Bharat Rakshak

Anujan wrote:http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-new ... 12695.aspx

According to Abu Jundal, a key 26/11 handler in Indian custody, Mir {Sajid Mir alias Wasi Bhai} lives with his wife and two children at Garden Villa, about 20km from Islamabad.

Recall that Sajid Mir is a "retired" Pakistani Major.

A grocery shop owner in Sibi, Mukesh said Pakistani immigration officials were so skeptical of the visit of Pakistani Hindus to India that before letting them board Samjhauta Express at Wagah on Monday, they were made to give a written undertaking that they were not harassed in Pakistan and would return.
An emotional Mukesh said he had sold his house and other belongings before leaving Pakistan. "I know my relatives are there and they could be harassed but I had to save my and the life of my family, they might also leave Pakistan one day," he said adding that hundreds of Hindu families were keen to migrate to India.
Mukesh spoke of the terror in Balochistan where gun-wielding motorcyclists often came to their shops and demanded huge money and went to houses to harass Hindu ladies and took away their ornaments.
Mukesh's wife Sumen Devi said they had decided to move India for good after one of their relatives Ravi Kumar was kidnapped by unidentified miscreants and when the family failed to meet their demand of ransom they sent back his dead body after two and half months.
Mukesh said police did register their cases but didn't do anything to trace the culprits.

SSridhar wrote:The Hindus are the first wave of migrants from Pakistan. It has started. The next wave would be Sikhs & Christians to be followed by Ahmedis.

According to Kashmir government estimates, some 3,500 to 4,000 "boys" went to Pakistan over nearly two decades.

But in the last 12 months, at least 150 of them have come back, Indian officials say, and hundreds others are waiting to return.

The trickle which started last year is not yet a flood, but it's steadily gaining momentum.

Indian officials say they have received 1,054 applications from those wanting to return - by early August they had cleared 291 of them and say 300 more are to be cleared soon.

And many of the returnees, including Abdul Rashid Khan, have come back with their families.

Militant circles say there are about 3,000 to 4,000 former Kashmiri fighters stranded in and around Muzaffarabad.

Fighters without a cause Anti-militant rallies in Pakistan Many want to return home, but some do not have the means to pay for the journey.

What is shocking to me is how little Indian authorities know about Mir and the core operational LeT/ISI commanders. Mir is one of the figures who acts as the deniable interface between TSPA and jihadis and is likely part of the so called "Section-S" of the ISI.

ISLAMABAD: While saying that the media should promote a positive image of Pakistan, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said on Monday that no one practices human rights as much as Pakistan does.

partha wrote:http://tribune.com.pk/story/421508/no-o ... an-ashraf/

ISLAMABAD: While saying that the media should promote a positive image of Pakistan, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said on Monday that no one practices human rights as much as Pakistan does.

by SSridhar
The next wave would be Sikhs & Christians to be followed by Ahmedis.

SBajwa wrote:

by SSridhar
The next wave would be Sikhs & Christians to be followed by Ahmedis.

There are not that many Sikhs in naPakistan. The Sikhs in Punjab and NWFP are close to their Gurdwaras in Lahore (Dera Sahib), Nankana Sahib, Eimnabad (Gujranwala), Hasan Abdal and other Gurdwaras close to Peshawar. Sikhs should not leave the Gurdwara and prefer death or Indian army saving them. Most of the Sikhs are in naPakistani punjab while Hindus are in Sindh.Hindus are roughly the same size as Christians in Pakistan (about 1.6% of their population).

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has informally announced that it is backing off from its commitment to finance the Bhasha Dam and there is now news that the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower project is also in deep financial trouble. This is a serious blow to our efforts to resolve the ongoing power crisis that has afflicted the country and crippled the economy for most of the life of this government. Considering the Bhasha project is now four years in the making, it is a little late in the day for the ADB to raise objections and caveats around issues that have been there from the outset and well-enough known to all parties involved. The project is estimated to require around $12 billion and would have put 4,500MW into the national grid, enhanced water storage for agriculture and mitigated the effects of flooding. The Bhasha Dam is crucial to our future needs and development and is by far the most important water and power project in the country.
Finding funding if the ADB pulls out is going to be difficult, as is the issuance of a ‘No Objection Certificate’ by India, as Gilgit-Baltistan, where the dam is located, remains a disputed area and does not have provincial status in Pakistan. One option that may be considered is the securitisation of Wapda assets such as the Ghazi Barotha Hydropower project, but it is unclear who would buy into such a proposal. Such a move would also incur a substantial rise in the cost of hydel-generated electricity to the end-user – a bullet which may have to be bitten as there are few, if any, alternatives to the Bhasha project that could be funded and built sufficiently quickly to meet our growing energy needs. The ADB wants to see a broader funding coalition, but the World Bank (WB) has already refused on the grounds that it is in a disputed area, but might relent if we get an NOC from the Indians. Nobody is offering odds on the likelihood of India issuing any such instrument as it would effectively legitimise our claims to the entire area of Gilgit-Baltistan. In those circumstances, was it wise to go ahead with the Bhasha project after the Kalabagh Dam was scuppered? Did our rulers, planners and economic wizards not anticipate such objections or is this a new political move by world powers to squeeze Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Parliament Special Committee on Kashmir Maulana Fazul Rahamam asked India not to stop Pakistani water by constructing dams on Pakistani rivers.In a statement issued here on Monday, Fazul said that this step will badly affect our agriculture sector and disrupt the peace of sub-continent.He said under the Sindh Tas agreement, rivers including Chenab, Ravi and Sindh owned by Pakistan, adding that India can not stop the water of these rivers.Moreover, he said that India has established several dams on these rivers and now is busy in establishing dams on the Nullah’s of these dams. India is also constructing dam on the Nullah of Chenab river which will cause shortage of water in Pakistan.India is producing electricity in Occupied Kashmir but the people of occupied Kashmir are deprived of electricity, he added.Maulana Fazul said that Indian leadership is just claiming of friendship with Pakistan infront of the world but continue to harm the country.Furthermore, he said that the Kashmir issue is unresolved from the last 65 years and India committing atrocities on the people forcefully.He urged Indian leadership to take concrete steps for maintaining good relations with Pakistan and avoid mere giving statements.

This too was Pakistan (1947-71): A response to Nadeem Paracha’s “Also Pakistan”

Nadeem F. Paracha’s (NFP) history of Pakistan in the four part series in daily Dawn suffers from an error of exclusion. It is the history of Pakistan’s upper-middle classes in an urban setting where lifestyle choices imply that somehow Pakistan was more liberal in the past. It also reduces Pakistan to a (mainly) Punjabi-Muhajir urban upper-middle class landscape – like the plays of Fatima Surayya Bajia, Hasina Moin and Ashfaque Ahmed or romantic writings of Shafique-ur-Rehman and Nasim Hijazi.

The pictures in NFP columns tell a story of an upper middle class whose “liberal” membership has shrunk. Simultaneously, it also reinforces the myth that there is a tiny bulwark of upper-middle class activists who are protecting Pakistan from complete Talibanisation - as long as their literary festivals, social media melas and fashion shows are well funded by foreign consulates and donor agencies.

In terms of strategy, “liberals” tactics are very similar to the post-9/11 strategy of General Musharaf. In the first half of the last decade, this strategy was employed to the hilt by Musharaf in trying to convince the West that he and the army under him represent the last stand against the Taliban. Of course, now the whole world knows the dual policy of Pakistan’s military establishment of officially opposing the Taliban but protecting and sponsoring them and their local Jihadi affiliates at the ground level. Plausible deniability was taken to a new level by Pakistan’s military establishment. Similarly, it is commonly known that several of Pakistan’s “noted liberals” including but not limited to Najam Sethi, Ejaz Haider and their predecessors in the past have played a questionable role in undermining democratic governments in Pakistan.

What NFP has presented in this series is only a limited remembrance of Pakistan from an elitist, upper-middle class perspective. If a narrow window of Pakistani society can be described as Pakistan, rest assured such Pakistan exists even today within its typical confines, e.g., five star hotels, private beaches, civil society melas, literary festivals, aman ki asha events etc in secluded luxury hotels or private residences.

What NFP did not describe is how the country was shaping itself right from its inception when Jinnah and his close comrades authorized military take over of Balochistan, despatch of Pashtun and Punjabi mercenaries to Kashmir, dismissal of Dr. Khan’s government in NWFP and suppression of Bangla language. In 1948 and beyond we saw a repeat of similar events, e.g., when Jinnah’s funeral was refused to be led by a Shia cleric, when Objectives Resolution was passed by Pakistan’s first legislative assembly thus formalizing the ascendancy of Sunni Islam, when anti-Ahmadiyya riots took place in streets of Lahore and other cities of Pakistan. NFP also did not mention the fact that long before General Zia’s Islamization, one of the bloodiest massacres of Shias took place in Terhi Sindh in 1963. That too was Pakistan.

Romanticizing of Pakistan from an upper-middle class lens is a great thing to write and read and we are not challenging the fact that confines of the upper-middle class lifestyle have relatively reduced in the past few decades courtesy General Zia, Zakir Naik, Farhat Hashmi, Imran Khan etc, however, that lifestyle featuring several elements of social hedonism is still available and enjoyed by the select elite.

The photos and narrative also reinforce the upper-middle class narrative that the seeds of extremism, intolerance and hypernationalism were sown during Bhutto’s time and harvested by Zia ul Haq. Unfortunately, this selective narrative excludes the role of Pakistan’s urban elites (eg Rana Liaquat Ali Khan, Qudratullah Shahab, Altaf Gauhar etc) who silently watched the destruction of a pluralist society and the resulting rampant extremism while their own socio-economic interests were taken good care of.

The seeds of extremism in Pakistan were not planted by Zia or Bhutto but were there much earlier and should be highlighted. Today, Pakistan’s Shia Muslims are undergoing a slow-motion genocide which is deliberately being misrepresented or ignored by the urban elites who have positioned themselves as the “Endangered Liberal Species”. Such elites have largely participated in inexplicable silence on the massacre of at least 19000 Shia Muslims in Pakistan in the last few decades.

1947: A country created on the basis of communal hatred and othering

Founder of a communal state is evasive about his own communal identity

The country’s founder was a Shia but it was Mr. Jinnah himself who was evasive about his Shia Muslim identity.

1947: Jinnah dismisses an elected government in NWFP Province

1948: Bacha Khan remains in intermittent house arrest from 1948 to 1964

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan) was always presented as a traitor of Pakistan and an Indian agent. Ghaffar Khan was placed under house arrest without charge from 1948 till 1954. He was re-arrested in 1958 until an illness in 1964 allowed for his release.

1948: At least 150 Pashtuns massacred in Babhara village, Charsadda

1948: State funeral for Jinnah cannot be led by a Shia cleric

1949: Islamisation of Pakistan begins. Objectives Resolution passed by PM Liaquat Ali Khan

1951: A Jihad-e-Kashmir mercenary killed PM Liaquat Ali Khan

1952: Bangla language riots in East Pakistan

1953: Anti-Ahmadiyya riots in Punjab
In 1953, a religious movement began to agitate for the removal of the Ahmadiyya Muslims from power positions, and demanded a declaration of Ahmadis as a non-Muslim minority groups. Due to government’s lack of action, mass rioting broke out in the Punjab against both the government and followers of Ahmadis. Several dozens were killed by violent mobs of Jamaat-e-Islami and other Sunni Deobandis, Wahhabi and Barelvi groups.

General Azam Khan – the first Martial Law Administrator having hard talk with Sardar Nishtar. With the government failing to contain anti-Ahmadi riots in Lahore, property of civilians being destroyed and truoble spreading to other major cities of the Punjab in 1953, Prime Minister Khwaja Nazimuddin, an ineffective administrator while presiding over a cabinet meeting in Karachi kept saying what should I do, what should I do. Lahore was on fire and the Governor of Punjab had just confirmed the fact. Defense Secretary Iskander Mirza was asked to find out the exact situation. He went to the ante room and called GOC Lahore General Azam Khan who confirmed the reports. ‘How long will it take you to control the situation?’ Mirza asked him. ‘One hour’ quipped Azam. ‘Then go ahead’ Mirza advised him. He returned to the Cabinet room and announced that he had declared Martial Law in Lahore. True to his word Azam restored law and order, arrested Maulana Maudoodi and Maulana Abdul Sattar Khan Niazi, tried them in a summary military court, sentenced them to death and sent them to the black cell for hanging the next morning. A call from King Saud however got them a reprieve. But with the carte blanche given to Gen Azam, military supremacy had been ensured in Pakistan for all times to come. Also Saudi hegemony in protecting and sponsoring Wahhabi-Deobandis of Pakistan was also established.

Pakistan was co-opted by a powerful civil-military bureaucracy immediately after coming into existence. This establishment ensured that Deobandi clerics and organizations e.g., Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, Maulana Maududi were given a prominent place in a non-democratic setup. The Objectives Resolution followed quickly and a large scale pogrom against the Ahmadi Muslims took place in Pakistan in 1953. None of this is reflected in the pictures selected – incidentally, that is not Stewart Granger and Ava Gardner either – although both of them were here for the filming of Bhowani junction. The most abiding memory of them isn’t Ava Gardner’s ethereal beauty or Granger’s rackish charms. Rather is the pride felt by the urban elites when Stewart Granger was slapped by an army officer (Suo Moto anyone)

In terms of presenting an alternate history and point of view, it is important to appreciate some of Nadeem’s earlier anti-establishment work. However, it is also important to highlight the limitation of these views as an urban reflection which do not delve deeper into the historical roots of the problems currently facing Pakistan. Unwittingly, this presentation reinforces the selective elite narrative which works overtime to shift the blame from the establishment and the liberal class to convenient scapegoats (generals and politicians).

1955: One unit system adopted in West Pakistan

1956: Islamic name for Pakistan

1959: Baloch leaders betrayed by Pakistan army

1963: Shia massacre in Therhi, Sindh

1965: Operation Gibraltar and the Pakistan India war

1971: Bangladesh Liberation War and the genocide of pro-freedom Muslims and Hindus of East Pakistan

We cannot move forward until we reconcile with our past. For a progressive, pluralist and secular Pakistan, we cannot be selective of our either our history or our genesis. By perpetuating a selective and concocted version of history, we are doomed to repeat our follies.

Rajdeep wrote:We are harassed in Pakistan, many keen to migrate to India: Pakistani Hindu family

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 475454.cms

A grocery shop owner in Sibi, Mukesh said Pakistani immigration officials were so skeptical of the visit of Pakistani Hindus to India that before letting them board Samjhauta Express at Wagah on Monday, they were made to give a written undertaking that they were not harassed in Pakistan and would return.
An emotional Mukesh said he had sold his house and other belongings before leaving Pakistan. "I know my relatives are there and they could be harassed but I had to save my and the life of my family, they might also leave Pakistan one day," he said adding that hundreds of Hindu families were keen to migrate to India.
Mukesh spoke of the terror in Balochistan where gun-wielding motorcyclists often came to their shops and demanded huge money and went to houses to harass Hindu ladies and took away their ornaments.
Mukesh's wife Sumen Devi said they had decided to move India for good after one of their relatives Ravi Kumar was kidnapped by unidentified miscreants and when the family failed to meet their demand of ransom they sent back his dead body after two and half months.
Mukesh said police did register their cases but didn't do anything to trace the culprits.

He {kayani} correlated Pakistan and Islam, saying that the country was established on the name of the religion and no force can separate the two.

A Positive Step
Earlier this year, Pakistan switched over to a negative list regime with India, paving the way to give India the Most Favoured Nation-status - a title conferred on Pakistan a few years ago. {What a lie. A few years ago ? India gave that concession to Pakistan in c. 1995, 17 years ago} . . . . Businessmen from Pakistan have long lamented about an RBI guideline that restricts them from conducting business in India . . . . There are few other countries with which India shares so much history and so much in common. . . . A borderline can divide land. But, if we are the same people then should not our ties be strongest of all ? . . . . There is no reason for India to not open up sectors like defence, or atomic energy and space to Pakistani FDI for that matter. The Indian Defence establishment is far stronger than Pakistan's. It is only by opening up sectors like defence that there will be no need for spies on either side. . . . Progress within the subcontnent is only in India's best interests.

partha wrote:http://dawn.com/2012/08/14/kayani-holds ... or-crises/

He {kayani} correlated Pakistan and Islam, saying that the country was established on the name of the religion and no force can separate the two.

"Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani early on Tuesday held all state institutions, including the armed forces, for mistakes being committed in the past and for current crises in the country"

My birthday present to you is to show you the Truth as I see it, ruthlessly and honestly. What I say is evident everywhere.

Our condition is pathetic...Remove everything that is of western origin and all we will be left with are our clothes – except for the ‘Kala Sahib’ of course. Nothing else, so backward are we.

There is chaos and anarchy everywhere. The human condition is pathetic and getting worse by the day. The right to develop one’s mind to its fullest potential is strikingly absent – little good food, no jobs, no education, no healthcare while inflation is rampant. No electricity, no water, no gas and no security. Human dignity and the dignity of the family are of no concern to our mentally challenged rulers.

Pakistan does not need financial support of Asian Development Bank if rulers really want to construct the dam and are serious to resolve water and power issues in the country, it could be built using local resources.

High-level officials of Water and Power sector believe that local resources can be used to construct very important dam of the country. They said that Asian Development Bank is trying to pressurise Pakistan to bow down in front of India as most of the people running ADB belongs to India and they have strong influence in the organisation.

Since Pakistan was born in violence, violence has become intrinsic to the body politic of the country. Let us not forget that it was not the constitutional brilliance of Mohammad Ali Jinnah which finally convinced the Congress, especially Nehru and Patel, and Mountbatten to agree to a partition, but the deteriorating law and order situation in the Muslim majority provinces, which was directly related to the ‘Direct Action’, called by Jinnah in late 1946.

Pakistan as a modern state was born in a situation where one of the basic principles underlying the modern nation-state — majority rule — was unacceptable to its founders.

The Supreme Court on Monday accepted review petitions of four army officials, Major General (r) Zaheerul Islam Abbasi, Brigadier Mustansir Billah, Colonel Inayatullah and Colonel Azad Minhas, who had been convicted by a military court for attempting to topple the government in 1995.

SSridhar wrote:The extent to which Indian businessmen would go once the floodgates are opened unilaterally by India is demostrated in this editorial in Business India of this week. No links.
Speechless.

SSridhar wrote:The extent to which Indian businessmen would go once the floodgates are opened unilaterally by India is demostrated in this editorial in Business India of this week. No links.
Speechless.

Dilating upon the plan-B, Mr Durrani said an option was to persuade the ADB to provide funding only for the civil works that would not relate to environmental and resettlement issues and meet the need for the remaining part of the project through local financing and other friendly sources.The options included pledging some of the remaining water sector projects to raise Islamic and conventional bonds for the dam but most of these assets had already been pledged against international loans, an official said.He said the Islamic Development Bank and China were ready to provide partial funding and support to the project but none of them was ready to fund the entire project.The Economic Affairs Division told the meeting that a Middle Eastern group was also interested in the project because it offered more than 18 per cent rate of return on equity that meant 100 per cent recovery of investment in five years.
( Paqqie thinking of foolling Ummah Masters. !8% return))
The minister said the government was determined to constructing the project and all options were being considered to complete it in the shortest possible time.The meeting asked Wapda to furnish the report with all the options and commitments from donors