dawn.com In a country beset by a powerful Islamist insurgency, where suicide bombings are commonplace and government offensives widely dismissed as ineffective, anyone can become a victim. – Reuters Photo PESHAWAR: Five Sikh men who fled their hometown on the Afghan border were making a quick trip back home when masked men blocked their way with a pickup on a mountain road not far from the Khyber Pass. There were no houses, no buildings, no other cars in sight. The kidnappers covered their faces with black scarves and carried machine-guns. Surjeet Singh had just wanted to check on the small … Continue reading Kidnapping reflects fears of Pakistan minorities

Campus intimidation Dawn Editorial Cases of intimidation, both minor and severe, on university campuses across the country are common. –Photo by AP Editorial NUML incident The closure of the University of Peshawar and all the educational institutions situated on the campus ought to be taken as a serious warning about the manner in which the country’s youth is splitting along ideological, ethnic and other faultlines. The closure was announced on Friday after violence broke out following the death of a student, Adnan Abdul Qadir, who died after being severely beaten by members of the Islami Jamiat Talaba. Upon hearing of … Continue reading Campus intimidation in Pakistan by pre-baked Mullahs

Education and learning By S.M. Shahid S.M. Shahid asks if education in its current form helps one become a better human being? — Photo by AP “Frankly speaking, education is a racket,” said Babboo. “You have a knack of passing sweeping judgment on just about anything under the sun. Please spare education, at least!” “But, can’t you see how education has been turned into a sure-shot way of minting money? No matter what the state of the national economy, or the galloping recession, or even the deteriorating law and order, you couldn’t go wrong if you opened a school or, … Continue reading Education in Pakistan… Is it worth it?

Classic cars and the open road dawn.com A Pakistani auto repair shop employee working on a 1964 Volkswagen Beetle at a workshop in Rawalpindi. – AFP Media Gallery Restoring the glory Restoring the glory ISLAMABAD: In a country beset by militants and bombings, a cult website has fired Pakistani passion for classic cars and the freedom of the open road. Listed by Forbes as the fourth most dangerous country in the world, hitting the roads in the Pakistani outback is not a leisure activity that immediately springs to mind when talk switches to the nuclear-armed state of 167 million. But … Continue reading Classic cars in Pakistan

How we turned a Cold War into a hot potato By Jawed Naqvi dawn.com The mother of a missing Kashmiri youth, cries during a demonstration by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons in Srinagar. On the tenth of every month, members of APDP assemble in a park in Srinagar to highlight the issue of missing persons in Kashmir and remember their loved ones. The APDP says that more than 8,000 people have gone missing, most of them after their arrest by Indian security forces in the troubled Kashmir region since a rebellion broke out at the end of 1989. … Continue reading Sorting out Kashmir with honour to all?

Posted by Guest dawn.com I watched the much talked about My Name is Khan the other day. The brilliant depiction of an autistic person by Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar’s surprisingly taut direction made for a good film. I had been warned by friends to keep tissues handy, as many friends had their eyeliners washed away as they sniffled through the film. I have never been emotionally vulnerable and usually don’t cry in public, so although the film was stirring, it did not send me scrambling through my handbag for those back-up tissues. That is, except for one scene. … Continue reading Confessions of a hijabi!

Netanyahu and the Christian Zionists:  A Marriage of Convenience or Ideology? Coverage of the recent tiff between Netanyahu and the Biden-Clinton team rarely touches on an issue that Christian Zionist watchers have been well aware of ever since Netanyahu became prime minister.  The issue is the long term symbiotic relationship he has maintained with the most extreme element of the American Christian Zionist movement,  presently led by the bombastic TV evangelist, John Hagee.  Rachel Tabachnik, writing in the most recent edition of the Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, shows that this relationship dates back to at least 1998, when … Continue reading Nethanyahu is asking these death-cult fanatics for support in the US

Improbable even as fiction Zafar Hilaly The writer is a former ambassador. When doomsday occurs and the world dissolves, and all places shall be hell that is not heaven, there will be an Indian standing amidst the ruins yelling that Pakistan is to blame. True, delusions and the ability to indulge in them are a part of a man’s life. “If you take away the life-lie from the average man you take away his happiness,” said Ibsen. But what if states have delusions? Can they too afford to indulge them? India feels that it can. Home Minister P Chidambaram served … Continue reading Dancing to Al Qaedas tune?

Arabs throw in their lot with ‘global terrorists’ in war against the infidel On patrol: the Pakistan Army is fighting a disparate group of “global terrorists” in large areas of the lawless tribal lands of the North West Frontier Province Anthony Loyd in Peshawar They have been attacked from the air by American drones and on the ground by the Pakistan Army. Hundreds have been killed or injured on the battlefields of Afghanistan — but the foreign fighters, or “global terrorists” of the North West Frontier Province, remain a formidable presence. First-hand accounts from locals in the lawless areas of … Continue reading Arabs with ‘global terrorists’ in war against Pakistan?