Praful Bidwai Two relatively young ministers of state (MoS) in the Manmohan Singh government have distinguished themselves by their contrarian stances and penchant for controversy. They are educated, intellectually capable, tech-savvy and articulate. They are also extremely opinionated, ambitious, narcissistic and exhibitionistic. They have tried to shape policies in their respective fields in a broadly pro-Western and pro-United States direction. These men are environment and forests MoS Jairam Ramesh and external affairs MoS Shashi Tharoor. Ramesh has executed many policy turns to end up with pro-corporate and pro-Western results. He is responsible, with Prime Minister Singh, for India’s signature of … Continue reading India’s non-aligned policy

Developing an exit strategy Talat Masood The United States continues to push Pakistan that it should widen the scope of its military operations against the insurgents to include North Waziristan. Our army has been resisting for good reason. First, it is already overstretched, then winter has set in and widening the operation further could galvanise all tribes to coalesce. There is a distinct possibility that a military operation in North Waziristan would trigger a fresh wave of suicide attacks throughout the country. These reservations aside, even if the Pakistan army does undertake this operation in the near future and granted … Continue reading Developing an exit strategy

Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain In a world where many wars — small and large — are going on and the threat of terrorism is an all pervasive fear, it does take a natural calamity of this magnitude to make us realise how insignificant and petty our national and local conniptions against each other are Haiti! How much more unfortunate can a country be? Just as I, like many others in Pakistan, were adding up our woes from the years gone by, along comes a devastating earthquake in a country that has already suffered incredibly over the last few decades. This … Continue reading Haiti: a call for a new Obama doctrine

Posted by Asif Akhtar Pakistan’s recent appearance in the infamous US ‘countries of interest’ list, which isn’t exactly the list of most favoured nations, has brought the country’s international reputation to an all-time low. A fun Google experiment has been going around the blogosphere lately to see what popular Google searches say about certain things. Apparently typing in “Pakistan is…” reveals exactly how bad our public image has been lately. The not-so-pleasant looking list of Google suggestions speaks for itself: When I tried the above query myself, I got marginally better results, with the most entertaining Google suggestion yet: “Pakistan … Continue reading Piyo Pepsi forever, free Pakistan from terror

Commenting on Pak-India ties, Holbrooke said that easing tensions between India and Pakistan would help western efforts in Afghanistan. However, he said it was up to Islamabad and New Delhi to find their own path towards better ties. – Reuters photo Sci-Tech “World’s least known bird” found breeding in Afghanistan HIDDEN NO MORE “World’s least known bird” found breeding in Afghanistan KABUL: A video of a Pakistani Taliban leader with the bomber who killed CIA agents in Afghanistan indicated cross-border links between Afghan, Pakistani and Al Qaeda militants, the US regional envoy said on Sunday. Special Representative Richard Holbrooke said … Continue reading TTP video indicates cross-border links, says Holbrooke

Pakistani police escort US militant suspects as they depart an anti-terrorist court following a hearing in Sargodha on January 18, 2010. – AFP SARGODHA: Five Americans held in Pakistan on suspicion of using the Internet to contact militants said on Monday they had been tortured as police asked a court to indict them on terrorism charges. The students, in their 20s and from the US state of Virginia, were detained last month. Police produced them before an anti-terrorism court on Monday after completing their interrogation. “We are being tortured, we are being tortured,” several of the men shouted in English … Continue reading Detained Americans complain of torture in Pakistan

Dawn Editorial State and society must recognise that the creative and performing arts have an indispensable role to play in the formation and understanding of the national identity. –File photo Art & Culture Reality check MEDIA Reality check A number of film and television artists in Karachi recently criticised what they termed as the government’s indifference to their fields, and the resultant stagnation of associated professions. They have raised a pertinent point, though the unresponsiveness of official quarters should be blamed on the state rather than on any one government. Decades of apathy towards the creative and performing arts have … Continue reading Entertainment apathy – Time to teach Mullahs to dance!

The P Word By Khuroum Ali Bukhari Earlier this year, a homemade video of Prince Harry, the impish grandson of the British Queen whose colourful exploits have earned him tabloid darling status, was leaked to a delighted UK press. Training to be a soldier in Her Majesty’s Army, Prince Harry is shown referring to a British Pakistani Muslim colleague as ‘our little Paki friend,’ amongst other questionable remarks. Headlines exploded, the Pakistani community went on the offensive, and race relations experts came out of the woodwork in force to attack the prince. Prince Harry unreservedly apologised for his comments, and … Continue reading The P Word – Pakis 4 Parties!