the past 60 years, the people of Balochistan have
endured immense suffering. They have lost their sovereignty and
identity, and have been ruthlessly exploited.
A
peaceful, autonomous region before 1948, Balochistan now resembles the
war-torn West African countries where resources have been turned into a
curse rather than a cure for the native po...
Posted by ADP on Friday, February 5, 2010,
In :
Noam Chomsky
Militarizing Latin America
Noam Chomsky
chomsky.info, August 30, 2009
The United States was founded as an "infant empire," in George
Washington's words. The conquest of the national territory was a grand
imperial venture, much like the vast expansion of the Grand Duchy of
Moscow. From the earliest days, control over the hemisphere was a
critical goal. Ambitions expanded during World War II, as the US
displaced Britain and lesser imperial powers. High-level planners
concluded that the...
Posted by ADP on Friday, February 5, 2010,
In :
Nazish Brohi
COMMENT: The inheritance of loss? —Nazish Brohi Courtesy to "Daily Times"
What has been lost in this narrative is that the Fakir of Ipi first
took up arms against the Raj not to fight against their presence but
because the colonial administration decided to forcibly return a girl
to her family after she had run away and married a man of her choice
In
the debate on militancy in the tribal areas, most of the
happily-ever-after formulas resort to arguments of cultural relativism,
pulsing wi...
Posted by ADP on Friday, February 5, 2010,
In :
Godfrey Hodgson
Radical US historian and leftwing activist who fought for peace and human rights By Godfrey Hodgson
Courtesy to "Dawn"
Howard Zinn, who has died of a heart attack aged 87, was a much-loved
and much-vituperated icon of the American left. He was an activist and
historian, and later a dramatist, but always a courageous and
articulate campaigner for his vision of a just and peaceful America.
As a white teacher at the black Spelman College for women in Atlanta,
Georgia, he wa...
I am happy to join with
you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for
freedom in the history of our nation. [Applause]
Five score years ago, a
great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro
slaves who had been seared in the fla...
Posted by ADP on Friday, February 5, 2010,
In :
Friedrich Engels
PURPLE PATCH: Whither our children —Friedrich Engels
The great mortality among children of the working class, and especially
among those of the factory operatives, is proof enough of the
unwholesome conditions under which they pass their first years. These
influences are at work, of course, among the children who survive, but
not quite so powerfully as upon those who succumb. The result in the
most favourable case is a tendency to disease, or some check in
development, and consequent les...
ANALYSIS: Clash of institutions —Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
A clash among the state institutions can dismantle the current
democratic process and create a more difficult situation for the
military and the judiciary than the present predicament. There may not
be a solution of the resultant crisis within the framework of the
constitution
There are two types of politics in Pakistan.
The elite or high politics focuses on the partisan and narrow interests
of political lead...
ANALYSIS: Anti-Baloch clique? — II —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
Courtesy to "The News"
The rulers should understand that lip service does not soothe the
wounds caused by decades of injuries and injustices. Difficult
decisions are needed to solve the problems and win the hearts of the
justifiably alienated Baloch
The Kalat state’s forced merger
with Pakistan ended 300 years of independent and semi-independent
Baloch state. The sovereignty and will of the people of Balochistan was
temporari...
Posted by ADP on Friday, February 5, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
analysis: Dangerous abyss of perceptions —Farhat Taj
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
The Pakistan Army is engaged in ‘friendly fire’ with the jihadi
gangs in which the civilians, poor soldiers of the security forces,
especially FC soldiers, policemen and foot soldiers of the Taliban are
killed. This, according to the Pakhtun perception, is in line with the
scheme of things of the military-militant leadership
I have
been writing in these pages that there is a remarkable difference in
the per...
Students of
ancient South Asian history often encounter names such as Panini and
Kautilya. It was due to the rich culture of learning and research
that ancient Pakistan attracted students from all over the world to
its centres of scholarship with Taxila being one of the most advanced
universities of the time. In modern Pakistan, it abundantly goes to
the credit of the late Dr Ahmad Hassan Dani who has in large part dug
out the...
The Global Media
Giants: firms that dominate the world
by Edward S. Herman
Courtesy to "EDucate magazine"
Time Warner $25 billion
- 1997 sales
Time Warner, the largest
media corporation in the world, was formed in 1989 through the merger
of Time Inc. and Warner Communications. Time Warner is moving towards
being a fully global company, with over 200 subsidiaries worldwide.
Time Warner expects globalization to provide growth tonic; it
projects that its annual sales growth rate of 14...
A specter now haunts the
world: a global commercial media system dominated by a small number
of super-powerful, mostly U.S.-based transnational media
corporations. It is a system that works to advance the cause of the
global market and promote commercial values, while denigrating
journalism and culture not conducive to the immediate bottom line or
long-run corporate interests. It is a disaster...
Posted by ADP on Friday, January 29, 2010,
In :
Mashhood Rizvi
Interview with Noam Chamsky
by Mashhood Rizvi
Courtesy to “EDucate magazine”
When I wrote a tribute to Professor
Noam Chomsky, for the first issue of EDucate!, I did not expect to
meet the "indefatigable rebel" in person. But I was soon
honored when he recently visited Pakistan on a whirlwind trip. It
would be unfair not to admit that the anticipation of being in the
same space with him did not unnerve me. But, upon greeting him, my
apprehension gave way to a desire for tak...
Whenever
I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and
four) I lift my spirits by remembering: The artists are on our side! I
mean those poets and painters, singers and musicians, novelists and
playwrights who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to
assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is
unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse.
Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010,
In :
Dr. Riffat Hasan
My struggle to help Muslim women regain their God-given
rights
Dr. Riffat Hasan
Courtesy to “DAWN, Nov. 7, 2002”
To understand the strong impetus to "Islamize" Muslim societies,
especially with regard to women-related norms and values, it is necessary
to know that of all the challenges confronting the Muslim world, perhaps
the greatest is that of modernity. In this exclusive two-part essay, renowned
Islamic theologian Dr Riffat Hasan presents a critical analysis of three
contemporar...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010,
In :
Dr. Riffat Hasan
Islam and human rights
Dr. Riffat Hasan
Courtesy to “Dawn”
In Pakistan any discourse on Islam and human rights is dominated
by two highly visible groups -- one sees itself as the custodian of Islam
while the other sees human rights as having nothing to do with religion.
A majority of Pakistanis, however, subscribe to neither mindset; yet there
is no platform for them to air their views. Dr Riffat Hassan concludes
her analysis by focussing on two women who represent those opposing mind...
Today
the youth of Pakistan are facing a difficult and contrivances phase,
None had ever faced such era to understand, standup, to challenge, to
find out spaces for meaningful learning is a very low letch thought.
Even survival is major challenge being faced by youth. In past youth
has never experienced such challenges as they are facing today. Youth
developmental age is...
Rethinking
Education In Search of a New Paradigm of Quality
Education… MANISH JAIN & WASIF RIZVI Courtesy to “EDucate”
After
a decade of focusing on access rates to schooling, the issue of
quality of education was finally brought to the forefront of
education debates at the World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal,
April 2000). It was recognized that access and quality cannot be
separated from one another. Indeed, concerns about quality of
education can be heard from several se...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010,
In :
Shahjahan Baloch
The importance of alternative textbooks for social and political harmony
Shah Jahan Baloch*
Educational
issues and challenges are one of the core concerns of development
discourse in Pakistan. During the last three decades national education
plans and reforms, with heavy foreign financial and technical
assistance, are claiming to improve the quality of education through
various interventions.
But the actual results,
particularly in the pub...
THE
CHOMSKY ARCHIVE Mass Media,
Globalization, and the Public Mind Courtesy to “EDucate”
Noam Chomsky is one of the
leading intellectuals of our time. He is also regarded as one of
America's most prominent political dissidents. A renowned professor
of linguistics at MIT, he has authored over 30 political books
dissecting such issues as U.S. interventionism in the developing
world, the political economy of human rights and the propaganda role
of corporate media. Chomsky, has most kin...
Alternate
Views An Interview with the Creator &
Producer of Alternative Radio Jason McQuinn of Alternative
Press Review Courtesy to “EDucate”
Alternative
Radio is an hour-long, weekly public affairs program heard around the
world on community and public radio, presenting views, perspectives
and analyses that are ignored and distorted by the dominant
corporate-controlled media. Programs most often include talks by or
interviews with notable political, economic and cultural critic...
Rethinking
Development An
Interview with HELENA
NORBERG-HODGE Nermeen Shaikh of Asia Source Courtesy to “EDucate”
You
have said elsewhere that one "has to go back to pre-colonialism
to understand development. Colonialism is part and parcel of a
process which was later on called development." Could you please
elaborate on this? What precisely are you talking about when you say
development?
I'm
talking about development as it was conceived following the Second
World War, a progra...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010,
In :
Ishtiaq Ahmed
Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Islam and non-violence
Ishtiaq Ahmed
Courtesy to “Daily Times”
Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a man of peace. He approached Islam in the
hope of finding a complementary message to Gandhi’s interpretation of
Hinduism as Ram Raj and ahimsa (non-violence) and he found it
A question that keeps popping up in discussions
on violence, terrorism and the Taliban is the following: is the use of
force and violence intrinsic to Pakhtun culture? Superficially it seems
that it must be s...
Pakistani state and society is
faced with unprecedented challenges and problems that have
exacerbated the confusion the people of the country are in. To add to
the agony of the common man the issues like independence of
Judiciary, NRO, 17th amendment and the mutual mudslinging and point
scoring among the politicians often raise its head and put some of
the grave issues that the country is faced with to the ba...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, January 26, 2010,
In :
Najma Sadeque
COVER STORY: Go naturewise Courtesy to “Dawn” Najma Sadeque
The concept of organic farming is slowly catching on with farmers
world over, even though the number is not much to write home about,
yet. Najma Sadeque explores the issue
When Fidel Castro recently retired, the
world in general crowed over being rid of him while avoiding mention of
his greatest achievements for humanity. For many years, successively
under the US and the Soviet Union hegemony, Cuba adopted their
intensive chemica...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, January 26, 2010,
In :
Najma Sadeque
Fate
of hungry citizens
By Najma Sadeque Courtesy to “Dawn”
IN
60 years, there have been enough impositions of military rule and
enough experimentation with feudal versions of democracy to
demonstrate there isn’t much difference between them.
In a
truly democratic environment, it would have been unacceptable
audacity for an investment minister to make the cold-blooded
assurance that the Middle East countries investing in corporate
farming are ensured repatriation of 100 per ...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, January 26, 2010,
In :
Najma Sadeque
Food
as weapon
Najma Sadeque
Courtesy to “Financial Post”
There are some things from military
history that civilians should know, and be conscious of at all times as they
have a bearing on today's local and global food shortage and rising prices.
Today's food shortages, whether local or global, are more artificial than
real. Even though vast areas of cropland, especially in America and Brazil,
have over the past few years been diverted to growing biofu...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, January 26, 2010,
In :
Samia Mumtaz
Wholesome foods Courtesy to “Dawn”
Sadaf Siddiqui speaks to a couple of believers who are practicing organic farming It is a sad state of affairs that even in
an agricultural country like Pakistan, organic farming has yet to dig
roots. Yet, there are few advocates of organic farming who, in their
small way, are working towards the cause. Samia Mumtaz is one of them.
Hailing from Lahore, Mumtaz has been an organic farmer since 1993,
starting on an experimental basis for her family.
Martin Luther King's Nobel Prize Acceptance
Speech
December 10, 1964 Oslo, Norway
I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when
twenty-two million Negroes of the United States of America are
engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial
injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement
which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and
danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.
A DEBATE is raging in a section of the English-language press in
Pakistan about the use of the term ‘bloody civilians’ for the
nonmilitary population of Pakistan. Before going into the issues
raised in the debate, let me attempt a definition.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives many meanings of ‘bloody’.
Most of them are related to blood, slaughter and the colour red. The
meaning relevant to this article...
Pakhtun history is mostly written by administrators and ethnographers of the colonial period
By Rafi Ullah
The Pakhtuns do not have their own version of history. Whatever we
have about them is written by the outsiders.. Who will contradict the
inherent bias in such a record? The colonial portrayal of the Pakhtuns,
such as violence and fanaticism, are crossed-examined vis-á-vis the
local folklore with the stipulation that the latter presents the
indigenous account of histo...
Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 14, 2010,
In :
Hanif-ur-Rahaman
Since
9/11 every day is 9/11 for Pakhtuns
Hanif-ur-Rahaman
The
fateful 9/11 marks a watershed in world politics and turned the whole
world topsy-turvy, forcing many a countries to adjust their policies
in the light of the Bushian war cry that either you are with us or
against us. The event was, no doubt, a catastrophe, not only for
those killed but for America as a whole. But it is Pakistan and
particularly the Pakhtuns who suffered enormously. It seems a déjà
vu and a replica of ...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, January 12, 2010,
In :
Farhat Taj
Analysis: Pakhtun diaspora: irresponsible and insensitive—Farhat Taj
Rich
Arabs in the Middle East are ‘earning’ a place in paradise in the life
hereafter through never ending generous donations to the Taliban and
the madrassas producing foot soldiers and a jihadi mindset on the
Pakhtun land. They do not even care to consider that their ‘pursuit’ of
a place in paradise is causing so much death and destruction
This
column is about the lack of action of the Pakhtun diaspora on its mo...
Posted by ADP on Tuesday, January 12, 2010,
In :
Zamin Khan
Confusion
of the competing interpretations
Zamin Khan
Momand
M.Phil.
Deptt of IR, Quaid-e-Azam university Islamabad
Power
creates discourse. The phrase "war on terror" was coined by
the sole super power, far away in the North America backed in
September 2001.The phrase altered the discourse in the international
politics. New realities and concepts surfaced in intellectual circles
and media. Jargo...
Posted by ADP on Monday, January 11, 2010,
In :
Elise Boulding
PEACE CULTURE: THE PROBLEM OF MANAGING HUMAN DIFFERENCE by Elise Boulding
Peace culture, neither a fantasy nor accident, is as central to human nature as war culture.
ELISE BOULDING is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Dartmouth
College and former Secretary-General of the International Peace
Research Association. Among her publications are: Children's Rights and the Wheel of Life, 1979; Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World, 1990; One Small Plot of Heaven: Ref...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 9, 2010,
In :
Khurshid Khan
A civilisation at risk in Swat
By Khurshid Khan
When Sung Yun, the famous Chinese
pilgrim, came to Swat in 519.A.D, he observed “several renowned
Buddhists scholars delivered Buddhist Philosophy as well as
contemporary sciences in the valley. The Monasteries and schools are
densely populated by uncountable students who have traveled here from
far off lands. They are provided with accommodation and food.” The
Chinese traveler was also impressed extremely by the heavenly peace,
...
Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 9, 2010,
In :
Jalal Tariq Khan
Significance
of Jirga system
Jalal
Tariq Khan
In
Afghanistan - the home of Aryans and the land of lofty mountains,
barren plains and land-locked terrain, tribes of ethnically different
origins live. For centuries, the land has echoed with the sound of
barrage of bullets as warring tribes have fought a never-ending
battle for power and influence. These tribes have altered allegiance,
betrayed each other and disputed over power, gold, and women.
Sometimes, they were dubbed as valia...
M.Phil.
Deptt: of International Relations, QAU Islamabad.
A
joke is circulating that Pakistani military has exhausted all its
options, including F-16, to put down Taliban’s insurgency. As a
last resort, it will resort to its “strategic assets” to assert
government writ in Pakhtunkhwa. The joke not only eulogizes the
rising of the Taliban, but also connotes the busting of the
“...
The
concept of war on terror has been a matter of debate and controversy
in academia right from its inception. Coined by neocons in the
immediate aftermath of 9/11 the term has gained wide currency in the
academic discourse. Since then various states have interpreted the
term according to their own liking and interests. US attacks against
the Taliban regime and their subsequent removal from power in
Afghan...
The
emergence and extension of Taliban sometimes betray the very mindful
and vigilant dissents like Tariq Ali who equated Taliban as
indigenous Pashtoon nationalists fighting with a rogue state for its
rights and identity. This lecture of the reckoned dissent Tariq Ali
at Toronto, last year has generated despair especially in the
leftist and idealist spheres of writers and progressive social and
political activists. It could be c...
It
was probably the first week of US air-strikes on the front line of
Taliban militia which almost wiped out their integrity and a lost
their hold on most parts of the Afghanistan. It was a harsh time for
all those who had fled to Afghanistan from Pakistan and other parts
of the Arab and central Asian countries...
Pakistan’s
subscription to the war on terror as a front line client state has
rendered several miseries till this moment. Though Gen Musharaf
equated this conduct with the treaty of Hudebia, a strategic retreat
for the domination of Islam, but the prevailing situation in Pakistan
indicates that, perhaps it was the most tragic decision after the
sepa...
The
emerging separatist sentiments and its reflection in the Baloch belt
of Balochsitan is now very much evident. Though General Musharaf
symbolized this crisis as the rebellion of three tribal leaders, but
the objective reality is quite different as displayed and perceived
in the state's domains both today and yesterday.
The
second version of identifying this movement is...
Mirani
Dam has been one of the materialized mega project in Pakistan
generally and in Balochistan especially which has carved disastrous
impacts on the lives and livelihood of the people living around it.
The feasibility of the dame was carried in 1956 with a maximum of
hight of 80 ft which was then made 127 ft. Situated 43 Km in the west
of the Turbat city, this dam incurred 5.8 billion rupees and w...
Pakistan’s
subscription to the war on terror as a front line client state has
rendered several miseries till this moment. Though Gen Musharaf
equated this conduct with the treaty of Hudebia, a strategic retreat
for the domination of Islam, but the prevailing situation in Pakistan
indicates that, perhaps it was the most tragic decision after the
se...
A
generally-held belief says that violence is socially-structured in
the Pakhtun society. It, however, does not interest us here to
contradict this estimation as the situation on the ground seems to
prove that. The point to be dwelt on here is to see if peace can be
brought in the Pakhtun homeland through its culture — Pakhtunwali.
Traditionally, Pakhtunwali is defined as the unwritten code of life,
tribal law or constitution of the Pa...
How the historic Swat
eclipsed into the current tenor of violence…
By Rafi Ullah
Swat makes
interesting copy, both for electronic and print media these days. The
world community seems to have perceived the people of this historic
area as barbaric, vandals and religiously bigots. Few locals and
non-locals have written about Swat but a comprehensive and holistic
study of the area is still awaited.
The valley of Swat
has a great importance in the a...
Sharia laws were introduced in the state in a way
that transformed the nature of politics and society in Swat
By Rafi Ullah
Two major theories that explain the arrival of Islam
in India are: 1) the religion of sword theory and, 2) the religion of
persuasion. Each theory has its own advocates with abundant arguments
in support of their viewpoint. It is, however, commonly agreed that
Islam appeared in the Indian Sub-Continent long before the Arab
military conque...