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

NATO says captures senior Haqqani commander in Afghanistan

KABUL (Reuters) – NATO-led forces said on Saturday that they had captured the senior commander for the Haqqani network in Afghanistan, Haji Mali Khan, during an operation in eastern Paktia province earlier in the week.

Khan is “the uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani … one of the highest ranking members of the Haqqani network and a revered elder of the Haqqani clan,” the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

NATO said Khan had managed bases and operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and moved forces across the border for attacks, as well as transferring funds and sourcing supplies. The statement called him “the senior Haqqani commander in Afghanistan.”

Khan was captured on Tuesday in Jani Khel district of Paktia province along with his deputy and bodyguard, in an operation by Afghan and foreign forces, NATO said.

He was heavily armed but “submitted … without incident or resistance,” the force said. It did not detail how they had identified Khan.

The Taliban, to whom the Haqqani network have pledged allegiance, denied that Khan had been captured.

“I have just spoken with Haji Mali Khan, he is fine and is somewhere else and hasn’t been detained,” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters. “This is a baseless news and it has been released in order to weaken Mujahideen’s morale,” he said. ….

Read more → Reuters

Pakistan targets cities in North India

by Wichaar

Karachi, July 25 (TruthDive): A report in the media states 25 more nuclear missiles are to be added by Pakistan with a range of 700 -1000 kms to keep parity with India. This means most of the cities and nuclear establishments in North India are vulnerable to attack.

Reproduced below is the media report: If the government successfully achieves its target, this would be the highest number of missiles Pakistan had ever produced in a year. These air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles would be able to hit a target at a distance between 700 to 1,000 kilometers, which would put nearly all major Indian cities within their range.

Sources said the plan was in line with Pakistan’s official policy of having what is rhetorically called ‘maintaining a minimum deterrence’ especially against India. They added that the Strategic Plans Division (SPD) — a high powered body that oversees Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal — was also supervising the production of new missiles.

The SPD works under the National Commands Authority (NCA) that is headed by the prime minister and has all services chiefs as its members. Sources said it was in one of the recent NCA meetings that SPD briefed the authority about the plan that envisaged the production of highest number of missiles ever in a year.

The disclosure comes on the heels of reports earlier in the year that Pakistan was rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal and the number of its warheads might have surpassed France.

Officials in Islamabad have denied those reports but insiders said Pakistan has been ‘watching closely with concern’ India’s increasing nuclear cooperation with the United States and France.“That is the benchmark… if we see something happening in India on this front, naturally we react and we have to,” said another official.

Courtesy: → Wichaar

HEC Not Worth Defending

by Mahmood Adeel

Judging by newspaper headlines and TV talk shows, one might be forgiven for thinking that devolution of the HEC will result in the end of education in the country. What a bunch of non sense. If we take an objective look at the HEC – and the status of education more generally – it is quite clear that the HEC is simply not worth defending.

Attaur Rahman, former chairman of the HEC, writes in The Express Tribune that the central planning by the institution is required to produce graduates needed to build the country’s economy.

The minimum quality requirements and the numbers of engineers, scientists, doctors, economists and social scientists needed for nation-building have to be determined through careful central planning regarding human resource requirements in various sectors. A multiplicity of standards and regulations would be disastrous. That is why the world over, including in India, higher education planning and funding is done centrally, even though universities are located in the provinces.

But the US, which has the world’s highest standard for higher education, does not practice central planning, nor does it set a uniform national curriculum. Actually, quite the opposite. US schools compete with each other by setting their own standards and curricula and, through this competition, raise the quality of education all round.

In fact, an article in The Wall Street Journal looks at the state of higher education in India and concludes that despite praise from Attaur Rahman, the centralized bureaucracy has created graduates ‘unfit’ for good jobs. ….

Read more : New Pakistan

India : General convicted

India army court convicts general over Sukhna land scam

An army court in India has found a senior officer guilty of involvement in an illegal land deal, officials say. Lt Gen PK Rath is the highest ranking serving officer ever to be convicted in a court martial in India. The court found him guilty on three counts but cleared him on four others. Sentencing is due on Sunday. …

Read more : BBC