At 11PM, in the night between 3rd and 4th October 2021, Faisal Masih and Nadeem Masih, of Metropolitan Corporation Sargodha, suffocated to death in the deep and dirty raw sewage gutter of Sargodha’s Main Road Chungi Number 9. They had been forced to enter and unclog the choked gutters by three Muslim Supervisors of the Municipal Corporation in the middle of a Sunday night, with absolutely zero safety equipment or precautions. This unfortunate tragedy is…
Posts published in “Pak Media comment”
The writer is a freelance contributor.The most effective way to keep the weaker segments of society is to keep them powerless. For this the stronger segments have devised various ways to ensure the weak stay where they won’t cause any trouble for them. For the working class, it is to keep them hand to mouth and maintain an army of unemployed so they compete with each other. For the middle class, it is a ‘divide…
The writer is director of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy forum for digital rights.FOR the third time, the cabinet has approved a draft of social media rules titled the ‘Removal and Blocking of Unlawful Content Rules 2021’ to govern (read: censor) content on social media in Pakistan. The utility of social media as the last fortress of citizens to express themselves with relative freedom has been commented on ad infinitum, but this notification presumably is the…
The legislators are in a tirade over a proposed piece of law that would bring in curbs on forceful conversions. This is easier said than done. It has hit snags over a host of perceptual and social issues. The minority members, who have pitched this bill in an attempt to outlaw forced conversions, are annoyed as a parliamentary committee rejected the bill against forced conversions after the Ministry of Religious Affairs opposed it. Minority members…
The writer is a political, security and defence analyst.Naqabil-e-taskheer (insurmountable) is the word. How it got to be as consequential is another part of our history and Urdu from the womb of Persian must speak in poetic magnificence. Hence we take the expression to its ultimate exaggeration. Which really brings us down to the point, ‘so are we not naqabil-e-taskheer?’ Or, ‘are we taskheerable?’ Which is like saying, ‘what the hell have you all been…
Before coming to Islamabad, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, while speaking in Mumbai had made it very clear that the United States was not interested in a broad-based relationship with Pakistan, beyond Afghanistan. She said, “My visit to Pakistan is for a very specific narrow purpose. It is in the context of Afghanistan to make sure that Pakistan has the capabilities to ensure everybody’s security including India and US. The United States does…
The Taliban government’s foreign minister issued a blunt reminder to the world that keeping the country under sanctions will lead to a new wave of economic refugees. Amir Khan Muttaqi told a group of Western diplomats in Doha that sanctions will have “negative effects” on security and will lead to “economic migration from the country”. Despite routing the US-backed Ghani government in a matter of days after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban are…
The writer is a retired lieutenant general of the Pakistan Army and a former federal secretary. He has also served as chairman of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories BoardPakistan’s politics and economy for the last several decades has been in a quandary. The leadership has failed to address the intrinsic weaknesses in these areas. As a consequence, Pakistan regrettably is lagging behind in all the economic growth indexes in comparison with the regional countries. Its politics…
The writer is Lahore-based Freelance Journalist, Columnist and retired Deputy Controller (News) Radio Pakistan IslamabadCivil and military leadership, as well as the people of Pakistan, have all along been supporting the just, unarmed and indigenous struggle of Kashmiris for securing their fundamental right of self-determination in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions, which India persistently continues to deny for more than seven decades. Pakistan has been extending all possible political, diplomatic and moral support…
The writer is a journalist. CLICHÉS and journalists go together like cream cheese and bagels. It truly is hard to separate the two. And at home in Pakistan, we journalists have our fair share of the oft-used and abused ones especially where politics is concerned. ‘Pakistan at the crossroads’ was a most favoured one for many years as is the latest flavour of the month — the ‘one-page’ mantra or ‘cacophony’ (whichever is preferable). But…
Moscow Format : Op-ed by Abdul Hadi Mayar in Daily Times, Oct 16th, 2021
The writer is an independent freelance journalist based in Islamabad covering South Asia/ Central Asia.A clever thing the United States did post the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan was to outrightly take its hands off the country – except for humanitarian considerations. Doing so, Washington, on the one hand, deprived its regional rivals of an enemy to struggle against, and, on the other, rendered Afghanistan a headache for the neighbouring countries, particularly Russia, China,…