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Reema Travel and Tourism

2025-03-11T14:02:00.001+05:00

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Kashmir uprising

2016-07-20T21:25:00.001+05:00

Kashmir has been embroiled in an endless cycle of violence for over a fortnight now. More than 40 people have been killed and 2000 wounded by Indian security forces so far. Srinagar is under a curfew and Indian army personnel have resorted to indiscriminate firing against protesting Kashmiris calling for an end to the reign of terror in the Valley.
Kashmir has never been at peace. Over the years its inhabitants have kept chafing under the heavy handed rule imposed by New Delhi. The latest phase in the Kashmir uprising erupted about two weeks ago after the Indian army shot dead Burhan Wani, a member of the Hizbul Mujahedeen. In recent months Wani had emerged as a hero of resistance against Indian occupation and was very popular with young people in the Valley. The news of Wani’s death sent a wave of shock and anger throughout the valley. To protest against the outrage, the Hurriyat leaders called for a strike and three days of mourning.
Following the call, widespread protests broke out leading to clashes with the security personnel. Despite a police crackdown, suspension of internet and mobile services and imposition of curfew, thousands took to the streets to protest against the killings. A large crowd gathered at Wani's funeral as his body was brought for burial draped in the Pakistani flag. India responded to the protests in Kashmir over the killing of Burhan Wani as it has always done – with further violence, repression and killings.
The story of Indian atrocities in Kashmir is a long one. New Delhi has been following a policy of rape, murder and torture in order to suppress the freedom struggle in the Valley. Thousands of Kashmiri young men have been murdered and hundreds of thousands have been put in jails where third degree torture is used to break the spirit of freedom seekers. Delhi has also been trying to change the Valley's demography by bringing in settlers from the outside and creating “sainak colonies”. This has added fuel to the fire of conflict in Kashmir.
All Indian governments, present and past, have given a raw deal to the Kashmiris. It is the colonial attitude that India has adopted towards Kashmir that adds to the frustration of Kashmiri people. India’s harsh methods have only helped to create successive generations of militants and freedom fighters. India has an unenviable track record of violating fundamental human rights of Kashmiris including their right to life and the right to self-determination. Lack of progress in finding a durable solution to the Kashmir question in accordance with the UN resolutions, the continuing violations of human rights in the Valley and lack of accountability thereof have led to a feeling of frustration and bitterness, especially among the new generation of Kashmiris who are increasingly throwing their weight behind the decades-long indigenous movement for self-determination.
Pakistan has strongly condemned the killings in Kashmir and detention of Kashmiri leaders and called upon the Indian government to fulfil its human rights obligations as well as its commitments under the UN resolutions. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has issued a statement supporting the Kashmiri people's right to self-determination in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions.
Following the latest outbreak in Kashmir, Pakistan has launched a diplomatic campaign to highlight the misery of the people of Indian-held Kashmir groaning under the Indian military heel. Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry has briefed the ambassadors of China, France, the Russian Federation, United Kingdom and the United States, expressing Pakistan's serious concern over the recent wave of violence against Kashmiri people. Pakistan ambassadors in all capitals, especially Western countries, are briefing their host governments as well as human rights groups and organisations in their areas of accreditation. Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz has addressed letters to the UN Secretary-General, the President of the UN Security Council, the Secretary-General of the OIC, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to express Pakistan's serious concern over the alarming situation in Indian-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He has drawn the world’s attention to the brutal killings of innocent civilians by the occupying Indian security forces and urged the United Nations to fulfil its responsibility with regard to the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, which remains on the agenda of the UN Security Council and is yet to be resolved in accordance with its relevant resolutions.
Kashmir is a universally recognised dispute with numerous UN Security Council resolutions emphasizing the need for its solution. It is not yet too late for the Indian leadership to see reason and come to the negotiating table for a peaceful settlement of a dispute which has been festering for more than 60 years. The unresolved issue of Kashmiris is a hindrance in the progress and prosperity of the peoples of the two countries, and a constant threat to regional stability. In this connection, it would be a good idea to use the good offices of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who has offered to act as a mediator.

Abdul Sattar Edhi an embodiment of love and humanity

2016-07-20T21:23:00.004+05:00

Death can kill every one and everything except love, mercy and humanity. Rather, death gives eternal life to those who sacrifice their lives for uplifting humanity and love. Life without love and humanity is barren and meaningless.
While life with love gives meaning to our existence and protects against hodiernal adversity. All great men are lovers of humanity and mercy. They live and die serving humanity, striving for the betterment of people, struggling to preach humanism, fighting against hatred, bigotry, prejudice and ignorance. They sacrifice in performing their duty and work tirelessly to achieve their goal. In short, their love for serving humanity becomes the reason for their existence.
Certainly, Abdul Sattar Edhi was a great man, an embodiment of love, mercy, patience, hard work and humanity. Love was his religion. To serve humanity was his faith. His philosophy of life was "love human beings, serve humanity". He acted upon this philosophy throughout his life.
He started his philanthropic work from zero, setting up a small clinic in the Mithadar area of Karachi in 1951, and created one of the world's largest ambulance services . There are around 335 Edhi centres with 2,000 ambulances across the country. The foundation has given shelter to around 50,000 orphaned children and provided homes to over 20,000 unwanted and abandoned babies. Abdul Sattar Edhi is now the father of these nameless innocent children. They are no more fatherless and identity-less in our land. The foundation has around 40,000 trained nurses, who are working and serving people. The foundation has 3,500 workers and thousands of volunteers. Edhi centers are now rendering philanthropic services to the people of other countries like, America, Canada, the Middle East , Nepal, Afghanistan and many other countries of Africa. Edhi’s meritorious services have already been acknowledged across the world. In 1986, Edhi was bestowed with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service from the Philippines. The Guinness Book recorded the Edhi Foundation as the largest voluntary ambulance organization in the world in 2000. He was also gifted with the Balzan Prize and the Lenin Peace Prize. He was awarded the Nishan-e-Imtiaz by the Pakistan government. Several times he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a measure of the politicisation of the Nobel Peace Prize, that if anyone in Pakistan had to be awarded that prize, it would be that trumped up symbol of Western propaganda, Malala Yusufzai, instead of Maulana Edhi.
In fact, Edhi is the Abou Ben Adhem of a well-known poem. Adhem earns Allah’s pleasure and love by serving humanity:
“Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest”. (Anonymous. Submission James Henry Leigh Hunt)
After the demise of Edhi, the world is praising his selfless efforts, devotion, exemplary and missionary life.
The Washington Post writes about Edhi: “Abdul Sattar Edhi was a beacon of hope in a country too often mired in despair. He was an ascetic in a country where politicians regularly skim millions of dollars through corruption; a humanitarian in a country rife with sectarian hatred and violence; and ultimately the provider of public services in a country where the government often fails to provide even the most basic ones, like adequate hospitals and ambulances. In the course of his lifetime, he had gone from being a refugee to running Pakistan's most renowned philanthropic organization, the Edhi Foundation. Established in 1951, the foundation currently runs hospitals, orphanages, morgues, legal aid offices, centers for the abandoned and drug-addicted, and has almost 2,000 ambulances, which it dispatches to the scenes of the terrorist attacks that occur with alarming frequency across the country… Edhi's foundation had no qualms about serving Pakistan's religious minorities. Once, when he was asked why he was okay with his ambulances picking up Christians and Hindus, he snarkily replied, "Because my ambulance is more Muslim than you." Edhi was well known for his minimalist lifestyle. He reportedly had only two pairs of shalwar kameez, the billowy set of clothing commonly worn by men in Pakistan. He collected much of the operating costs for his foundation through donations from regular middle-class people. He would sit cross-legged and they would leave rupee notes near his lap. He slept in a room attached to his foundation's office for most of his life. "Social welfare was my vocation, I had to free it," he said in his autobiography, A Mirror to the Blind.
The Guardian pays tribute to Edhi in these words: “In a country increasingly riven by extremism, Abdul Sattar Edhi, the founder of a vast public welfare organisation that spans Pakistan, was a symbol of the country’s shrivelled secular tradition. Edhi, who has died aged around 90, never turned anyone away from his hospitals, homeless shelters, rehab centres and orphanages. His determination to ignore considerations of creed, cast or sect earned him the hatred of some on the country’s religious right, who accused him of being an atheist. But the public revered him for his lifelong commitment to humanity. Edhi was born in British India but moved to Pakistan six days after it was formed in August 1947. He attended some of the public speeches made by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the anglicised lawyer who led the movement for a Muslim majority state. Like many others hailing from Gujarat, Edhi found himself in Karachi, arriving by boat in the Arabian Sea entrepot that would grow into a megacity of more than 20 million people, racked by ethnic strife. Always hazy about the precise year of his birth, Edhi reckoned he was about 20 when he landed at Karachi’s stinking harbour. He initially worked as a street pedlar, hawking pencils, matches that he would hold on a tray and towels. Later he sold paan, the betel leaf and nut mixture chewed by many in the subcontinent, and then worked for his father who was a trader. But he found his time doing this unsatisfying. He said he felt an urge to do welfare work after “observing the environment I was living in, where injustice, bribery and robbery were common”. He set up his first simple pharmacy offering drugs and basic medical care, regardless of people’s ability to pay, in a tent next to his family home in Jodia bazaar. The area, now a teeming slum, is still the headquarters of the Edhi Foundation, which is run out of a ramshackle building where he lived to the end of his days in a tiny backroom....Edhi’s charitable activities expanded in 1957 when an Asian flu epidemic swept through Karachi. He borrowed money for tents to treat people who were only asked to contribute financially if they could afford it. “It was the first mass recognition of my work,” Edhi later told the journalist Steve Inskeep. A single generous donation from a businessman, a fellow member of the Memon community, allowed Edhi to buy his first ambulance, which he drove himself around the city… Through his work, Edhi met Bilquis Bano, who became his wife and a key figure in the burgeoning charity empire. They worked together during one of the toughest periods of Edhi’s life, the 1965 war between India and Pakistan which saw Karachi bombed. The couple cared for the civilian victims and organised 45 funerals, with Bilquis cleaning the bodies of women and Edhi preparing the men for burial. It was said he washed thousands of dead bodies during his life, with his foundation finding space in its graveyards for anyone who needed it. In the A Mirror to the Blind, he made clear his distaste for anyone who thought themselves too grand to touch the dead.
The Edhi Foundation ultimately became a multimillion-dollar enterprise run directly by Edhi, his wife and their four children...The foundation estimates it transports a million people to hospital each year, charging a tiny fee for the ride. In Karachi, rival gangs have been known to call temporary ceasefires to their gun battles to allow Edhi’s minimally trained ambulance staff to collect the dead and wounded. In a country with a negligible public welfare system Edhi offered cradle-to-grave services… “I have never been a very religious person,” he told the Daily Times newspaper in 2009. “I am neither against religion nor for it.” He found inspiration in socialist writers who lambasted the ruling capitalist class whom he thought were responsible for poverty in the world. And he did not see why work to alleviate suffering should be restricted to Pakistan. In 2005 the Edhi Foundation donated $100,000 to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the US. “My religion is serving humanity and I believe that all the religions of the world have their basis in humanity,” he said.
It is also a hard fact that our cruel and corrupt ruling elite is not willing to follow the teachings and life of Abdul Sattar Edhi. Although, they have attended the funeral of this great man in the National Stadium with great respect and love, the sole purpose, according to some analysts, was to get attention of the people of Pakistan and associate themselves expediently with the saint who has earned respect and love among the people by his noble aims and commendable actions. One analyst writes, “But it is a testament to Abdul Sattar Edhi’s greatness, and to the tragedy of the country he leaves behind, that on the day of his funeral, Pakistan’s credibility-hungry politicians were lining up behind his coffin to bask in some reflected glory”.

Imran’s wedding rumours eclipse Panama Leaks

2016-07-20T21:23:00.001+05:00

Rumours of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s third marriage and subsequent analyses on news channels for days diverted the public attention from the Panama Leaks. It provided a much-needed breathing space to the government to devise its strategy to counter the opposition’s agitation plan.
Marriage is a private issue but personal matters of public figures are discussed in the media all over the world. However, Imran’s wedding was blown out of proportion. Channels accused him of undermining his own movement against the government over the Panama Leaks. Some experts castigated him for tying the knot on the day when Pakistan was mourning the death of its biggest charity worker, Abdul Sattar Edhi. His marriage remained the topic of discussion on all channels despite denials by Imran Khan and other party leaders.
The media speculated about two women who belonged to Pakpattan. It forced a woman’s family to issue a clarification. “Imran Khan has not married in the Manika family,” Khawar Fareed Manika, son of former Federal Minister Ghulam Muhammad Manika, said in a statement. According to the media, Maryam Manika is the sister of Bushra Manika, who is daughter-in-law of Ghulam Muhammad Manika.
When channels continued flashing pictures of women, Imran slammed media outlets for spreading news about his third marriage and sharing pictures of women he “has never met”. “Women’s pictures shown whom I neither know nor ever met. Such disinformation is irresponsible and shows a collapse of moral and ethical standards,” Imran Khan said on Twitter. “Unethical of media to spread false news of my marriage based upon absolute lies. Had that happened in UK heads would have rolled,” he added.
Media reports said Imran had visited Pakpattan thrice in July to meet his would-be bride, Maryam, who is sister of his “spiritual guide.” After it, the PTI media wing clarified that he was spiritually connected to the Manika family of Pakpattan and nothing else. When the statement failed to quell the rumours, Imran issued a clarification through Twitter saying, “Rumours about my marriage are absolutely baseless. I have not gotten married. When I do, I will announce and celebrate publicly.” It failed to impress his critics, who said he had secretly married twice and this time too.
There may be many elements behind the speculations, but Imran himself played some part in it when in an interview to the Hindustan Times, he said, “It is not in my blood to give up,” to a query about his marriage. The report said even after two divorces, Imran Khan will not give up the idea of marrying again and is actually thinking about it even more these days. “It’s not in my blood to give up. But it takes a lot … (the idea of marriage) is even more open than before. But marrying at 60 is not like marrying at 30,” Imran said in the interview, which was also reproduced in the Pakistani media, after which speculations started.
“Bachelor life is a superficial existence. I would always choose married life. Because bachelor life is: all that glitters is not gold. It is very shallow and empty. It is a superficial existence. You cause a lot of pain. As a bachelor there were a lot of heartaches, and I regret that. I am 63 years old and have been married for only 10 years, but I am more of a staunch believer of marriage now after two divorces than I ever was,” he added. The lengthy interview was analyzed from all angles on Pakistani channels and speculations started about his would-be wife. Some claimed he had already tied the knot and would make it public later. The channels also refused to accept his clarification on the grounds that he had denied his marriage with Reham Khan till the end.
The PTI had to file a complaint with the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) against TV channels when they continued airing the news about his third marriage. Imran may recover from the malicious propaganda soon but the women and their families, whose pictures were flashed with him, will feel embarrassment for a long time.
According to sources, the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) Media Cell had spread rumours of the third marriage of Imran Khan to divert the attention of the people from the Panama Leaks and malign him. It is alleged the story was set up at the Social Media Cell of the PML-N at the Prime Minister’s House, led by Maryam Nawaz Sharif. Some analysts of news channels were hired to launch a smear campaign against Imran to defame him and make him controversial ahead of his possible agitation against the Nawaz Sharif government. According to sources, services of some TV channels, editors of English-language and Urdu dailies were hired for spreading rumours about his marriage. Questions were also raised on his morality, without realizing that there is nothing immoral in marriage.
PTI Secretary General Jahangir Khan Tareen in his tweet confirmed the smear campaign by some sections of the media against Imran Khan looked like the government’s hidden ploy to divert attention from the Panama Leaks.
Imran’s first two marriages and splits were flashed by the media all over the world. However, the foreign media has always been careful and responsible about its reporting. The Pakistani media has crossed all limits of decency and respect for public privacy. Pictures of different women were carried by the media, in a bid to take the lead from others. The campaign has not done much harm to Imran and his politics, but the women and their families will remain disturbed for long. If it had happened in a civilized country, the media would have faced many defamation suits for millions of dollars. In Pakistan, the channels can defame anybody at their will. They will get away with it too. They will apologize to Imran, at most, on the orders of PEMRA. The women they named will not be compensated. They should at least tender an apology to them.
In a tribal society like Pakistan, where “honour” killings are common, women should be treated more respectfully and the government should make laws to protect their rights and privacy. Defamation laws should also be made more effective to stop the media from launching smear campaigns against their targets.

World population a worsening crisis

2016-07-20T21:22:00.002+05:00

The observance of the World Population Day last week once again focused attention on what is described as the ticking time bomb of demographic explosion. Every year, the day comes as a reminder that we are not doing enough to control the rising population which is putting unbearable strains on the world’s limited resources.
In 1989, the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme recommended that 11 July be observed by the international community as World Population Day, a day to raise awareness on the urgency and importance of population issues. The decision was sparked by the public interest in Five Billion Day on July 11, 1987- the date on which the world’s population rose to five billion people.
The theme for this year is “Investing in teenage girls.” In his remarks on the day, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said: “Despite significant gains made in reducing poverty and improving opportunity and well-being for many people around the world, hundreds of millions remain desperate for a chance of a better future. Among the least served by previous development initiatives are girls, particularly those in their formative teenage years.” It is true that many teenage girls around the world face enormous challenges, and many are forced into early marriages, thereby damaging their future prospects. Statistics show that more than 13 million teenage girls around the world are forced by their families and communities into marriage annually.
Even among girls who stay in school, access to basic information about their health, human rights and reproductive rights is not available, leaving them vulnerable to illness, injury and exploitation. It has been found that when teenage girls are empowered, when they know about their rights and are given the tools to succeed, they become agents of positive change in their communities. UNFPA's programmes aim to end child marriage, curb adolescent pregnancy, and to empower girls to make informed choices about their health and lives. In 2015 alone, UNFPA programmes helped 11.2 million girls between the ages of 10 and 19 to gain access to sexual and reproductive health services and information.
There is a special significance attached to the annual observance of World Population Day. The world’s population is rising fast. Despite two world wars, tyranny and famines, the world saw the biggest increase in its population in human history in the 20th century, due to decreasing mortality rates made possible by medical advances and increases in agricultural productivity. The world population is predicted to hit the seven billion mark on 31 October this year.
In the year 1000 AD, the world population was only 400 million. In 1750 AD, 750 years later, the population was 800 million.. The world’s population reached one billion in 1804. It took 123 years to reach two billion. The population grew faster and the next billion was reached in 1959. In 1974, the population reached four billion and in 1987, it reached five billion. The population reached six billion in 1999, and in 2011 it was close to seven billion. Experts say the world’s population will increase by another 4 billion by 2100. Based on the medium projection of the UN, the number of people in the world will reach 8 billion by 2025, 9 billion by 2043, and then 10 billion by 2083.
A challenging aspect of the rising demographic pressure is that most of the population increase is taking place in the poorest countries of the world. A large part of the projected 10.1 billion population at the end of the 21st century is expected from 58 high-fertility countries in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America. Rising population is closely related to poverty. More than four billion people live in poverty. Estimates say that of the people living in poverty around the world, one billion are children. Earlier this year, it was reported that the world’s 62 richest people now owned as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population, which is more than 3.5 billion people. Taiwan has the lowest poverty rate in the world with only 1.5 percent, followed by Malaysia at 3.8 percent and Ireland at 5.5 percent.
Like other parts of the world, World Population Day was also observed in Pakistan last week aimed at raising awareness about the problems of rapidly increasing population. The demographic pressure in Pakistan is constantly on the rise. According to a recent report issued by the United Nations, Pakistan has been identified as the sixth most populous country in the world, and it is estimated that Pakistan will become the fifth most populous country by the Year 2050 with the expected population of 342 million. According to the Pakistan Population Council, Pakistan today is among the world’s top 10 most populous countries, including China, India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia and Japan.
Most Muslim countries, such as Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia and Turkey, recognising the negative impact of rapid growth of population on development, have taken concrete measures to meet the challenge. As compared to Pakistan, the population growth rate in Muslim countries is much lower due to better family planning usage. A report by the Pakistan Population Council says that the total demand for family planning services among married woman in the country is 70 percent, but only 30 percent are currently using family planning services. Pakistan is leading in population growth rate with 1.89 percent as compared to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, and Malaysia with a growth rate between 1.2 to 1.6 percent. Every year, 3.7 million people are being added to Pakistan’s population.
Needless to say, the imbalance between resources and rapid population growth is the key challenge facing the country. This results in rampant unemployment, poor health, insufficient nutrition and many other social problems. Rapid population growth poses myriad economic and social challenges. According to a report, 24 million children in Pakistan remain out of school as the government is unable to provide buildings, teachers and other related facilities for the growing numbers. Access to health care for all remains a distant dream while a severe water crisis looms in the days ahead.
For Pakistan, better population management is the need of the hour. A better balance between population and resources is imperative for sustained development and progress. A stronger and healthier society can be built by providing girls with better education and health facilities, ensuring women to have a voice in family decisions, and providing them with opportunities for economic freedom. Laws regarding the legal age for marriage for girls need to be strictly implemented. The religious scholars and the media also have to play a more pro-active role to educate the masses on the deeply entrenched traditional and cultural beliefs that cause families to continue to reproduce without any thought of social and economic consequences.

Need for caution in FATA reforms

2016-07-20T18:51:00.001+05:00

The commission which was appointed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in December 2015, to suggest final recommendations about the political and constitutional status of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) would soon be presenting its report to the prime minister.
The commission is chaired by Prime Minister’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz and includes Minister for States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON), Lt. General (R) Abdul Qadir Baloch, former governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, PM’s Adviser on National Security Lieutenant General (R) Nasser Khan Janjua and Federal Minister Zahid Hamid as it members.
According to Sartaz Aziz, the commission members have completed visits to all the seven agencies of FATA and have met various stakeholders, including tribal elders, government officials, and members of civil society of FATA, among others. The commission was formed after a heated debate in the country about the future constitutional and political status of FATA. Because, according to various stakeholders, experts and observers, the present political and constitutional arrangement of FATA has been the underlying reason for the multidimensional problems there. Therefore, political and constitutional changes were necessary. We have also been arguing in these lines that the indeterminate political and constitutional status has been contributing to the crisis and conflict in FATA. Because it has resulted in a power vacuum and the militant and terrorist groups of all hues took full advantage of the situation to make the region their fiefdom. Fortunately, our emphasis in these lines have been lent an ear to by the government of Pakistan.
The formation of a commission to suggest to the government the required and best suited political and constitutional changes in FATA was extremely important in the context of the military Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan and rest of FATA. According to military authorities in Pakistan, Operation Zarb-e-Azb is in its last stages and there has been a general restoration of the state writ in FATA after more than a decade of conflict. Then the Temporary Displaced Persons (TDPs) from FATA, which number more than three to four million individuals, have to be completely repatriated before the end of the current year. So after the military operations there ought to be post-conflict stabilization in FATA and in this regard the most important measure is to determine the exact constitutional and political status of FATA. This would provide the framework for further reforms and development.
At the moment FATA constitutes a region which is directly ruled from Islamabad with civil servants hailing from the adjoining Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, including officers domiciled in FATA. Governor KPK is head of the administration of FATA and acts as the agent of the federal government for FATA. In other words the governor, who is titular head of KPK, basically oversees the administrative affairs of FATA. Importantly, FATA is neither a province nor a federating unit of Pakistan, while the laws passed by the parliament of Pakistan are not enforceable there, as the superior courts of Pakistan, according to the constitution of Pakistan, do not have any jurisdiction in FATA. Instead the day-to-day administrative affairs of FATA are run through the British Colonial era legal framework, the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR). Constitutionally, the president of Pakistan is authorized to extend any set of laws to the tribal areas, or change their political or administrative position. All this shows that FATA has hitherto been a political and legal hotchpotch.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al Qaeda and other local and foreign militant and terrorist groups like Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) etc., with their unprecedented terrorism in Pakistan have completely changed the ground situation in the tribal areas. The moth-eaten legal and administrative system of FATA has been given a decisive blow by the insurgency. So in the post-conflict situation the region needs a complete new set of political, legal and administrative structures.
There are four main options before the FATA Reforms Commission, and even generally. These include elevating the status of FATA to that of a province; merging FATA with KPK; Creating a FATA council a la Gilgit-Baltistan, or maintaining the status quo. While one does not know what would be the final recommendation of the FRC, but the two most viable options are: giving the tribal areas the status of a province or create a FATA Council. The best case scenario would be to make FATA a new province. However, if due to capacity issues it is not possible immediately, then practically there is no other option but to form a FATA Council like in Gilgit-Baltistan. Eventually, the ultimate solution to the crisis in FATA would be to give them the status of a province. Hopefully, the FRC under Sartaz Aziz would make the same recommendation.
In case it is recommended that FATA should be merged with KP province, then this would be tantamount to inviting disaster. This is despite the fact that a small but vocal section of FATA civil society, the FATA Political Alliance, is trying to impose its desire of merging FATA with KPK. The Pakthun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) has also been campaigning for merging FATA with KPK. While a sizable majority of FATA’s social leadership is against it. The most intriguing aspect and demand of merging FATA with the KPK is that the people of KPK observably are almost entirely against the merger. Therefore, if the FRC and the government even have to take the decision of merging FATA with KPK, they must first hold a referendum in both FATA and KPK.
If this does not transpire, the merger would sow the seeds of future conflict between residents of FATA and residents of KPK. Equally importantly the merger of FATA with KPK would result in a big province that would be too unwiedly to manage. Since long, people of FATA and, particularly, since the creation of KPK (formerly NWFP) in 1901 by the British colonial rulers of India, the tribal areas have been dependent for most of their basic needs on KPK.
Merger would make FATA entirely dependent upon KPK and in the process this would be an unbearable burden on the small economy and infrastructure of KPK. The ANP has been supporting merger of FATA with KPK in order to fulfill its desire of extending its parochial political constituency without calculating the risk involved which no government will manage.
Whereas the exponents within FATA civil society, of merger of FATA with KPK, are only pursuing their vested professional and financial interests as they do not have the platform to pursue their careers in FATA. But they fail to understand that if FATA gets the status of a province, they would have the very forums and institutions which would provide them best opportunities to develop their careers.
Keeping in view the merits of different options for political and constitutional reforms in FATA, making FATA a separate province is the best option, while the other viable option is to create a FATA Council.

U.S. and Russia agree on steps to combat ISIS in Syria

2016-07-20T18:46:00.000+05:00

The United States and Russia announced a tentative deal on Friday, July 15, to coordinate airstrikes against the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.
Secretary of State John Kerry, after talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, said an internationally brokered cease-fire in Syria had been undermined by two problems: bombings by the Syrian government and attacks by the Nusra Front.
“We agreed to steps that, if implemented in good faith, can address two serious problems that I just described about the cessation” of hostilities, Mr. Kerry said.
“It is possible to help restore the cessation of hostilities, significantly reduce violence and help create the space for a genuine political transition,” he said.
But Mr. Kerry refused to list the terms of the agreement.
“The concrete steps that we have agreed on are not going to be laid out in public in some long list,” he said, “because we want them to work and because they need more work in order to work. I want to emphasize, though, that they are not based on trust,” but on specific steps that needed to be taken by both sides.
Critics said the lack of details raised suspicions that Mr. Kerry had conceded too much.
“The fact no details were announced indicates whatever was agreed was hard to swallow and may be hard to implement, especially in light of the attempted coup in Turkey,” said Andrew J. Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, referring to events in Turkey on July 15.
Before Mr. Kerry’s talks in Moscow, a proposed agreement had called for the creation of a joint military command center staffed by military and intelligence officers who would share information so as to permit “integrated operations.” The proposal generated deep unease at the Pentagon and in some quarters of the State Department, where the plan was seen as too conciliatory to both the Russians and the Syrian president,Bashar al-Assad.
Mr. Kerry left his meeting with Mr. Lavrov to pitch his proposed deal to the Obama administration’s top national security officials through a secure communications link at the nearby United States Embassy. After discussing the deal with the officials, Mr. Kerry returned to the bargaining table and asked most of the aides from both countries to leave so he could speak more directly with Mr. Lavrov.
The agreement has also raised alarms because it might lead the United States to support or even participate in strikes against groups fighting Mr. Assad. One of the great complications of the Syrian civil war is figuring out which groups should be considered rebels focused on ousting the Assad government — a goal the United States supports — and which groups are aligned with Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, both of which Washington has designated as terrorist organizations and has vowed to defeat.
The Nusra Front has been one of the most effective anti-Assad forces, and American-backed rebel groups often coordinate their activities with its units. In Russia’s view, that means that Washington is effectively supporting the Nusra Front and that the American-backed groups are legitimate targets. So a joint campaign against the group not only would appear to concede Russia’s point, but could also bring American firepower to bear against the strongest anti-Assad military force and a sometime partner of Washington’s allies.
Mr. Kerry made clear that defeating the Nusra Front was a major American priority.
“So if some critic is criticizing the United States or Russia for going after Al Nusra, which is a terrorist organization, because they’re good fighters against Assad, they have their priorities completely screwed up,” Mr. Kerry said. “The fact is that Nusra is plotting against countries in the world. What happened in Nice last night could just as well come from Nusra or wherever it came from as any other entity. Because that’s what they do.”
Mr. Lavrov said that supporting terrorist organizations would always lead to disaster.
“There were cases in history when some countries were trying to play with extremist and terrorist groups, hoping to use them to achieve their own geopolitical goals to topple undesirable regimes,” Mr. Lavrov said. He referred to American support for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, which he said led to the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
The other complication is that the Syrians and the Russians have routinely undermined previous cease-fires and other measures to spare civilian lives. In just the past week, the Syrian Army has announced cease-fires, only to conduct a military campaign around the rebel-held section of Aleppo, leaving about 300,000 people besieged.
Government forces are also advancing on the Damascus suburb of Daraya, one of the first areas to revolt against the government. In recent days, a refugee camp near the border with Jordan was bombed, and civilians were killed. It is not known who carried out the operation.
When asked whether Russia had violated previous cease-fire agreements, Mr. Lavrov said, “A lot could be said on who is to blame.”
The proposed agreement with the Russians, first reported by The Washington Post, would create a joint command center in Jordan to coordinate an intensified bombing campaign against the two militant groups. Both Russia and the United States have been attacking the Islamic State, though acting separately, with minimal coordination to avoid unintended conflict between their warplanes. Yet most of Russia’s airstrikes have been aimed not at the Islamic State but at other groups fighting Mr. Assad, including the Nusra Front and American-backed rebel groups.
The United States has carried out occasional strikes against what have been described as senior Qaeda figures in Syria. But it has refrained from systematic attacks against the Nusra Front, whose ranks are heavily Syrian, including many who left less extreme rebel groups because Nusra was better armed and financed.
The United States proposal states that American and Russian officials would share information on the locations of rebel groups to ensure that strikes aimed at Nusra did not hit American-backed groups. In the past, those groups — as well as some American officials — have worried that Russia might use that information to target them.
Mr. Kerry said Friday’s tentative agreement would not resolve anything immediately. “So we’re not here promising the world,” Mr. Kerry said. “Not here tonight to suggest that overnight things are going to change.” But he said the deal, if carried out in good faith, “has the opportunity to change the playing field significantly.”
“Let the proof be in the pudding, not our words,” he said.

The war we forgot to end: why are we still in Afghanistan?

2016-07-20T18:45:00.001+05:00

Recently, President Obama once again delayed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Approximately 8,400 troops will remain in the country through the end of his presidency, he announced, rather than the 5,500 he committed to back in October 2015. Meanwhile, casualties continue to mount: Thousands of Afghan civilians were killed in 2015 alone.
It’s time to end the longest war in U.S. history. Begun less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, the war aimed to destroy the al-Qaeda network led by Osama bin Laden and take out the Taliban government that had provided them with safe haven. President Bush’s focus, however, was anything but narrow: “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there,” he said shortly before the invasion. “It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
Nearly 15 years and over $740 billion dollars later, there are few genuine successes the United States can claim as validation for its efforts. While an American withdrawal won’t remedy the problems of Afghanistan entirely, there’s good evidence to suggest our continued presence is making things worse.
Failed Military Strategies
This unending, costly war came in response to blowback from American policies in the region. According to the conventional history, we began aiding the mujahideen, a loose-knit assortment of Afghan Islamist guerrilla militants, in 1980, in response to the December 1979 Soviet invasion. (While Osama bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan in 1979 and was affiliated with a predominantly non-native mujahideen group at that time, the CIA maintains it only funded and armed indigenous Afghan rebels.)
The conventional history is wrong, at least according to a 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter. Brzezinski told a French weekly that we decided to aid the mujahideen six months before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, in July 1979, knowing this could help push the Soviets into a Vietnam-style conflict. When pressed about whether he felt any regret having provided aid and arms to Islamic fundamentalists, Brzezinski, three years before the 9/11 attacks, responded brusquely: “What is more important in world history? … Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”
This strategy helped lead to the formation of the Taliban government, and ironically, now we are the ones ensnared in a perpetual, bloody and expensive Afghanistan conflict—all because of some “agitated Moslems.” There are 9,800 reported U.S. troops in Afghanistan (potentially more unreported, as there have been in Iraq), and with the July 13 announcement, we know that number is unlikely to go down much through the end of Obama’s presidency. While the President has formally declared that America is not engaged in a combat role, clashes between American forces and the Taliban continue.
Obama has also embraced drone warfare in Afghanistan, with the hope of more precise combat. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Afghanistan holds the ignominious distinction of being the “most drone-bombed country in the world.” But to what effect?
Michael Flynn, former Director of Intelligence in Afghanistan, had this to say: When a strike hits its target, “it makes us all feel good for 24 hours. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. It just makes them a martyr. They get replaced. It just created a new reason for them to fight us even harder.”
A study by a U.S. military adviser found that in one year, drone strikes in Afghanistan caused 10 times more civilian casualties than manned aircrafts. Leaked government documents show that between January 2012 and February 2013, over 200 people were killed by drone in a special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan—only 35 of whom were intended targets.
And despite all this, the Taliban control more of the country than they have since we invaded in 2001. It’s possible that U.S. withdrawal would allow the Taliban to take control in additional provinces, but there’s little evidence to suggest our constant military presence is effectively holding them off. And the violence is only getting worse: More Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the conflict this past year than any other since the U.N. began record keeping in 2009.
Failed Humanitarian Projects
Our reconstruction efforts have fared little better than our military efforts. We have spent over $113 billion aiding the recovery of this country we helped destroy—more than was spent on the Marshall Project following World War II, even adjusting for inflation—and $17 billion of that was described by ProPublica as “questionable spending” in a December 2015 report.
Some of this was frivolous on its face: For example, we spent $150 million renting luxury housing for U.S. Defense Department staff and their visitors. But even the more substantive programs that should have been successful were tangled in bureaucracy, corruption and incompetence. The Department of Defense invested $200 million on a literacy program, but no efforts were made to “verify students’ language proficiency, evaluate the effectiveness of instructions, monitor class size and length of instruction, or track graduates after they completed training,” according to a report from John F. Sopko, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
Sopko also reported several problems with a nearly $70 million agricultural effort—some of which was spent on programs that Afghan officials say “had been found to be ineffective in precursor programs.” Another $488 million spenton mineral extraction programs was similarly ineffective: Some of it was marred by corruption, and much of it Afghans are unable to continue on their own because they lack the capacity to regulate the program and “research, award, and manage new contracts.”
While there have been some areas of improvement in quality of life for Afghan children since 2000, such as a decline in the child mortality rate (although it’s still among the highest in the world), the effects of the war have largely undercut these positive developments. Child trafficking, abduction and the use of child soldiers have skyrocketed, and child labor is rampant. It’s not fair to blame the U.S. entirely, but the impacts of American military intervention have been far-reaching—for example, the U.S.-funded Afghan Local Police militia has used child soldiers.
The 2001 invasion and subsequent occupation also undermined the Taliban’s 2000 ban on poppy cultivation. In the thirteen years after the U.S. ousted the Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government stepped in, opium production doubled.
As of late 2014, 90 percent of the world’s opium supply came from Afghanistan. According to Matthieu Aikins, a journalist who has followed the country’s opium production closely, “Everyone is growing it. Everyone is profiting. It touches all levels of Afghan society, both sides of the conflict, the Taliban and the government. … But the government is even more involved.” Despite the U.S. having sunk over $8 billion in fighting the drug trade, Afghanistan is now the world leader in heroin production.
This is not to say that we should stop aiding reconstruction projects, though clearly we should address widespread mismanagement. Rather, we must recognize that an American military presence and constant war undermine humanitarian and reconstruction efforts. In Afghanistan as elsewhere, foreign military occupation and regime change—even if undergirded by the best of intentions—have led to unintended, often terrible, consequences.
After 15 years of death and destruction, not to mention billions of dollars down the drain, we have to admit the military option is not working. Our meddling in Afghanistan has not made that country better off or the world safer. It’s time for an orderly but immediate withdrawal.

The myth of “aggressive Russia”

2016-07-20T18:43:00.003+05:00

Recently I went on a 15 day visit to Russia organized by the Center for Citizen Initiatives. The group visited Moscow, the Crimean peninsula, Krasnodar (southern Russia) and St. Petersburg. In each location we met many locals and heard diverse viewpoints.
CCI has a long history promoting friendship and trying to overcome false assumptions between citizens of the USA and Russia. The founder Sharon Tennison has focused on making people-people connections including the business community, Rotary clubs, etc.. This delegation was organized because of concern about escalating international tensions and the danger of a drift toward world threatening military conflict.
We were in Russia in late June as they were commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. They call it the Great Patriotic War where 27 million Soviet citizens died. In Russia it’s a very sober occasion in which they pay tribute to the fallen, acknowledge the heroes and underscore the horrors of war. Virtually everyone in Russia lost family members in World War 2 and there seems to be a deep understanding of what war and invasion mean.
It is alarming to see the constant drumbeat in Western media that Russia is aggressive, Russia invaded Crimea, Russia is a threat. Hardly a day goes by that the New York Times does not have an editorial or news story with the assertion or insinuation that Russia is “aggressive”.
Today’s op-ed by Andrew Foxall is an example. The “think tank “ director bemoans the British departure from the European Union and suggests that Russian President Putin may be behind it :
Mr. Putin has spent the past 16 years trying to destabilize the West….. After Brexit, the union has lost not only one of its most capable members, but also one of its two nuclear powers and one of its two seats at the United Nations Security Council… …..Mr. Putin checked the European Union’s expansion when he invaded Ukraine in 2014. The Continent’s security order is now in a perilous plight: If Mr. Putin senses weakness, he will be tempted into further aggression.
It is now common to hear the claim that Russia “invaded” Ukraine and is “occupying” Crimea.
The US and allies have imposed sanctions because of the Crimean decision to separate from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. Tourist cruise ships no longer stop at Crimean ports and international airlines are prohibited from flying directly to the international airport at the Crimean capital, Simferopol. Students from Crimean universities cannot transfer their academic credits to universities internationally.
Despite the sanctions and problems, Crimea appears to be doing reasonably well. In the past two years, the airport has been rebuilt and modernized. The streets of Balaclava, Sevastopol, Simferopol and Yalta are busy and bright. No doubt things could be much better and residents want the sanctions lifted, but there were no evident signs of shortages or poverty. On the contrary, kids were enjoying ice cream, parks were full and streets busy late into the night. The famous Artek Youth Camp near Yalta is being refurbished with new dormitories, state of the art swimming pool and gymnasium. Right now they are handling 3,000 youth in the camp at one time with 30,000 kids from all over Russia this year.
A 12 mile bridge connecting Crimea to southern Russia is now half complete. A impressive video showing the design is here. After 22 years as part of independent Ukraine following the breakup of the Soviet Union, what drove the people of Crimea to overwhelmingly support a referendum calling for ‘re-unification’ with Russia? Was this the result of intimidation or an ‘occupation’ by Russia?
We received a very strong sense from talking with many different people in Crimea that they are happy with their decision. The impetus was not aggression from Russia; the impetus came from the violence and ultra-nationalism of the foreign backed coup in Ukraine.
Protests against Ukraine’s Yanukovych government began in November 2013 in the “Maidan” (central square) in Kiev. Protesters included right wing nationalist and Nazi sympathizers hostile to the Yanukovych government. A significant faction glorified the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. The US was deeply involved in promoting the “Maidan” protests and strategizing how to bring in a new government. Assistant Secy. of State Victoria Nuland demanded the Yanukovych government do nothing to stop or prevent the increasing vandalism, attacks and intimidation. With thugs in the street increasingly clashing with police, the US pressed the Ukrainian government to break economic ties with Russia as a condition for closer relations with Europe and loans from the International Monetary Fund.
On the surface, the US was encouraging Ukraine to strengthen ties with the European Union but in reality Nuland’s goals were about the US, NATO and undermining Russia. This was dramatically revealed in a secretly recorded phone call between Nuland and the US Ambassador to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. Nuland and Pyatt discussed who should and should not be in the coup government two weeks before the coup happened. As they conspired over the phone, Nuland expressed her displeasure with the EU’s reluctance to push the coup …. “Fuck the EU” said the woman who six weeks earlier spoke glowingly of Ukraine’s “European aspirations”.
Prior to the coup, Nuland spoke of the high US “investment” in promoting “democracy” in Ukraine. In a December 2013 speech she said “Since Ukraine’s independence in 1991 the United States has supported Ukrainians as they build democratic skills and institutions, as they promote civic participation and good governance, all of which are preconditions for Ukraine to achieve its European aspirations. We have invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals…” (approx 7:30 into the recording / US-Ukraine Foundation, 13 December 2013).
In mid-December hundreds of Crimeans traveled to Kiev in buses to join peaceful protests in opposition to the Maidan protests seen on television. They stayed in Kiev through January and into February until the violence exploded on February 18 (2014). Altogether, 82 persons were killed including 13 police and 1100 injured. At that point, the Crimeans decided peaceful protest was useless and to return home. The bus caravan departed Kiev on February 20, but was stopped at night near the town of Korsun. The buses were torched and the Crimean travelers brutalized, beaten and seven killed. When news of this reached Crimea, it was yet another cause for alarm. A video titled “The Crimes of Euromaidan Nazis” documents the events and includes interviews with numerous passengers. These atrocities against unarmed Crimeans were done on a public highway with no intervention from local Ukrainian police.
On February 21, the existing government came to a compromise agreement. But that did not appease the most violent protesters or their supporters. A parliamentarian was beaten in broad daylight and threats issued. President Yanukovych fled for his life and a new government, led by Victoria Nuland’s choice Arseniy Yatsenyuk, took charge. The US and Western allies quickly recognized the new government while Russia objected it was an illegal coup. In the first days of the new government a bill was passed to make Ukrainian the sole official language of the country.
Indeed there was aggression and violence in Ukraine but it was not from Russia. Rather, evidence indicated the violence was from the forces which led the coup. This was revealed in an intercepted phone conversation between British representative to the European Union, Catherine Ashton, and the Estonian Foreign Minister, Urmas Paet. Paet reported that he had been to Kiev and “there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition.” Instead of probing into the facts behind this dramatic information, Ashton said “Oh gosh …. We will need to look into that” and quickly moved on.
Crimeans we spoke with described their shock and outrage at the events. In just four months they witnessed violent Maidan protests, the overthrow of the elected government, beatings and killings of citizens returning from Kiev, and then the removal of Russian as an official language.
In response, local leaders recommended a Crimea wide referendum with the option to officially re-unite with the country that Crimea had been part of for over two centuries. A referendum was held on March 16. Turnout was 89% with 96% voting in favor of the “reunification of Crimea with Russia”.
With the violent overthrow of the Kiev government and clear proof of US involvement in the coup it seems highly inaccurate to say that Russia “invaded” or is “occupying” Crimea. On the contrary, it seems to be the USA and allies which are “aggressive”.
The same reversal of reality is going on with the expansion of NATO. In recent weeks NATO has placed armed forces in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. NATO military expenses are already 13 times greater than that of Russia yet NATO plans to increase military spending even more. Meanwhile the US unilaterally withdrew from the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 and is busy building and installing ABM sites in Alaska and now eastern Europe. With a serious face they have previously claimed these sites are being installed because of the danger of “Iranian missiles” but only a fool could take that seriously. There is the additional risk that the same sites could be converted from anti ballistic missiles to contain nuclear warheads.
Are NATO and the US preparing for war? The public should be asking hard questions to our political and military leaders as they waste our tax dollars and risk global conflagration.
When the audio recording of Nuland and Pyatt discussing how to “midwife” the Kiev coup was revealed, the State Department spokesperson was grilled about it. She responded “That’s what diplomats do”.
Enough of the nonsense that “Russia is aggressive” when the evidence indicates it’s the USA and allies who are destabilizing other countries, escalating a new arms buildup and promoting conflict instead of diplomacy.

A little better in allocations, far behind in educational legislation

2016-07-20T18:42:00.000+05:00

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Education Muhammad Atif claims that education has been a priority area for budgetary allocations since the coalition government assumed power after the 2013 general elections.
“The KP government is the only provincial government in the country which has continuously been increasing budgetary allocations for education for the last three years,” claims the minister, while talking to Cutting Edge at a seminar held last month in Peshawar.
This year, too, he adds, the provincial government allocated a huge sum of Rs. 143 billion for education. The share of school education has increased from Rs. 104 billion in 2015-16 to Rs. 119 billion in 2016-17, representing an increase of Rs. 15 billion. During each of the last two years, an 11% increase in the Elementary and Secondary Education Department (EandSED) budget was recorded.
But in 2016-17, this budget was increased by 14%, the highest during the last three years, which showed government’s commitment to provide free and quality education to all across the province.
The break-up of allocations shows that Rs. 12.453 billion has been given for 72 education projects. Rs. 10.030 billion will be spent on 64 ongoing projects and eight new projects will get Rs. 2.422 billion.
According to the minister, major targets of the new budget are provision for special initiatives, establishment of 200 smart schools, first-ever Girls Cadet College at Mardan, Cadet College at Swat, 1,300 girls community schools, 160 new primary schools, 500 IT labs in high and higher secondary schools, up-gradation of 50 primary, 50 middle and 50 high schools on need basis, and standardization of 200 higher secondary schools. Also, stipends to girl students from class 6 to 10 at the rate of Rs. 200 per month will continue in the current academic year, promises the minister.
Referring to Alif Ailaan comparison, the minister says that education received a 20% share of the provincial budget in Sindh, Punjab allocated 19% of its budget for education, Balochistan earmarked 17%, while KP allocated 24% of its budget for the sector, which is highest among the all four federating units.
However, the minister fails to mention that the development budget for EandSED was revised from Rs. 16 billion to Rs. 11.5 billion in 2015-16. Therefore, if the department did not get its complete share at the end of the year, the allocation might be reduced, like in the previous year.
The budget document shows the highest increase in the EandSED’s non-salary component i.e., the budget that is used for operation, maintenance and for routine activities of the department and its subordinate offices. At the school level, the non-salary budget includes allocations for items like classroom consumables, repair of furniture and other petty repairs in schools.
The minister believes that if there is an inadequate non-salary budget for schools, they will be unable to provide quality services to students. Keeping this in view, the KP provincial government increased the non-salary budget for EandSED from Rs. 8 billion in 2015-16 to Rs. 14 billion in 2016-17, clarifies the minister.
However, the minister could not give a satisfactory reply to a question about effectiveness of the non-salary budget. He was told that the non-salary component did not align with international and national best practices. For 2015-16, it included a block allocation for conditional grants worth Rs. 3 billion. The per classroom rate structure for classroom consumables and petty repairs was quite low. Annually, schools are provided with a budget for classroom consumables at the rate of Rs. 5,000 per classroom and for petty repairs for Rs. 6,000 per classroom, which is quite insufficient.
Educationists believe that if the EandSED does not come up with a robust strategy that departs from previous practices of spending of non-salary budget, this year’s increase might not bring about any good to the students of KP.
The education budget document also mentions construction of 100 primary and 100 secondary schools at a cost of Rs. 11.52 billion. Also, Rs. 1.69 billion has been reserved for special education in the financial year 2016-17.
The minister regrets criticism of even appreciable projects. He says allocations have also been made in the education budget for converting 100 madrassas into primary schools. A big chunk of Rs. 1,970 million has been reserved for human resource and technical education and, for the first time in the history of the province, a stipend will be given on monthly basis to 500 artists, poets, and intellectuals.
The budget document says that as per the Local Government Act, 2013, the elementary and secondary education, along with adult education and literacy functions, has been devolved to the local governments. Therefore, a major portion of the current education budget, Rs. 99,857 million of Elementary and Secondary Education has been devolved to district-level entities.
The allocation also includes Rs. 8,000 million for providing for the missing facilities in the government schools, while additional Rs. 6 billion has been allocated for creation of 16,960 posts to improve access to, and quality of, primary education. The main focus of new projects is to promote education at primary level, create a gender balance, and fulfil the infrastructural requirements of existing institutions including staff, equipment, furniture, teachers' training and essential repairs, adds the education minister.
Allocations for higher education have also been increased from 2015’s Rs. 4 billion to Rs. 6 billion in 2016-17. The government also plans to install open WiFi in public places and universities, promotion of academic research and a culture of science among the youth, development and innovation, and a portal for IT scholarships.
This year, around 800 new teachers will be recruited for new colleges, the minister reveals. At least 60 new colleges will be constructed across the province, he adds. The break-up of allocations shows that Rs. 220.5 million has been set aside for higher education, Rs. 8,417 million for general colleges, Rs. 761 million for technical universities and colleges and Rs. 97 million for Archives and Libraries.
The KP provincial government also created a controversy this year when in allocated Rs. 300 million for a famous madrassa, Darul Uloom Haqqania. The purpose has been described as construction and rehabilitation of the madrassa.
Rejecting the objections, the education minister says it is the alma mater of many distinguished scholars. Also, hundreds of students study in this madrassa and they too have a right on the national exchequer, the minister claims.
Education Minister Muhammad Atif’s tall claims aside, the provincial government has so far failed to enact the compulsory law on the Right To Education (RTE) under Article 25-A of the Constitution of Pakistan. The UN committee asked in its annual report 2016 why the RTE bill in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was pending.
On the other hand, educationists believe that Rs. 8 billion earmarked for provision of missing facilities in government schools in KP were quite insufficient. “[The amount] will not even [help in putting] furniture at schools,” education budget expert Malik Masood says. The province has around 28,000 schools and most of them lack facilities. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Independent Monitoring Unit said in its May 2016 report that 26% of the government schools do not have potable water facility, and 10% have no boundary walls, despite the province facing a sensitive law and order situation. Also, 11% schools have no toilets and 34% have no electricity connections.
According to an NGO report, published in December last year, around 100 girl’s schools damaged in different parts of KP by the earthquake almost eight years ago, have still not be reconstructed. However, no attention has ever been paid to the plight of those getting education in these damaged schools.

A new approach to terrorism

2016-07-20T18:40:00.000+05:00

In the aftermath of the 9-11 (2001) terrorist attack in New York, the then US President George W. Bush declared the “war on terror”. Today, 15 years later, drawing the line, it seems that most battles of the “war on terror” were lost.
Our society is terrorised and our individual freedoms have been significantly curtailed. Even more important, our society is paying a high price for a new item added to the consumer price index basket, that of the security industry. Citizens are paying an enormous amount of money for this and nobody complains because all such costs are incorporated into the final price of goods or services purchased by citizens. Whether one buys milk or air tickets, a T-shirt or a hamburger at a fast food restaurant, the security cost is there, paid by the consumer, and it includes VAT so the state gets its cut. And everyone is happy.
How much of this security is really necessary? Nobody has ever bothered to look into this, since citizens pay and they are used to it.
But the security industry and its profits is not the issue. What comes first is the security of citizens which cannot be guaranteed anymore for any citizen living free and moving free.
Terrorism is a global threat and it concerns all of us. One day it’s Bataclan, another day it’s Zaventem or Attaturk airport, then a truck in Nice. Tomorrow?
Terrorism is thriving because we have put the emphasis on security services and related systems and we lost the power to simplify the problem and resolve it.
Terrorists changed targets, moving from the dignitaries and VIPs (who are now over-protected) to the public. Now terrorists target mass gatherings attended by ordinary citizens who live in terror. Citizens can no longer enjoy what they have earned with honest and hard work. They cannot go to a shopping mall on Saturday and enjoy happiness without having in the back of their mind a potential terrorist threat.
The target is no longer prime ministers or business tycoons. Now the target is the ordinary people, those who take the bus and the underground. Those who, after a long day of work, buy a box of beer and sit in front of their TV to watch soap operas and live in a huge 20 story building in the periphery together with thousands of other similar ordinary people. Imagine, their apartment building could be the next target.
What can be done about it? Deploy a platoon of private security officers to guard each popular apartment building? More security for the people? Security cameras in all buildings? Crazy and impossible, despite many would argue it is a golden opportunity for the industry. No, this is not the way.
We must motivate societies to cooperate with their governments and not with the secret services or the private security companies, which all citizens hate. But simply with the police stations they know. We must convince citizens to become open to the local police people they know and greet each other every day with a good morning and a smile. It will be the first level of restoring trust between citizens and their leaders. On a second level, the local authorities must persuade the leaders of local religious and cultural centres to cooperate and provide information, on a regular basis, about any anomalies they observe in their communities.
This is the only way to face any big, serious problem. To restore the citizen’s trust.

Wake up, Pakistan’s economic idiots!

2016-07-20T18:37:00.000+05:00

Pakistanis should learn from history and take a cue from the crumbling of the Soviet empire, which in the 1980’s was a global superpower along with the United States. The US being economically and militarily strong survived, but the Soviet Union imploded due to a weak economy.
India is seven times bigger than Pakistan both in population and in size. From 1960 to 1990, Pakistan was in a dominant position because its economy was stronger than that of India, growing at an average of 6 percent while Indian growth was less than 3 percent. It was during this period that insurgency in India was widespread. Kashmiri freedom fighters and Sikh militants kept the Indian armed forces busy and the Indian economy continued to bleed. Indian military might at that time was five times than of Pakistan, but the size of its economy was three times that of Pakistan. Its per capita income was half than that of Pakistan. Poverty was much higher in India than in Pakistan.
The situation has changed in the past 25 years. India is not only militarily strong, but has also become a major global economy. Its current GDP growth rate is the highest in the world. In fact, its average growth rate in the past one decade has been twice the average growth rate of Pakistan. This is the reason that it is now in the driving seat in the region. It is funding insurgency in Pakistan which bleeds Pakistan’s economy. It is adding ten times more to its GDP every year than what Pakistan adds annually. Because of its huge size, the higher growth in India is widening the economic gap with Pakistan. If Pakistan wants to restore its economic dominance it will have to grow three times at the pace at which India is currently growing. This is an uphill task as no country has ever grown consistently at average of 21 percent per annum.
Our politicians should realize the gravity of the situation and forge complete unity on the economic policies to ensure consistency of those policies. We may not be able to catch up economically with India in the near future, but we could at least grow at the same pace or a little higher than the pace of Indian economic growth. That will, at least, ensure that the economic gap between the two countries would not widen further.
It is because of our economic weakness that the Indian media and its trade bodies continue to advise their government that instead of diplomacy India should use its economic strength to trigger a change in Pakistan. The Indian government seems to be heeding its advice.
It is high time for Pakistani planners and entrepreneurs to take a cue from recent measures taken by the Indian government to squeeze Pakistan economically. The government, on its part, should listen to the genuine grievances of the private sector and, if convinced, should issue necessary orders forthwith. The current practice of reaching an agreement with the private sector in the presence of the bureaucracy and delaying orders should be stopped. The bureaucracy leaves loopholes in such orders that create more issues than solutions.
An established Indian monthly, Sawarajya, in its June 2016 edition has urged the Indian government to ban cotton exports to Pakistan that fetch only $381 million, but require substantial rail subsidy for cotton exported from Gujarat. Incidentally the Indian cotton exporters have refused to honour confirmed letters of credit established by Pakistani spinners either through Wagah or by sea.
The magazine also asked the Indian government to extend an interest subvention scheme for textile exports to cotton yarn and merchant exporters. The Indian government has declared Pakistan as a target market for textile exports and provides additional subsidies ranging from 3-7 percent on Indian textiles exported to Pakistan. The writers also pressed the Indian government to provide subsidies to the Indian entrepreneurs who desire to acquire textile companies in Vietnam and Uzbekistan, which compete with Pakistan for cotton exports.
The India cabinet announced in mid-June various additional incentives for textile exporters that include an increase in subsidy under the amended TUFS (technology up-gradation fund scheme) from 15 percent to 25 percent for the garment sector and enhanced duty drawback coverage for exporters that will include state levies that were not refunded before.
An official press release said that this move (enhanced duty drawback) is expected to cost the exchequer Rs5,500 crore but will greatly boost the competitiveness of Indian exports in foreign markets. The cabinet hoped that the steps will lead to a cumulative increase of $30 billion.
The Centre has also decided to bear the entire employer’s contribution of 12 percent under the EPF Scheme (up from 8.33 percent being borne at present) for new employees of the garment industry, earning less than Rs15,000 per month, for the first three years. This will cost the exchequer an estimated Rs1,170 crore (Indian Rs11.7 billion) over the next three years.
Responding to a long-pending demand from the industry on increasing overtime hours, the Centre has decided to raise the cap to eight hours per week in line with the International Labour Organization (ILO) norms. This would nearly double the overtime hours from the current cap of 50 hours per quarter of a year.
Fulfilling another major demand of the industry, the government has introduced fixed term employment in the sector. “A fixed term workman will be considered at par with permanent workman in terms of working hours, wages, allowanced and other statutory dues,” an official Indian release said.
The Sawarajya article further asked India to continue extending MFN (most favored nation) to Pakistan, irrespective of Pakistan’s stance to provide the same to India. The writers rightly pointed out that it does not make any difference to Indian trade. At the same time, it provides India with a propaganda tool to show to the world that it believes in a prosperous Pakistan through enhanced trade. It asked India to erode the competitive edge of Pakistan’s economy through various measures, strictly prohibiting export of power to alleviate Pakistan’s crippling power shortages. Beef export should be banned to trigger social unrest in the country.
One unethical measure proposed is to export all items where there is high tariff in Pakistan to Afghanistan where duty is zero. This the writers say would promote smuggling from Afghanistan to Pakistan and hurt its economy and revenues. The magazine further hoped that smuggling could finance separatists in Balochistan – whose representatives can handle distribution into Pakistan.
The media also advised India to cooperate with Afghanistan to complete hydel projects on the Kabul-Kunar river system. Kabul-Kunar contributes 16 percent of the total Indus river water available to Pakistan. Sawarajya also suggested ways to stop flow of remittances to Pakistan through a well-planned move to replace Pakistani workers in the Gulf with Indian expatriates.

Deepika unveils xXx: The Return of Xander Cage logo

2016-07-20T18:35:00.003+05:00

Deepika Padukone has unveiled the logo of her upcoming debut international film xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, where she will be seen sharing screen space with Hollywood star, Vin Diesel.
Deepika, who will play the character named Serena Unger in the upcoming international film, revealed the animated logo of her film on her official Instagram account.
The edgy red-and-silver logo was supported by Diesel’s powerful voice saying: “The world has changed. We need people with the skills and the attitude to take on threats we don’t even know exist. We need a different kind of soldier.”
She captioned the video: “xXx The Return of Xander Cage logo reveal. Serena Unger”.
Directed by DJ Caruso, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage is a sequel to the 2002 film xXx and 2005 film xXx: State of the Union. The film also stars Ruby Rose, Samuel L Jackson, Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa.
The film is slated to release on January 20, 2017.

Drew Barrymore files for divorce from Will Kopelman

2016-07-20T18:34:00.006+05:00

Actress Drew Barrymore has officially filed for divorce from her husband of four years Will Kopelman.
The 41-year-old actress, who confirmed her separation in April, share two young daughters, Olive and Frankie, with Kopelman, reported People magazine.
Following their split, Barrymore and the art consultant insisted that despite calling it quits, their family would stay intact. Their statement added that their girls will remain the first priority for “the rest of our lives.”
The 50 First Dates star and Kopelman, 39, started dating in 2011 after years of friendship, and tied the knot in 2012.

Kalki not keen to direct films anytime soon

2016-07-20T18:34:00.003+05:00

Actress Kalki Koechlin, who is popular for portraying unconventional roles on the silver screen, says she has no immediate plans to don the director’s hat. Asked if she plans to direct a film anytime soon, Kalki told IANS: “No, I have no (such) plans right now. I don’t think that I would be directing a film anytime soon.” The Shaitan actress, who was in Bengaluru last week to pick the Draw of Lots for the Kingfisher Ultra Bangalore Derby 2016, says she doesn’t really plan what happens next. “For now, I am just focusing on films and theatre,” she added. Kalki will be seen on screen in the upcoming film A Death In The Gunj, Konkona Sen Sharma’s directorial which also features Vikrant Massey, Gulshan Devaiah, Om Puri, Tillotama Shome, Tanuja and Ranvir Shorey. Apart from A Death In The Gunj, Kalki says she has several other projects. “So, I have a project which is a web-series called Smoke, which is about Goa politics and Goa mafia,” said the actress, who is currently in the US to stage Rajat Kapoor’s play What’s Done Is Done for three weeks.

Kangana working on dates for Pakistani cultural event

2016-07-20T18:33:00.003+05:00

Actress Kangana Ranaut has been invited for a cultural event in Pakistan and is reportedly working on the dates to attend it. The Tanu Weds Manu star has been invited for an event called School of Tomorrow International Education and Cultural Festival that will be held between November 4-6 in Lahore. A source close to Kangana told IANS: “Kangana is keen to attend this conference and her manager is figuring the dates”. Organised by Beaconhouse School System, this year the festival will focus on the rapidly growing influence of geopolitics and global security, digital technologies, media, art and culture, environment and the changing needs of society on the shape of schools in the 21st century. Kangana, who is holidaying in Manali, has taken some time off before starring her next movie with filmmaker Hansal Mehta.

Anushka’s Clean Slate Films now ventures into brand shoots

2016-07-20T18:32:00.001+05:00

Actress Anushka Sharma’s production house Clean Slate Films has now ventured into the corporate arena and will also shoot for recognised brands. The production house recently had its first brand shoot.
“Making ad films can be both lucrative and creatively satisfying. We will collaborate with brands on smart ideas and execution with experts and new talent behind the lens,” Anushka said in a statement.
Clean Slate Films’s first production venture was NH10 starring Anushka herself and is now set for its second film Philauri.
“We seek expansion on the creative front with commercials and ad films. It’s a move towards building a bigger footprint for us,” Karnesh Sharma, partner, Clean Slate Films added. Anushka is herself the face of quite a few respected national brands, and her experience with commercials and brand related shoots will only add value to this new foray.

You can eat your way to happiness

2016-07-20T18:28:00.001+05:00

Apart from reducing the risk of cancer and heart attacks, consuming up to eight portions of more fruit and vegetables a day can substantially increase people's happiness levels in life, finds a new study.
"Eating fruit and vegetables apparently boosts our happiness far more quickly than it improves human health," said Andrew Oswald, professor at the University of Warwick in London.
The findings showed happiness increased incrementally for each extra daily portion of fruit and vegetables up to eight portions per day. People who changed from almost no fruit and vegetables to eight portions of a day showed an increase in life satisfaction. Usually people's motivation to eat healthy food is weakened by the fact that these were predictive of alterations in happiness and satisfaction later in life. "However, well-being improvements from increased consumption of fruit and vegetables are closer to immediate," Oswald added.
Large positive psychological benefits were found within two years of an improved diet consisting of more fruit and vegetables, the researchers said. "There is a psychological payoff now from fruit and vegetables -- not just a lower health risk decades later," noted Redzo Mujcic, researcher at University of Queensland in Australia.

Warm Jupiters not as lonely as expected

2016-07-20T18:26:00.006+05:00

The team's analysis, published July 10th in the Astrophysical Journal, provides strong evidence of the existence of two distinct types of Warm Jupiters, each with their own formation and dynamical history.
The two types include those that have companions and thus, likely formed where we find them today; and those with no companions that likely migrated to their current positions.
According to lead-author Chelsea Huang, a Dunlap Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, "Our findings suggest that a big fraction of Warm Jupiters cannot have migrated to their current positions dynamically and that it would be a good idea to consider more seriously that they formed where we find them." Warm Jupiters are large, gas-giant exoplanets -- planets found around stars other than the Sun. They are comparable in size to the gas-giants in our Solar System. But unlike the Sun's family of giant planets, Warm Jupiters orbit their parent stars at roughly the same distance that Mercury, Venus and the Earth circle the Sun. They take 10 to two hundred days to complete a single orbit.
Because of their proximity to their parent stars, they are warmer than our system's cold gas giants -- though not as hot as Hot Jupiters, which are typically closer to their parent stars than Mercury.
It has generally been thought that Warm Jupiters didn't form where we find them today; they are too close to their parent stars to have accumulated large, gas-giant-like atmospheres. So, it appeared likely that they formed in the outer reaches of their planetary systems and migrated inward to their current positions, and might in fact continue their inward journey to become Hot Jupiters. On such a migration, the gravity of any Warm Jupiter would have disturbed neighbouring or companion planets, ejecting them from the system.
But, instead of finding "lonely," companion-less Warm Jupiters, the team found that 11 of the 27 targets they studied have companions ranging in size from Earth-like to Neptune-like. "And when we take into account that there is more analysis to come," says Huang, "the number of Warm Jupiters with smaller neighbours may be even higher. We may find that more than half have companions."
1. Launched in 2009, the Kepler space telescope has discovered over 2000 exoplanets orbiting distant stars located in a patch of sky in the constellation Cygnus (and the number is rising as exoplanet candidates are confirmed as actual exoplanets through follow-up observations). Kepler cannot see an exoplanet orbiting its parent star; they are too far away, too small, and their parent stars too bright for any telescope to resolve them. Instead, Kepler measures the brightness of a star with enough accuracy to detect the slight decrease in brightness caused by an exoplanet moving in front of it.
2. In addition to the insight into Warm Jupiters, the analysis also provided the most conclusive evidence yet that Hot Jupiters lack companions and likely migrated to their current orbits. One exception is the recently discovered HJ known as WASP-47b, which was found to have companions.
3. NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

What's in cigarette smoke? Most people don't know

2016-07-20T18:26:00.001+05:00

Many people in a recent study said they'd tried to find out what chemicals are in tobacco products or smoke, but most were not familiar with components other than nicotine.
Surveyed by phone, more than half the respondents said they'd like to see this information on cigarette packs and a quarter would like to have access to it online.
Of the 7,000 constituents of cigarette smoke, 93 in particular are quite toxic, said Dr. Kurt M. Ribisl of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
"It's pretty surprising how relatively few people have heard of these yet many were interested in hearing more about them," Ribisl told Reuters Health by phone.
The most simple and effective messaging may be to list the chemicals and, briefly, their health effects, he said. For example, cigarette smoke contains arsenic, which causes heart damage, and formaldehyde, which causes throat cancer. Ribisl and colleagues surveyed nearly 5,000 US adults by phone, targeting high smoking/ low income areas and cell phone numbers.
Almost a quarter of respondents reported being smokers, most saying they had smoked every day for the past month. The researchers chose 24 harmful chemicals in tobacco and divided them into six groups of four. Each participant answered questions about one group of four chemicals, selected at random.
More than a quarter of respondents said they had looked for information on the constituents of tobacco smoke, most commonly young adults and smokers. More than half said they would most prefer to see this information on cigarette packs.
Only eight percent of respondents knew that at least three of the four chemicals they were asked about are present in cigarette smoke, the researchers reported in BMC Public Health. "Many people seek information on smoke components but not many find it," said Dr. Reinskje Talhout of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment at the Center for Health Protection in The Netherlands.
"Here they also seek it but in general don't understand it very well, so we developed fact sheets for the general public," Talhout told Reuters Health by phone.
Having this information may help smokers make an informed decision, but there is no evidence yet on how it may change smoking behavior, Talhout said.
"If people hear about these components they are quite shocked," she said.
It's still not clear how providing this information on packs might change behavior, Ribisl noted, and it is possible that listing amounts of chemicals will simply lead consumers to "comparison shop" and choose a brand with marginally lower amounts of the same dangerous chemicals, rather than quitting altogether.
"Both the Centers for Disease Control and FDA are very credible sources about this information," he said.
"One of the things I would like the FDA and others to think about is what they can put on the side of the cigarette pack, what kind of message can we put there to help create informed smokers," he said.

Pakistan women cricketers fail to impress in England

2016-07-20T18:24:00.001+05:00

The Pakistani women’s cricket team completed their 23-day England tour last week without a single victory in six international matches. The cricket team featured in three ODIs and as many T20 internationals against the strong hosts.
On the other hand, the host women’s team amassed huge totals and created several records in ODI and T20 matches. They whitewashed their mediocre opponents in both the series quite convincingly.
Tammy Beaumont of England struck two magnificent centuries and capped the ODI series with an aggregate of 342 runs. Lauren Winfield, who also hit a century, grabbed second spot in the ODI series batting chart with 166 runs. Pakistan’s Bismah Maroof also gathered over one hundred runs (107) in the three ODI matches.
In the ODI series bowling table, top three positions were taken by England bowlers – KH Brunt (9 wickets), A Shrubsole (6) and Heather Knight (5). However, the fourth place was shared between Pakistan’s Asmavia Iqbal and LA Marsh with four wickets each.
England women won the first One-Day International by seven wickets against Pakistan at Grace Road, Leicester. Heather Knight, who replaced long-serving skipper Charlotte Edwards, had a dream first match as England’s women’s captain starring with both bat and ball in the first ODI.
Knight took 5/26 with her off-spin and then struck an unbeaten 50 as her side cantered to victory with more than 18 overs to spare. Knight’s all-round feat was the first time in women’s ODI history that any player and captain has taken five wickets and scored a fifty in the same match. It was also a day to remember for strike bowler Katherine Brunt, who became only the fourth England player to take 100 ODI wickets.
The British women took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the second One-Day International with an emphatic 212-run victory at Worcester.
British openers Lauren Winfield and Tammy Beaumont hammered maiden ODI centuries as England posted a mammoth 378-5 in 50 overs — their highest total against Pakistan.
Winfield bettered her previous best one-day score of 31 by reaching 123 off 117 balls with 15 boundaries and two sixes while Beaumont improved her 70 by contributing 104 off 116 including 10 fours and two sixes in the first-wicket stand of 235. Natalie Sciver then punished the substandard Pakistan bowling with a 33-ball innings of 80 that included seven fours and six sixes.
Pakistan, in reply, could muster only 166 all-out in 47.4 overs. Bismah Maroof offered some resistance with an 81-ball 61. Seamer Anya Shrubsole was the chief wicket-taker with figures of 4-19.
England’s team continued their overwhelming performance in the third and final ODI match at Taunton.
Tammy Beaumont became the first English woman to hit back-to-back ODI centuries as England wrapped up a 3-0 win in their series against Pakistan.
Beaumont, who was dropped on 2 and 64, made the most of her good fortune, by posting the second-highest score by an English woman in ODIs and the fourth-highest overall. In the end, England won by 202 runs with Pakistan, replying to 366 for 4, bowled out for 164, in the 45th over.
Beaumont posted her century off 111 balls, with nine fours, and reached 150 off 133 balls with a further eight boundaries. Having scored 70 and 104 in the first two matches of the series, Beaumont took her tally against Pakistan to 342 at an average of 171.00 — setting a new record for runs scored by an Englishwoman in a three-match series.
After losing the ODI series, the Pakistan women failed to bring any degree of improvement in the 3-match T20 series and suffered yet another whitewash.
England’s L. Winfield and TT Beaumont remained top scorers with 166 and 142 runs respectively in the three-match T20 rubbers. For Pakistan, Javeria Khan (60), Bismah Maroof (58) and Asmavia Iqbal (55) remained prominent scorers.
In the bowling department, England’s JL Gunn and Pakistan’s Nida Dar shared the top position with five wickets each.
The hosts set more records as they hammered Pakistan by 68 runs in the first Twenty20 in Bristol.
After posting their highest one-day total in a 3-0 series win, England racked up a T20 best 187-5.
Opening pair Tammy Beaumont, who made a 53-ball 82, and Lauren Winfield, with 74 from 45 balls, added 147, the fourth highest women's T20 stand of all time.
Pakistan were never in the hunt, ending on 119-7, with Dani Hazell, Jenny Gunn and Nat Sciver each taking two wickets.
The second game of three T20s was played at Southampton. Fran Wilson top-scored in her first international appearance in more than five years, while Amy Jones once again exhibited her qualities as Sarah Taylor's replacement behind the stumps. England completed a comfortable 35-run victory in the second T20 at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton.
In the end, England's depth proved the difference, as Pakistan's middle and lower-order faded after a spirited start to their pursuit of 139. They lost their last four wickets for 19 runs in 36 balls, with Jenny Gunn returned with impressive bowling figures of 2 for 7 in four overs.
The result of third T20 was also not different from the previous matches. England posted 170 runs for the loss of five wickets. Winfield and Beaumont hammered 63 and 55 runs, respectively, for the winning side. In reply, the Pakistan team could manage only 113 runs for the loss of seven wickets.

Israel’s generation of tent-dwellers is cringing with shame

2016-07-20T18:22:00.001+05:00

How to mark the fifth anniversary of the social protests that swept Israel in the summer of 2011? One option: Wallow in nostalgia. Recall our huge grins as we stood on Kaplan Street and beheld a sea of demonstrators.
Think about how we slept in tents and how easy it was, for three sweaty months, to start a friendly conversation with the complete stranger in the next tent. How proud we were to be Israelis that historic summer.
The situation these days isn’t all that great, to say the least, and nostalgia can be wonderfully soothing. But wistfulness isn’t an option for anyone who truly cares about our future.
And so we come to the second option: Examine what has happened over the past five years and try to understand what must be done so that the protest’s powerful cry — “The nation demands social justice” – becomes a real plan for the government, not a fleeting summer hit.
There is only one answer: politics. No matter how impressive a protest movement is (and ours was one of the largest and most impressive in the country’s history), it can’t realize its goals if no one in the Knesset adopts its energy and ideas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ignored the protest’s demands and has let its concrete achievements be whittled away – and not because he was busy dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. Somehow we expected him to stop being himself. We face an ongoing housing crisis, a collapse of social services and a soaring cost of living for the very reason that Netanyahu achieved his objectives.
Netanyahu made cuts, privatized, directed billions to the settlements and his associates, gave the tycoons a free hand and deliberately withheld funds needed to strengthen the country’s outskirts. And finally, so the public wouldn’t know what was happening, he devoted his energy to dismantling the delicate mechanisms designed to rein him in while creating ever more divisiveness in our society and sowing fear and hate.
“We’ve awakened,” we shouted during the protest that expressed the outcry of all the people who simply aspired to live a normal life. But our awakening also awakened the forces on the right that see normalcy as a threat to their political survival.
Netanyahu and Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett know that a fair distribution of resources that would put money into the country’s outskirts would come at the expense of the huge sums being transferred to isolated settlements. They know that “normalcy” would require political resolve and the drawing of a border between us and the Palestinians that would safeguard Israel’s security as well as its identity as a Jewish and democratic state.
The hate-addicted folks leading the government, whose power rests on frightening the public, on cutting Israel off from its friends around the world, and on keeping it stuck in a status quo of no security and no hope, are terrified by the desire for normalcy. They know that if the protest succeeds, they will have to say goodbye to power.
And so, for the past five years, we have seen steadily growing extremism and a vicious reaction by those who will do anything to hold on to power, even if it means renting the delicate fabric of Israeli society.
The 2011 protesters marched a thousand steps ahead of the political leaders who were supposed to be leading them. The generation of the tent-dwellers is cringing with shame at the sight of leaders who don’t devote a single minute to the fight for our country’s future.
Week after week, in the Knesset Transparency Committee, I witness the implications of our generation’s abandonment of the political arena. Finance Ministry bureaucrats, the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division and the religious councils have all turned our tax money from a powerful public resource into a private piggy bank for extortionist schemers and narrow interests. The bureaucrats I summon to testify before the committee are surprised when somebody asks them for an accounting of what they and the politicians have been doing with our money for years, without hindrance.
Not long ago, Coalition Chairman David Bitan threatened to have me removed from my post as head of the Transparency Committee, complaining that I had turned it into a “commission of inquiry.” He apparently forgot that this is precisely my job — to inquire on behalf of the public what the government is doing with our tax money, to inspect its work plans and to see what it’s planning for our future. In other words: to uncover the truth.
The time has come for us to demand a reckoning from the state; to achieve what we dreamed of together in 2011. We must confront the politics of fear with an aggressive and determined worldview that can win the public’s trust.
This is the great battle for our country — against the corrupt, the uncaring, the zealous and the racist. The first campaign began with the big bang of 2011, but there’s still a long way to go until victory. If doubt or despair creeps into your heart, think back to that summer. That’s the best thing you can do with the memory of that time: Carry the protest forward.

Can Iran become a true US ally again?

2016-07-20T18:20:00.001+05:00

In light of the multitude and severity of troubles being caused in the Middle East by ISIS, particularly in Iraq and Syria, where that group is based, it is only natural for the United States to consider Iran as a potential ally in confronting the threat.
The most basic consideration, of course, is the fact that Iran has a powerful first-world military headquartered in the region and the means to deploy it to the nearby areas where it would be needed. Additionally, ISIS, being a Wahhabi Sunni Islamic organization comprising mainly Arabic people, find themselves at odds with the majority-Persian Shia-style Muslims of Iran, who have reason to feel threatened by the rapid advancement and empowerment of ISIS.
What is particularly interesting to note is that prior to 1979, the United States would likely have never questioned enlisting Iran's aid in this battle. For the majority of the 20th century, the U.S. and Iran enjoyed close, friendly relations, with the shah of Iran benefiting from his country's alliance with the powerful Americans, while the Americans enjoyed cordial ties with a major Middle Eastern power situated near their Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union. The friendship between the United States and Iran would almost certainly have lent itself perfectly to the formation of an American-Iranian coalition against so obvious and so mutual a threat as ISIS, a group that would be unlikely to survive the perfect storm of precision air raids from the U.S. and powerful ground incursions by Iran.
Alas, things have changed in the three decades since the Islamic Revolution. In 1979, the Shah of Iran was overthrown, ending a tradition of secular monarchy that had held in that country for over 2,500 years. What took its place was Iran's Islamic Republic, a fundamentalist Muslim regime that demands conformity to religious law and has become openly hostile to the United States. This is ironic, because while Iran's government has regressed so that it now arguably languishes in a historic dark age, the people of Iran who are subjected to it are more progressive and free-thinking than ever. A majority of Iran's population is constituted of young people under the age of 35, who actually admire the United States and its ideals of liberty and democracy and would be generally amenable to resuming the friendship that existed between the two nations before 1979. Their government — over which they themselves have next to no direct control, despite the existence of an elected figurehead Iranian "president" who is almost totally impotent to enact actual policy — considers the United States a hated enemy. They do not.
This currently prevailing dynamic between the United States and Iran — and between Iran's government and its people — makes any American-Iranian collaboration unwise, even in light of the mutual threat posed by ISIS. Iran's use of ground forces against ISIS – the most solid contribution it could potentially make — would put its government in the position of legitimately projecting military power into Iraq and Syria, an opportunity it would surely use to its advantage. The potential is strong for Iran's regime to destabilize Iraq's already fragile government and reshape it from a secular administration into an Islamic theocracy. Meanwhile, in Syria, Iran may well choose to bolster President Assad's position and secure him as dictator, or — perhaps worse yet — install a new ruler of Iranian choosing.
Any of these scenarios would be a disaster for the West and the Iranian people alike, as they would serve to advance the interests and goals of a brutal and repressive regime that in no way represents its own progressive population. Worst of all, the cooperation of Western superpowers would legitimize that regime.
It is imperative also that the United States take care not to allow Iran to use its potential assistance as a bargaining chip in diplomacy. There are critically important negotiations ever ongoing concerning the attempts of Iran's regime to acquire nuclear weapons, and the temptation for their government to promise support against ISIS in exchange for less stringent attention from the U.S. and the world community is strong. The two issues must be kept separate; Iran's help is not the boon it may appear to be.
However, it should never be questioned that Iran — an ancient, venerable civilization with glory in its past and future far outshining its current-day difficulties — has every right to empower and strengthen itself. It is only the rulership of its present regime that makes it necessary to contain Iran in the moment. Fortunately, there is hope that this can change. There are those who would advocate drastic action to this end on part of the West, including military intervention and the use of economic sanctions against Iran, but both of these ideas would be disastrous if implemented, as ultimately they would only hurt the people they seek to help: the citizenry of Iran. Moreover, such direct involvement by the West in the politics of Iran — which is, in the end, the business only of that nation and its people — is unnecessary as well as potentially counterproductive. As previously noted, Iran's people are largely young, progressive in their ideologies, and unsympathetic to the myopic religious extremism of their government. Their open-armed embrace of modern technology has equipped them with powerful tools, which arguably caught even their brutal regime off guard with the advent of the hugely popular Green Movement and its successful use of social media and other 21st-century communications technologies. Such advances should continue to be encouraged as the strongest and surest means of enabling Iran's people to share ideas, discuss their place in the world, and ultimately — of their own will and accord — decide that it is time to sweep away the repressive regime under which they currently suffer.

Behind the rage in south Kashmir

2016-07-20T18:13:00.002+05:00

On Wednesday July 13, afternoon, several men wearing masks and bandannas felt that their makeshift barricade wasn’t strong enough to keep the sorties of police and paramilitary forces at bay.
A few minutes ago, a police truck had breached through the burning rubber tyres and a cordon of rocks, giving them a chase accompanied by tear gas canisters and volleys of pellets, pushing them into labyrinthine alleyways of Batamaloo, a clustered neighbourhood on the outskirts of Srinagar city.
Like in many other parts of Kashmir, the residents of Batamaloo clashed with the police on June 8, after news of the killing of Burhan Wani, the 22-year-old commander of Hizbul Mujahideen singularly instrumental in re-stirring home-grown insurgency, spread like wildfire. Tapping into local resentment at the heavy presence of Indian troops which he termed as “occupation”, Burhan, in a span of only six years, managed to cultivate a fan base through social media with his clarion call for “freedom” — a fan base that translated into a sudden upsurge in the numbers of local militants last year.
Though the numbers have come down subsequently, the threat of an insurgency redux is all too real as Kashmir explodes once again in anger after Burhan’s killing and defiance is writ large, with over 1,00,000 turning up for his funeral and security forces facing stone-pelting in several districts.
The Hizbul Mujahideen
The Hizb was created in 1989 with an aim to shift the focus of insurgency from the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which fought to make Kashmir independent of both India and Pakistan. Affiliated to the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Hizb managed to recruit local fighters faster than the JKLF, and it decisively steered the separatist movement to an Islamist, pro-Pakistan ideology. But by 2000, security forces had weakened the outfit to such an extent that its numbers came down from several thousand fighters to a few dozen.
The emergence of Burhan, however, brought the Hizb out of the shadows of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The two groups have always maintained operational distance in public but, says a senior Jammu and Kashmir police officer, share a “good working relationship” on the ground.
It’s “too soon to say” if Burhan’s death would help the Hizb swell its ranks, insists Atul Karwal, Inspector General of Police of the Central Reserve Police Force. But the scale at which stone-pelting mobs have erupted in Kashmir is intimidating. The peace on the streets seems distant — as evidenced by the restive mob in Batamaloo engaging the police for the sixth consecutive day. Many prominent intellectuals and journalists caution against the new threat of home-grown militancy in Kashmir, which is perceived to be deadlier than the one that began in 1989 and waned by 1998, and the defiant stone-pelters are seen as potential recruits.
The arrival of Burhan redefined the local militancy. People found his bravado on social media appealing, and he had no qualms in identifying the Indian Army and paramilitary forces as his primary targets. His daring messages erased the fear of military retaliation among a significant proportion of the youth — many of whom have his pictures and videos saved on their cell phones.
Burhan’s generation was born in the mid-nineties, when gun-toting militants were no longer a common sight. At the turn of the millennium, as they entered their school age, the signs of normality were visible in Kashmir. The thaw in India-Pakistan relations had paved the way for a healthy-looking dialogue process. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then prime minister, was taking significant strides towards striking a peace deal with Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf. And Kashmir was on top of their agenda. But as Burhan and his generation entered their early teens, the peace process began unravelling. In 2008, a series of protests erupted against the transfer of land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board, which quickly morphed into a pro-independence agitation, claiming the lives of 60 protesters. Two years later, the killing of a Class XII student named Tufail Mattoo triggered another wave of mass protest that killed about 120 people.
This was when the younger generation was exposed to state brutalities. The images of severely injured men, many of them teenagers, exposed the younger generation to the violent reaction of the state, forcing them to make a choice between separatism and mainstream politics. Many chose the former.
Stone-pelters versus the state
Amjad Khan (name changed), 21, is among the faceless stone-pelters in Batamaloo. In 2014, Khan found a mentor in Burhan. Each time he watched a new Burhan video on YouTube, his idea about secessionist politics altered. While growing up, he’d heard stories of the previous phase of insurgency from his uncle. And all he could gather from them was that the state crushed it with its military might. His uncle often spoke about the horrors of curfews and crackdowns, narrating the rise and fall of the 1990s insurgency with regret and resignation.
On Wednesday, as the speeding police truck gave chase, Khan led a team of protesters towards a steep road that was deserted barring the presence of a few dozen dogs. Along the way, he took his mask off to drink water from a nearby tap, and then pointed towards a collection of sewer pipes lying across the road. They took a pipe from the bundle and rolled it down the road. The other protesters, watching from a distance, grew excited. More men emerged out of the alleyways, shouting anti-India slogans and blowing finger-whistles. Some of them — a few too young to even shave — beat the closed shutters of shops with stones and metal rods, creating the clamour that sounded like a war cry. Within no time, a cocktail of bricks, stones and abuses was hurled at the cops, who were quick to raise their worn-out bamboo shields. At the rear end, the paramilitary troopers fired several rounds of tear gas canisters that either exploded in loud thuds or discharged pungent smoke. Yet, the protesters showed no sign of retreat. They made steady advances, pushing the police and paramilitary forces across a small bridge.
At first, Khan appeared like an unofficial leader of the crowd. But later, it turned out these men were on their own with no one to lead them. Oftentimes, they have come together like this, either to protest the arrests of separatist leaders or the killings of civilians.
But this time, like the protesters of north and south Kashmir, they were out on the street for a reason many political experts and analysts find hard to fathom. They were out to mourn Burhan, a militant with a bounty of Rs.10 lakh, and pay “homage” to him by hitting and injuring as many policemen as possible. The emotional response took the local government led by Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party (PDP-BJP) coalition by surprise. The government forces responded to the unrest with bullets, pellets and smoke bombs, killing at least 39 people until July 15, including a woman and a teenager, and injuring over 1,400. Insha, a 14-year-old girl, was the first to lose her eyesight after getting hit by pellets fired by the security forces, and 90 more are fighting to avert her fate.
What has changed here?
In the last decade or so, several hundred foreign militants have been killed by the police, Army and paramilitary forces. However, the display of public resentment was largely confined to the places where they were gunned down.
Between 2000 and 2010, the police handing over the body bags to gravediggers at midnight was commonplace. A neighbourhood imam would quietly offer funeral prayers, sometimes for several unidentified bodies lowered in one grave, and life would move on.
Burhan’s death continues to have the Valley in its grip, triggering a rage that refuses to die. After speaking to 20 stone-pelters in various parts of Srinagar, it emerged that the thought of replacing stones with guns does cross their minds. Half of them have lost faith in Indian democracy and are on the verge of crossing the Line of Control (LoC) to the other side, where they expect to acquire arms training, but the lack of guidance and logistical support is holding them back. The other half is still holding on to a glimmer of hope — that perhaps the government of India might take certain people-friendly measures: Quashing the FIRs against stone-pelters, scrapping the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, demilitarising the civilian areas and making the security apparatus accountable to the people.
Amjad Khan is amenable. His anger towards the state is rooted in the killing of his best friend. Let’s call him Masood. In 2007, when Khan was 14, Masood was hit by a bullet that allegedly came from the barrel of a paramilitary trooper. The government described it as a “stray bullet”. “He was on a ventilator for four days,” says Khan with a look of stoic resignation.
While Masood was battling for his life, Khan picked up stones and hurled them at the security forces. “The police took his corpse and demanded that we should bury him in the night,” he says. “His [Masood’s] father told them, ‘He [Masood] is my only son and everyone should see his funeral.’” Masood’s funeral attracted large crowds. Eulogising him as a “hero”, women tossed sweets at his coffin. A month later, the police arrived outside Khan’s residence at midnight and placed a ladder to the second-floor window of his bedroom. They jumped in, dragged him down the staircase and whisked him away. It took him several hours to come out of the “shock” and realise that he was in a police lock-up.
Twenty-eight days later, Khan was set free on a condition — that he would spend Fridays in the police lock-up. “Skipping school on Fridays affected my studies. My parents begged the police officers that they should let go. They didn’t,” says Khan. His ordeal with the police pushed him away from his studies. By 2010, he had dropped out of school. He spent most of his days either sleeping or sitting idle at home. “I didn’t throw stones at the police either,” he says.
In June 2010, however, the picture of a dead teenager named Tufail Mattoo published in the morning newspaper troubled him. Mattoo was returning home from a private tutor’s when his head was struck by a tear gas shell fired by the police to quell a protest. The image was chilling — Mattoo, eyes half-open, in his red-striped shirt on a stretcher, brain splattered all over. Tens of thousands of people poured onto the streets to protest the killing.
The security forces killed roughly 120 people and injured several thousands in the next three months. Burhan and Khan came of age that violent summer. Khan returned to stone-pelting. And Burhan disappeared in the mountains after a group of counterinsurgents reportedly assaulted him outside Tral, his hometown. A year later, he emerged as a gun-wielding militant.

Woman arrested for allegedly biting off cousin’s nose

2016-07-20T18:07:00.009+05:00

A Chicago woman is accused of biting off her cousin’s nose during an argument during a party earlier this month. According to prosecutors, 39-year-old Damika Robinson got into a fight with her second cousin at the woman’s house in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood on August 4. Robinson bit the hostess’ face several times, “including a bite that removed her nose,” according to court records. The 38-year-old victim was treated at an area hospital for what police described as “several bite marks to her face including her nose being bit off,”. Robinson wasn’t arrested by a fugitive task force, DNAinfo Chicago reports. She was charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm and ordered held on $225,000 bond. Prosecutors say they don’t know what started the argument between the two.