Bharat Rakshak

johneeG wrote:I have a doubt:
if cheen and amirkhan can give new-clear weapons to bakis to do equal equal with dhesh, then why can't cheen and amirkhan provide the bakis with space tech to do equal equal with dhesh?

Why can't bakis send moon, mars or venus missions with the help of cheen and amirkhan?

@DrAQ_Khan...... "India was once a child in terms of technology, but these corrupt politicians, arrested our scientists, closed researches on Us direction"

@DrAQ_Khan......." Today India has reached the mars on 7 times less price of a Metro Bus project, whilst Nawaz visits US with 1 lac $ per day of out tax money"

The Supreme Court on Friday admitted a petition filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Ishaq Khan Khakwani calling for the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif for hearing.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk would hear the petition and the hearing were fixed for September 29. Khakwani, who is a central committee leader in the PTI, had filed the petition through his counsel Advocate Irfan Qadir requesting the court to order disqualification of the prime minister for falsely stating in the National Assembly.

In the petition that he had not asked Chief of the Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif to act as a mediator and guarantor between the government on one side and PTI Chairman Imran Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Dr Tahirul Qadri on the other for ending the political impasse.

The petition added that the prime minister later denied in the assembly that the army was dealing with such issues without the government desiring it to do so. By making two different statements, it alleged Nawaz had tried to malign and damage the fair image of the army in violation of Article 62 (g) of the constitution.

The petition said that an army spokesman had confirmed that it was the government which had asked the army chief to play a role in resolving the standoff. This established that Nawaz Sharif had made a false statement concerning the army chief and, therefore, was liable to be proceeded against under Article 62 (f) of the constitution, it argued.

The article deals with the qualification of a member from becoming a parliamentarian if he is not sagacious, righteous and honest.

hecky wrote:Phakistan test fires Hataf-Naine 'Nasr' Nooklear capable mizzile (as expected) which can hit Islumabad when fired from Rawalpindi . . . .

SSridhar wrote: Nasr (I have always wondered how to pronounce that 'sr' without a vowel in between)

kmkraoind wrote:Visual Karachi: From Paris of Asia, to City of Lights, to Hell on Earth- Dawn - Nadeem F. Paracha

Worth going through this big article at once, which describes how whiskey sipping rockstar Pak is becoming a hell.

Last, but not the least, are the twin problems of religious extremism and terrorism. China has long suspected involvement of some non-state actors from Pakistan in the insurgency in its energy-rich predominantly Muslim Xinjiang province and has withdrawn its support to the implementation of the United Nations’ Kashmir resolutions. During the recent Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO) summit in Tajikistan, when the Chinese president called for a crackdown on the ‘three evil forces’ of extremism, terrorism, and separatism, he definitely had the Xinjiang unrest uppermost in his mind

partha wrote:

kmkraoind wrote:Visual Karachi: From Paris of Asia, to City of Lights, to Hell on Earth- Dawn - Nadeem F. Paracha

Worth going through this big article at once, which describes how whiskey sipping rockstar Pak is becoming a hell.

So it looks like till 1947 Karachi was doing just fine then something happened.

While the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was established in 1969, the same year when humans set foot on the moon, Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) was established in 1961 – eight years before its Indian counterpart.

Dr Tariq Mustafa, a scientist at Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s, writes in his memoir that for this project, NASA needed to map the wind conditions at the upper atmospheric region above the Indian Ocean.

In mid-September 1961, Dr Abdus Salam and Dr Tariq Mustafa held a meeting with NASA officials in Washington. On the occasion, NASA offered help to Pakistan in the development and launching of rockets to map the atmosphere above Indian Ocean, on the condition that any data acquired from the research on upper atmosphere will be shared with NASA.

Dr Tariq Mustafa led the team working on this project. With this experimental launch, Pakistan became the third country in Asia, first in South Asia, and only the 10th country in the world to have conducted such a launch.

The Paksat-1R, launched in 2011 is Pakistan’s latest satellite, that was funded, designed, built, and launched by our friend in need, China.

Putting aside NASA and the European Space Agency, ISRO too started off with resources similar to Pakistan, and I will argue, with even lesser expertise than Pakistan.

SUPARCO was ahead of all other Asian nations in the space race, but what happened to us then?

Pakistan is now nowhere in the space race.

Pakistan is nowhere near eliminating polio.

Pakistan is nowhere in literacy.

Where is Pakistan?

The current focus should’ve been on education, science, and technology, with emphasis on space technology.

Pakistan has neither eliminated poverty, nor reached Mars.

SUPARCO’s budget should be increased. It had potential in the past, and it still does! I met some great scientists from SUPARCO in a public fair once and was amazed at the enthusiasm of these people.

SUPARCO can still take the lead in the regional space program, if the government puts its attention towards it.

I am sure that if India has reached Mars in its first attempt, Pakistan will reach a new horizon too, in its first attempt, if it makes one. And who knows if that horizon is as far as Pluto?

Bilal Karim Mughal is Dawn.com staffer.
He is the co-founder of Hyderabad Astronomers Society, Pakistan. Follow him @bilalkmughal

partha wrote:

I am sure that if India has reached Mars in its first attempt, Pakistan will reach a new horizon too, in its first attempt, if it makes one. And who knows if that horizon is as far as Pluto?

What an article. Look at the arrogance. If SDRE India can do it, TFTA Pakistan can do it better it seems. SUPARCO can take the lead in Asia it seems. ....

I am sure that if India has reached Mars in its first attempt, Pakistan will reach a new horizon too, in its first attempt, if it makes one. And who knows if that horizon is as far as Pluto?This is where one should reiterate with them, Pakistan does not have enough Islam to reach a new horizon. Then watch them go down the rat hole

partha wrote:http://www.dawn.com/news/1134488/metro- ... priorities

SUPARCO’s budget should be increased. It had potential in the past, and it still does! I met some great scientists from SUPARCO in a public fair once and was amazed at the enthusiasm of these people.

Indian army commander computes the number of armed jihadis at 200 waiting along the LoC to sneak into our side of the line. 31 of the heavily armed jihadis have already managed to infiltrate.
Even when the valley was reeling under the ravages of floods, jihadis made several bids during those ten days to push as many of them across the line as they could. Most of their attempts were neutralized.
Notably bids of infiltration increased soon after Modi government took the oath of office in a function in which SAARC heads of governments, including Nawaz Sharif participated. The two prime ministers jointly spoke of containing terrorism in the region.
A gradual change in the idiom of GHQ in Rawalpindi could be discerned when perfunctory hints emanated from Islamabad that bilateral talks with India would be resumed.
To offset any talks, non-state actors in Pakistan revived Kashmir orchestration and its reverberations were to be felt along LoC. Unprovoked firing in some sensitive forward Indian posts along the LoC and even across IB in RS Pora sector assumed threatening proportions.
Pak agencies subtly scuttled foreign secretary-level meet by predicating it with Pak High Commissioner’s invitation to Kashmir separatists and secessionists for a meeting in Delhi. Pak agency scored a point over Islamabad.
Behind the curtain, Track II dialect dragged on in neutral gear.
Alarmed by the likely insistence of the new government in Delhi to meaningfully pursue bilateral talks enfolding 26/11 culprits on the one hand and the new approach theory to bilateral relations pronounced by the democratically elected government in Islamabad on the other, the army decided to settle its score with the bugbear of Pak democracy.
Military coup as in previous years was out of question. Americans wouldn’t take it, neither the Saudis.
The Army had one more reason to train its guns on Nawaz Sharif. It would not allow non-military government to treat its former Chief with disdain. Hence it pressed into service the option of mobocracy.. Logjam continues around the seat of the government.
Allowing the stalemate to linger on, the Amy, which had been making serious efforts for quite some time to draw a wedge between the two main ethnic components of Tehreek-i-Taliban-i-Pakistan (TTP), succeeded in the time-tested mantra of divide and rule. The Punjabi and Pushtun ethnic groups in TTP parted ways.
A statement of September 5 quoted the chief of Punjabi chapter of TTP, Asmatullah Muawiyah hailing from Khanewal district of Punjab, announcing his surrender to Pakistan army in Attak jail. In a three minute video he said that his group gives up operation in Pakistan in the interests of Islam and Islamic Caliphate.
But more significant part of his statement was that though his group would no more operate in Pakistan but it would actively join hands with Afghan Taliban and fight along with them shoulder to shoulder against the American propelled government in Kabul and the American presence in Afghanistan.
But shortly thereafter on 13 September, TTP Commander, Abu Baseer contradicted Muawiyah’s statement saying that he had presented himself to TTP as mujahid. He alleged that Muawiyah had and continues to have links with top Pak agencies.
Before proceeding with the subject matter in hand, a few words need to be said by way of introducing Muawiyah as terrorist commander.
TTP is an umbrella of seven militant organizations of Pakistan. Previously Asmatullah Muawiyeh was a commander of Azhar’s terrorist group of Jaish-i-Muhammad. Following differences with Jaish in the aftermath of Lal Masjid operation of 2007, Muawiyeh parted ways with Azhar and went to the tribal areas with dozens of his comrades.
He formed his faction of terrorists claiming that he was to avenge the killing of jihadis in Lal Masjid operation by Pakistani security men. He named his faction Jundu’l-Hafsa after the name of girls’ seminary Jame’ul Hafsa attached to Lal Masjid.
Jundul-Hafsa claimed many killings carried out independently. On June 22, 2013 its gunmen attacked foreign hikers at a base camp in Nanga Parbat leaving ten of them dead. It also claimed responsibility of attack on a church in Peshawar in September 2013 in which 80 Christians offering mass were killed.
Commenting on Rasool Park, Samanabad, Lahore terrorist attack, The Nation of July 14, 2012 wrote that it was carried by Punjabi Taliban who stormed a two-storey house and opened fire on Khyber Pukhtunkhwa prison department, killed 9 guardsmen and freed their comrades from the prison.
After becoming part of TTP, Muawiyeh had become the chief of its Punjabi chapter. In 2003-4, General Musharraf, the then President of Pakistan, directed the Punjabi Taliban conducting Kashmir jihad activities in Punjab to wind up. The Punjabi Taliban, comprising mostly the youth from Punjab and PoK split into two. One part migrated to Waziristan where it raised the banner against Pakistani army.
It is noteworthy that in the initial stage of drone attacks, Americans avoided attacking TTP groups in Waziristan in the hope that they would not make a common cause with Afghan Taliban. But when Pakistan declared that all TTP were the enemies of Pakistan, American drone attacks extend combat over the hideouts of Punjabi Taliban as well.
But before the American drones would pound TTP, Pakistani ISI had relocated the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements in TTP in Waziristan to Kurram region where they enjoyed security.
The simple objective of Pakistan in categorizing all TTP as its enemy was to help disperse the Afghan Taliban either to Kurram or to safe havens in Afghanistan wherever they could find it. Then after the purge it could take on the remnants of TTP easily and hunt them down one by one.
Obviously, Kabul government took care of those elements that were forced to withdraw to Afghan territory in the face of Pakistan army’s heavy attacks on TTP which ultimately reduced it to shambles.
Having finished the TTP in Waziristan, without causing harm to such of the Afghan Taliban as had sought refuge in Waziristan against the NATO attacks, Pakistan army achieved the double objective of (a) liquidating anti-army TTP, and (b) retaining anti-Kabul lever in its hands in the shape of Kurram-based Afghan Taliban.
On the other hand, this strategy found replication in the shape of Maulvi Fazlullah, the supremo of TTP, having stationed himself in Kabul and patronizing the anti-Pakistan army elements that are temporarily located or concentrated in Afghanistan.
Until Aug 13, 2013 Punjabi chapter of TTP remained under TTP. During that period Asmatullah Muawiyeh had twice come to Indian part of Kashmir clandestinely and also travelled to Afghanistan to take stock of ground situation there. The dream of Islamic Caliphate is very much alive in the head of these jihadis.
Last year, TTP expelled Muawiyeh after he had issued statement regarding PML-N government proposal for peace talks without prior approval from central leadership. He had welcomed Nawaz Sharif’s proposal for dialogue after urging Pak militants to respond the offer.
In all probability, the inference is that Pakistan Army will, in slow degrees, induct its protected and patronized hordes of Afghan Taliban into Kashmir and thus give a new turn to Kashmir jihad. Border violations and unprovoked firing could be a precursor to that scenario.
It is not without well careful understanding that Bilawal, the scion of Bhutto house, vows to take back Kashmir whole and every inch.
In this broad and rather grossly intertwined regional strategic scenario, ISI has played the master card by winning over Muawiyeh and through him declaring ending of hostilities against Pakistan by TTP. But the story does not end there.
After all Muawiyeh would not lay down arms for nothing. The bargain has more to it than just cessation of hostilities. In his statement, Muawiyeh said that while he would work in the interests of Islam and in propagating its true teachings, he would join in fight against Kabul regime and the Americans now sitting in Kabul.
Reports are that through the instrumentality of Haqqani network, Muawiyah’s group will move to Afghanistan and join hands with the Afghan Taliban in bringing down the Kabul regime and throwing out the Americans and finally giving proper shape to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Caliphate of Khurasan.
Haqqani is an old time playboy of ISI and since long he has been basking in its sunshine.

Peregrine wrote:Enter the dragon

Last, but not the least, are the twin problems of religious extremism and terrorism. China has long suspected involvement of some non-state actors from Pakistan in the insurgency in its energy-rich predominantly Muslim Xinjiang province and has withdrawn its support to the implementation of the United Nations’ Kashmir resolutions. During the recent Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO) summit in Tajikistan, when the Chinese president called for a crackdown on the ‘three evil forces’ of extremism, terrorism, and separatism, he definitely had the Xinjiang unrest uppermost in his mind

Cheers

IF today, with remote in hand, you randomly flip through channels on your TV, or browse through nearly two dozen online newspapers, you will see video clips or photos of Pakistan Air Force jets pounding targets in North Waziristan, artillery firing into the mountains, or, perhaps, some other celebration of Operation Zarb-i-Azb. But hang on! You rub your eyes. Our jets bombing Islamic fighters within the territory of this Islamic republic?

For 10 years after 9/11, Pakistanis had lived in a delusionary bubble. A majority had been brainwashed into believing that terrorism in Pakistan was the work of some “foreign hand”. So, even when various militant groups angry at Pakistan proudly claimed suicide missions against military and civilian targets, they were ignored. No Muslim could kill another Muslim, was then the prevailing logic. Surely Pakistan’s eternal enemies — India, Israel, America, or maybe even Afghanistan and Iran — were responsible.

The foreign hand myth was nurtured by overpaid and wilfully ignorant TV anchors, together with their chattering guests, to the point where it became the only truth in town. Their invited guests such as retired Gen Hamid Gul, his son Abdullah Gul, and numerous cohorts confidently pronounced that suicide bombers were uncircumcised non-Muslim agents of foreign powers. None had inspected the leftover meat.
The foreign hand myth was nurtured by overpaid and wilfully ignorant TV anchors.

Memories may be short, but readers may also recall the televised harangues of public figures ranging from comedian-minister Rehman Malik to cricketer-demagogue Imran Khan. America was then the only terrorist in the world. So, when Taliban supremo Hakeemullah Mehsud was killed by a Hellfire missile in November 2013, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar raged furiously while Cricketer Khan suffered a near apoplectic fit. That Mr Mehsud had declared war upon the Pakistani state and personally decapitated Pakistani soldiers mattered to neither.

And then, poof, it all changed! Along came Zarb-i-Azb. Suddenly the foreign hand disappeared. Suddenly it turned out that the real enemy was the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). Suddenly the nauseating daily appearances of its supporters vanished from millions of TV screens. Suddenly popular TV anchors could not remember what they had been saying for months and years. Suddenly no one, including anguished Cricketer Khan of anti-drone fame, could see the still circling (as of three days ago) drones in our skies.

A new consensus is now in place. Manufactured to suit new conditions, it forced terrorist supporters off TV screens. But how did it happen and who ordered it? If this was a scripted change, who wrote it?

I do not think a simple answer exists, or that the change could simply have been ordered from above. The ISI/army’s psy-op against the TTP may have been helped by the arrival of a new and bolder army chief. But the full story is surely more complicated.

No military has the strength to create a national consensus by itself. Even during the Third Reich, where the Nazis could coerce and terrorise at will, they knew a plain diktat could not work on the entire German nation. Therefore propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels demanded that his 3,000 full-time subordinates at the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda submit, with full evidence, detailed reports about the mood of the German people. The Führer would watch anxiously, and then decide if the price of food could be raised.

Pakistan’s army is powerful but nowhere as powerful. Its ability to influence popular opinion is limited. Those who think otherwise should revisit the years around 2004 when it was exceedingly unpopular. Soldiers killed in battle in Fata would not even receive proper burial rites because village imams refused to perform their funeral prayers. They were not called, as today, shaheeds.

So what explains Pakistan’s mood swing and the media’s new tune? Hopefully someday someone will write a PhD thesis on this. Meanwhile, some insight can be gained from a seminal book, Manufacturing Consent, which explains how American public opinion is shaped to suit the needs of the American establishment. Authored by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, it provides an analytical framework exposing the basic institutional structures and relationships within which the US media operates. Examining case after case, the writers reveal how the media serve, and propagandise on behalf of, the powerful societal and corporate interests that control and finance them.

The search for profits, as in the US, also drives Pakistan’s TV channels. But, the difference is that the Pakistani establishment is badly fractured from within and so its directives are often contradictory. Therefore, released from all regulation as well as ethical pressures, private channels freely exploit social pathologies while suspending conscience and good sense.

This is exemplified by how they dealt with terrorism until recently. Few channels condemned atrocities that, at one point, were a daily occurrence. Moreover, they aided and abetted terrorism by conferring respectability upon terrorists. For example, until recently the correct Urdu word for terrorist — ‘dehshatgard’ — was not used on television channels. Instead, linguistically unjustified and watered-down equivalents like ‘askariat-pasand’ and ‘intiha-pasand’ were invented.

Ratings-hungry TV channels eventually brought catastrophe to Pakistan. Their popular anchors gave space and sympathy to murderers and terrorists, and broadcast every lie, rumour, and idiocy that could sell. You just have to mentally flip through some sickening images of past years: one stood outside Lal Masjid echoing the calls of the insurrectionists; another gloated over the Mumbai massacre; a female anchor seemingly instigated governor Salmaan Taseer’s murder; a fourth justified Malala Yousafzai’s shooting.

Although the flirtation of Pakistan’s private TV channels with terrorists is over for the time being, their mischief continues. For five weeks almost all channels have been giving 24/7 coverage to protests which otherwise would have long fizzled. This effectively gifts billions of rupees of advertising time to an aggrieved loser of the 2013 elections, and a mysterious cleric with an unknown agenda. Worse, by broadcasting — in fact, showcasing — the abusive language used by Cricketer Khan in attacking his opponents, the ‘free media’ reduces the quantum of civility in Pakistan every day.

The author teaches physics in Lahore and Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, September 27th , 2014

CRamS wrote:I am listening to Badmaash on TimesNow. What I find interesting is his launching into Israel. Didn't ISI advice him to stay away from Israel? Why mess with Israel how ever much Abduls might like that?

anupmisra wrote:Pakis have been "testing" this hatf thingy for several years, timed to coincide with any new technology demonstration by India. I think the problem lies with its name - HATF-IX (not 9). Its actually HATFIX or "hat fix" or "hat (move and) fix (it again abdul)". They are actually trying to fix their errant missiles they got from the koreans.