Drones & Ababeels

Declaring sanity

by Nadeem F. Paracha

In March 2010 animated conspiracy theorist, TV personality and poster-boy for stylised sofa-warming-jihad, Zaid Hamid finally met his nemesis at the Peshawar University.

Hamid, who till then, had been enjoying a virtual free run on certain TV channels and on privately-owned campuses, was chased away by large sections of the audience that turned up to listen to him speak at the state-owned Peshawar University.

As Hamid’s speech began being booed at, Hamid made a quick exit from the premises only to face another crowd of students outside who shouted slogans against him, and pelted his car with stones.

Suddenly a man who was lovingly being courted by TV channels and student bodies and administration of private educational institutions, was angrily courted out by the students of a state-owned university.

Fighting in the Fifth Dimension

Innovations in technology are changing the tactics of modern-day conflict, turning the cyberworld into a new frontline. ….

Read more »  aljazeera

Bangladesh court bans religion in politics

DHAKA (AFP) – Bangladesh’s dozens of political parties must drop Islam from their name and stop using religion when on the campaign trail following a court ruling, the country’s law minister said Monday.

The Supreme Court on Sunday upheld an earlier ruling by the High Court from 2005 throwing out the fifth amendment of the constitution, which had allowed religion-based politics to flourish in the country since the late 1970s.

“All politics based on religion are going to be banned as per the original constitution,” Shafique Ahmed told AFP. The verdict does not affect constitutional amendments that made Islam the Muslim majority nation’s state religion in 1988 and incorporated a Quranic verse in the constitution. …

Read more : The Nation

Let’s look into Barrister Jinnah’s degree too!

by Mohammad Nafees

Quaid was grade five student in 1892. In 1893, he joined Lincoln Inn to start his law study. Within one year’s period, his big jump from fifth grade to the post graduate level studies seems impossible achievement. What makes it further mysterious is that he became a Barrister in 1896 at the age of 19.

A mystery surrounds the educational record of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah that makes one wonder as to how this subject remained un-noticeable or unimportant so far to a large number of writers and researchers who, despite their analytical approach and in-depth study on Quaid’s life, never tried to search this area and bring this puzzle together. Stanley Wolpert is considered as a very authentic biographer of Quaid-e-Azam and his book, Jinnah of Pakistan, has a reputation of a very reliable source on the life of this great leader of the sub-continent. Talking on Quaid’s early education, he quotes a sentence from Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah; “Mamad (Mohammad Ali Jinnah) enrolled in the Sindh Madressa on December 23, 1887.” The website of Sindh Madressah carries this note: “Finally, after about four and a half year of his association with the institution, while studying in Standard V [fifth grade], he left Sindh Madressah on 30th January 1892.”

This statement confirms the authenticity of the enrolment date at Sindh Madressa that Stanley Wolpert used in his book. The mystery begins from this point onward. In January 1893 Quaid-e-Azam left for London and joined Lincoln Inn on June 25, 1893 to start his law study. Within one year’s period, his big jump from fifth grade to the post graduate level studies seems like a very surprising and humanly impossible achievement. What makes it further mysterious is that he successfully completed the examination and became a qualified Barrister on 29 April 1896 at the age of 19 years only. …

Read more : ViewPoint

Bangladesh is secular again

Ruling that Bangladesh is now a secular state, the country’s high court has said that the constitution of 1972 has automatically been restored by a landmark judgment of the apex court that nullified a controversial amendment earlier this year.
“Bangladesh is now a secular state as the Appellate Division (of the Supreme Court) verdict scrapped the Fifth Amendment to the constitution. In this secular state, everybody has religious freedom, and therefore no man, woman or child can be forced to wear religious attires like burqa, cap and dhoti,” a high court bench said on Monday.
Read more : Rediff

Via – Globeistan

Bangladesh Supreme Court bans religion in politics – when will this happen in Pakistan?

Bangladesh SC bans religion in politics

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Supreme Court has reinstated a ban on Islamic political parties in the latest blow to ‘religious hardliners’ in the impoverished South Asian country, a minister said on Thursday.

In a detailed, 184-page verdict released late on Wednesday, the Supreme Court scrapped the bulk of the 1979 fifth amendment, including provisions that had allowed religious political parties to flourish and legalised military rule.

“Secularism will again be the cornerstone of our constitution,” law minister Shafiq Ahmed told AFP on Thursday.

After independence, Bangladesh’s first constitution made secularism a key pillar. Following a 1975 coup, the army-led government amended the constitution’s guiding principle to “faith in Allah” in 1979.

Religious parties, which were banned in the original 1971 constitution but legalised by the 1979 amendments, are now banned again as the above provision has been thrown out, said Ahmed.

“Islamic parties cannot use religion in politics any more,” he said.

In 1988, a second military-led government made Islam the state religion in the Muslim-majority nation.

“But following the scrapping of the fifth amendment, these later amendments can now be challenged in court,” Ahmed said.

In the verdict, which was issued in January but became trapped in an appeals process until Wednesday, the Supreme Court also declared the 1975-1990 military rule illegal, and recommended punishing military dictators, Ahmed said.

“This means that, in theory, any Bangladeshi citizen could initiate a lawsuit against a former military dictator,” he said, adding that the repeal of the amendment would also limit the possibility of a future military coup.

“It is a landmark verdict,” Supreme Court lawyer Shahdeen Malik, who is also dean of law at the private BRAC university told AFP, adding that lawmakers would now have to clarify how the verdict would be applied by law.

Since the Awami League’s landslide election win over the Islamist-allied Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in 2008, the government has cracked down on Islamic groups and parties.

Read more >> The News