Why We Need To Stop Telling Women They’re Equal To Men

By Amee Misra

The biggest disservice we do to women is telling them that they are equal to men. We fail to prepare them for their reality and, by doing so, we set them up for a lifetime of struggle, disappointment and misery.

Men and women are not equal — they are different. Like apples and oranges. We’re all fruits, yes, and only one of us will make a decent apple pie.

This whole bringing-up-your-daughters-the-way-you’d-bring-up-your-sons business is nonsense. When did we decide that there is an ideal human being prototype and it’s male? Why is no one bringing up their sons like they’d bring up their daughters?

Many women of my generation were “brought up like sons”. We went to the best schools and colleges our parents could afford. Ambition was not just encouraged but insisted upon. We were asked to dream and we dreamt big. We were told we could do anything a man can and for the longest time we believed that. We got good grades, we made it to big jobs and did well. We married men we chose and they “allowed” us wings our mothers couldn’t have dreamt of in their marriages.

And then we had babies.

Having a child is the single-more gender-defining thing a woman can do — and cute as they may be, babies take every notion you may have had of man-woman equality and smack you in the face with it till it’s all but beaten out of you and you’re the exact same bag of motherhood hormones as countless women before you have been. Except now it’s a lot worse.

Children have no idea that they are now being born in the 21st century and should treat their mothers differently. Having a child continues to be the same amount of work: childbirth continues to be a bitch and a mother’s biological impulses drawing her to her child remain as strong as nature intended them to be. But our expectations from women are very different now. They are supposed to be men.

They are expected to be men, but they can’t stop being women. As a result, the most competent, educated, financially independent Indian woman today is terribly ill-equipped to handle her reality.

A lot of jokes about women centre on them being moody, irrational and not knowing what they want. This isn’t actually funny — we honestly don’t know what we want.

Nature intended us to want near-constant physical proximity to our children and gave us a fierce instinct to protect and nurture. Capitalism and its definitions of success need us to regularly show up at work and lean bloody in. Our parents told us we could be their “sons” but will be the first to raise an alarm if we neglect our homes and children and stopped being “daughters”. We are always, always torn.

We can fight it all we want, but we are not winning an argument against biology.

Where is the recognition of the importance of the nurturing role a mother plays in a home? Why do we treat mothers as replaceable in a child’s life by a supportive father or an efficient childcare system? This is not a “gendered” argument as some of my feminist friends might say — the way my son’s cries affect me is not the same as they would affect his father. And I am willing to go to war with you on this.

Read more » The Huffington Post
See more » http://www.huffingtonpost.in/amee-misra-/the-biggest-disservice-we_b_7963972.html

Blasphemy: Mob burns man alive

Blasphemy: Mob burns man alive for burning Holy Quran

By Kashif Zafar

BAHAWALPUR: An angry mob lynched a man accused of burning the Holy Quran in the Chanighot area of Bahawalpur, burning him to death after pouring petrol on him on Wednesday.

The police reached the spot to control the matter but the mob refused to hand over the accused and continued to torture him.

An Open Letter to Prime Minister of India to Demand for DD SINDHI channel – From Sindhis of India

By Dilip Tekchandani, India

Please write a post card to the Prime Minister of India to demand for the DD SINDHI channel, the text for the letter is given below;

Dr. Man Mohan Singh,

Honorable Prime Minister of India

South Block, Raisina Hill, New Delhi, 11 00 01

Dear Sir, I am a SINDHI speaking Citizen of India. We sacrificed our motherland SINDH for the Independence of India.

Help us to preserve our Language, Culture & Identity through TV. Give us 24 Hours DD SINDHI channel to preserve our Identity.

Thank you

Sindhi Citizens of India

A country for bigotry

Land of bigots

By Tazeen Javed

It has been a year since Shahbaz Bhatti passed away. No, strike that, he did not pass away; his life was brutally cut short when he was murdered. Everyone from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan have been suspected with his murder, either by the police officials, or by the home ministry, yet no decent progress has been made.

In a way, it all makes sense, since only certain kinds of angry groups of men, who bay for blood and destruction, seem to carry any weight around here. Bhatti was NOT that kind of a man. He believed in fighting for rights the democratic way and had planned to introduce legislation that would ban hate speech and hate literature against all. He was campaigning for official holidays for minorities’ religious festivals and wanted the blasphemy law to be repealed which turned out to be a crime worthy of death.

Bhatti’s death is not a lone incidence of brutal violence. Planned acts of aggression and cruelty against minorities — whether ethnic, religious, sectarian or communal — is becoming a norm in the ‘Land of the Pure’. Intolerance has reached such levels that people with names that revealed their sectarian or religious beliefs are afraid to use them when they feel unsafe. Slain journalist, Mukarram Khan Atif narrated one such incident, which depicted the extent of narrow-mindedness and fanaticism in the country. He and another reporter were travelling south from Mohmand Agency through Khyber Agency and one of them had to use a name that would make him pass off as a member of the majority sect.

The minority communities — no matter who they are and where they are living — are constantly under threat. We have cases of forced conversions of Hindu girls, mostly minors in Sindh who are forcefully abducted and married to Muslim men and then presented to the court as religious converts. According to a treasury member of the Sindh Assembly, around 20 to 25 forced conversions take place every month in the province.

Acts of mob violence against Ahmadis seem to be rising at an alarming rate. The situation is such that any Ahmadi family is at risk of being threatened with the blasphemy law. Their places of worship are gunned and/or ransacked and the law-enforcement community and the state does nothing and silently looks on.

The perpetrators of the Gojra incident, where a whole Christian colony was burnt down, still roam free and the Hazaras in Balochistan are regularly targeted for their sectarian and ethnic identity. Also, nothing is done to check the dissemination of hate literature, some of which can be found even in mainstream bookstores. Last week’s tragic shooting of passengers travelling on a bus to Gilgit on the Karakoram Highway, where people were asked to show their CNICs and then taken off and killed — all of them were Shia — shows that we have reached an even higher level of prejudice and bigotry.

It would not be wrong to say that intolerance rules our society and no one is safe here in this country other than the men who perpetuate bias, bigotry and hatred?

Courtesy: The Express Tribune, March 3rd, 2012.

Pakistani Man Executed in China Still Lives In His Mother’s Dreams

By Tasneem Fatima

Excerpt;

… Rafia Bibi, 70, is an unlucky Pakistani woman, who lost her son in China, after the Chinese Supreme Court sentenced him to death. Besides other human wishes, seeing loved ones before their death is one of the most important desires of every person, but Rafia was one of those mothers who could not see her son, when he was passing through the final stages of his life.

“In my mind, my son is still in front of me, and he will remain alive in my dreams,” said Rafia, with tears in her eyes.

Rafia’s son, Syed Zahid Hussain, was a 30-year-old resident of Haripur, Pakistan. He had a business importing and exporting jewellery in Thailand, and visited China in connection with a business deal. Narrating the fateful story, which has ruined the lives of Zahid,s family members ….

Read more » News Blaze

Pakistani TV reporter confronts a Mullah accused of raping a 6-year old girl

Courtesy: DAWN TV (KAB TAK) » YouTube

How a Paris Mosque Sheltered Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust

– Heroic Tale of Holocaust, With a Twist

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

PARIS — The stories of the Holocaust have been documented, distorted, clarified and filtered through memory. Yet new stories keep coming, occasionally altering the grand, incomplete mosaic of Holocaust history.

One of them, dramatized in a French film released here last week, focuses on an unlikely savior of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France: the rector of a Paris mosque.

Muslims, it seems, rescued Jews from the Nazis.

“Les Hommes Libres” (“Free Men”) is a tale of courage not found in French textbooks. According to the story, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the founder and rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, provided refuge and certificates of Muslim identity to a small number of Jews to allow them to evade arrest and deportation.

It was simpler than it sounds. In the early 1940s France was home to a large population of North Africans, including thousands of Sephardic Jews. The Jews spoke Arabic and shared many of the same traditions and everyday habits as the Arabs. Neither Muslims nor Jews ate pork. Both Muslim and Jewish men were circumcised. Muslim and Jewish names were often similar.

The mosque, a tiled, walled fortress the size of a city block on the Left Bank, served as a place to pray, certainly, but also as an oasis of calm where visitors were fed and clothed and could bathe, and where they could talk freely and rest in the garden. …

Read more → The New York Times

Honour killings: Man guns down six daughters

Faisalabad: A man gunned down six of his daughters on suspicion that two of them were in relationships with boys in the neighbourhood.

On Tuesday morning, Arif Mubashir called his teenage daughters to his room and shot them while the rest of the family, including their mother, watched. His wife Musarrat called the police after the incident.

Mubashir shot the girls after their brother said two of them were in a relationship. He told police officials that he had killed his daughters because they were both “without honour”. The man said his daughters Sameena, 14, and Razia, 16, were in a relationship with college boys from the neighbourhood and the sisters had helped each other. “I should have been told immediately but the girls sided with each other. They were both corrupt,” Mubashir told Tandlianwala Police Inspector Javed Sial.

Police officials have taken Mubashir into custody and filed a case against him. “He does not regret what he did. He boasted that he would do it all over again if he had to,” Sial told reporters.

Pakistan has repeatedly been termed as one of the least women-friendly countries. In June, the Thompson Reuters Foundation ranked Pakistan as the world’s third most dangerous country for women.

Courtesy: → The Express Tribune

Discussion on political system of Pakistan

The language of the discussion is urdu (Hindi).

Courtesy: → ARY News Tv (Pakistan Tonight with Fahad Hussain and Maliha Lodhi, 21st July 2011 -3)

Via → Siasat.pk → YouTube

Man robs bank for $1

By Gaby Leslie

A video has surfaced of an American man admitting how he robbed a bank for $1 (60p) so he could go to jail and receive free medical treatment.

James Verone, of Gastonia, North Carolina, was so desperate to get help for a bad back, foot and growths on his chest that he made the calculated decision to stage the unusual robbery.

The unemployed 59-year-old, who cannot afford health insurance, told a reporter how he walked up to the cashier and handed a bizarre note demanding just one dollar from her.

The note also said he was armed, but in fact he wasn’t. The suffering man then said that he purposely sat on the couch in the RBC bank to wait for the police to arrest him.

Read more: Yahoo News

Letter from Karachi, the capital city of Sindh

Letter from Karachi – by Jason Burke

Excerpt:

A new Pakistani everyman—Mehran man—is increasingly defining the country’s identity

…. Given the dysfunctional nature of Pakistani democracy, we cannot ignore Mehran man. Apart from anything else, the army is full of Mehran men. During a week I spent with the Pakistani army, the heritage of Sandhurst seemed largely restricted to the whitewashed stones aligned outside segregated messes for senior officers, junior officers, non-commissioned officers and other ranks. The links to America are more material—helicopters, jeeps and ammunition—but no more profound. Conversations with officers reveals that their understanding of Pakistan’s best interests differs radically from that which London or Washington would like them to have. As for the other pillar of non-elected power in Pakistan, a lot of bureaucrats drive Mehrans too, or at least did before being promoted.

All this poses problems for the west. Our policy towards Pakistan has long been based on finding the interlocutor who resembles us the most—Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, now her widower—and then trying to persuade them to fit in with our agenda. But the people we are talking to are going to find themselves more and more cut off, culturally and politically, from those they lead, and less and less capable of implementing the policies that we want. Pakistanis are increasingly defining their own interests, independently of the views of their pro-western leaders. And Mehran man will soon be in the driving seat.

To read complete article: The Express Tribune

The establishment’s twelfth man – Dr Mohammad Taqi

Excerpt:

The fact remains that Imran Khan has always been the establishment’s twelfth man — called upon to field as needed. He claims that the establishment cannot buy him, but do they need to? He has always volunteered for them and it is no different this time.

The citizens of Hayatabad, Peshawar, have finally breathed a sigh of relief after the two-day long sit-in organised by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has ended. Whether NATO supplies were halted because of this so-called protest remains moot, but life in one of Peshawar’s largest residential districts was certainly brought to a grinding halt by the chapli kabab-fed 5,000 people herded from outside the city by the PTI and various sectarian and religio-political parties allied with it. The idea, ostensibly, was to block one of the delivery routes through which the NATO forces in Afghanistan are supplied, thus forcing the US to halt its drone attacks. ….

…. To this end the deep state is trying to stir up hysteria against the US, through Imran Khan and his ilk and, in the process, build pressure on the PPP and ANP et al to fall in line as well. By letting the twelfth man warm up now, the establishment wants to elbow out Mian Nawaz Sharif — whom they mistrust deeply — as potentially the next premier. They know that a savvy politician like Mian sahib may actually play ball with the US, against their diktat.

While milking the Saudis for funds, and allowing mercenaries to be recruited for the Gulf, the establishment is getting its domestic ducks in a row, in preparation for a showdown with the US over its Af-Pak endgame. What can serve them better in this than a conglomerate of the martial law’s perennial B team like the Jamaat-e-Islami, pro-jihadists like Sami-ul-Haq and assorted opportunists? The twelfth man has always hoped that the establishment will grant him the political test cap one day. His hypocrisy may actually earn him the captaincy of the junta’s ‘B’ team this time.

To read complete article : DailyTimes.com.pk

Must watch Mushaira: Rahi Bastavi vs Nikhat Amrohi

Both are very good shayers (poets). Both have rightly & loudly recorded their grievances. The language of the Mushaira is Hindi (urdu).

– You Tube

They should apologize for Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s judicial murder

The military should apologize for Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s judicial murder

By Shiraz Paracha

Excerpt:

Parrot writers and journalists in Pakistan always praise the position of a serving Army Chief. Those who have sold their souls tell us how great the military’s top brass is. It does not matter if it includes generals, who surrendered in Dhaka, and those who ran away from Kargil, or those who killed an elected Prime Minister and tore apart the constitution. Even military leaders accused of corruption, incompetence and misconduct are portrayed as heroes.

It is not surprising that we are told that the current Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is the only capable saviour of Pakistan. Analysts, anchorpersons and columnists, who pretend to be mouthpieces of the military, inform us that General Kayani is different than his predecessors.

Not very long ago, General Kayani was the right-hand man of General Parvez Musharraff. After Kayani became the Commander-in-Chief, General Musharraff received a guard of honour at the end of his illegal stay in the President House. The military is a state within the state in Pakistan. The sword of a military intervention still hangs over the civilian government as the power equilibrium continues to be in the military’s favour even under General Kayani.

Nonetheless, so far, General Kayani has acted wisely and he appears softer than the previous heads of the Pakistani military. The Armed Forces are supposed to defend a country but the Pakistan military has embarrassed Pakistan many times. The Armed Forces are a symbol of pride for the people of a country; in Pakistan the military has caused national discomfiture. Some Pakistani generals wanted to make history—they left with dark history. ….

…. At the same time, the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the Lahore High Court must reverse the decision of Bhutto’s judicial murder and seek an apology from the people of Pakistan. The Supreme Court is guilty of gross injustice. The Bhutto case is a stain on the institution of judiciary. Bhutto’s blood will stay fresh in the courtrooms until justice is done and Bhutto’s dignity is returned to him by the Court. The integrity and respect of the Supreme Court of Pakistan will never be restored without declaring Bhutto innocent and calling him Pakistan’s national hero.

Also the Supreme Court should formally admit that judges who were instrumental in providing legal cover to martial laws and dictators were actually traitors. The Court should give a similar verdict about generals who imposed military coups and derailed Pakistan. …

To read full article : LET US BUILD PAKISTAN

OSHO: Making Love Is a Sacred Experience

All the religions have destroyed the sacredness of love. And the conditioning has gone so deep in the human mind that people are making love in such a hurry, as if they finish it as quickly as possible. Naturally if it is a sin it is better finished soon. Their hearts are guilt-ridden ……

Making love is vital to a romantic relationship. Making love is vital to a romantic relationship. He  is saying that everything is within you!!! Many thinks Osho is a bridge between Western and Eastern Philosophy.

– You Tube Link