Pakistan News And Discussion-10

[Guest]

<b>Who do you think should rule Pakistan</b>

My suggestion - Hijras from Hira Mandi, La-hore, Paki-s-tan

[Guest]

*<b> Pakistan faces 978 MW power shortage that could rise to 1,500 MW in three weeks</b>
<b>Shops to close at 8pm</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->He said the main focus of the plan was conservation so industrial users and hence the economy are not hurt. One important step was that the authorities would encourage farmers to operate their tube wells during off peak hours or in the morning, not in the evening. The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority has already notified lower tariffs for off peak hours. This would benefit farmers and save some 100 MW, Mehmood said.

The second important step would be the closure of businesses in all big cities after 8pm. Mehmood said businesses are closed by 7pm in many developed countries. However, small shops, clinics, restaurants, pharmacies and petrol pumps would be exempt from this condition. Companies operating neon signs and lighted billboards would be asked to shut them down by 8pm. “We have decided to ask the management of wedding halls to avoid excessive lighting to save energy,” he added. Street lights would remain open<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>10 rockets fired at army camp</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->PESHAWAR: Ten rockets were fired on an army camp in the North Waziristan tribal region early on Thursday but no injuries were reported, official sources said. The rockets were fired at a camp in the Dukoye area, some 60 kilometres west of Miranshah. Pakistani forces returned fire in the direction from where the rockets originated but there has been no information on casualties. Rocket attacks on army camps have increased in North Waziristan over the past week, after a mysterious explosion at Saidgey village last Friday killed at least two people and injured another two. Locals claimed fighter planes had bombed a house but the military stated that explosives inside the house had caused the blast. Three rockets were fired on a military check post in Miranshah 24 hours after the explosion. Local Taliban had earlier warned that they would reconsider the peace deal with the government if attacks similar to the one on Saidgey continued but the council of elders later stated that they would honour the deal in the national interest. The government and the militants signed a peace deal in Miranshah in September 2006. nni<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Lathi charge</b>
FT
The Quaid’s great-grandson, one of the fortunate few to have been invited to the great Abhishek Bachchan-Ashwarya Rai wedding in Bombay recently, was said to be disgusted at the Bachchans’ treatment of the thousands of fans who stood patiently outside their Juhu bungalow to catch a glimpse of their idols. At one stage the throng was so great that the Big B, Amitabh Bachchan, asked his 600 strong security contingent to lathi charge the fans so that they would “f*** off!” <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Nuggets from the Urdu press
<b>Only lower body of suicide bombers enters paradise</b>
According to the daily Khabrain, the most important instruction given to a suicide bomber is to lower your head so that the head should be blown in pieces, otherwise only the lower body would enter paradise. According to Herald Magazine, alleged suicide bomber Sohail Zeb, who was arrested on March 8, revealed this instruction. During the investigation he revealed that he trained for three months in a camp near the Pak-Afghan border. He is a relative of Taliban leader Abdullah Mehsud and is a college student.

<b>Mullah is Pakistan’s saviour</b>
In daily Nawa-i-Waqt, lyrical columnist Irfan Siddique wrote that he is in a greatly difficult position to write about Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid. He has a deep, special relationship with these clerics. He has never been bitten by low self esteem, feeling that fighting their case would portray him as a fundamentalist and would keep him away from the bandwagon of enlightenment. He considers it a religious duty to defend madaris. The maulvis are our benefactors who shield the few traditions of our society in a world of selfishness and greed.

<b>Meera’s steamy video on the internet</b>
As reported in daily Khabrain, Pakistani filmstar Meera developed a friendship with the international drug smuggler, Vikram. Vikram was present on location at the shooting of Meera’s latest film, Simran. Vikram showed Meera a video film on his mobile and kept asking, “Please kiss me.” This video that showed Meera kissing Vikram can be seen on a website.  <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
 
<b>Illicit relations with stepdaughters</b>
As reported in daily Jang, a Pakistani man in the United Arab Emirates was sentenced to stoning to death by the Ajman Sharia Court for having illicit sexual relations with his four stepdaughters. He was arrested on a complaint by his fifth daughter whom he would not allow to marry a local citizen. All the four girls got 80 lashes each. <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->

<b>Illegal demands of Lal Masjid</b>
Columnist Nazir Naji wrote in Jang that the sect of the two maulvis of Islamabad doesn’t represent Islam. How can they force their sect on others who want to follow their lives according to their own sect? When armed groups were organised by Sanat Bhandaranwallah in India, the government cracked down on that group and wiped them out from the Golden Temple. Similarly, a crackdown of security forces was allowed by the government when a group took control of Khana Kaaba, demanding the enforcement of their version of Islam on Saudi Arabia.  <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->

<b>Hindus in shock over love story</b>
As reported in Khabrain, a 21 year old Hindu girl, Pariyanika, eloped with a 22 year old Muslim, Umar, in Bhopal. An extremist Hindu organisation has demanded that the boy be arrested and the girl handed over to her parents. The Vishva Hindu Pareshad, Bagrang Dal, Rashtraya Sewak Sangh, and Bharatia Janata parties have vowed to start agitation against the love marriage of the Hindu girl and Muslim boy.

<b>Foreigners driven out of Waziristan</b>
As reported in daily Jang, the tribal lashkar flushed out foreigner terrorists and took control of Azam Warsak. White flags were hoisted in the area and the tribal lashkar started searching houses in the area. Eight dead Uzbeks were found in Tora Gola who died in the fight. According to a news agency, 200 foreigners and 50 tribesmen have died in the fight.

<b>Taliban shave off moustaches and heads</b>
As reported in daily Khabrain, local Taliban in Laki Marwat beat up singers who were performing in a wedding, broke their instruments and then shaved off their moustaches and heads. Local residents resisted the local Taliban and fired at each other, leaving two people injured while the Taliban escaped by kidnapping six baratis. The local residents vowed to form a lashkar against the Taliban.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Ideological state and civil society </b>
FT
Khaled Ahmed
<b>Since Pakistan is not yet completely ideological like Iran or Afghanistan under Mullah Umar, it gestates what may be called fragments of a civil society embryo damaged by an ongoing miscarriage of the intellect  </b>
   
Let us first trace the story of civil society as a concept. It was the Scottish Enlightenment and its philosophers Adam Smith (1723-1790) and David Hume (1711-1776) who started the discussion of civil society. Adam Smith in 1776 began talking of 'political economy' to remove the confusion from the word 'economy' which in Greek meant 'household'. The addition of 'political' linked it to the 'polis' (city) because the early states were all city states. He also started calling civil society commercial society to differentiate between the classical republic based on feudalism and slavery, and the new class of 'free' men who did not depend on the state because they traded.

Adam Smith however added the moral aspect to his discussion when he condemned the purely materialist instinct of the trading class and its ignorance of spiritual values. His contemporary David Hume was clearer in his mind that civil society stood between the power of the state and the self-interest of the individual. Marx in 1843 had no doubt that civil society was nothing but an expression of the interests of the bourgeois class.

German philosophers Kant (1724-1804) and Hegel (1770-1831) too discussed civil society but it was Hegel who looked at it as a modern phenomenon and decried the attribution of emotion to the state. He thought that all 'affective' aspects of human life sprang from the family and that this life, lived independently of the diktat of the state, was possible because, even as a "commercial" contract, marriage engaged human emotion. He was responding to the definition of civil society as a phenomenon that comes about in consequence of "the tendency of the market to emancipate individuals from traditional moral religious and political constraints".

Adam Smith was influenced by Rousseau (1712-1778) in his doubts about his "commercial society", but Hume was not and did not look with disfavour at division of labour which produced the institution of the standing army and which, in Smith's view, lessened the genuine nationalism of a people's army. Civil society fulfilled the emotional needs of the classical republic through interdependent self-interests. Adam Smith nevertheless thought civil society had to be educated, and kept secular and free of religion and superstition.

The tyranny of the classical state was watered down by the rise of civil society where people did not depend on the state for their identity as citizens. But in today's world, the less developed states continue to manifest symptoms of the classical state that gave no rights to the individual and employed slaves. This negative phenomenon is however being eroded through globalisation and the interdependence it has produced between states. States in dire economic straits are especially vulnerable to dictated change from the outside. It can be said that despotic state is defanged by globalisation. Trends of "third worldism" against globalisation's "monoculture" - uniting the global Left, such as World Social Forum, and the Islamists - tend to revive the despotic state.

<b>NGOs play an important role in the creation of civil society where there is none owing to the predominance of feudalism and lack of education. Religious NGOs or "religious parties" are included in this category as saviours of civil society. In Guyana the majority population is Hindu-Indian and the ethnic divide between the blacks and the Indians is sharp and aggressive. </b>

Ethnic conflict tends to divide the NGOs as well or at least give them a factional colouring. In fact in an ethnically divided society all institutions take on factional colouring.<b> In Guyana, Hindus vote for their party while the blacks vote for theirs, thus blocking the road to pluralism in which civil society flourishes</b>. In Pakistan the "MQM vote" and the "Pushtun vote" contravene civil society. Where the state is not secular, religious NGOs oppose civil society institutions.

Globalisation with its easy movement of finance has created a new trend through social reaction against it. Civil society is seen as rejecting the very phenomena meant to nurture it, because people see the "collaborative" state as a partner of globalisation. In Pakistan, NGOs look at policies of laissez faire dictated by the World Bank and the IMF as being inimical to civil society. Also, in Pakistan, the religious parties are not in favour of civil society because the state itself is religious and the clergy forms a part of the coercive apparatus of the state. However, in Guyana and Trinidad, where the state is secular, religious NGOs play a positive role. Civil society takes easily to pluralism because of its paramount concern with the laissez faire worldview.

In the realm of human rights - which is one area crucial to the life of a nascent civil society - globalisation plays a positive role. Underdeveloped societies do not take to human rights until a certain evolutionary stage has been passed. To quicken the process of catching up with the rest of the world, global pressure has to be put on dictators and theocratic regimes to relax their hold on the lives of the people. Since even the masses are opposed to human rights, the state must therefore be made to go down the road of enlightenment against its wishes.

Does Pakistan have a developed civil society?<b> In India, Muslims did not take to commerce and were late in building a civil society of their own. The Indian Muslim community instead introduced the lawyers' class together with "student wings" of the political parties as a civil society component challenging the British Raj</b>. Today lawyers in Pakistan represent Pakistan's civil society, but contravene it in so far as a section of them embraces the ideological aspects of the state and endorses the coercion of vigilante action under ideology. An ideological state will leave little space for the development of civil society as a countervailing force. Between the "monoculture" of globalisation and the "monoculture" of ideology, the former is better for civil society.

Pakistan should not have a civil society because it claims to be ideological. Those who want to see it fulfil its destined identity want no freedom of space given to any countervailing force. Such a development of "free space" would be blasphemous. Yet, since Pakistan is not yet completely ideological like Iran or Afghanistan under Mullah Umar, it gestates what may be called fragments of a civil society embryo damaged by an ongoing miscarriage of the intellect. It is only because the ideological state is incomplete and unstable that it suffers the existence of this lacerated embryo in its lap.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Amrita Sher Gil’s Lahore </b>
FT
Khalid Hasan
privateview 
Nehru and Amrita’s relationship is difficult to gauge because many of Nehru’s love letters were later burned by Amrita’s parents, much to her chagrin, while she was in Budapest getting married to her cousin Karl

Amrita Sher Gil was once asked by Iqbal Singh, who was to write her biography 43 years after her death in Lahore in 1941, at the age of 28, why she had never painted a portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru, whom she knew and liked. She replied, “Because he is too good looking.” And so he was, and so was she. Col Ronny Datta, who as aide-de-camps to President Radhakrishnan, would often get to see Nehru, told me once that there was always such a glow on Nehru’s face that you couldn’t keep your eyes on it for long.

Amrita met Nehru in Lahore when he came for a day to team up with Congress workers and address a public meeting. He was staying in a house just across the road from Faletti’s Hotel with Diwan Ram Lal, a judge of the Punjab High Court, and elder brother of Dewan Chaman Lal, with whom and with his wife Helen, Amrita was great friends. Nehru, Ram Lal, Dr Khan Sahib, elder brother of Frontier Gandhi Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, had shared a flat in London as students. Although Nehru and Amrita met no more than three times, they often exchanged letters. As her most recent biographer Yashodhara Dalmia has written, “The exact nature of their relationship is difficult to gauge, because many of Nehru’s letters were later burnt by Amrita’s parents, much to her chagrin, while she was away in Budapest getting married” to her cousin Karl. Her mother was Hungarian and her father a Sikh landlord from Punjab, Sardar Umrao Singh Majithia. (It is to be wondered if the Majithia Hall on Empress Road in Lahore has some connection to Amrita’s father’s family.)

She wrote to her father after learning what had happened, “I had left them behind not because I thought them dangerous witnesses to my evil past but because I didn’t wish to increase my already heavy luggage. However, I suppose I have to resign myself to a bleak old age unrelieved by the entertainment that the perusal of old love letters would have afforded it.”

Nehru sent her a copy of his autobiography. She thanked him and wrote, “As a rule I dislike biographies and autobiographies. They ring false. Pomposity and exhibitionism. But I think I will like yours. You are able to discard your halo occasionally. You are capable of saying, ‘When I saw the sea for the first time,’ when others would say, ‘When the sea saw me for the first time.’ I should have liked to know you better. I am always attracted to people who are integral enough to be inconsistent without discordance and who don’t trail viscous threads of regret behind them. I don’t think that it is on the threshold of life that one feels chaotic, it is when one has crossed the threshold that one discovers that things which looked simple and feelings that felt simple are infinitely more tortuous and complex. That it is only in inconsistency that there is any consistency. But of course you have got an orderly mind. I don’t think you were interested in my paintings really. You looked at my pictures without seeing them. You are not hard. You have got a mellow face. I like your face, it is sensitive, sensual and detached at the same time.”

Amrita moved to Lahore in August 1941. Four months later she was dead. She and Victor rented flat No 23 in Sir Ganga Ram Mansion (I wonder who lives there now), which was also known as Exchange Mansion. She could see the Lahore High Court from the back of the flat. Her husband, who was a doctor, set up his clinic on the ground floor while Amrita made the barsati on top into her studio. She was full of enthusiasm and the artist’s block that she had been struggling with seemed to at last be lifting. She was all set to hold her exhibition in December (it was held after her death) at Faletti’s, where she had exhibited her paintings in 1937. <b>Khushwant Singh who had set up a law practice in Lahore used to hold a fortnightly soiree at his residence where he would be joined by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Prof Ahmed Shah Bokhari, Kartar Sing Duggal, Amrita Pritam Kaur, GD Khosla and Mangat Rai (brother of the long-serving principal of Kinnaird College, the late Miss Mangat Rai). </b>In Lahore also lived artists like Abdul Rehman Chughtai, Satish Gujral and Roop Krishna. Amrita became friends with Nawab Muzaffar Ali Qizalbash, Jamil Asghar, who later became a high court judge, Rashid Ahmed (who married Zeenat Rashid and whose daughter is married to Javed Jabbar “JJ”), U Karamet (who as Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University would sign papers with a flourish that said: “OK – UK”) and AS Bokhari.

Amrita’s reputation as an artist who combined the best of European technique and tradition with the purest of Indian motifs and the Indian spirit, continues to soar. Her work, which now fetches high prices, sold little during her life and the few she sold did not bring in more than a few hundred rupees (One of her paintings, “Veena Players,” hangs in the Lahore Museum and one in the Contemporary Art Gallery in Islamabad, gifted to its founder Zubaida Agha by Ishfaq Ahmed, who picked it up for a few rupees from a junk dealer).

A mystery has always surrounded Amrita’s death. Did she die of food poisoning (she had been at Sir and Lady Abdul Qadir’s home for tea, where she had eaten some pakoras that seem not to have agreed with her) or was it something more sinister? Khushwant Singh – as is his wont – had not written about her very kindly. He says she had an abortion which was botched by her husband and the ensuing infection went out of control. Victor did not seek help until it was too late. Yashodhara Dalmia writes that Helen Chaman Lal found Amrita dying. Two doctors, Dr Sikri and Dr Kalisch, a German, were brought in and found that peritonitis had set in and her intestines had perforated. Around midnight on December 5, 1941 Amrita Sher Gil passed away.

Her father and mother, who were in Simla, rushed to Lahore and on December 7, her father wrote in a letter, “Amrita’s body was taken to the crematory. Those fingers which had painted and that brain which had conceived her works, receiving its inspiration from the deathless spirit, were dissolving into the elements before our eyes. She had entered the prenatal world at Lahore and death seemed to have conspired with life to release her spirit from its physical chrysalis in the same city.” Iqbal Singh, who obviously was smitten by the lovely and fancy-free Amrita, wrote, “Amrita’s body was carried in a black hearse. It was covered with a Kashmiri shawl. At the last moment, someone discovered that no arrangement had been made to get any flowers to lay on the body. Some friends, who had gardens in their houses, rushed and brought some flowers. There were not many mourners – perhaps about 30 or 40, and they were mostly in their cars. So the cortege moved pretty fast through the Mall, Lower Mall, past the Badshahi Mosque and the Lahore Fort, and then on to the burning ghat on the left bank of the Ravi. A brief religious ceremony, under the Sikh rites, was held. . . The last rite was performed by Amrita’s father, Umrao Singh. As I sat there watching the body of that precious, elegant and beautiful Amrita being consumed by the leaping flames, I remember saying to myself, and the conviction has grown through the years – ‘We shall never see the like of her again.’”

Amrita Sher-Gil is one with the earth of Lahore. Is there no one in this city that she chose as home to build a memorial to her, or at least put a plaque at 23 Sir Ganga Ram Mansion in remembrance of a painter who has left her mark on the world in which she was not destined to live very long?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Hindu families uprooted for Mush's rally</b> 
Pioneer.com
PTI | Karachi
A former Pakistani lawmaker has appealed to the Supreme Court to take suo moto notice of the uprooting of 50 Hindu families in the country's Thar district, accusing the Sindh Chief Minister of direct role in the incident, a news report has said.

Khatumal Jeewan, former Member of the National Assembly and leader of Pakistan People's Party, has appealed to the apex court to take suo moto notice of the uprooting of the families belonging to the Hindu Dalit Bheel community.

The families lived near the venue of President Pervez Musharraf's May 5 public meeting in Thar district's Naukot

Jeewan said the local police raided a nearby village and ruthlessly uprooted the families belonging to the Hindu community on Friday.

"The orders came from no one else but Sindh Chief Minister," Jeewan was quoted as saying by the Daily Times.

The PPP leader alleged that the Sindh Government has started such atrocities against the innocent, poor and downtrodden people of Tharparkar on the basis of political differences.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Ayub Khan`s son says Manekshaw sold war plans
Seems like Gobar Ayub Khan's been off the medication again. If true, Manekshaw is a one heck of a double agent, we need more like him.

[Guest]

Why Pakis and Indian media is recycling this story again?
This is a work of either anti-army NGOs or external entities, to portray Indian Army in bad light or just to generate interest in sluggish book sale again.

[Guest]

<b>Bhagwan strikes on Musharraf - Pakistan Supreme Court under Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas halts probe against former Pakistan Chief Justice </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The days are numebered for the General. People of Pkaistan wants a change. They are fed of dictatorship any more.

In an interesting twist of events, Bhagwan struck on Musharraf too.<b> Pakistan Supreme Court under Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas halted probe against former Pakistan Chief Justice.</b>
According to media reports, In a decision that also partially met the government's demand, a five-judge bench of the court headed by Javed Butter hearing Chaudhry's petition challenging the reference of allegations of misconduct and misuse of power against him, stayed the proceedings of the five-judge SJC headed by Acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf had referred the allegations of misconduct and misuse of power against Chaudhry in March after suspending him.

Chaudhry's lawyer Aitejaz Ahsan regarded the Supreme Court's decision as an important victory as the suspended Chief Justice from the beginning has raised a host of objections against SJC's competence to conduct a trial.

<b>His first objection was whether ACJ Das was entitled to head the SJC, even though Chaudhry said he held Das, the first Hindu judge in highest esteem. He averred that technically ACJ cannot head the SJC</b>.

Secondly, he objected to the presence of three judges whom, he said, nurtured a bias against him<b>. Two Supreme Court judges, Justice Javed Iqbal and Hamid Dogar and Chief Justice of Lahore High Court, Iftikar Chaudhry, who were part of the five-judge SJC were against him and therefore should not be part of it, he contended</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>Aziz refuses to rule out emergency</b>


This is with Burqa or Fatwa ????
<b>US, UK to recruit 10,000 Pakistani nurses </b>

These people are very picky. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Clerics worried by lack of respect for fatwas on suicide</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->PESHAWAR: Clerics who issued a fatwa a few weeks ago declaring suicide attacks ‘haraam’ and illegal, are concerned at the fact that even fatwas have failed to stop such attacks by jihadi elements.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+May 7 2007, 02:15 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ May 7 2007, 02:15 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Why Pakis and Indian media is recycling this story again?
This is a work of either anti-army NGOs or external entities, to portray Indian Army in bad light or just to generate interest in sluggish book sale again.
[right][snapback]68403[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Mudy: Read
Why attack Manekshaw? by B Raman. Read the whole article.
Last line:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Now, the fierce competition for viewership among television channels has made them willing to disseminate such stories for a few minutes of sensation. This is a dangerous trend, which needs to be condemned and checked.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[ramana]

I think Ramangaru is chasing the wrong pig. Gohar has his reason but what are Karan Thapar's (self admitted former General's son) reasons to tar the biggest icon of the Indian Armed forces?

I think it is to cut down the IA image due to their not playing ball with the Siachen sacrifical lamb at the altra of 'peace process' and deny the UPA of its claim to be peace makers. Same genre as the attacks on Indian scientists who were against the sellout in the IUCNA.

I see Sanjay Baru's hand in this.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I see Sanjay Baru's hand in this.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Who paid him this time?

[Guest]

from some fora-
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I am of an age that I followed the Chinese incursion to India, and the Indian army’s poor show in containing them thanks to Krishna Menon’s ineptitude, his obstruction to equipping Indian army and treating the generals as his ‘chai’ boys. Sam it was told at that time was particularly badly treated and when he resisted, he was banished into the back room of the army until he was brought back for the Bangla. This it was rumoured did not find favour with the rest of the army’s top brass.

Krishna Menon close to Nehru was almost single handedly responsible for Chinese grabbing Indian territories as the left-leaning defence minister assumed that his Chinese comrades would do nothing of the kind to their Indian comrades!!

for my money, I have more faith in any one who opposed Krishna Menon, and that includes Sam.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Karan Thapar's (self admitted former General's son) <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is he related to Chief of General Staff, during 1962 war?

[Guest]

SAM n IG before 1971 war link
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I will just read out a portion of an interview by General Maneckshaw. Now this was received by Mrs Gandhi on the 4th of April, Mother even notes the date, she sent the message on 3rd but Mrs. Gandhi received the message on 4th, "The urgent recognition of Bangladesh is imperative." So, sometime in April, she called a cabinet meeting in which General Maneckshaw was invited. I will just read out certain portions from an interview which General Maneckshaw gave a few years later. You will get an idea of the actual situation at that time..

Mrs Indira Gandhi telling Maneckshaw, "Look at this, - so many are coming in -there is a telegram from the Chief Minister of Assam, a telegram from. what are you doing about it? she said to me.

I said nothing. What has it got to do with me,

She said, "Can't you do something? "Can't you do something? Why don't you do something?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to march in".

I said, "that means war". And she said, "I don't mind if it is war".

So I sat down and said, "Have you read the Bible?"

Sardar Swaran Singh said. "What has the Bible got to do with it?"

"In the First Book, The First Chapter, the First Paragraph of the Bible, God said, 'Let there be Light' and there was light. So you feel, Let there be war and there shall be war. Are you ready? I certainly am not ready".

Then I said, "I will tell you what is happening? It is now the end of April. In a few days' time the monsoon will break and in East Pakistan, when it rains, the rivers become like oceans. If you stand on one side, you can't see the other. I would be confined to the roads. The Air Force would not be able to support me and the Pakistanis would thrash me - that's one. Secondly my armoured divisions, is in the Babina area, another one in Secunderabad. We are now harvesting. I will require every vehicle, every truck, all the road space, all the railway space to move my soldiers and you will not be able to move our crops" and I turned to Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, the Agriculture Minister and said, " If there is famine in India, they will blame you. I would not be there to take the blame". Then I turned around and said, "My armoured division which is supposed to be my strike force has got 12 tanks which are operational out of the whole lot".

Chavan asked, 'Sam, why only 12?'

I said, "Sir, because you are the Finance Minister. I have been asking, pleading for months and you said that you have got no money. That's why".

Then I said,<b> "Prime Minister, if in 1962 if your father had asked me as Army Chief and not General Thapar and your father had said,'Throw the Chinese out', I would have turned around and told him. 'Look, there are problems'. Now I am telling you what the problems are. If you still want me to go ahead, Prime Minister, I will guarantee you 100% defeat. Now, give me your orders". </b>

Then Jagjeevan Ram said, "Sam, Maan Jao Na".

I said, "I have given my professional view now. Now the Government must take a decision" .

The Prime Minister did not say anything, she was red in the face and said, 'Achcha, char baje milenge'.

Everybody walked out, I, being the junior most, was the last to leave and I smiled at her. "Chief, sit down".

So, I said, " Prime Minister, before you open your mouth, do you want me to send in my resignation on the grounds of mental health or physical?'"

She said, "Oh, sit down Sam. Everything you told me is true".

"Yes. Look it is my job to fight. It is my job to fight to win. Are you ready? I certainly am not ready. Have you internally got everything ready? Internationally have you got everything ready? I don't think so. I know what you want, but I must do it in my own time and I guarantee you 100 percent success. But I want to make it quite clear. There must be one commander. I don't mind, I will work under the BSF, under the CRPF, under anybody you like. But I will not have a Soviet telling me what to do and I must have one political master who will give me instructions. I do not want the refugee ministry, home ministry, defence ministry all telling me. Now make up your mind."

She said, 'All right Sam, nobody will interfere, you will be in command.'

So it is clear that Indira Gandhi could not recognise Bangladesh immediately because the Army was not ready. And it was not the fault of the army that it was not ready. And again, the army was not ready because there was not sufficient governmental support. This has been the one of the bane of Indian history after independence. Unfortunately this is the bane even today. General Ved Malik said a few days back, "If war is thrust upon us, we will fight with what we have". Unfortunately what we have is not all what we need. Anyway, the war in Bangladesh was over. It was a resounding victory. I will not go into any details but it must be noted that the help of the Mother was invaluable. She took active interest in the War and she had a map f Bangladesh in front of her on her table and She concentrated on it everyday. Her help was not only occult, she was in actual touch with some of the officers of the Indian Army. However that is another story, a story by itself.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Naresh]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>Why corporate sector remains stunted</span></b> <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo-->[/center]

<b>RECENTLY, there has been a sudden increase in international focus on the Indian corporate sector. This has been triggered by significant events like the acquisition of Arcelor by the Mittal Group and Corus Steel by the Tata Group. This has brought increasing realisation in Pakistan that the Indian corporate sector is now in a different league as compared to Pakistan’s corporate sector.

Some have considered it important to go through a process of introspection for identifying reasons for the relatively poor state of Pakistan’s corporate sector. Apologists for the delinquent performance of Pakistan’s corporate sector have frequently held Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s nationalisation policy responsible. Mr Shahid Javed Burki is one contributor to this line of thinking, not realising that proffering “soft alibis” is not only music to the ears of our business leaders but masks the real cause behind the lacklustre performance of the corporate sector.</b>

This article tries to put the nationalisation policies of the Bhutto era in a proper perspective and delineates the real reasons behind the prevailing malaise in the corporate sector. It is particularly important to set the record straight since the Indian experience confirms that despite nationalisation in India and a large public sector, the corporate sector has continued to march forward. It is natural, therefore, to ask why the position is different in Pakistan.

According to conventional wisdom, private sector management is inherently superior to public sector management. However, there is little empirical evidence to support the veracity of this hypothesis in Pakistan.

A brief survey of the corporate landscape in Pakistan reveals that while the banking sector does, indeed, represent a successful transformation triggered primarily by change of management from public to private sector through privatisation, other corporate achievers like PSO, PARCO, OGDC and the two Suis are all in the public sector as was the National Refinery till recently.

It is also important to look at the post-privatisation performance of privatised enterprises. Performance of privatised banks supports this hypothesis, as does the post-privatisation performance of Millat Tractors, Balochistan Wheels and D.G. Khan Cement.

At the same time, there are countless examples of units showing deteriorating performance in the post-privatisation phase. These include Bankers’ Equity, Zeal Pak Cement, Ghandhara Industries, Pakistan PVC and Sind Alkalis, not to mention others shut down after privatisation.

Another common fallacy explaining poor corporate performance is that nationalisation retarded the development of managerial and technical skills. A serious examination reveals that nationalisation, in fact, enlarged the pool of professional managers.The most significant aspect of nationalisation during the 1972 to 1974 period was the clear strategy to take over ownership control but not the management of nationalised industries. In that early phase, nationalisation did not imply the replacement of professional managers by bureaucratic nominees.

As a deliberate policy, the first step after nationalisation was to replace the owner chief executives by the senior-most professional managers in the nationalised enterprise. Serious efforts were also made to induct outstanding professionals and distinguished entrepreneurs in senior management level positions.

This strategy generated a huge reservoir of commitment and enthusiasm from professional management. As a consequence, there was a turnaround in performance in nationalised units with peak levels attained in 1974-1975. Since then, there was a gradual but perceptible deterioration not only because of whimsical changes in key personnel but more importantly because of the failure of the administrative structure (ministry of production/BIM) to effectively monitor performance and evaluate outcomes linking these to an appropriate incentive system.

Despite this environment, some public sector-managed enterprises continued to perform well because of the individual chief executive’s commitment and integrity. At the same time, however, even the best of professional managers under public sector management continued to be victims of policy imperatives.

Let us analyse the nature of manufacturing enterprises nationalised in 1972. These were largely modest in size and in operations. Another common feature was the near absence of professional management. Even in the case of the National Refinery, owing to product monopoly, no need was felt for establishing any marketing platform. In the automobile sector, companies were largely assembly operations. In other sectors — cement, light engineering and chemicals — the manufacturing processes were simple and there were few marketing challenges, given a captive local market and high tariff barriers against imports.

In terms of financial performance, some of the companies had done well, but principally on account of very high tariff protection, subsidised raw material prices, tax incentives and near-oligopolistic positions. Financial performance, therefore, was not a reflection of entrepreneurial ability or managerial skill.

With import substitution as the mantra of Ayub Khan’s policies and the “bonus voucher scheme” providing the facilitating mechanism, many of these industries continued to make financial profits even while operating considerably below the optimum capacity utilisation.

<b><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>While many economists continue to wax lyrical about Pakistan’s industrial success during the Ayub era, there seems to be reluctance on their part to reflect on the benefits of that era to the country. When evaluated against revenue generated for the government in terms of taxes, benefits for the workers in terms of wages and working conditions and benefits to minority shareholders in terms of distribution of dividends, </span></b>

It follows, therefore, that beyond ideological commitment, the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had practical reasons to consider nationalisation as a viable option for a transformation of the industrial base of the country.

The broad objectives of nationalisation of his government included introduction of professional management, enhancement of local value addition and control on prices. Let us examine the extent to which these objectives were achieved.

The demand for professional management increased with nationalisation and this was met both through in-house training as well as by public sector institutions. There was a conscious effort at increasing local value addition. Prices were also kept in check as evidenced by price stability over a long period in at least two commodities: cement and vegetable ghee. The other societal benefits included increased revenue for the exchequer and better working conditions for labour. No, nationalisation was not the unmitigated disaster that Mr Burki and others make it out to be.

It is important to identify the underlying causes for the stunted growth of our corporate sector. The underlying causes are easier to identify if we focus on one important sector — textile — which never faced the sword of nationalisation. This sector, in which Pakistan enjoys an inherent comparative advantage, has been the most favoured child of the state throughout our history. It has been showered with a wide range of “concessions” including low import duty on machinery, high levels of protection against import of textile products, area-specific income tax exemption and concessional project financing.

Yet, the textile sector is crying out for more state crutches to compete internationally. Reared on subsidised raw cotton and created through state licensing mechanism and surviving on concessions, there has never been any incentive for the sector to grow and compete with “adults”.

The textile business is cyclical in nature. Consequently, there are good years and bad years. In good years, surplus profits are set aside and partially invested in upgradation for enhancing productivity and efficiency so that in lean years businesses can live with lower margins.

In Pakistan, the pattern has been very different. Surplus profits during good years have neither been distributed to shareholders, nor retained in businesses, nor used for upgradation or modernisation. They have either been stashed away out of the country or wasted on conspicuous consumption.

During the bad years, there has been a familiar stampede in running to catch hold of the coat-tails of the government and pleading for more concessions. The most frequently used tactic is the threat of large-scale shutdown of manufacturing units. The state has been more than accommodating in responding to these distress calls. In 2006 alone, the loan write-offs and other forms of financial relief by the five largest banks (NBP, HBL, MCB, UBL, ABL) to textile companies aggregate to over six billion rupees.

The sector is in crises yet again and the government is reportedly putting together yet another “concession package”. These are not likely to redress the fundamental structural problems. The sector is segmented with a large number of units of small size, lacking managerial capacity and marketing infrastructure, poor quality control and absence of the requisite skill sets among production workers. It is in the aforesaid areas where we have slipped sharply against international competitors.

Unfortunately, there are no easy or quick solutions. Any effective turnaround would require a fundamental change in the mindset of textile magnates. They need to transform from a rentier class to one of entrepreneurs. Only then can they come to terms with the permanent change in the global trading paradigm in the post-MFA, post-WTO environment.

<b>The corporate leaders in India were not born in a day. They have been reared on the tradition of pursuing entrepreneurial flair, a high propensity to re-invest and to expand and diversify. The ramifications of globalisation were fully understood and the corporate sector was adequately geared to maximise opportunities. This confidence was based on the large size of individual corporate groups and the availability of a large pool of managerial manpower. It was, thus, only a matter of time before Indian corporates acquired a global status.

<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>Pakistan, on the other hand, both at the government and private sector level, has been far less prepared. This is the principal reason why we face this dilemma.

Is there hope of a transformation? Sadly not. Our corporate sector has neither the vision nor is attuned to performing the role of entrepreneurs while lacking the requisite managerial and technical manpower that could enable us to graduate from a commodity producer and exporter to a producer and exporter of specialised products.</span> <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>There is hardly any other sector where the scale of operations or the level of technology can place Pakistan in the same league as India.</span></b>

It is not that we were destined to fall by the wayside. The private sector has consciously chosen to shy away from preparing itself to prosper in a competitive environment while the government has failed to create the human resource platform — an essential element of the enabling environment.

<i>The writer is chief executive of a financial sector company in Lahore.</i>

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Naresh]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>MUSHARRAF’S KARACHI MELA</span></b> <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo--> [/center]

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Conscientious thieves</b>
FT
A well-heeled British couple of Pakistani origin were returning to their home after a night out when they were confronted with a terrifying situation. It was past midnight and the husband and wife had been out on the town in London, having had dinner at a fancy restaurant. It was the woman’s birthday and she was wearing expensive designer jewellery, valued at more than US $ 500,000/. They returned to their well-guarded and secure Hampstead home (surveillance cameras, automatic gates etc) in good cheer. As soon as they entered their home, they were assailed by two masked burglars who demanded that they hand over all their valuables. The burglars spoke the local London idiomatic English. One burglar grabbed the woman of the house by the neck and her husband fell on his knees and begged them to let her go given the state of her health. The burglars took all the woman’s jewellery off her, including the smallest ring. They then asked to be led to the safe box. As they went from one room to the next, the burglars saw Islamic calligraphy adorning the walls of the plush home. One burglar asked the woman which country of origin she came from. She said, “Pakistan”. The burglar stopped in his tracks. He told his partner to return the woman’s jewellery, “all of it” and made sure that every little trinket was given back to her. He even searched his partner’s pockets to make sure that he wasn’t keeping anything back. The two burglars then swiftly left the house, having taken nothing from the couples’ possession. Conscientious burglars?
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nah ! they were Paki chor. <!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo-->