IDSP's ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM


Academic Development Program (ADP) IDSP-Pakistan
Academic Development Program,IDSP-Pakistan programing office/ House # 7-A Almashriq street Arbab Karam Khan Road Quetta/Phone #: 0092- 81-2449775,2471776 Fax #:0092-81-2447285

These articles are published by Academic Development Program of IDSP-Pakistan through using different sources.The opinions reflected by the various contributers and articles do not necessarily reflect the views of IDSP- Pakistan.

Showing category "Umer Nangiana " (Show all posts)

1st Part Pakistan In Search Of Identity

Posted by ADP on Saturday, June 1, 2013, In : Mubarak Ali 

1st Part Pakistan In Search Of Identity

-- Mubarak Ali –

Courtesy to Dr. Mubarak Ali’s book “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 ...


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2nd Part Pakistan In Search Of Identity

Posted by ADP on Saturday, June 1, 2013, In : Mubarak Ali 

2nd Part Pakistan 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...


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Reading and explaining history

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....


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Development in reverse

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 
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...


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The water car fraud

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy 

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...


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Lal Masjid: rewarding an insurrection

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy 

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...


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Smokers’ Corner: The not so sudden spring

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Nadeem F. Paracha 

From the Newspaper | | 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 ...


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Overcoming ‘Physics Envy’

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...


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ISI has taken over GHQ

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...


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Author: Why Eqbal remains current

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy 
“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...

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Eqbal Ahmad

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy 

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”.

This was Eqbal Ahmad...


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Rohrabacher’s “Blood Borders” in Balochistan

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : C. Christine Fair 

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 ...


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Arundhati Roy: 'The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution'

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.


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 ...


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Memogate: Man who delivered memo wants US to leash ISI

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
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...


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Occupy London is 50 days old – now it's time to Occupy Everywhere

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,
We're undeterred by recent criticism, and determined to rise to the challenge of accountability – unlike the banks

A protester sits outside at the Occupy London camp at St Pauls cathedral

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...


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Conference: ‘Indigenous languages the worst victims of globalisation’

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Umer Nangiana / Azam Khan 

Published: November 18, 2011

" 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...


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In Search of Divine Truth

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...

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Cells That Read Minds

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.
  Cells That Read Minds
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.

A graduate student entered the ...


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L'affaire Mansoor Ijaz

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...

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Pakistan’s security thinking

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy 

http://i1.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/291707-ProfessorIjazKhanNewagain-1321283293-349-640x480.JPG

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...


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Killings in Balochistan continue

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012,

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...


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What the Pakistan Army should do

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Khaled Ahmed 

Published: October 29, 2011

The writer is Director at the South Asian Media School in Lahore khaled.ahmed@tribune.com.pk

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...


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Militant liberal

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Nadeem F. Paracha 

Illustration by Faraz Aamer Khan/Dawn.com

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...


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حق مغفرت کرے عجب

Posted by ADP on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : Report by BBC Urdu 
محمد حنیف

بی بی سی اردو ڈاٹ کام، کراچی

مولانا طفیل جماعتِ اسلامی کے بانی ارکان میں سے ...


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Politics and the judiciary

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...


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Obama’s Af-Pak strategy: tossing away the COIN

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...


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The supreme praetorian state of Pakistan

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...


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ANALYSIS: The Balochistan cauldron —Sheikh Asad Rahman

Posted by ADP on Thursday, March 1, 2012, In : Sheikh Asad Rahman 

"Courtesy to Daily Times"
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 ...

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Pedagogy of teachers in Pakistan: By Muhammad Saeed Akhtar

Posted by ADP on Wednesday, February 22, 2012, In : Muhammad Saeed Akhtar 
Pedagogy of teachers in Pakistan: By Muhammad Saeed Akhtar
"Courtesy to The TopStory Online"

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...


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Voices from FATA and the panic (5 parts) – by Farhat Taj

Posted by ADP on Thursday, February 16, 2012, In : Farhat Taj 
Related: Merge FATA into KP : ANP jirga

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.

Farhat’s critica...


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US Congressional hearing may spell trouble for Pakistan

Posted by ADP on Thursday, February 16, 2012,

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

Published: 9th February, 2012 Dawn.com

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...


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Balochistan: US Congressional Hearing Could Have Great Influence On Situation In Pakistan

Posted by ADP on Thursday, February 16, 2012,

Human rights activists hope the hearing will put ongoing torture and killings in Balochistan in the public eye.

Below is an article published by Dawn:

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...


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Some sanity, but the shenanigans go on

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...


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ANALYSIS: Civil-military relations in Pakistan —Farhat Taj

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...


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Arundhati Roy: "The People Who Created the Crisis Will Not Be the Ones That Come Up With a Solution"

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 30, 2012, In : Arundhati Roy 
by: Arun Gupta, The Guardian UK | Op-E, Wednesday 30 November 2011

Arundhati Roy, speaking at a Harvard conference in April, 2010. (Photo: jeanbaptisteparis)

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.

Sitting in a car ...


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Against populism

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.

Populism typically thrives...


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ANALYSIS: State of education in Balochistan

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 ...


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Sufism: path to peace and tolerance

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 ...


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Don’t let mullahs take over Pakistan

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012,
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...


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This bastardised libertarianism makes 'freedom' an instrument of oppression

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012, In : Daniel Pudles 

It's the disguise used by those who wish to exploit without restraint, denying the need for the state to protect the 99% 

  • guardian.co.uk,
pudles2012
Illustration by Daniel Pudles

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout...


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10 Things about Memogate

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012, In : Aakar Patel 
Published: December 20, 2011


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...


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A mirage mis-named strategic depth

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012, In : Eqbal Ahmad 

By Eqbal Ahmad, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 

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...

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‘To be a Baloch is to embrace death’

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.

Sarah* is o...


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Memo-gate: Man who delivered memo wants US to leash ISI

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012,

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...


Continue reading ...
 

Occupy London is 50 days old- now it's time to Occupy

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012,

We're undeterred by recent criticism, and determined to rise to the challenge of accountability – unlike the banks

    • reddit thA protester sits outside at the Occupy London camp at St Pauls cathedral
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 sta...


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Will the posturing never stop?

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 ...


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PAKISTAN: A teenage Nobel Prize nominee leads the struggle for the education of girls

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012, In : Farzana Ali Khan 

Contributors: Farzana Ali Khan
Farzana Ali Khan

AHRC-ART-059-2011.jpgSWAT: 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...
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Conference: ‘Indigenous languages the worst victims of globalisation’

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012, In : Azam Khan / Umer Nangiana 
Published: November 18, 2011

" 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...


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Pakistan spy chief intervenes in memo scandal

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 14, 2012,

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...


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My dog ate my memo

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...


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Imran meets Munter in ISI Chief's Presense:

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 12, 2012,
News Desk
Monday, November 21, 2011

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...

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Cells That Read Minds

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 >

Published: January 10, 2006

On a hot summer day 15 years ago in Parma, Italy, a monkey sat in a special labor...


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A gentle reminder...

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...


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Let the beauty we love be what we do, there are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, November 22, 2011,

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...

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"Should the Civilian Government or Military define the National Interest"

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...


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Beautiful Analysis of Imran khan's Lahore rally

Posted by ADP on Saturday, November 19, 2011, In : Kamran Shafi 
   Welcome, Imran  
By Kamran Shafi
Published: November 3, 2011
Courtesy to: The Express Tribune





The writer is a columnist, a former major of the Pakistan Army, and served as press secretary to Benazir Bhutto

Let us not quibble about how many people turned out for Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) jalsa at Lahore; let us just say that it was one of the big gatherings at Minto Park. Let us also not light upon the fact that the performance of ...


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Pakistan's Security Thinking By Professor Ijaz Khan

Posted by ADP on Saturday, November 19, 2011, In : Dr.Ijaz Khan 

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...


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Our Expectations of the Muslim Woman

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, March 22, 2011, In : Dr. Ali Shariati 
A lecture by: Dr. Ali Shariati, 1933 - 1977
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...

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Telling the untold story:- Zubeida Mustafa

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...


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ANALYSIS: The powerful and overpowered of the PPP —Farhat Taj

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...


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COMMENT: The metastasis of power —Nazish Brohi

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...


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VIEW: The Singapore model of religious pluralism —Ishtiaq Ahmed

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...


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"Islam"

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...


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A man to match his mountains

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 20, 2011, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 

A man to match his mountains

By

Rafi Ullah

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...


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ANALYSIS: What is wrong with the ANP? —Farhat Taj

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...


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Farhat Taj: A survey of Drone Attacks in Pakistan. What do the people of FATA think?

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 ...

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ANALYSIS: An unethical survey on FATA —Farhat Taj

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...


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A People's History of the United States

Posted by ADP on Monday, September 20, 2010, In : Howard Zinn 

from the book

A People's History of the United States

by Howard Zinn

publisher - Harper-Collins

Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress

The Empire and the People

War is the Health of the United States

Self-help in Hard times

A People's War ?

The Impossible Victory: Vietnam

The Seventies: Under Control ?

Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartiasan Consensus

The Coming Revolt of the Guards


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Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress By Howard Zinn

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 States By 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:

"They.....


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‘Hindus are not our enemies’ – Interview with Dr Mubarak Ali

Posted by ADP on Thursday, September 16, 2010, In : Mubarak Ali 
"Hindus are not our enemies" - Interview with Dr. Mubarak Ali
Source: View Point


MazharJadoon

Eminent historian and scholar Dr Mubarak Ali traces back the history of sub-continent and tries to find out what ails the Pakistan-In

dia relations. Dr Mubarak Ali finds fault with the colonial legacy and says “it was the British w...


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A gender-blind ‘neo-miratha’

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...


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Does Pakistan make sense?

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...


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Drone attacks: challenging some fabrications

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 ...


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VIEW: Of interventions —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Posted by ADP on Friday, April 30, 2010, In : Gulmina Bilal Ahmad 

VIEW: Of interventions —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Courtesy to "Daily Times"

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...


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Libraries go out of fashion: By Zubeida Mustafa

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...

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Resisting Schooling. Part 1

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, April 27, 2010, In : SHIKSHANTAR 

VIMUKT SHIKSHA

Resisting Schooling

June, 2000 – Issue 8

Inside this Issue

Editor's Note

Notions of Resistance

An Interview with John Holt

Revisiting Deschooling

Growing with Qudrat

Spiritual Learning

'Savages' of North America

Music as Cultural Production

Resisting the Classroom

Teaching as a Subversive Activity

Nai Talim

Give Up Diplomas and Certificates

Learning as Experiencing

Self-Learning Program

Homeschooling Movement

Reclaiming our Learning Instincts

A Tribute to 'Drop-ou...


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Resisting Schooling. Part 2

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 ...


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Two paradigms of learning: By Dr Shahid Siddiqui

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, April 27, 2010, In : Dr Shahid Siddiqui 
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...

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VIEW: Of apologies —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, April 27, 2010, In : Gulmina Bilal Ahmad 

VIEW: Of apologies —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Courtesy to "Daily Times"

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...


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analysis: Kidnapping for ransom: a family’s ordeal —Farhat Taj

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...


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VIEW: Can there be an end to this war? —Daud Khattak

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...


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analysis: Paranoid about Pakhtun ethnic identity —Farhat Taj

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...


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The concept of creation :By Dr Riffat Hassan

Posted by ADP on Friday, April 16, 2010, In : Dr. Riffat Hasan 
The concept of creation :By Dr Riffat Hassan

Courtesy to “Dawn”

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, ...

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VIEW: Collective sickness —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Posted by ADP on Friday, April 16, 2010, In : Gulmina Bilal Ahmad 

VIEW: Collective sickness —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Courtesy to "Daily Times"

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...


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VIEW: The media mafia —Andleeb Abbas

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...


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analysis: A plea for Bara IDPs —Farhat Taj

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, ...


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analysis: Mohmand IDPs: forced expulsion? —Farhat Taj

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...


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analysis: Pak-US dialogue: a Pakhtun perspective —Farhat Taj

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...


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Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours

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...


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analysis: Assaulting the Pakhtun culture —Farhat Taj

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 ...


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VIEW: Trudging on —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Posted by ADP on Friday, March 19, 2010, In : Gulmina Bilal Ahmad 

VIEW: Trudging on —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Courtesy to "Daily Times" 

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...


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Attitude towards girl child: By Dr Riffat Hassan

Posted by ADP on Friday, March 19, 2010, In : Dr. Riffat Hasan 
Attitude towards girl child: By Dr Riffat Hassan

Courtesy to “Dawn”

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...

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Taliban Increasingly Unpopular in Pakistan

Posted by ADP on Thursday, March 18, 2010, In : Julie Ray and Rajesh Srinivasan 

Taliban Increasingly Unpopular in Pakistan

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...


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Violence in the home

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...

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VIEW: Rehabilitation of the Taliban

Posted by ADP on Saturday, March 13, 2010, In : Gulmina Bilal Ahmad 

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...


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analysis: Kamal Mehsud: did the ISPR cheat him?

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...


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VIEW: We do not learn from history —Wazhma Frogh

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...


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I slam’s sources of knowledge by By Dr Riffat Hassan

Posted by ADP on Monday, March 8, 2010, In : Dr. Riffat Hasan 
I slam’s sources of knowledge By Dr Riffat Hassan

Courtesy to “Dawn”

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...

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BOOK REVIEW:Humanising the monster-by Dr Mohammad Taqi

Posted by ADP on Saturday, March 6, 2010, In : Abdul Salam Zaeef 

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...


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analysis: Interpreting tribal leaders of FATA —Farhat Taj

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...


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analysis: Midas’s gold —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Posted by ADP on Friday, March 5, 2010, In : Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur 

analysis: Midas’s gold —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Courtesy to "Daily Times"

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) ...


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Who pays for education?

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...

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The rightward march

Posted by ADP on Wednesday, March 3, 2010, In : Nadeem F. Paracha 
The rightward march
By Nadeem F. Paracha
 
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...


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COMMENT: The Balochistan truth —Sanaullah Baloch

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...


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The Process of Your Life Should Be the Process of Your Education

Posted by ADP on Monday, March 1, 2010, In : Dayal Chandra Soni 

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...


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Twenty-Six Years Later

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...


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A historical view of terrorism – By Dr. Mubarak Ali

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...


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What is Terrorism and How to Fight It?

Posted by ADP on Monday, March 1, 2010, In : Dr. Tariq Rahman 

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 ...


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A School With a Difference by Dr. Tariq Rahman

Posted by ADP on Monday, March 1, 2010, In : Dr. Tariq Rahman 
A School With a Difference by Dr. Tariq Rahman

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...


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POVERTY AND EDUCATION

Posted by ADP on Monday, March 1, 2010, In : Dr. Tariq Rahman 

POVERTY AND EDUCATION by Dr. Tariq Rahman

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 ...

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analysis: The dauntless heroes of NWFP Police —Farhat Taj

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...


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VIEW: Going dry —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Posted by ADP on Monday, March 1, 2010, In : Gulmina Bilal Ahmad 

VIEW: Going dry —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Courtesy to "Daily Times"

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 ...


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Ascent of Conflict and the Death of Resolutionby Wasif Rizvi

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 ...


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Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time By Karen Armstrong a Book review

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 Time By 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...


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THE SHADOW THAT THE FUTURE THROWS by Ivan Illich

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...


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Drawing the Color Line By Howard Zinn

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...


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Rape 'now gang weapon of choice'

Posted by ADP on Wednesday, February 24, 2010,
        Rape 'now gang weapon of choice'
                                                                   By Angus Stickler

                                                                 Courtesy to "BBC News" 


...

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WASHINGTON DIARY: Education in mother tongue

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...


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A story of incompetence

Posted by ADP on Wednesday, February 24, 2010,
"corruption" A story of incompetence

Huzaima Bukhari and Dr. Ikramul Haq

Courtesy to "The News"

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...


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Constitutional courts

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...

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Taliban and science – An interview with Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 23, 2010, In : Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy 

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...


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Lawyers’ struggle: another view by Kaiser Bengali

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...


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Back towards tolerance in Pakistani society

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 23, 2010,

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 ...

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Past present: Is Sufism relevant to our time? By Mubarak Ali

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 ...

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The Rise of Religious Fundamentalism in Pakistan

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.

They threaten the very...


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Sufi chants and revolutions — by Dr Manzur Ejaz

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...


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Morality and atheism

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
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...


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A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT Introduction by Karl Marx

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...


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Capitalist Globalism In Crisis

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...


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The Bane of Madrasas

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 16, 2010, In : Naseeb Ullah Shakhail 

The Bane of Madrasas

By: Naseeb Ullah Shakhail

MSc Pakistan Studies QAU Islamabad

Email: Naseeb.shakhail@gmail.com

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...


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VIEW: Pakistani Taliban apologists —Gulmina Bilal Ahmad

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 16, 2010, In : Gulmina Bilal Ahmad 

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...


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Reconstructing Swat

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, February 16, 2010, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 
Reconstructing Swat

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...


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Education In Pakistan, From Numbers to Learning

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...


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The Quest for Simplicity: 'My Idea of Swaraj' of mahatma gandhi

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...


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The Taliban and Salarzais – Farhat Taj

Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 13, 2010,

The Taliban and Salarzais – Farhat Taj

Courtesy to "Daily Times"

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...


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Icon of Liberation

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...


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analysis: Zaid Hamid and strategic depth —Farhat Taj

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 ...


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No education, no democracy

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...

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The Truth About US Justice

Posted by ADP on Monday, February 8, 2010, In : Yvonne Ridley 

The Truth About US Justice

By Yvonne Ridley
Courtesy to "Tehran Times"

Many of us are still in a state of shock over the guilty verdict returned on Dr Aafia Siddiqui.

The response from the people of Pakistan was predictable and overwhelming and I salute their spontaneous actions.

From Peshawar to Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and beyond they marched in their thousands demanding the ret...


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ANALYSIS: Drone attacks and US reputation —Farhat Taj

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...


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Education and media

Posted by ADP on Saturday, February 6, 2010, In : Dr Shahid Siddiqui 
Education and media
By Dr Shahid Siddiqui
Courtesy to "Dawn"
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.

Educatio...

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Islamabad’s ‘gunboat’ policy

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...

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Militarizing Latin America

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...


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COMMENT: The inheritance of loss? —Nazish Brohi

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...


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Radical US historian and leftwing activist who fought for peace and human rights

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...

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I Have a Dream - Address at March on Washington

Posted by ADP on Friday, February 5, 2010, In : Martin Luther King 

I Have a Dream - Address at March on Washington

August 28, 1963. Washington, D.C.


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...


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PURPLE PATCH: Whither our children —Friedrich Engels

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...


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ANALYSIS: Clash of institutions —Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi

Posted by ADP on Friday, February 5, 2010, In : Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi 

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...


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ANALYSIS: Anti-Baloch clique? — II —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Posted by ADP on Friday, February 5, 2010, In : Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur 

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...


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analysis: Dangerous abyss of perceptions —Farhat Taj

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...


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A scholar that was

Posted by ADP on Thursday, February 4, 2010, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 

A scholar that was

By Rafi Ullah

Courtesy to "The News"

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...


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The Global Media Giants:

Posted by ADP on Friday, January 29, 2010,

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...


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Global Media for Global Control

Posted by ADP on Friday, January 29, 2010,

Global Media for Global Control

by Robert W. McChesney

Courtesy to “EDucate magazine

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...


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Interview with Noam Chamsky

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...


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Artists of Resistance

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010, In : by Howard Zinn 

Artists of Resistance
by Howard Zinn

Courtesy to “The Progressive magazine

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.

T...


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My struggle to help Muslim women regain their God-given rights

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...


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Islam and human rights

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...

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THE ROLE OF YOUTH, HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010, In : Dr. Quratulain Bakhtiari 

THE ROLE OF YOUTH, HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

Dr.Quratulain Bakhtiari
Courtesy to “Transform

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...


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Rethinking Education

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010,

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...


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The importance of alternative textbooks for social and political harmony

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...


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THE CHOMSKY ARCHIVE

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010,

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...


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Alternate Views

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010,
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...


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Rethinking Development

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010,
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...


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Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Islam and non-violence

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...


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The crisis of state

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 28, 2010, In : Naseeb Ullah Shakhail 

The crisis of state

Naseeb Ullah Shakhail 

Courtesy to “The Frontier Post”

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...

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Go naturewise

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...


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Fate of hungry citizens

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 ...


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Food as weapon

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...

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Wholesome foods

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.

“I tho...

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Martin Luther King's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, January 26, 2010, In : Martin Luther King 

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.

I am mindful that only ye...


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Being the Change: In Gandhi's Footsteps

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 23, 2010, In : Manish Jain 

Being the Change: In Gandhi's Footsteps

Gandhi, 1929. Image from wikipedia
Gandhi in 1929. wikicommons

After trying for years to achieve social change through mainstream institutional activism, I have turned to an approac...


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Vocabulary of arrogance – Dr Tariq Rahman

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 21, 2010, In : Dr. Tariq Rahman 

Vocabulary of arrogance – Dr Tariq Rahman

Courtesy to “Dawn”

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...


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Not the whole story

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 18, 2010, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 
Not the whole story

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...


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Since 9/11 every day is 9/11 for Pakhtuns

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 ...


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Angrezee Taleemi Nizam owr Humari Zehni Ghulami

Posted by ADP on Thursday, January 14, 2010, In : Humar Javed 

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Analysis: Pakhtun diaspora: irresponsible and insensitive

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...


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Confusion of the competing interpretations

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...


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Taliban ki jang owr Mazhabi Quaideen ka kardar

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 11, 2010, In : Saleem Safi 

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THE PROBLEM OF MANAGING HUMAN DIFFERENCE

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...


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Death of a Khan

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 9, 2010, In : Khurshid Khan 

                              Death of a Khan

                                         By Khurshid Khan

Shamshir Ali Khan popularly known as Dr. Khan was assassinated in his native

village on the eve of the holy day of Eid ul Azha, the day Muslims all over the

world celebrate in the honour of the Prophet Ibrahim’s sacrifice of his son in

compliance to the will of Almighty. God was pleased by his remarkable submission

and instead of his dear son, the sacrifice of a sheep was accepted a...


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A civilisation at risk in Swat

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, ...


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Significance of Jirga system

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...


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Myth-busting

Posted by ADP on Wednesday, January 6, 2010, In : Zamin Khan 

Myth-busting

Zamin Khan Momand

Mob. no. 03459423424

zkmomand@hotmail.com

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 “...


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Pakistan and the war on terror

Posted by ADP on Tuesday, January 5, 2010, In : Sadiq Khan's Articles 

 Pakistan and the war on terror

Sadiq Khan Alizai

sadiq_khan0824@yahoo.com

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...


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The Pashtun-Talib dichotomy

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 4, 2010, In : Barkat Shah's Articles 

The Pashtun-Talib dichotomy

Barkat Shah Kakar

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...


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US Taliban Massacre investigation; An ironic moral mask

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 4, 2010, In : Barkat Shah's Articles 

US Taliban Massacre investigation; An ironic moral mask

Barkat Shah Kakar

(Social Researcher and Academician)

University of Balochsitan Quetta

bshahkakar@yahoo.com

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...


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The Peace-War Nexus

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 4, 2010, In : Barkat Shah's Articles 

The Peace-War Nexus

Barkat Shah Kakar

(Social Researcher and Academician)

University of Balochsitan Quetta

bshahkakar@yahoo.com

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...


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Cultural Action and Baloch Nationalist Movement

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 4, 2010, In : Barkat Shah's Articles 

Cultural Action and Baloch Nationalist Movement

Barkat Shah Kakar

bshahkakar@yahoo.com

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...


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Mirani Dam; When Prosperity tunned into adversity

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 4, 2010, In : Barkat Shah's Articles 

Mirani Dam; When Prosperity tunned into adversity

By: Barkat Shah Kakar

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...


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The Peace-War Nexus

Posted by ADP on Monday, January 4, 2010, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 

The Peace-War Nexus

Barkat Shah Kakar

(Social Researcher and Academician)

University of Balochsitan Quetta

bshahkakar@yahoo.com

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...


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Peace per Pakhtunwali

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 2, 2010, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 

society

Peace per Pakhtunwali

By Rafi Ullah

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...


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The actual perspective

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 2, 2010, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 

swat

The actual perspective

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...


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Islam in context

Posted by ADP on Saturday, January 2, 2010, In : Rafi Ullah's Articles 

Islam in context

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...


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