A prominent Sindh-Dost writer Professor Afaq Siddiqui passes away

KARACHI: Sindh’s prominent poet, writer and researcher, Professor Afaq Siddiqui passed away in Karachi, Sindh on Sunday, June 17, 2012. He was 86.

The immigrants who came from India to Sindh, unfortunately they didn’t accept or adopt Sindhi language and Sindh’s evergreen secular culture of love, peace, tolerance and communal harmony. However, there were many who accepted Sindhi language, culture, and values, And, Sindh loves them, accept them and embrace them as her own children! One such great immigrant was Professor Afaq Siddiqui. His work was highly appreciated all over Sindh. He received more than 60 International awards. Amongst the various awards that he received, one is the Pride of Performance and the other is Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai Excellence Award, which is the highest award of Sindh. He merged himself in the secular Sufi culture of Sindh. He was a prominent Sindh Dost researcher, poet and writer. Professor Siddiqui wrote 40 books, 18 of which are in Sindhi. He also translated “Shah Jo Rasalao”. Sindh & Sindhis are truly indebted to this proud son of Sindh and to other Urdu speaking Sindhis who made Sindh their home.

Professor Siddiqui was born in 1928 in a house of a police officer in India. He migrated to Sindh after partition of the sub-continent. “He will be laid to rest in Sakhi Hassan graveyard in Karachi Sindh.

Courtesy: Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, + facebook and internet.

Tribute to Comrade Sobho Gianchandani

Sobho Gianchandani is a prominent Sindhi revolutionary who remains a source of inspiration for many generations of Sindhi activists, writers and social reformers. Mr. Gianchandani, known lovingly as Comrade Sobho, has been associated with many political  and campaign groups, including the Indian National Congress and Khudai Khidmatgar and is the founder of many progressive, democratic and nationalist campaigns in Sindh. After the partition, Pakistani authorities pressured him – like millions of other Sindhi Hindus — to leave Sindh and migrate to India, but Sobho refused, and in consequence he was forbidden to travel abroad until 1998. Sobho was imprisoned for more than a year during the British rule, and after the partition, he fell under the wrath of Pakistani establishment and has many jail sentences to his credit, including one in 1971 for opposing military sponsored genocide in Bangladesh. Comrade Sobho and G. M. Syed were close associates and comrades in different aspects of the Sindhi rights movement. The G. M. Syed Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed on Mr. Gianchandani in appreciation of his life-long struggle for emancipation for Sindhis and other oppressed peoples of South Asia and in recognition of his grass-roots efforts to promote tolerance, justice, communal harmony and peace. …..

Read more » ChagataiKhan

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More » THE MAN FROM MOEN–JO-DARO – Interview with Comrade Sobho Gianchandani

Pro-democracy protest: Protestors threaten civilian unrest if govt toppled

LAHORE: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Civil Society Network and Center for Peace protested against the judiciary and army on Thursday, warning the two institutions of civilian unrest if they tried to topple the PPP led coalition government.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Abdullah Malik, advisor to the Punjab governor, said that “The participants sensing the current democratic to be in danger have decided to come out on the roads to show their solidarity with the democracy.”

He added that only people had the right to change the government through their vote in a democracy and not the judge or the generals.

PPP members along with prominent representatives of civil society demonstrated in favour of the current democratic government at the Liberty roundabout.

Participants warned the judiciary and army that if it tried to topple the PPP led coalition government by using the Memogate affair as an excuse, then the civil society will protest on the streets.

Civil Society Network and Center for Peace members, including IA Rehman, Hussain Naqi, Shah Taj Qizilbash, Abdullah Malik along with South Asia Free Media Association’s (SAFMA) Anjum Rashid, Imtiazul Haq, Shoaib Adil and Amina Malik participated in the demonstration.

Other PPP members at the protest included Deputy Parliamentary Leader in the Punjab Assembly, Azma Bukhari and Altaf Qureshi. …

Read more » The Express Tribune

Split in Sindh PPP Imminent; Nawaz-Mirza under Pressure for Alliance; Fahmida Mirza Offers to Resign

– Split in Sindh PPP Imminent; President Offers Aitzaz An Important Position, May Play Prominent Role in Future; Nawaz-Mirza under Pressure for Alliance; Fahmida Mirza Offers to Resign

Aitzaz May Play Prominent Role in Future; How Fasih Bokhari Was Nominated as Chairman NAB?

By Aijaz Ahmed

Islamabad: There seldom comes a cooling off interval in Pakistani politics – at least not these days. With every passing moment, the temperature gets higher and the hectic moves and counter moves by the stakeholders create more and more confusion. Amidst all that, the moves by one of the players, Zulfikar Mirza may soon result in split within his own party.

On his return from Malaysia, Zulfikar Mirza dropped another bombshell; he addressed a press conference along with the leaders of the Peoples Amn Committee and announced that following in the footsteps of Imran Khan, he would carry three suitcases to London, UK, filled with evidence against Altaf Hussain of MQM. The statement of Mirza created another storm in the troubled city of Karachi, Sindh and prompted MQM demands for his arrest. The rampant political crisis is destined to lead towards a final showdown within the PPP ranks as well as between the PPP and its love-hate partner the MQM.

A group of PPP dissidents from Sindh is getting united with a resolve to fight against any effort for passing the proposed Local Government Ordinance, which was first introduced by military dictator Musharraf and then reintroduced by Babar Awan known as Mr. Tughral in the political circles of Islamabad.

The move is not only to oppose the local government ordinance bill, but the built in opposition to the government-MQM alliance is also coming to the fore. The group emerging around Mirza in Sindh will ultimately gain strength, and the people in the province having sympathies with PPP will by and large go with Mirza team, says a PPP leader from the political team of the president, Zardari.

The central leadership of the party is trying its best to control the damage caused by Mirza, but for the first time in the history of the party, it appears that all the efforts by the leadership are going in vain as dissent in the party is visibly increasing.

The game does not end there; rather another innings of the long and tiring game of politics is being started again, and the umpires of the game have become, as always, the main players of the innings now. There are clear indications that the behind-the-scene players who ‘encouraged’ Mirza to go up in the arms to such an extent where he put his relationship with the president at stake are trying to bring Mirza and Nawaz Sharif closer on some point of mutual interests and that is the opposition of MQM and elimination of corruption, sources in the power circle of Islamabad have revealed. ….

Read more » Indus Herald

M.F. Husain dies; famous Indian painter, 95, was in exile after death threats from Hindu hardliners

India’s most prominent painter, M.F. Hussain, dies in self-imposed exile at age 95

By Associated Press

NEW DELHI — M.F. Hussain, a former movie billboard artist who rose to become India’s most sought-after painter before going into self-imposed exile during an uproar over nude images of Hindu icons, died Thursday. He was 95.

CNN-IBN TV channel quoted a friend, Arun Vadehra, as saying that Hussain, often described as India’s Picasso, died at the Royal Brompton hospital in London. His lawyer, Akhil Sibal, confirmed the death to The Associated Press.

Hussain had lived in Dubai since 2006 after receiving death threats from Hindu hard-liners in India for a nude painting of a woman shaped like India’s map, often depicted as “Mother India” in popular arts, folklore and literature. A nude of Hindu goddess Saraswati also angered the hard-liners. ….

Read more: Washington Post

 

Afghan Stonings, on Video, Finally Get Authorities’ Notice

By ROD NORDLAND

KABUL, Afghanistan — Police officers investigating the double murder of a couple who were stoned to death in a prominent case five months ago could hardly have asked for more abundant evidence.

There were hundreds of witnesses. The date, time and place of the attack were well known, and so were the identities of the killers. The crime had even been captured on cellphone videos, and at least one of the recordings reached the authorities within days.

Now one of those videos showing the full horror of the killings has been broadcast on Afghan television to the shame of Afghan authorities, who have yet to make a single arrest in the deaths of the 19-year-old woman, Siddiqa, and her fiancé, Khayyam, 25, who had tried to elope against their families’ wishes.

The broadcast has suddenly prompted at least the appearance of action by the government. Over the weekend, a Ministry of Interior investigating commission arrived in Kunduz Province, where the stoning was carried out by the Taliban in a village that has since come back under government control. …

Read more : The New York Times