SINDH DELEGATION to attend Alternative World Water Forum in Marseille, France

World Sindhi Institute organizes SINDH DELEGATION to attend Alternative World Water Forum in Marseille France

Two of Sindh’s premier Water Experts on Rivers and Dams and renowned scholar activists Mr Naseer Memon and Mr Abrar Kazi to attend and speak at Forum Alternatif Mondiale de l’Eau “FAME” taking place in Marseille France on 16th March 2012

They will present the Case of Sindh and how the mega dams of Mangla, Tarbela and as well other structures on the Indus have devastated lowest riparian Sindh’s economy; In spite of this new dams are still being planned without Sindh’s permission.

http://www.fame2012.org/en/tag/marseille/

Dr. Geeta Chainani to join panel at congressional briefing

– Dr. Geeta Chainani, Dr. Haider K. Nizamani, Dr. Louis Flam, Dr. Gul Agha to join panel at congressional briefing Hosted by the Sindhi American Political Action Committee in conjunction with the Congressional Sindh Caucus. Date/Time: October 13, 2:00p.m. – 4:00p.m. Place: Capitol, room HC-5.

Beginning in August, the monsoon season hit Pakistan and has come to devastate the province of Sindh. With over 5 million people affected, including 2 million homeless and hundreds dead, the people of Sindh remain in a precarious situation. With little aid and relief, the Sindhi people are suffering from diseases, loss of livelihood, and nowhere to go.Join us to learn more about the Sindh, who the people are, and most importantly, how the Sindh region plays a crucial part in the United States’ relationship with Pakistan and its security.

BBC – Pakistan is ‘failing’ the flood victims of Sindh

– Is Pakistan ‘failing’ the people hit by the floods?

By Aleem Maqbool

Pakistan’s most needy are being left to fend for themselves after flooding devastated much of southern Sindh province.

It is astonishing and depressing that this is all happening again. Only this time, for the people of southern Pakistan, things appear even worse.

In travelling the vast flood-hit areas as we have been doing, what is striking this year, as compared to last, is the massive number of people who tell us they have had no help at all – not from aid agencies, not from the army and not from the government of Pakistan. ….

Read more → BBC

Rain (flood) devastation in Sindh

→ YouTube

Devastation in Sindh and the Role of the Media: A Journalist’s Anguish

– by Aijaz Ahmed

… The media houses either from Karachi, Lahore or elsewhere, rushed whenever a calamity hits the catchment area of the Establishment i.e certain part of KPK, Kashmir or Punjab, but unfortunately when 70% of Sindh is devastated or destroyed nobody bothered because these poor Sindhis don’t matter in decision making, and additionally negative campaign is started to stop the international help without which the loss can not be recovered. …

Read more → Indus Herald

LEFT BANK OUTFALL DRAIN CARRYING TOXIC EFFLUENCE FROM PUNJAB TO SINDH – a massive wave of 20,000 cusecs of drain water is approaching

– Evacuation ordered as new breaches in dykes add to woes

By Hashim Bhurgari, Qamaruddin and Iqbal Khwaja

SINDH – BADIN / MIRPURKHAS / THATTA: The Badin administration issued a warning to people of 12 union councils to vacate their homes and water gushing from breaches in canals and drains entered Mirpurkhas town and several villages in Thatta on Sunday as there appeared no end in sight to devastation caused by heaviest ever rainfall in the province’s history.

In Badin, unhindered upstream water flow continued to increase pressure on the embankments of the overtopping Left Bank Outfall Drain, forcing the administration to issue a warning to the people of 12 union councils, including Shadi Large, Khoski, Pangrio and Malkani Sharif towns, for evacuation. The warning was given after Saturday midnight through loudspeakers.

Thousands of marooned families along the LBOD and Doro Puran faced an acute shortage of food, drinking water and medicines.

According to unofficial reports, more than 30 people have died in the area, because of outbreak of gastroenteritis and other diseases.

A large number of villagers erected tents along roads and on dunes and many others are living in open areas. …

Read more → DAWN.COM

Rain disaster in Sindh – Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC

– by SAPAC

Press release – We are sure that most all of you are aware of the recent disastrous flooding that has devastated much of Sindh. We have gathered some information from several resources to help educate you and other members of our community about this catastrophe. Listed below are some informative and unsettling facts about the tragedy so you may get a better sense of what is taking place in Sindh:

· Sixteen of the 23 districts in Sindh have been severely affected by flooding

· Over 4 million acres of land are underwater, including 1.7 million acres of standing crops that have been destroyed and it is estimated that between 8,000 and 100,000 cattle have been killed or are greatly at risk

· More than 5 million people have been displaced or directly affected by flood waters

· 144,000 people have been relocated to 1,800 relief camps located in Sindh

· The Pakistani government reports 126 deaths as a result of flooding and flood-related illness, particularly disease spread by fast-increasing mosquito populations

· In nearly all affected areas, clean water supplies have been contaminated by flood waters leading to a rise in waterborne illnesses such as diarrhea

· Roughly 120,000 pregnant women have been directly affected

· Just under 700,000 homes have been either severely damaged or completely destroyed

· Several towns have been completely swept away, leaving little evidence that they ever existed

· Roads, bridges and other types of infrastructure have been completely destroyed or swept away in many areas, leaving those areas with no electricity, communication or transportation

· Many people whose homes have been damaged are living in tents on roadways.

· No formal plan has announced to provide those living in tents with food or shelter in the near future

· Hundreds of thousands of people without tents are living in knee-deep water inside their homes

· Little effort was made before the floods hit to prepare relief efforts. Additionally, there has been little support for relief at the national or district levels, leaving it up to ill-equipped and underfunded local governments

· Few measures were taken following last year’s floods to prevent future catastrophes, further increasing the impact of flooding this year

· In addition to those affected by this year’s flooding, many victims of the 2010 floods still live in relief camps or depend on relief supplies

· Some officials say that this year’s floods are far worse than last year’s in terms of deaths and long-term socio-economic problems

· Little attempt has been made by the Pakistani government to seek help from international relief organizations

· The price of basic supplies and food items has skyrocketed since flooding began as a result of their scarcity

· Bread and other food items are becoming scarce. Trucks make deliveries of flour to the worst-affected areas, often leading to fights between the local population

· Police, in some instances, have resorted to using batons to disperse crowds attempting to loot from trucks bringing relief supplies to affected areas

Dr. Geet: Yankee doctor, speaking Sindhi, in the flood zone of Sindh

– Dr. Geet: Yankee doc, speaking Sindhi, in the flood zone

SINDH : KARACHI — Dr. Geet Chainani is the young American dream I hadn’t counted on meeting in Pakistan this summer. She’s a Yank born in India, raised in New York City, trained as a medical doctor in the Caribbean. And for most of a year now she’s been treating families, especially children, in the tent cities of the flood waters of the Indus River, upstream from Karachi. When we met, almost by chance, my first thought was: this is an American vision to be shared — of the trans-nation at its best, at home in the world, our useful hands-on gifts being shared, as if it came naturally.

Geet Chainani grew up on Staten Island with a grandmother who told her “we were Sindhis first.” Meaning: master the Sindhi language early; think of yourself as a child of the world’s first big-city culture, at Mohenjo-daro, from 2600 B.C. Her grandparents were part of the vast Hindu migration out of Sindh to India in 1947, at the partition that created Pakistan. But Sindh was where Geet came looking for her roots a year ago — for the tombs of the Sufi saints and the world’s oldest plumbing. The first big shock was Pakistan’s devastation by immersion. The second, when she pitched herself into the emergency, was discovering, with mothers in distress, that knowing their language was as valuable as her medical training.

All that in a woman who sounds to us, as I said, so New York. “I am very New York!” she laughed. “Being American is the ground for the work I do — the fundamental belief that all men are created equal. In the Preamble, you know… People say to me now: so you picked Sindh, and you’re saving these people. I’m, like: No. It [SINDH] picked me. And they’re saving me.”

Courtesy: → RadioOpenSource

The above news adopted from Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, August 24, 2011.

Searching for an alternative – By Lal Khan

– The theory of reconciliation that was devised in connivance with imperialism was to amicably divide the loot and plunder between the different warring sections of the ruling classes who had bought their way up in the structures of the so-called political parties

The mayhem and human slaughter that has been prevalent in Karachi for more than three decades intensifies periodically. Another wave of this dreadful violence has been unleashed in recent weeks. However, this gruesome spate of killings and devastation is not the cause but a symptom of the severely diseased social and economic system the harrowing crisis of which are now nudging society into the throes of barbarism. Those at the helm of the political pyramid of this system and the echelons of power seem to be clueless to put an end to this violence and forge a lasting peace. Or perhaps the political and the state structures are themselves embroiled in this mayhem and the conflicts that are exploding are the clash of different sections of finance capital representing their vested interests in the different belligerent factions of the political and state institutions. …

Read more → Daily Times

Poorest of Poor

Drowning humanitarian aid – by Christopher Stokes
Barely hidden beneath the surface of Pakistan’s worst flooding in living memory were the geopolitical stakes shaping both the justifications for official Western assistance and how aid was delivered to victims of the disaster. The perverse result may be a further restricting of the ability of humanitarian aid workers to assist the Pakistani population in the most volatile areas of the country.  ….
…..  The people I saw in the camps in the flood-devastated region of Sindh last week are the poorest of the poor. They had very little and lost everything. Their children are now filling our malnutrition treatment centers. They deserve to be helped ….
To read full article : ForeignPolicy

Pleasant feelings of fishing community are waning

by Jamil Junejo, Karachi, Sindh

Recent River flood brought good feelings for fishing community in Sindh. Because It recharged various dried lakes and brought fish seeds into them. Such feelings of fishermen are waning because of returning process of seeds from lakes through inlets of river due to non availability of nets which could be installed against inlets inorder to stop return of fish seed. Same are gloomy feelings of fishing community of Ageemanai Kori village situated on bank of Ageemani Kori Lake in Thatto.

Al-Qaeda asks Pakistanis to revolt against PPP govt

Al-Qaeda asks Pakistanis to revolt against their govt

Cairo: Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri has asked Pakistanis to revolt against their “corrupt” government for its “failure” to provide succour to countrymen devastated by worst-ever floods. …

Read more >> MSN

Rich landowners and crocodile politicians made breeches to save their lands and sank millions of common people in flood waters

The language of discussion urdu/ Hindi

Courtesy: ARY News – Off the record

Via >> ZemTV

>> Link

Villagers say landowners breached levees to save their own property

Pakistani villagers say landowners breached levees to save their own property

Several canal walls were breached during last month’s floods, and accusations are mounting that the ruptures were deliberate. But an irrigation chief says the surging Indus [River Sindh] alone is to blame. …

Read more >> Los Angeles Times

Sindhi Association of New Jersey – Sindh Flood Relief Fundraiser

Sindh Flood Relief Fundraiser- September 9 from 6PM to 9PM

Sindhi Association of New Jersey (SANJ) has teamed up & actively supports Hemant’s Initiative for SINDH FLOOD RELIEF. Take the little effort to attend the event evening.

An awareness/fund raising event will be held for Sindh relief victims – featuring jazz singer Sachal Vasandani, Nita Chawla, and global environmental/solar energy band Solarpunch.org. All three have given their time and talent generously pro bono, and they all believe in the unity of this collective community and in the betterment of humanity – they are truly a blessing to us in our community as many of you will see on on Thursday September 9 from 6PM to 9PM, Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center, 85 Hamilton Street (corner of Hamilton and NJ Railroad Avenue), Newark, NJ.

Strength is in numbers. It is not so much about the donation, but what we can create with that collective energy. If you live away from NJ/NY/CT, we encourage you to organise local fundraisers. Let us know and we will guide you on this. A GLOBAL SINDHI FUND for SINDH FLOOD RELIEF PROJECTS is also in the works.

Pakistan – No sign of a rainbow

Banyan

No sign of a rainbow

Badly governed and short of the foreign help it needs, Pakistan’s people deserve a new covenant

….. Even the optimistic case for Pakistan’s survival is downbeat. It has long been “the most dangerous place on earth”, on the brink of some apocalypse. Yet it is more resilient than it looks. “This is Pakistan’s fifth last chance,” quips a government minister. Or, in the words of Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to America: “We’ll muddle through again.” Even if he is right, as Banyan hopes and believes, it is not just a question of limping through the next few weeks until the monsoon ends. The floods have washed away food and cash crops in the country’s agricultural heartland of southern Punjab. Livestock in the tens of thousands has been lost. Irrigation canals, roads, bridges and electricity networks have been damaged. The economic hardship will help provide recruits for terrorist outfits. Even if it survives without a political or social upheaval, Pakistan is going to worry its neighbours and the outside world for another generation.

To read full article >> The Economist

Pakistanis outraged at landowners suspected of diverting floodwaters to save property

Associated Press – SUKKUR, Pakistan (AP) — As the disastrous floods recede in Pakistan, something new is rising: suspicions and rumors that powerful officials and landowners used their influence to divert water away from their property and inundate the villages and fields of millions of poor Pakistanis. …

Read more >> FOX NEWS

THANK YOU USA

U.S. provides additional flood assistance in Sindh

ISLAMABAD (Sept. 2, 2010) – The U.S. is providing nearly $2 million to a local partner to address the emergency needs of flood-displaced residents in Ghotki, Khairpur, and Thatta districts in Sindh. …

Read more >> CENTCOM

“Rain made add up to the sufferings of the Bagri community”

by Jamil Hussain Junejo, Bin Qasim Town, Karachi

Such grave devastation through flood did not suffice desires of the nature. Probably, nature wants more.Therfore; it brought rain couple with medium level wind in District Thatta and Badin apart from other regions of Sindh on Wednesday. Most of the affectees staying under open sky and into fragile tents suffered a lot. The community which seemingly suffered more was Bagri community which was tentless because they were neglected by district authorities which like various sections of society consider them untouchables.” Nature did not discriminate in affecting the people but people discriminate in relief services” complained Bhooran, 32 years old mother of four children residing under open skey near society chock at Makli city of district Thatta.

“Life doesn’t belong only to man”

by Jamil Hussain Junejo, Bin Qasim Town, Karachi

The society where man has to strive hard for the attainment of its basic rights, there people don’t even think of the rights of the animals. If in normal situation, animals are deprived of their rights, then it is very hard of think of the lives of the animals in any disaster.

At the time of inundation of Tando Hafiz town, Distrcit Thatta panic gripped the people who rushed to save their lives. But a local resident Khameeso Mallah preferred to save his dogs, while leaving his abode. In his understanding people would be rescued by boats standing there and nobody will come to rescue animals. It might be surprising for neighbourers that how he was taking risk of his live, saving dogs, but he did. He saved all the four dogs.

Devastating Pakistan floods finally heading to sea

By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer

KARACHI, Pakistan – Floodwaters that have devastated Pakistan for five weeks headed to the Arabian Sea on Tuesday after swallowing two final towns, but the challenges of delivering emergency aid to 8 million people remained.

The floods have moved down from the mountainous northwest, submerging or affecting almost one-fifth of the country at their peak. Waters have begun to recede in the north and in the eastern province of Punjab, but they have been submerging towns in southern Sindh province close to the Indus River over the last 10 days.

The scale of the disaster has raised concerns about the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan, which is already reeling from al-Qaida and Taliban violence and massive economic woes.

Read more >> YahooNews

Flood devastation and fixing of responsibility

by Altaf Hussain, Hyderabad, Sindh

The deluge that brought immeasurable agony and destruction in the country was not unanticipated as China weather department had given forewarning of harsh monsoon months before the rains started. Whereas Sindh was even aware precisely about the magnitude of impending super floods as torrents which destroyed much of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and inundated southern Punjab was ultimately destined to discharge in Arabian Sea through river Indus.

Thus the super flood ultimately hit with full ferocity the fragile dykes of Sindh and inundated almost 1/3 of the province was not a surprise. Almost most of its northern districts have been submerged into flood waters leaving millions of people shelter less. Their only livelihood the standing crop and livestock has vanished. Once living contended in their huts and small houses since centuries these people are now nomads in their own homeland; malnourished sick and with no future in sight.

Now question arise as to who is responsible for the agony of millions of people? Although floods of high magnitude have pass through Indus system almost once in a decade but the scale of present destruction is unheard of in the history of floods. The reasons are obvious. Not only upkeep of protective Bunds was completely ignored and left to builders mafias to dig its gravel for construction, especially near big towns but the reverine forests existed on both sides of riverbed and used to protect the dykes were mercilessly slaughtered and virgin lands were allotted to influential people. They created there own dukes to protect their crops; one of the major cause of damaging the protective Bunds.

Obviously the maintenance and upkeep of Bunds is the sole responsibility of Provincial Irrigation Department. For which millions of rupees are allocated in the budget every year. The Irrigation Department not only failed to maintain the protective Bunds but when the crises unfolded abandoned its responsibility handing over maintenance to Pak Army. Now the senior irrigation people apart from justifying their failure sheepishly in talk shows are almost non existent on the sites.

The handing over safety of Bunds to Army at eleventh hour could not save millions of people from total ruin and obviously will not absolve Irrigation department from the destruction wrought by the river even in settled/pacca areas. This is clear cut case of dereliction on the part of irrigation department requiring independent judicial commission to fix guilt and take to task those howsoever powerful they may be who are found responsible.

The present regime, which claims to have roots in the masses, has to take immediate action against the culprits for whose negligence entire Sindh has suffered incalculable destruction.

August 29, 2010

Karachi is the capital of Sindh, we welcome the flood effected homeless Sindhis into Karachi – Shai Syed of ANP

Courtesy: Dunya TV,

Via >> ZemTV

>> Link

Sindh – Evacuation of 4 million people from Thatto district while flood water is gushing into the area

Sijawal -Thatta : Nusrat Javed and Mustaq Minhaas, the reporters of Dunya TV are reporting that there is a breach in embankment of river near Sijawal and Bbano at Bbalo point in Thatto district and flood water is gushing into area from mighty Indus river (Sindhu river).  Approximately, 2 to 4 million people are rushing from the area towards higher grounds. Evacuation of citizens are continue….

Courtesy: Dunya TV

Via >> Zem TV

>> Link

Pakistan > Watch the force of flood

Courtesy: GEO TV

Via >> ZemTV

>> Link

Sindh – The floods have brought us together

Devastation in Sindh

Floods and relief efforts

by Dr Javaid Laghari

I would also like to credit MQM efforts in Karachi that they too have contributed a lot to collect goods and sent them to upper Sindh. The bunds at Hyderabad owe a lot to the efforts of over 1000 of their workers (of course in addition to the large sindhi population, which goes without saying) to strengthen them despite over 900,000 cusecs flowing since last 2 days.

The recent floods have been the worst natural catastrophe to hit Pakistan in recent history. It is estimated that over 1500 have lost their lives, with over 20 million directly affected by the floods. Millions of acres of agriculture land, livestock and cattle, roads, bridges, property, and personal goods have been lost or destroyed. The loss is estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

Why Doesn’t the World Care About Flood victims? Because they live in Pakistan.

Why Doesn’t the World Care About Pakistanis?

Because they live in Pakistan.

BY MOSHARRAF ZAIDI

The United Nations has characterized the destruction caused by the floods in Pakistan as greater than the damage from the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake combined. Yet nearly three weeks since the floods began, aid is trickling in slowly and reluctantly to the United Nations, NGOs, and the Pakistani government.

After the Haiti earthquake, about 3.1 million Americans using mobile phones donated $10 each to the Red Cross, raising about $31 million. A similar campaign to raise contributions for Pakistan produced only about $10,000. The amount of funding donated per person affected by the 2004 tsunami was $1249.80, and for the 2010 Haiti earthquake, $1087.33. Even for the Pakistan earthquake of 2005, funding per affected person was $388.33. Thus far, for those affected by the 2010 floods, it is $16.36 per person.

Read more >> ForeignPolicy

Efforts by Sindhi Americans Influence USAID Flood Assistance to Provinces

by Khalid Hashmani, McLean, Virginia, USA
Finally, the USAID authorities have accepted the long-standing demand of Sindhi-Americans to monitor fairness and equitability in the distribution of aid for flood victims in Pakistan and ensure that the aid reaches all provinces and is not controlled by the highly centralized federal government of Pakistan. The report gives a breakdown identifying several items by each province.
However, much more advocacy activities have to be undertaken by Sindhi-Americans for even the USAID report does not include province-by-province breakdown of large amounts and simply says “Affected Areas”.
To learn more about USAID, go to http://www.usaid.gov
USAID: http://www.usaid.gov/pakistanflooding/
The Center for International Disaster Information: http://www.cidi.org
Information on relief activities of the humanitarian community can be found at http://www.reliefweb.int

FLOOD OF MISERY – by ex CIA Chief Islamabad

The soul of the ‘Land of the Pure’

By Robert Grenier

It is the sheer scale of the devastation that leaves one speechless. As one surveys the overhead photos of vast lowland plains inundated with swirling brown water or stares at the upland images of mighty torrents washing away roads, bridges, entire villages, it is the utter scope of the disaster which almost defies comprehension, which far outstrips the power of words to convey.

Only the flint-hearted could be left unmoved by this. The heart aches for Pakistan.

But it is only in the photos of the people that one begins to grasp the full dimension of what is happening and, through that prism, to gain a glimpse into the soul of the Land of the Pure.

Endurance

One hears the stories of building frustration, of bitter complaints against a government so often indifferent in the best of times, and simply unequal to the challenge in these, the worst of times.

But this is not what I see in the photographs, in the images of entire families clinging to trucks to gain higher ground, of people stranded on roof-tops or on the raised strips of highways, of those isolated and forlorn, reaching for a bottle of clean water or a packet of sodden food dropped from a helicopter.

In these images one looks in vain for signs of hysteria, or for righteous indignation. What one sees instead is what one always sees in Pakistanis – endurance: Simple, often noble, endurance.

I have lived some years among Pakistanis. I cannot claim to have done them much good. Instead, my preoccupations have been those which animate the game of nations. I have served a great power which hunts its enemies, pursues its interests, and tries to meet what it sees as its responsibilities in distant places, far from home. I make no apology for this; neither do I expect great credit.

But one cannot travel among the Pakistanis, as I have been privileged to do, without developing a great admiration for their decency and their dignity….

Read more >> Aljazeera

Robert Grenier was the CIA’s chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002. He was also the director of the CIA’s counter-terrorism centre.

Pakistan, flood and anarchy

Talk show in urdu/ Hindi

Courtesy: ARY News,  Via>> ZemTv

>> Link