Buying a car in Pakistan
In 2004, the Pakistani government placed an order for a luxurious Mercedes Cardiac ambulance at a cost of more than 13 million rupees (about $225,000). The vehicle, first of its kind, will be used exclusively by a select group of VIP patients in the capital, Islamabad. No doubt the privileged few will include civil and military bureaucrats and so-called representatives of the people.
But, at the same time, a large number of taxpaying people eager to buy a car are being denied a fair deal. Over the past couple of years the local car industry, which suffered negative growth of 24 percent during 1999-2000 due to lax demand, has witnessed a steep rise in demand that it is unable to meet. Needless to say, local car manufacturers and vending industries are exploiting this gap between supply and demand to their maximum benefit, and to the detriment of the consumer. Various
Jalti Marti Dunya Ke Liye Aik Shehr Ashoob
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A picture tells – What is being accomplished here?
This picture is worth a thousand words!
… 
Published in The Express Tribune of August 26, 2013, it’s a sharp comment on the hidden face of Tehreek-e-Insaf.
Mission to fight superstition ends in killing
For nearly three decades, an earnest man named Narendra Dabholkar traveled from village to village in India, waging a personal war against the spirit world.
If a holy man had electrified the public with his miracles, Dr. Dabholkar, a former physician, would duplicate the miracles and explain, step by step, how they were performed. If a sorcerer had amassed a fortune treating infertility, he would arrange a sting operation to unmask the man as a fraud. His goal was to drive a scientist’s skepticism into the heart of India, a country still teeming with gurus, babas, astrologers, godmen and other mystical entrepreneurs.
That mission ended Tuesday, when two men ran up behind Dr. Dabholkar, 67, as he crossed a bridge, shot him at point-blank range, then jumped onto a motorbike and disappeared into the traffic coursing through this city.
[From The New York Times]
When detectives began putting together a
Puranay Kaalum – Iqtidaar Ka Khoonta Aur Muslim League
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Free trade is cricket
It’s possible that after more than half a century of animosity, India and Pakistan could be on the path to lasting friendship. That path is strewn with obstacles, many of them of Kashmiri origin, but just as the cricket matches are uniting the people, so free trade, a concept also espoused at January’s summit, could prove a further catalyst to lasting peace and prosperity.
Both India and Pakistan have long histories of economic introspection and protectionism. Over the past decade, India has begun to throw off the shackles of its socialist economic model, abandoning its discredited drive for self-sufficiency and embracing globalization, privatization and trade liberalization. The resulting economic boom has provided a burgeoning middle class with unprecedented prosperity. Pakistan’s government would do well to learn from its neighbor’s success.
India-Pakistan trade relations have been compounded both by the tendency of each nation to protectionism. Protectionism, for a long time
Abbottabad Commission Report: Ghalat Sawaal, Sahi Jawaab
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Yeh Khabar Kya Kehti Hay?
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Kitaab Dost Aur Kitaab Dushman Muasharay
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A non-American reading of the American Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, is one of the greatest documents human history has produced. The more one reads it, the more meaningful, more insightful it becomes. Another aspect is its way of asserting certain things negatively. That is what I am interested in presenting here. Let us see whether the Declaration substantiates this sort of reading between the lines.
The first para of the Declaration states that when a People separate (or dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another) from other People, it is necessary to declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
The second para asserts that there are self-evident Truths, such as i) all Men are created equal; ii) they are endowed by their Creator certain unalienable Rights; iii) among these Rights are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Then, it concludes that Governments are instituted among Men
Puranay Kaalum – Muhim Juoon Ki Sarzameen
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Iss Khabar Ka Kya Matlab Hay?
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Figuring out what’s happening in China
Communist Party cadres have filled meeting halls around China to hear a somber, secretive warning issued by senior leaders. Power could escape their grip, they have been told, unless the party eradicates SEVEN subversive currents coursing through Chinese society.
These SEVEN perils were enumerated in a memo, referred to as Document No. 9, that bears the unmistakable imprimatur of Xi Jinping, China’s new top leader.
Seven Western Perils:
1. Western Constitutional Democracy;
2. Universal Values of Human Rights;
3. Media Independence;
4. Civic Participation;
5. Pro-Market Neo-Liberalism;
6. Nihilist Criticisms of the Party’s past; . . .
See the full story, “China memo reveals fears of Western influence,” in the International Herald Tribune – Pakistan print edition of August 21, 2013.
That’s life!
See it negatively or positively! That’s life!
[The News, August 21, 2013]
Sahafat Ki Taqat Aur Faayeda
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Matiullah Turab – Afghan smith of metal and words
Matiullah Turab is nearly illiterate. He is a metal smith by day and poet by night. He relies on his mind to retain his poems.
“A poet’s job is not to write about love,” he growls, his booming voice blending with the ambient noise of the workshop. “A poet’s job is not to write about flowers. A poet must write about the plight and pain of the people.”
That’s Turab’s choice. He is a people of the poet.
“With his unflinching words, Mr. Turab offers a voice for Afghans grown cynical about the war and its perpetrators: the Americans, the Taliban, the Afghan government, Pakistan.”
Even in translation, his poetry exhibits brilliance:
War has turned into a trade
Heads have been sold
as if they weigh like cotton,
and at the scales sit such judges
who taste the blood, then decide the price
Or:
O flag-beareres of the world,
you
What about internal sovereignty?
The so-called nationalists maintain Drone attacks are damaging the sovereignty of Pakistan!
These nationalists include Rightists of various hues such as Jamat-e-Islami to Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam (F), and other somewhat liberal elements as well. They know that Pakistan is a declared ally of the US in the war against terror, and in that case, it’s of no significance whose Drones they are and whose territory they are targeting. Also, Bob Woodward’s Obama’s wars and Wikileaks establish Pakistan’s tacit approval of the Drone attacks.
Sure, the nationalists’ anti-American stance and dubbing the present government as US-backed validate their argument. Indeed, by way of inference also, most of these nationalists lean toward the Taliban who are openly attacking the sovereignty of Pakistan. But it seems they have no idea of internal sovereignty, but are concerned only about guarding the external sovereignty of Pakistan which is in no danger by the Drone attacks.
Is a
14 August Ko Kya Hua!
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Riyasati Ashrafiya (State Aristocracy) thriving on taxpayers’ money
Taxes for what
By Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq
By Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq
The government’s yearning for “more and more taxes” has become a point of irritation for the citizens who argue where are the entitlements promised in the Constitution as quid pro quo?
Successive governments — military and civilian alike — have failed to convince the people that payment of taxes is their collective responsibility. The major reason for tax defiant culture in Pakistan is abuse of taxpayers’ money by Riasti Ashrafiya (state oligarchy) — militro-judicial-civil complex and public office holders — for plots, perquisites, personal comforts and luxuries.
People say if the government cannot protect their life and property, it has no right to collect taxes. In a democratic polity, taxes are collected for providing the citizens universal entitlements e.g. health, education, housing, transport, and civic amenities etc. The valid argument against paying taxes in Pakistanis is that it constitutes extortion by
Ik Mulk Bana Be Dar Dekha
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