Of memogate and precedence – By Waris Husain

As Habib Jalib said, “How can this desert be called a rose garden? How can I write a silver lining of this cloud? We have inherited this grief from the past, how can I write this grief anew?”

Critics argue that the Supreme Court’s decision to continue its probe of Memogate is a replay of past judgments which legitimised the will of the military over the people’s civilian government. Others contend that the will of the people demands that Zardari and his cohorts be punished in any manner for corruption, and the Supreme Court’s decision is one step in that political fight.

Though the Supreme Court judges and the Lawyer’s Movement acted as a political force to remove Musharraf, they should reexamine their roles in the battle for constitutional supremacy today. The Court has a valid interest in applying the rule of law equally to all, including Presidents and former Ambassadors, but they must also recognise the context of that judgment. The law, unlike politics, is powerful only when it follows precedent, and the precedent being set by the court today is quite a dangerous one for the future of civilian-military relations.

The Supreme Court’s order calls for a three judge panel to collect evidence and present findings within one month. In the Order, the Supreme Court stated that it was protecting fundamental rights recognised in Articles 9, 14, and 19A of the Constitution. These articles protect the right to due process, dignity of man, right to information of matters of public importance.

Conduct Unbecoming – Brig (Rtd) F.B Ali

– Brigadier F.B. Ali (Retd.), who fought in the ’71 war, gives his account of the events that resulted in the dismemberment of Pakistan and left behind a legacy of shame. The Supplementary Report of the 1971 War Inquiry Commission (headed by Chief Justice Hamoodur Rahman) has recently been published in the magazine India Today. There is little doubt that this is a genuine document. It is unfortunate that, even though 30 years have passed, the Commission’s report has not been made public in Pakistan, and we are forced to depend on foreign sources to learn of its contents in dribs and drabs.

Dubai on Empty

By A. A. Gill

Excerpt:

…. You look at this place and you realize not a single thing is indigenous, not one of this culture’s goods and chattels originated here. Even the goats have gone. This was a civilization that was bought wholesale. The Gulf is the proof of Carnegie’s warning about wealth: “There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.” Emiratis are born retired. They waft through this city in their white dishdashas and headscarves and their obsessively tapered humorless faces. They’re out of place in their own country. They have imported and built a city, a fortress of extravagance, that excludes themselves. They have become duplicitous, schizophrenic. They don’t allow their own national dress in the clubs and bars that serve alcohol, the restaurants with the hungry girls sipping champagne. So they slip into Western clothes to go out.

The Gulf Arabs have become the minority in this country they wished out of the desert. They are now less than 20 percent of the total population. Among the other 80-plus percent are the white mercenary workers who come here for tax-free salaries to do managerial and entrepreneurial jobs, parasites and sycophants for cash. For them money is a driving principle and validation. They came to be young, single, greedy, and insincere. None of them are very clever. So they live lives that revolve around drink and porn sex and pool parties and barbecues with a lot of hysterical laughing and theme nights, karaoke, and slobbery, regretful coupling. In fact, as in all cases of embarrassing arrested development, these expats on the short-term make don’t expect to put down roots here, have children here, or grow old here. Everyone’s on a visa dependent on a job.

Then there is a third category of people: the drones. The workers. The Asians: Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, and Filipinos. Early in the morning, before the white mercenaries have negotiated their hangovers, long before the Emiratis have shouted at the maid, buses full of hard-hatted Asians pull into building sites. They have the tough, downtrodden look of Communist posters from the 30s—they are both the slaves of capital and the heroes of labor. Asians man the hotels; they run the civil service and the utilities and commercial businesses; they are the clerks and the secretaries, the lawyers, the doctors, the accountants; there isn’t a single facet of this state that would function if they didn’t maintain it. No one with an Emirati passport could change a fuse. Yet, the workers, who make up roughly 71 percent of the population, have precious few rights here. They can’t become citizens, though some are the third generation of their family to be born here. They can be deported at any time. They have no redress. Many of the Asian laborers are owed back pay they aren’t likely to get. There are reams of anecdotal stories about the abuse of guest workers. I’m told about the Pakistani shop assistant who, picking up an Arab woman’s shopping bags, accidentally passed gas, got arrested, and was jailed.

Viva Chile! A great country, heroic people & their fighting spirit. Salute to this great nation & its people

Rescued Chile miners recover, face celebrity status
By Cesar Illiano and Terry Wade
COPIAPO, Chile (Reuters) – Chile’s 33 newly rescued miners recovered from their ordeal on Thursday while also pondering the celebrity status they have gained following a more than two-month entrapment deep under a remote desert.
Read more : YahooNews

Rural Sindh is the most backward area in all of Asia

A New Deal in Pakistan – By William Dalrymple

The province of Sindh in southern Pakistan is a rural region of dusty mudbrick villages, of white-domed blue-tiled Sufi shrines, and of salty desert scrublands broken, quite suddenly, by flood plains of wonderful fecundity. These thin, fertile belts of green—cotton fields, rice paddies, cane breaks, and miles of checkerboard mango orchards—snake along the banks of the Indus River as it meanders its sluggish, silted, café-au-lait way through the plains of Pakistan down to the shores of the Arabian Sea.

Read more >> The New York Review of Books

Umar Marvi

Umar Marvi (Sindhi: عمر ماروي) is a Sindh love story written in Shah Jo Risalo geographically in Sindh. This is another love story which is a history based in Sindh. It is the Identity of Sindh just like Sassi Punnun, Sohni Mehar.

Marvi (Sindhi: ماروي) was a Sindhi Heroine famous for her chastity, patriotism, and simplicity. Marvi found her ideal in Khet, a cousin who lived in a neighbouring village. He was handsome and brave, and he was deeply in love with Marvi. She lived in a village called Malir in Tharparkar desert. She was a beautiful village girl and was engaged to her cousin (Sindhi: کيت) Khet. One day while she was filling water in her pots from a well (which is now called “Marvi’s Well” (Sindhi: ماروي جو کوھ) Marvi jo khooh) to provide water for her goats, was seen by Prince Umar Soomro (Sindhi: عمر سومرو). At the first glimpse, Umar (Sindhi: عمر)was dazzled by her beauty. Umar proposes to marry her and tries to win her over with jewels and gifts, but Marvi refuses as she was deeply devoted to her cousin. Angered by her refusals, Umar becomes so head-over-heels that he abducts her and imprisons her his palace in Umerkot for a whole year, but she remains faithful and longs for her native terrain. Finally, Umar is deeply touched by her dedication and piety and sets Marvi free.

Courtesy: >> Marvi Search

Where do we seek justice for destruction of Indus Delta?

by: Khalid Hashmani, McLean, Virginia

.. Indus Delta Development Program (DDP) has several articles on how Sindh’s delta region is getting destroyed systematically by the greediness of one upper riparian province. The article “The green postures of Indus Delta are turning into desert and lifeless” traces the prosperity of this area from Kalhora rule to the destructive transformation of this area since 1947. During Kalhora era, 170 Million Acre Feet (MAF) of water used to flow into the delta compared to 5-6 MAF that is being allowed now.

An article published in the Daily news on April 10, 2010 says “… Indus delta was dying and at least 35 MAF water flow was required downstream Kotri on permanent basis for its restoration, otherwise the delta would completely vanish and the sea would erode the coastal land”.

WHY THAR NEGLECTED SINCE PARTITION?

by Dr Ali Akbar Dhakan

Please click here to watch Thar desert and the poor conditions of people
Thar means desert, barren and full of sand and mud heaps and mountains. Its history is very old and unaccountable. It starts from Badin at the Western and Southern side from Mirpur Khas at its Northern side, At its eastern side, it is the Indian territory .The last town at the Eastern Southern side is Nangar Parkar.

Rain brings smiles to Thar Desert in Sindh

Rain brings smiles to Thar Desert people after three years of successive drought.

By: Gulab Rai,Islamkot, Thar, Sindh

From the first week of July 09 heavy rains have been falling on the whole of Thar Desert in Sindh province of Pakistan. Soon after the rainfall people have started ploughing their land and sowing seeds of traditional crops of bajra (millet) and guwar (cluster beans) in all the four talukas of Thar.

Sindh – THAR RAIN STORY