By I.A. Rehman dawn.com It is quite clear that all these institutions have to bear with one another. The Supreme Court can never sack parliament or the media, nor will parliament ever be foolish or strong enough to abolish the Supreme Court or the media. But the extremist militants that are being reared by anti-secular elements, if they ever capture the state, will almost surely pack off parliament, the Supreme Court and the media into oblivion. The choice before the people of Pakistan has never been clearer. – File Photo. The spectre of secularism is haunting the privileged elite of … Continue reading Spectre of secularism

By Jawed Naqvi dawn.com What if Hindus take a similar approach over the Babri dispute? We can expect endless confabulations between the government and religious groups. We can expect yet another eclipse of the liberal middle ground that is not enamoured of religious disputes. – Photo by AP. Maulana Jalaluddin Umri was fasting when he met a clutch of journalists last week. India’s mainstream media had shown no interest in him so he decided to invite a few of those he believed could be trusted with his time-sensitive message. As it turned out what the 75-year old head of the … Continue reading Uncorking the Babri genie

The need to confront violence and injustice by Faris Islam dawn.com Watching the footage of the aftermath of the Lahore blast, it’s tragic how familiar a sight this has become across Pakistan. Too often, our national discourse been filled with angry citizens taking the law into their own hands. Before the Lahore bombings, we witnessed the gruesome lynching of two teenagers in Sialkot, a few weeks earlier Karachi erupted into flames of arson and looting following the murder of MPA Raza Haider. Prior to that, my home city of Karachi also burnt and bled after the Ashura blasts and of … Continue reading The need to confront these fiends

Dark farce by Nadeem F. Paracha Terrorist attacks by extremist organizations and the usual knee-jerk reactions that one gets to hear from the media and society in general have become a dark farce. The disgust of watching human beings blow themselves up in the presence of men, women and children soon converts itself into an anger that babbles its way across numerous fantastic theories about some imaginary villains. In the process, the terrorists go blame-free. We are a confused lot. And this is an understatement. At least some of the roots of such confusion lie in the dilemma former Pakistani … Continue reading Mullah Ki Puja walas

Delegates’ humiliation Dawn Editorial An explanation is all the more needed given the growing concerns across the world of racial profiling at US airports. While this case is particularly high-profile, there have been many similar incidents in the past where passengers have been offloaded, detained, even arrested, apparently because of their race or nationality. – Photo by Reuters. The treatment meted out to a Pakistani military delegation on Monday at the US Dulles Airport is nothing short of insulting. The eight-member delegation, led by a two-star naval officer and comprising senior military officials, was headed to Florida to attend a … Continue reading Pakistanis Insulted – Is This The Way To Treat Friends?

Anti-Islam hysteria By Pankaj Mishra Populist sentiment, which Democrats as well as Republicans clamour to represent, fully endorses the scapegoating of a religious minority for America’s recent military and economic failures. – AFP (File Photo) In the New York Times last week, writing about the eruption of hatred for Muslims in the US, Frank Rich asked what seems an increasingly pertinent question: “How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?” Americans who are shocked by what the columnist Maureen Dowd calls a “weird mass … Continue reading Anti-Islam hysteria by American Republicans Party

Militants kill female teacher in Bajaur Bajaur was once a stronghold of Taliban militants who are opposed to the education of girls and have destroyed hundreds of schools in northwest Pakistan in recent years. — Photo by AFP KHAR: A female teacher was killed and two of her colleagues wounded when masked militants shot them in an ambush in Pakistan’s northwest tribal belt on Thursday, officials said. The victims — all women — were targeted as they returned home on foot from their school in Khar, the main town of Bajaur tribal district, officials said. “Five to six militants who were hiding … Continue reading Mullahs kill female teacher in Bajaur

Lahore mourns triple bombing as death toll rises A man reacts over explosions as protesters burn vehicles in Lahore, Pakistan on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010. – AP LAHORE: The death toll from suicide attacks that targeted a busy procession in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore rose to 31 on Thursday as six people succumbed to their injuries, officials said. Three suicide bombers targeted a Shia mourning procession made up of thousands of people on Wednesday at the moment of the breaking of the fast in the holy month of Ramazan, wounding hundreds. It was the first major attack in Pakistan … Continue reading Anger Grows in Lahore as Mullahs Attack!

Tuesday 31 August 2010 by: Michael Corcoran, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed (Photo: Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet / U.S. Army) Just as the media lied to help us get into a war, they are now lying us out of one. In the introduction to season five of HBO’s critically acclaimed series, “The Wire,” Det. Bunk Moreland and fellow murder investigators laughed as they duped a hapless, young street gangster into confessing to a murder by pretending a copy machine was a polygraph test. “The bigger the lie, the more they believe,” he said. The statement … Continue reading Media Manipulates the “End” of the War in Iraq