Poets return highest civil award by Govt. of Pakistan in protest against controversial & apartheid local govt. law in Sindh

Dur Mohd. Pathan

By: Khalid Hashmani

I salute Dr. Dur Mohammad Pathan for returning Tamgha-e-Imtiaz award to express the hurt and disappointment of people of Sindh with the SPLGO 2012. His statement that both PPP and MQM have badly harmed the integrity and solidarity of Sindh is reflective of the feelings of almost all North American Sindhis. Dr. Pathan called SPLGO a “black law” and expressed his dismay at the unprecedented speed of “few minutes” in which this law was passed in Sindh Assembly.

He has called for a round table conference of the leaders of the factions that oppose SPLGO and those who oppose it do a cool assessment of what is at the stake and what the majority of people who live in Sindh really want. He said that he had accepted the award because it recognized his contributions through poetry and literature but now that this government turned out to be “undemocratic”, he finds no joy in keeping this award.

We all know that today many in Sindh feel that they have been conned into putting their complete trust in PPP and for that mistake they will always regret!

– – – – – – — – –

Famous Sindhi Poet Late Mohammad Khan Majeedi’s daughter Marium Majeedi denies to accept Presidential Award from President Zardari due to controversial, Black & apartheid SPLG ordinance 2012, which is going to divide the Integrity of historical land of Sindh in future. The way the notorious SPLG 2012 ordinance was passed in a fraud manner through Sindh Assembly put a big question mark on PPP & MQM credibility as true representatives of the people of Sindh.

More details in Sindhi » Sindh Affairs

Tribute to Comrade Sobho Gianchandani

Sobho Gianchandani is a prominent Sindhi revolutionary who remains a source of inspiration for many generations of Sindhi activists, writers and social reformers. Mr. Gianchandani, known lovingly as Comrade Sobho, has been associated with many political  and campaign groups, including the Indian National Congress and Khudai Khidmatgar and is the founder of many progressive, democratic and nationalist campaigns in Sindh. After the partition, Pakistani authorities pressured him – like millions of other Sindhi Hindus — to leave Sindh and migrate to India, but Sobho refused, and in consequence he was forbidden to travel abroad until 1998. Sobho was imprisoned for more than a year during the British rule, and after the partition, he fell under the wrath of Pakistani establishment and has many jail sentences to his credit, including one in 1971 for opposing military sponsored genocide in Bangladesh. Comrade Sobho and G. M. Syed were close associates and comrades in different aspects of the Sindhi rights movement. The G. M. Syed Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed on Mr. Gianchandani in appreciation of his life-long struggle for emancipation for Sindhis and other oppressed peoples of South Asia and in recognition of his grass-roots efforts to promote tolerance, justice, communal harmony and peace. …..

Read more » ChagataiKhan

-/-/-/-/-/-

More » THE MAN FROM MOEN–JO-DARO – Interview with Comrade Sobho Gianchandani

Coup d’états

By Javed Ahmed Qazi

The other day I heard Chief Justice of Pakistan, saying in his speech to the Bar in Rawalpindi, that Article 6 of the 1973 Constitution is very clear and it is for military coup which is treason against the state and for doer of such act, death sentence is an award of punishment. Eighteenth Amendment brings even more to it: No Court can validate it. …

Read more » Javed Qazi

HEC injustices: The weak PPP govt. has cowed down again on HEC issue

HEC: Story Of Gross Injustices To Smaller Provinces

HEC injustices: Out of the total of 61 scholarships, no scholarship was awarded to any university in Balochistan while only one scholarship was awarded to a student from the University of Karachi, Sindh. 36 scholarships went to Punjab, 19 to Islamabad and 5 to Pakhtoonkhwa.

By Aijaz Ahmed

Islamabad: The country witnessed a high drama in the past few weeks as certain people with vested interests, some pro-establishment media hawks, bureaucrats and few so-called intellectuals created uncalled for hype and misgivings against the government decision to devolve the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan & hand over some of its powers to the provinces according to the 18th Constitutional Amendment. The opposition has cowed down the present government, weak as it is, and it may delay the devolution of a federal agency, which doesn’t have any justification to exist anymore. The education is a provincial subject and all the relevant subjects need to be transferred to the provinces, sooner the better.

Higher Education Commission like all other federal departments and agencies has been widely accused of following policies detrimental to smaller provinces. It is also accused of gross injustices in awarding scholarships and carrying out other projects completely ignoring the smaller provinces.

Read more :  Indus Herald

Two Luminaries Honored for their Contributions to Sindhyat

HOUSTON, TX.- Sindhi luminaries, Naz Sanai (48) of Sann, Sindh and Dr. M. K. Jetley (79) of New Delhi, India, were conferred with the prestigious ‘G. M. Syed Memorial Awards 2010’ in recognition of their contributions to Sindhi identity, language and Sindhi Rights Movement.

These awards were announced during the 107th Birthday Anniversary Commemoration of G M Syed, held January 2011 in Houston, TX. These awards are jointly sponsored by the World Sindhi Congress (WSC) and the G. M. Syed Memorial Committee, a Houston, Texas-based educational group.

Banladesh awards G. M. Sayed for voicing Bangladesh

Sindh – Karachi : Bangladesh’s government has decided to confer Bangladesh National Award to Sindh nationalist leader late G. M. Sayed, late Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizinjo from Balochistan, [the poet of Sindhi language, Late Sheikh Ayaz from Sindh, who strongly opposed the military operation and as a president of Sukkur Bar Association he passed a resolution against the brutal military operation and genocide of Bangalis due to it he put behind the bars. During his imprisonment (May 1971 to January 1972)  in Sukkur Jail, he wrote his “Jail Diary”. He had also  behind the bars from 1965 to 1968 due to his revolutionary poetry in military dictator Ayoub Khan era . In later years it  becomes a piece of Sindhi revolutionary literature.],   Baadshah Khan, Abdus Samad Achakzai, Khair Bakhsh Marri, Ahmad Saleem, Tahira Muzhar, Zafar Malik and Air Marshal (R) Asghar Khan are among the 40 Pakistanis who were chosen for the award.

G. M. Sayed was the first leader in west Pakistan who had dare to strongly condemned and opposed the genocide of Bangladeshis in 1970 by Pakistani security forces during darkest times of dictatorship. The authoritarian authorities of that time decided to give punishment to G. M. Sayed, therefore,  they put G. M. Sayed under house arrest and his house was declared a sub-jail. He had been detained without trial until his death. He was declared “Prisoner of Conscience” by Amnesty International.

G.M. Syed mainly advocated for non-violence, democracy, secularism (Separation of religion from the state), national self-determination, unity among all south Asian nations and states, social and economic equality for all. Long live the struggle of Saeen G. M. Syed for the religious harmony, unity among all south Asian nations and states towards universal peace.

Now Bangladesh selected G.M. Sayed and several other individuals from various countries to award them with its highest civilian decoration.‎

– – – – – – – –

For more details : Examiner.com

TRICK WITH PEOPLE OF SINDH IN NFC AWARD

Dr Ali Akbar M. Dhakan, Karachi, Sindh

In order to foster national unity and stabilize the democratic system of government in Pakistan, a great and plausible decision was agreed upon on 30th December 2009 at Gawadar by the representatives of all provinces duly signed by the Prime Minister on the 7th NFC award but it is indecent and shocking on the part of the concerned Secretary Ministry of Finance Govt. of Pakistan who became successful to dodge his superiors and the top rulers of the Government of Pakistan, the Prime Minister and the President of Pakistan to get issued a deceitful, violated and defective presidential order on the mutually agreed 7th NFC Award. From this Presidential order, two basic sections/decisions providing financial benefits particularly to the Sindh province have been scratched out. They were (i)General Sales Taxes on services to be transferred to provinces and (ii)Financial resources to be distributed to provinces according to the multidimensional method of distribution of financial resources.