Bharat Rakshak

Rahul M wrote:both those do exist, rare as they are. parents these days.

shiv wrote:

Rahul M wrote:both those do exist, rare as they are. parents these days.

PRYANIKA exists? Honest?

johneeG wrote:For the Turks, its obvious. It seems like a neo-ottaman project. But, I can't understand why the Barbaria is supporting them.

MCINNIS BOIES: Thank you, Mr. Aziz. You have touched on many of the more important developments that have occurred in recent times. As you say, there is a new face in Pakistan, and we're beginning to see it here.

I want to start in a slightly different way, and that is to ask you about Pakistan's population growth and the implication for its security going forward. It is said that Pakistan today is Malthusian. The population is growing far faster than the capacity of the government to feed and clothe and have the capacity and infrastructure to take care of them.

But more important, it's said that some 44 percent of young Pakistanis are so malnourished that they will not grow either physically or mentally to full adult capacity. And they, in turn, will have a reproduction rate that's even higher. Is this something that concerns you? Is the world wrong in that perception? But if it is true, what is it that Pakistan is doing to address that issue?

AZIZ: I think the first part of your assessment and correction is correct, the second is not. It's true that our population growth rate, unfortunately, doesn't compare very favorably either with India or even Bangladesh. China, of course, has gone to 1 percent long time ago.

The setback, of course, came in the '70s, when Ayub Khan was president in the '60s, he was very keen on population and made very successful population program. But when Zia-ul-Haq came in 1977, he somehow deemphasized the program, and so we had a very sort of setback to the population (inaudible) program.

So in the '80s, we grew at about 3 percent, which was very -- one of the highest growth rates. In the '80s, then this thing was reversed in some respects, and when the '98 census was done, the growth rate came down to 2.6 percent, then 2.1 percent, and now it is 1.9 percent, the annual population growth rate. India came down to 1.5 percent sometime ago. Bangladesh, also.

So as the result, if we had the same population growth rate as India or Bangladesh, today our per capita income would be much higher (inaudible) would be much higher, so I agree that this (inaudible) but now it is catching up.

And in our assessment so far, in light of our experience, the most important element for population control is female literacy. If there are girls educated, then obviously you have. Contraceptives, et cetera, are fine, but unless you have basic education and education for girls.

So there in the last ten years or fifteen years, I would say, the total involvement of girls has been moving faster than that of boys. So it is one dimension that is helping.

So now the growth rate has come down below 2 percent, is 1.9 percent, and the target is to take it to 1.5 percent by 2020. If we achieve that, then we are now at replacement level, and so it will become slightly better.

But this catching up, of course, is very difficult, but we do have a young population, as a result. And a young population is also an asset. If you educate them and train them, then obviously they play a very major role. So let's hope that it's not an unmissed blessing.

In terms of nutrition, we have very good food security, are generally food self-sufficient. We have some specific deficiencies in certain mountainous areas, iron deficiencies, salt deficiencies, and other things, we do have a nutritional problem. But if you look at the UNICEF goals on child nutrition, other things, it is not as bad.

There is, of course, in the last few years, some -- particularly last six years, the growth rate has been 3 percent and, therefore, per capita income has not gone up, so poverty-related malnutrition may be there, but as compared to other countries, our food security situation is much better. So I hope as the population growth rate controls further, and the answer is further emphasis on female education.

1971: Pak Soldiers Surrender to Indian Army in Bangladesh

vishvak wrote:A few thousand paki and Egyptian soldiers (35,000 or so) are hired guns of KSA types on border, or for suppressing minority protests - which seems to never come out. Wonder why we don't see pictures of paki soldiers crushing protests by minorities in our media.

In the years that followed, India’s troubled pluralism decisively settled for a majoritarian and market-oriented socioeconomic paradigm; in the process of democracy taking root, Urdu was gradually but virtually wiped out from the place of its birth, and with it also died the all-inclusive Muslim secular sensibility.

The saving grace may be that secularism of the state, despite being under threat from the now electorally popular and now rejected Hindutva, has managed to survive, but it has extracted a heavy toll all the same: no Iqbal, not even an Abul Kalam Azad, will henceforth sprout from the Indian soil, because the Muslim sensibility in India that groomed such stalwarts has died an unsung death.

Only the likes of Darul Uloom or the integrated mainstream citizen, for whom being Muslim is just a personal statistic, and not an entire way of life and thought, remain.

vishvak wrote:A few thousand paki and Egyptian soldiers (35,000 or so) are hired guns of KSA types on border, or for suppressing minority protests - which seems to never come out. Wonder why we don't see pictures of paki soldiers crushing protests by minorities in our media.

A_Gupta wrote:The saving grace may be that secularism of the state, despite being under threat from the now electorally popular and now rejected Hindutva, has managed to survive, but it has extracted a heavy toll all the same: no Iqbal . . .

johneeG wrote:Saars,
is it possible that the four fathers of the bakis are abandoning them and trying to raise the Eye Yes Eye Yell as the new off-spring?

These rulers have cloaked themselves in democratic legitimacy, but the ruin they are bringing upon this bruised and battered nation is unimaginable. People say give democracy a chance and let the system evolve. Sure, tell that to the parents who buried their little babies. Tell them it’s okay because their kids died for the glory of democracy; that the little ones suffered pain and death on those filthy beds in rat-infested hospitals so that the PPP and the PML-N could enjoy the fruits of democracy in their luxury four-wheelers and palatial offices.....

.....Do you see any sign, any movement, any gesture that would suggest that these governments and those who run them have any concern for the little babies who are dying because they are not being given the treatment they require?

If the answer is a no — which it most certainly is — then know this: we are being forced to take a selfie with a gun. And this kind of selfie does not end well.

He helped the Afghan king Ahmed Shah Abdali to overcome the Mahrattas in the Panipat war in 1761

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Sunday said that members of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) should should sit on a commission headed by the Supreme Court to investigate rigging in the 2013 General Elections, Dawnnews reported.

The PTI chairman also said in his speech that if he becomes prime minister all loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would stop.

“People from other countries will come to Pakistan seeking work…If corruption is curbed then the cost of electricity would be halved,” he said

Anujan wrote:A Shia scholar explains the theological basis of ISIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xArTRV2INSY

Long, but interesting. The comments on the video are also interesting.

SSridhar:
This should not be a suprise but only a logical result of back to the book fundamentalist attitude preached by the likes of Tawheed Jamath in TN (and their counterparts in every state of India, some of whom in Kerala and WB and UP are even more fundamentalistic). I have noticed that several muslims now do not return a secular Vanakkam (or Namaskar) anymore with folded hands as they used to even a decade earlier. They acknowledge it with some other expression and a smile or nod of head!

Like Sri Aurobindo observed several decades ago, the only lasting solution to this need to come from within Islam like the Bahai movement in Iran, but more successful than that, because Islam as a religion is not open to outside ideas.

In addition to keeping a close tab on fundamentalists and restricting fundamentalist preachings, we can do our best to encourage a culture of debate and rationalism amongst Muslims so that they too have their "enlightenment" and reformist movement that the other religions have had. Hindus benefited a lot from Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindi, Dayananda Saraswathi in abolishing superstitions and reforming practical hinduism. The current pope for example ceded defeat to the scientific community in matter of big bang theory and evolution.

With widespread prevalence of media and tendency of all Indians to watch TV everyday, there is some opportunity for us to trigger a debate amongst progressive followers of islam vs fundamentalists. There are lot of Muslims who dislike these fundamentalists but are forced to follow them in wearing burqah or saying MashaAlla instead of Hello on the phone. Our media houses should be encouraged to conduct reality shows and debates between progressive muslims and fundamentalists on things like wearing burqa or saying Bharat Mata ki Jai or singing Vande Mataram. There can be debate regarding what science says in terms of evolution, big bang theory and what Islam says.

Personally I feel that acceptance of evolution (which is natural for Hinduism which always talked of evolution of conscious experience of soul and has a sequence of Aavatars that co-relate to evolution of life with remarkable consistency and accuracy) is most difficult for Islam. Islam is built on infallibility of every word in Quran and Hadiths even the most material ones for eternity! This is fundamentally against evolution. If humans are to evolve it is rational that our social systems, etc., will also need to evolve. Hinduism does not have a problem here because it makes a distinction between Absolute Truths that are eternal and relative time bound truths and social customs which are expected to be revived or reformed every so often (thats why not all of Manu Smriti is not applicable today). Islam does not have such a notion.

Islam needs to evolve - or it will wage a war against rest of the world which is constantly evolving. Government should encourage options for open debate and rational discussion amongst followers of islam to help evolve that religion to 21st century. Once islamic scholars accept evolution as a mechanism of Allah, they will have to concede the fact that they cannot have a legal framework (shariah) or moral framework that does not evolve with time. Ex: In the world of video and audio and forensic science with DNA evidence, several parts of Shariah become irrelevant.

Hashmi Shams Tabreed ‏@hstabreed 4h4 hours ago
Pakistani Urdu media is rife with conspiracy theory that fall of Pakistan 's best friend Robin Raphel was somehow precipitated by Ajit Doval

Anujan wrote:A Shia scholar explains the theological basis of ISIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xArTRV2INSY

Long, but interesting. The comments on the video are also interesting.

JE Menon wrote:

Anujan wrote:A Shia scholar explains the theological basis of ISIS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xArTRV2INSY

Long, but interesting. The comments on the video are also interesting.

Must watch. For those unfamiliar with Shiism, see it till the end, the last bit is especially interesting with a light effect, and observe how he gets the people to start weeping.

Never-before-heard tapes of Reagan revealed
By Gary BuisoNovember 8, 2014 | 4:00pm

President Ronald Reagan secretly recorded some of his conversations with foreign leaders, discovered author William Doyle, who shared some of these never-heard tapes exclusively with The Post.
“Until now, taping was thought to have stopped in the Nixon era. I discovered that was not the case,” Doyle said.
The recordings from the White House Situation Room include Reagan trying to convince an intractable Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to hold off the pullout of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 1983 until Lebanese forces can replace them; the president discussing the release of Western hostages in the Middle East with Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, and a talk with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, the father of Syria’s current dictator and the original “Butcher of Damascus”— whom he kept waiting for over 13 minutes while he finished up a horseback ride at his California ranch.

[..]
https://soundcloud.com/newyorkpost/6-1985rr

This call in June 1985 is about TWA Flight 847, which was hijacked by Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. “Reagan had two cards to play to try to free the hostages: the military card, as Navy SEALs and other US special forces prepared several times to rescue hostages in Lebanon but could never get good enough intelligence to confirm their exact whereabouts,” Doyle says. “And he had the diplomatic card, which he is trying to play here with Pakistan, which had influence in Lebanon with the Shia.”


Reagan: Hello
Zia-ul-Haq: Good afternoon Mr President.
Reagan: Mr. President good to hear from you.
Zia-ul-Haq: Thank you Sir. Err I am I am Zia Ul Haq from Pakistan. I am sorry to have bothered your in the afternoon of Saturday while you may have been having little free time.
Reagan: Well, we just came back from the ceremony of receiving the bodies of our four marines. And we are here at camp david now, so this is just fine.
Zia-ul-Haq: Yes sir I heard about that, I just thought sir that I will convey my own feelings and feelings of people of pakistan regarding this undue delay in release of american hostages in Beirut. We are very much concerned, we may not have been so vocal about this but I assure you we are all trying along with many others and also praying for the early release of the innocent Americans being kept hostage.
Reagan: Well thank you very much, that is very kind and I join you in those prayers and we have been praying considerably also and we are doing everything we can and hope that minister berry will see his way clear now to, that he takes them from the hijackers to deliver them to us.
Zia-ul-Haq: Yes sir we hope everything will turn out to be alright although this is a great embarrassment and it is a matter of great concern for all of us
Reagan: Yes
Zia-ul-Haq: || We have released a statement this afternoon in the press and also the media about conveying the concern of the people of Pakistan government . . . in this undue delay, and we have demanded immediate release of the hostages, and also we have at the same time conveyed that we hope that those Lebanese Shiites would be released by the government of Israel.
Reagan: Yes. Well, we must do that in a way that does not make the hijackers think that they have won their goal, because I think we would just see more hijackings then and more terrorism. But we believe that if they will return ours, and then I think the Israelis are prepared to also to deliver theirs. But not make it a kind of ransom at the moment.
Zia-ul-Haq: No, I entirely agree with you, Mr. President. And I must say that many of us here in Pakistan and also elsewhere in the world really appreciate the stand that you have taken. We admire you, Mr. President, and we salute you. And we hope that you will win because right must win.
Reagan: Well, thank you very much. I thank you.
Zia-ul-Haq: Sir. my wife conveys her best regards to Mrs. Reagan because she enjoyed her hospitality a couple of months back when she was in United States in connection with this narcotics problem.
Reagan: Well... well.
Zia-ul-Haq: She conveys her very best wishes to Mrs. Reagan
Reagan: Well... you can tell her. I know they have returned. Mrs. Reagan Reagan doesn't know that I have just received this call but I shall tell her and believe me she thinks most highly of your wife and the success of that meeting here.
Zia-ul-Haq: Thank you Sir. Thank you Mr. President nice talking to you sir I am so sorry to bother you.
Reagan: No. Not bothered at all, I am most grateful not only for your call but for statements you have made regarding hostage situation. So my very best to your wife. Goodbye.
[..]

RajeshA wrote:

JE Menon wrote:
Must watch. For those unfamiliar with Shiism, see it till the end, the last bit is especially interesting with a light effect, and observe how he gets the people to start weeping.

"Saala Nautanki, garhi garhi Drame karta hai"