What a queer language Khaled Diab guardian.co.uk, As many schoolboys and students know, unintended innuendo can be found in the most unexpected of places and can lend a certain mischievous serendipity to otherwise dull lessons and lectures. One major source of linguistic amusement is transatlantic confusion. This was recently driven home to me by the following passage from an Irwin Shaw story: “Across the street, on the public athletics field, four boys were shagging flies.” My confused yet amused eyes tripped and staggered over the sentence, but made no sense of it, retraced their steps several times, then sat on … Continue reading From ‘gay girls’ to ‘shagging flies’, the changing meaning of English words causes no end of confusion

From a cover-up over prisoners’ deaths to the torture of Shaker Aamer, the real story of Guantánamo is beginning to emerge Moazzam Begg guardian.co.uk, I have always believed that the secret detention sites – where prisoners were waterboarded – and military prisons, such as Bagram, were far worse than Guantánamo. Now I’m not so sure. They once called it “asymmetrical warfare” and a “good PR move” but the US administration may soon have to call the alleged suicides of prisoners in Guantánamo something they were trying to hide all along: murder. The latest revelations in the US magazine Harper’s suggests … Continue reading The truth about Guantánamo

Balancing security and rights John Wadham guardian.co.uk, The right to life is the ultimate human right. One of the government’s most important jobs is to protect it, and it needs to ensure that the measures it takes enable all of us to travel in safety and confidence. However, the threat of terror is not a trump card which allows governments to disregard all other human rights. Nor is it carte blanche to exercise the power of the state at the expense of civil liberties. In the past, we have sometimes seen governments get carried away – most notably, perhaps, with … Continue reading Full-body scanners may be a valuable addition to airport security, but profiling is likely to prove unjustified and ineffective

Terrorism and all the complex issues around it topped the agenda for the visit to Islamabad by the US secretary of defence and his flurry of meetings with the president, the prime minister, the COAS and other key officials. Robert Gates mixed praise for Pakistan’s efforts against militancy with warnings of the need for still more endeavour to defeat the militants. His carrot-and-stick strategy was obviously designed to maximise pressure on Pakistan. The request for a guarantee that there would be no further Mumbai-style attacks on India and the warning that there could be military retaliation from New Delhi if … Continue reading Dialogue with Gates

Praful Bidwai In communist veteran Jyoti Basu’s death, India has lost its most illustrious politician and the last leader who embodied a personal link between the many phases of Indian politics since the early 1940s. Basu was not just a major Left leader in a country with the world’s biggest Communist party outside China. He participated in numerous processes which shaped politics, including trade union and peasant movements, radicalisation of the intelligentsia, contestations between social-group identities, and crystallisation of the party system. Unlike other distinguished communist leaders — S A Dange, E M S Namboodiripad, P C Joshi, B T … Continue reading Jyoti Basu’s mixed legacy

S Khalid Husain In his article, “Cultivating brevity and calmness” (Jan 8), Ayaz Amir appeared to be implying that Indian army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor’s declaration of his country’s new military strategy to fight on two fronts was nothing out of the ordinary. Military chiefs do not usually harp on the warring potential of their countries, unless there are reasons, and Gen Kapoor doing so has a lot to do with President Obama’s visit to China in November 2009, which clearly marked the beginning of a new Sino-US strategic relationship. The West and the US have quietly backed India as … Continue reading A general’s snarl

Sankhya Krishnan There was a general impression that the India-Pakistan relationship had plumbed the depths and could only get better. The peace initiative by the Jang group and the Times of India group was especially heartening. Low-hanging fruit like sporting contacts appeared to be ripe for the picking. But this week, the fruit tantalisingly slipped out of reach. The unanimous decision of all eight IPL franchises not to bid for any Pakistani players for this year’s edition showed that regressive forces still reign supreme. As a cricket fan, I was looking forward to the Pakistanis playing in the event, hoping … Continue reading You don’t scorn stars

Farhat Taj It is ridiculous to compare the foreign-assisted war militias in Afghanistan with the anti-Taliban lashkars in FATA and NWFP. Pakistani lashkars are not supported by any foreign powers. The proof is that they have far inferior weapons than the Taliban and suffer from lack of finances This is in response to Dr Mohammad Taqi’s rejoinder ‘Rallying the diaspora’ (Daily Times, January 17, 2010) to my piece ‘Pakhtun diaspora: irresponsible and insensitive’ (Daily Times, January 9, 2010). I welcome his response to my article, particularly his call to support Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy (AIRRA). Now I … Continue reading A judgemental opinion and some other issues