Sikhs kept out of their own temple for Shab-e-Barat

By Abdul Manan

LAHORE: The Sikh community in Lahore have been prevented from observing a religious celebration at a gurdwara, their musical equipment thrown out and their entry barred, after a religious group persuaded the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) that celebrating the Muslim holy day of Shab-e-Barat was more important than the Sikh religious festival.

Police have been deployed outside the temple to prevent the Sikhs from conducting their religious ceremonies until the end of Shab-e-Barat, which falls on July 18 this year. The Sikh community wanted to commemorate an eighteenth-century saint on July 16.

The Gurdwara Shaheed Bhai Taru Singh, in Naulakha Bazaar, Lahore, is built to honour the memory of a Sikh saint who was executed in 1745 on the orders of the Mughal governor of Punjab, Zakaria Khan. Every July, the Sikh community has held religious ceremonies to commemorate his sacrifice in the service of humanity.

While the temple was taken over by the ETPB after Partition, the Sikh community had been allowed to continue using it with relatively few restrictions. …

Read more → THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE

Zero-sum politics

By Shahab Usto

SINDH: KARACHI, a city that is known both for its unending expansion and opportunities and recurrent deaths and desolation, has, in recent days, once again fallen victim to the narrow political interests of its `masters` and `claimants` who refuse to recognise the complexity of the city`s nature. …

Read more → DAWN.COM

Rolling back the tsunami – Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Excerpt;

…. The state, its institutions and luminaries here are complicit in the spread and sustenance of fundamentalism because they were the immediate beneficiaries and without it could not have sustained themselves; it is only now when this tsunami is engulfing them that they are having second thoughts. The fundamentalist ‘brainwashing’ here is societal and if this tsunami of fundamentalism is to be rolled back it has to be tackled on a similar scale. Pebbles of de-radicalisation are not going to stem this tsunami.

The remedy, which may take a generation or more to take effect, is adopting a secular constitution like Bangladesh, curbing the media channels spewing hatred in name of religion, allowing nations the right to self-determination, disempowering the army, shunning ‘strategic depth’ and ‘assets’, ensuring transparency in governance, revamping education curriculum, banning loud speakers and keeping madrassas in check. But I ask the impossible. They simply will not move an iota from their established lucrative position and will readily take down all with them; this tsunami will haunt the world for a long time.

To read complete article → Daily Times

See apartheid in action?

See the apartheid in action? Here it is in the heart of Arabia. Any flotillas, anti-apartheid marches for this victim? Non-white or brown foreign labor in the Middle East aren’t better than slaves. Watch a youth beats a garbage collector who cannot fight back for fear of being deported. Those who criticize the “western” values, can they please explain this sickening, in-humane behavior, racism, hatred, maltreatment, slavery and no respect for human. Where are the human rights values of ummah?

→ WSHH → YouTube

Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath on Defence Expenditure of Pakistan

Courtesy: Geo Tv News (Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath – 15th July 2011 – p1)

via → ZemTV → YouTube

Meray Mutabiq with Hasan Nisar – Review of some history blunders!

Courtesy: Geo Tv (Meray Mutabiq with Hasan Nisar – Review of some history blunders!,17th July 2011)

via → Siasat → YouTube

Aatish Taseer, the son of an assassinated Pakistani leader, explains the history and hysteria behind a deadly relationship

– Why My Father Hated India

By AATISH TASEER

Ten days before he was assassinated in January, my father, Salman Taseer, sent out a tweet about an Indian rocket that had come down over the Bay of Bengal: “Why does India make fools of themselves messing in space technology? Stick 2 bollywood my advice.”

My father was the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, and his tweet, with its taunt at India’s misfortune, would have delighted his many thousands of followers. It fed straight into Pakistan’s unhealthy obsession with India, the country from which it was carved in 1947. …

Read more → THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Israeli weapons are coming in Karachi: Interior Minister Rehman Malik

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said that Israeli weapons are coming into Karachi. He also that foreign elements are involved in the deteriorating situation in the city. …

Read more: → DAWN.COM

– – – – – – –

For more details → BBC urdu

Meat of Dog & Donkey is being sold in Faisalabad, 2 arrested

Dog & Donkey’s Meat Sellers Arrested in Faisalabad

Health department arrested two butchers who were selling the meat of Donkey in Faisalabad.
DCO Naseem Sadiq launched a campaign against unhygienic meat in district due to gastric diseases in Chat 35-RB last week. Doctors told the diseases are increasing due to the sale of donkey and dog meat in district.
15 butchers were arrested in a raids of Health Depart who were selling unhygienic meat or water-fed meat. Two of them are behind the bars who admitted selling donkey meat. They were selling the meat much cheaper then the market rates.
More than 30 people admitted in different hospitals of area for vomiting and gastric symptoms after eating the meat. Lab attendant Mubashar told that people suffered because they were not used to such meat and when the samples of meat tested in lab, results came as the meat of dog or donkeys.
Two suppliers arrested who were supplying the meat of dog and donkey to meat sellers. Raid officers took more than 100 kilograms meat in the custody and destroyed the entire stock.
Livestock district officer Dr. Abdur Rehman told that the patients in Allied hospitals pointed two butchers who had been selling the donkey meat. When we started asking from patients we realized that most of the patients bought the meat from the two meat sellers. Upon investigation it was discovered that they were selling dog and donkey meat.

Courtesy: via → SIASAT.COM : → PakistaniScandals

Sindhi Katchis and Sindhi-Gujrati Memons: Con ‘census’ among the forgotten

Katchis and Gujrati Memons: Con ‘census’ among the forgotten

By GN Mughal

KARACHI: It was almost as if GM Syed – the symbol of Sindhi nationalism – was reborn in Old Karachi, undoubtedly a new phenomenon for a decidedly cosmopolitan city.

Many in the audience felt that what they had seen and heard at the event was a foretaste of a new wave of nationalism, a blend of new and old Sindhis, which would overwhelm the provincial metropolis in the coming days.

The occasion was a seminar on ‘Census and old communities of Karachi’, held at Lohar-wadha Jamaatkhana, Lyari earlier this month.

This event had two unique features. Firstly, a large number of Katchis, Gujrati Memons and people belonging to other local communities of Karachi had gathered on one platform. Secondly, for the first time ever, the entire first-ranking leadership of Sindhi nationalists along with the Pakistan Peoples Party leaders of the area were there as well.

It all started a month ago when the Katchi Rabita Committee (KRC) invited some journalists of Sindhi dailies for a cup of tea at the Jamaatkhana to bitterly express being disowned not only by the Sindhi nationalists but by Sindhis at large, despite the fact that “they were Sindhis and old Karachi’ites”.

They called themselves the “forgotten Sindhis”. The Katchi community also complained that they had been voting for PPP candidates in every election, but after coming to power the PPP government never lifted a finger to pull them out of the bottomless pit into which they had fallen because of the continuous neglect by successive governments.

Sindhis of Katchh, India

Having lost its independence, amalgamated into Gujarat, like mainland Sindh, Kutchis are also facing a demographic and linguistic challenge. After partition in 1947, Kutchis are cut-off from their fellow Sindhis in Sindh but they are trying to hang on to their dialect of Sindhi, culture and traditions.