18th Constitutional Amendment and rights of small nations in Pakistan

You are invited to attend a meeting in Washington DC Metro Area on 18th Constitutional Amendment and rights of small nations in Pakistan. We encourage you to send us a page or two (Maximum) on your behalf or on behalf of your organization to be read in this session.

Recently proposed constitutional changes through “18th Amendment” cause serious concerns in small nations of Pakistan. Throughout its history, the country has been governed by its elite, under military dictatorship or with selective freedoms for its peoples. As a result eastern wing of the country walked away from the union and remaining stakeholders have very little or no faith in the present setup.

Although the 1973 constitution of Mr. Bhutto imposed a top-down framework on small nations but that document has yet to see the light of the day. People of Balochistan have declared their intent to part ways whereas in Sindhi people are increasingly having doubts about their salvation within Pakistan.

Given the state of the union, the common sense and pro-active statecraft dictate making every effort to create sense of ownership in the constituent units instead of tightening the noose. Even high hopes of gaining individual and collective freedoms in a representative democracy are coming to a screeching halt.

Civic groups, political parties and thought leaders across the country including in the province of Punjab, Pakhtoonkhwa, Sindh, and Pakistani Diaspora in USA and Europe feels a need for sea change the way Pakistani constitution is framed. A consensus is emerging in favor of granting greater national autonomy to save Pakistan from disintegration.

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Prime Minister’s (Gilani) wife gets Rs38m bank loan written off

PM’s wife gets Rs38m bank loan written off – by Syed Irfan Raza

- DAWN

ISLAMABAD, April 8: The wife of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is one of the main beneficiaries of the recent loan write-off policy of the National Bank of Pakistan. The bank waived a loan of over Rs 38 million loan taken by Pak Green Fertiliser Limited (PGFL) which she owned as one of its main partners.

According to NBP’s annual report of 2009 and its advertisement published in newspapers on April 1, the bank wrote off the PGFL loan last year.

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Meet Jaswant Singh in Karachi, Sindh

- Zulfiqar Halepoto

Prominent politician, parliamentarian and author of a popular book ‘Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence’ is coming to the heart of Sindh, Karachi.

Come, meet and listen to him on ‘Culture, Politics and change in South Asia’, a lecture series by Oxford University Press and Mohatta Palace Museum on April 13th, 2010 @ 5 PM @ Mohatta Palace Museum, Hatim Alvi Road, Clifton, Karachi.

He became popular when on 17 August 2009 a book of his titled ‘Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence’ was released in which he claimed Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s centralised polity was responsible for partition. He was later expelled from the primary membership of BJP as a result of the ensuing controversy. In interviews with media he quoted BJP as narrow-minded and to have limited thought. His book was later banned in Gujarat. Singh said of the ban “The day we start banning books, we are banning thinking”.

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For invitation please contact: 021 11 683873 the Oxford University Press

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Key Excerpts from: Jinnah: India – Partition – Independence

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Sindhi Nationalists settling illegal Afghan Refugees Near Sindhi Society

by Marvi Memon, TX

NOTE: I am writing below after investigation. Please do not issue unnecessary denials. Instead, you may personally investigate matter in detail at yourself.

A valuable piece of land about 30 acres owned by the Sindh government situated at Main National Highway (Bin Qasim Town) in Karachi has been grabbed by a Sindhi nationalist leader of Hyderabad [A**** Bh*******o] and has been demarcated into residential and commercial plots. He is selling the plots illegally and according to reliable information, 80% such plots have been sold to Afghan Refugees.

Unfortunately, the grabbed land is opposite Sindhi Jamaat Cooperative Housing Society, Main National Highway, Karachi where overwhelming population is of Sindhis.

After the settling of illegal Afghan Refugees, the Sindhi people who are residing in abundance in Sindhi Society (Opposite) and adjoining Sindhi villages would face culture of arms and ammunition besides drugs in the area and there is strong possibility that future of coming generation would be ruined compeletly.

They are openly using the name of Sindh Home Minister *** *** as their leader but I am not sure Mr *** is involved or not but it is confirmed that without the support of Sindh Govt officials, it was not possible to grab the valuable land.

In order to hoodwink the people, they have given the fake name of Village Hassan Punhawar Residency to the illegal settlement.

All Sindhis are requested to take up this matter seriously as we fear that the new generation of Sindhis living in Malir District would be ruined due to arms and ammunition besides drug culture which they would introduce.

This is very serious issue.

Thu, April 8, 2010

Kyrgyzstan revolution underway!

Opposition followers killed Kyrgyzstan’s interior minister, took the deputy prime minister hostage and captured state television in a deadly revolt Wednesday against President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.…

Uprising in Kyrgyzstan leaves dozens killed

By PETER LEONARD, Associated Press

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Opposition leaders declared they had seized power in Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday, taking control of security headquarters, a state TV channel and other government buildings after clashes between police and protesters left dozens dead in this Central Asian nation that houses a key U.S. air base.

President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who came to power in a similar popular uprising five years ago, was said to have fled to the southern city of Osh, and it was difficult to gauge how much of the impoverished, mountainous country the opposition controlled.

“The security service and the Interior Ministry … all of them are already under the management of new people,” Rosa Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister who the opposition leaders said would head the interim government, told the Russian-language Mir TV channel.

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WSC Condemns the Atrocities Committed Against Sindhi people in Karachi

London, UK, Press Release: World Sindhi Congress (WSC) strongly condemns the violence committed against Sindhi people living in Gulshan-e-Hadid area in Karachi. It has become evident that the systematic gangster attacks, beatings and harassment of Sindhis are being carried out by racist elements under the patronage of police, rangers and intelligence agencies. WSC believes that this is part of a continued policy to uproot Sindhis from urban areas of Sindh especially from Karachi…

WSC has decided to take this issue of violence against the indigenous people of Sindh on various international platforms in its continued efforts to inform the international community about the plight of Sindhi people.

6 April 2010

Nuclear arms control —Haider Nizamani

Courtesy: Daily Times

So subtle and imperceptible has been the process of justifying the presence of ready-to-launch nuclear weapons as a normal phenomenon that today ordinary citizens in the Western world appear more worried about the possibility of a weapon or two falling into the hands of Iran

Barack Obama will be back in Prague on April 8 where his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev will join him to sign the treaty to reduce their respective nuclear arsenals by almost one-third over the next few years. This comes a year after Obama’s historic speech in the Czech capital in March 2009 where he pledged to work towards a nuclear weapons-free world.

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Who are the three that BB refers to and what has the PPP govt done about them?

[ The following comment opted from YouToube — In a recent interview with David Frost, Benazir Bhutto was asked about the previous attempt to assassinate her in October. Her response is well worth a second listen in the wake of her death. It seems that Ms. Bhutto suspected the involvement of Pakistan's security services and told President Musharraf as much. After she received a letter from Mr. Musharraf warning her of the various terrorist organizations who were planning to target her for assassination, she wrote back stating her view that "...while these [terrorist] groups may be used, I thought it was more important to go after the people who supported them, who organized them, who could possibly be the financiers… for those groups.” Perhaps her most interesting remark was about one security agent she suspected of being involved in the bombings who, she said, “had dealings with Omar Sheikh … – MarzuqVision — December 28, 2007]

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1uLdmct8_E&NR=1

Two former ISI officers, journalist missing from Kohat

Both the former ISI officers were having close relations with Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership.

Courtesy: Dawn

ISLAMABAD: Two former officials of the premier intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and a free lance journalist have gone missing in suspicious circumstances from Kohat.

Family sources of the missing ISI officials Col (retired) Imam and Sq Leader (retired) Khalid Khawaja revealed that these officers were assisting the free lance journalist Asad Qureshi who was making a documentary on Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

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The Crisis in Pakistan : Who will go with the wind???

Talk show is in Urdu/Hindi

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGn8AwUvYbQ&feature=player_embedded

Via – http://www.siasat.pk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=20046&sid=e76248fc71244c3d2158a5d36fa96b14

Courtesy: Geo

SDF Policy Statement on 18th Amendment

SDF wants draft of amendments made public

Courtesy: Dawn

HYDERABAD, April 2: The Sindh Democratic Forum has praised show of ‘unprecedented unity’ among parliamentary parties on the draft of 18th amendment to the Constitution and urged the government to immediately make the draft public.

The leaders of the forum, a think tank, said at a meeting here that the work was half done because some critical clauses of the 17th amendment relating to discriminatory laws against women and provinces’ right to control their natural resources and the very critical issue of recognition of Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi and Punjabi as national languages had not been removed yet.

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Power moved from Islamabad to Rawalpindi

Capital suggestion – Transfer of power

by Dr Farrukh Saleem

Courtesy: The News

Power has already moved from Islamabad to Rawalpindi. Power, as a “measure of an entity’s ability to control the environment around itself”, has moved from the President House to GHQ. Power, as a “measure of an entity’s ability to control the behaviour of other entities”, has moved from the civilian executive to the military headquarters.

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Jaswant Sigh Speaks to Indo-Pakistani Audience in Washington DC

India and Pakistan has no choice but to pursue the Path of Peace to alleviate Poverty

By: Khalid Hashmani

Washington DC – March 29, 2010: Jaswant Singh, an eight-term member of Indian Parliament and a former Finance and External Affairs Minister of India discussed his recent controversial 637-page book “Jinnah: India – Partition – Independence” at School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington DC. The event was one of rare occurrence as a large number of Indians and Pakistanis attended the same event. Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, a SAIS resident Pakistan Teaching Fellow provided a review of Jaswant Singh’s book from the perspective of a Pakistani analyst.

Mr. Jaswant Singh

Talking about himself, Mr. Jaswant Singh said that he comes from the Indian state that is adjacent to Sindh meaning Rajasthan. He said that what fascinated him about Jinnah was how an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity became the ‘sole spokesman’ of Muslims in India within a span of few years. Other key take-aways and memorable statements from this discussion are as follows:

1. Like Sindh, Rajasthan too did not suffer loss of lives and blood-shed due to partition. Both Muslims and Hindus lived and continue to live amicably in his home province.

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Sindhi Sham in Washington DC

by Khalid Hashmani, McLean, Virginia, USA

On the evening of Friday (April 2, 2010), several Sindhis living in Washington DC area hosted Adi Zubeda Birwani and exchanged candid views about Sindhi Rights. The event was held at a restaurant in Washington DC a downtown and was attended by several several Sindhi-American and mainstream Americans including Imtiaz Bhatti, Javaid Bhutto, Janne Bursch, Erica Cohan, Khalid Hashmani, Ali Nawaz Memon, Iqbal Tareen, and Zara Tareen…

Before the remarks by the guest of honor, three Sindhi-Americans, who recently visited Sindh, shared their observations and impressions from their visit.

Iqbal Tareen said he spent one full month visiting large cities, small and big towns, and villages in Sindh and exchanged views with people at all levels. He said that Sindh certainly has changed over last 30-40 years…

Javaid Bhutto visited many communities and friends from Karachi to Quetta and beyond. He said that one major change that he observed was the hardening of attitude of Baluch youth towards Pakistan. In past the older Baluch generation was willing to settle for provincial autonomy but the new generation seem not to be ready to settle on anything less than full independence. Mr. Bhutto said that he was surprised that there was a free flow of people and goods on the western borders of Pakistan Mr. Bhutto said that although Sindhis feel they have got some relief after years of dictatorship and Nawaz Sharif rule, their attitude towards Pakistan would change if Balochistan became an independent country.

Ali Nawaz Memon said that although much of his trip was occupied with his business activities that involved assessing and advising Government and private energy sector on the matters of energy crisis, he was able to visit some cities and towns in Sindh. He said that in his view the key problems of Sindhis were of economic nature. His assessment was that Sindhis have awakened and ready to put of their best but are being held back by bad Sindhi leaders. He added that he was not hopeful of a quick and comprehensive change unless either the present leaders changed their ways or a new honest, smart, and hardworking Sindhi leaders emerged.

Adi Zubeda Birwani gave a detailed account of the positive role played by Sindhi NGOs and Sindhi media in protecting Sindhi Rights…

The session was moderated by Khalid Hashmani who raised the question whether sufficient progress have been achieved that Sindhis now feel comfortable with the notion that their rights can be achieved within the frame work of Pakistan. The consensus was that in spite of the short coming of the present PPP regime, people feel that this regime is far better than some of the past regimes and that they may succeed in receiving equitable rights in Pakistan. However, the situation is quite tense and precarious with bulk of funds consumed by military where Sindhis have very little presence and the Balochistan crisis, anything can change at any time!

Chávez Putin. Washington’s Nightmare

by: Alessia Lai

Caracas and Moscow forge ties, deepen an already strong friendship. And the reaction in Washington not long in coming. Punctual, on the eve of the first visit of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Venezuela signed several bilateral agreements, press rumors leaked cleverly sent a clear message Venezuelan Russian axis.

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Turkish music

Source – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF57ERall-o&feature=PlayList&p=33B29C5C5CC45DAF&playnext_from=PL&index=184

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[I am not sure but I guess Turks are the biggest ethnic group and tribe in the world. From Uyghurs in China (Eastern Turkistan occupied/aministrated by China) to Bulgars in Balkans (Eastern Europe) they are spread all over as Turk rule was from China to Europe. They speak and write same language with different dialects and scripts. Tataris are also Turkish including all people in Central Asia. Central Asia was the center of the world not long ago, even today the buildings of universities and schools of international repute in Samarkand and Bukhara are living examples of the past glory.

I was amazed to see in movie, Qublai Khan grand son of Changez Khan, addressing to Marcopolo (Italian travelogue writer) as "Barbarian". Marcopolo risked his life and traveled to Central Asia just to see the magnificent empire and development there as Europe was in Dark ages. This was not too long ago.

Turkish Music also has different flavours, but base language and culture is same. You will see similar dance and music through out. I found most of the Turkish music from Turkey kind of sadistic and their voice is heavy, but it appeals Turks of course. Turkish music in other parts of Central Asia and Europe is kind of mix - Munawar Ali].

Courtesy: Above music posted by Munawar Ali at Sindhi lists.

Do not criticize parliament very harshly

Don’t vilify parliament – by I.A. Rehman

Courtesy: Dawn

If the practice of abusing parliamentarians left, right and centre, started by authoritarian rulers, continues the transition to democracy will never be completed.

That the constitutional reform package should have come under attack in some quarters did not cause any surprise because the concept of democratic consensus is alien to Pakistan’s political barons. What is astonishing is the degree of freedom from good sense shown by some elements while demonising parliament.

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Albanian music – Turkish influence

Source- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsGbpLg3Oqk&feature=PlayList&p=33B29C5C5CC45DAF&playnext_from=PL&index=22

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Albania used to be only muslim country in Europe, now we have Kosovo(ethnic Albanians) and Bosnia. Whole of Eastern Europe was under Turkish rule. What I have seen is that if a nation is not so advanced in science and technology they normally are very advanced in culture and language. This is true of Albanians, Sindhis and Arabs for example. They have produced very popular singers, musicians and artists. Albanian music is very popular in Eastern Europe and here is videos with great voice and nice music. You will clearly see Turkish influence there and will enjoy:

Courtesy: Above music posted by Munawar Ali at Sindhi lists.

Census India : STAND UP AND BE COUNTED AS A SINDHI

Dear Sindhi Brothers/Sisters,

THIS IS A MATTER OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE! Please forward this message to each and every Sindhi you know WITHOUT FAIL

- Asha Chand//Sindhisangat Team

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STAND UP AND BE COUNTED AS A SINDHI

TAKE PRIDE IN BEING COUNTED AS A SINDHI

The first phase of Indian National Census for the whole country will be carried out from April 2010 to July 2010.

It is the duty of every Sindhi to ensure that each and every Sindhi and his whole family is positively registered as a Sindhi in the Census. This is not only a matter of great pride but also extremely important for Sindhi community to get due recoginition as well as some vital proprotionate benefits.

We all know that Sindhi community has near 100% literacy rate and high proficiency in English and local languages. Also, since every Sindhi can read and write Sindhi in Devnagri, Roman or Perso-Arabic script. Hence every Sindhi can state he or she is literate in Sindhi. I am sure every Sindhi will make conscious effort to ensure some Sindhi speaking capablity.

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Sindh points out deviation from NFC criteria

Courtesy: Dawn

KARACHI: Sindh has lodged a formal protest with the federal government over what it termed deviation from the recommendations of the 7th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award, sources in the federal ministry of finance told Dawn.

The provincial government has complained that some key recommendations of the award relating to the multiple criteria and sales tax on services had been omitted from the President’s Order No 4 of 2010.

It has warned that if agreed amendments were not incorporated in the order Sindh might decide to distance itself from the award, sources maintained.

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