the week that was

lots of stuff about the charter of democracy...the charters alright but one thing that came to mind was that theres talk about military and their control and allocation of land yet no mention of land reform...think that is one important if not the most important reform needed in this country especially if democracy has to flourish here.

fazlur rehmans broken from qazi...qazi and imran khan are going to do the long marches thingies on their own...dunnoo whether ppl will turn out in this heat though..

speaking of qazi and jammat islami their student wing is up in arms over the expulsion of their leader from punjab university..its about time someone took action against these people.why it took so long is beyond me...these people have terrorised the student body for far too long...parhna hai to parho warna get out!!

have an interesting story to tell..will provide further insight into the psyche of this natiion...recently prices of pulses had skyrocketed in pakistan..channa was imported from abroad and the landed cost at karachi was approx. rs.15/kg(not sure how they measure channa)..the market price before arrival of this channa was rs.40/kg..what did the importer do..sold the channa at the same wholesale price prevailing in the market...as a result no slump in channa prices while dealer walked off with big fat profits..i guess if as a nation we can raise prices of commodities during ramzan this isnt the least bit surprising...

geo is doing a special on the hudood ordinance..thank God..theyve regained some respect in my eyes...that abomination of an ordinance is a blot on our collective arses..countless women are in jail cos they could not produce four credible muslim witnesses to testify on their behalf that they were indeed raped..aarrghh!!

google released a study...pakistan and india tied for nations that searched the word sex most on the internet..phillipines and believe it or not saudi arabia came in first for search of gay porn LOL!!..on the brighter side pakistan and india also came in first for search of learning to speak english...too much repressed sexual energy in this nation...khair lets not go there

budget is around the corner...every industry it seems is losing money and becoming globally uncompetetive...everyone wants tax breaks and subsidies...funny how one month before the budget everything seems to be going to the dogs...khair to be honest energy costs are high...hence the need for dams and yes my sindhi friends tht includes kalabagh...nuclear energy,gas exploration all need to be expedited...however i would love for some subsidy to the poor especially when it comes to essential food items...prices have gone up way too much...

football world cup is near and that has me excited..for the record my team is england...im very happy for west indies cricket these days...not only are they winning matches again but theyre beating india which had grown a little too big for its boots in the process..yipee!!

the afghan mess

yet again karzai and his rag tag government have gone off the deep end...they know where osama and mullah umer are...they know exactly where they're hiding in villain of the century pakistan yet the heroes of the century america has no clue...i mean what kind of nonsense is this....if they know where those two r hiding why the hell is america their protector publicly pronouncing its ignorance about this and not pressuring us to do more..why is it tht zawahiri guy spends half his time exhorting pakistanis to oust musharraf...maybe karzai's right and musharraf's in bed with al qaeda and the taliban...zawahiri is making such statements to make musharraf look good..maybe musharraf's ordered hundereds of troops to get themselves killed in waziristan and elsewhere so tht he looks good.maybe he's angering many of his own public and those MMA fundos to look good...and he's just biding for time to show his true colors which will see the unleashing of the taliban on hapless karzai and afghanistan...karzai needs to get his opium hookah out of his mouth...its at times like these when i sometimes want to unleash my nationalistic/xenophobic side...send all the refugees packing...send a bill asking for payments they owe us for hosting their asses for 25 long yrs...seal of the border..fence it completely and forever discard the durrand line issue to the dustbins of history...finally ban the afghan transit facility...let them go through iran...he should remember one thing...the american will leave and forget about them...so will the rest of the west...but we'll still be here...we'll still be here...

liberal disorder

i was just thinking about LUMS..actually i was thinking about higher education in pakistan when i realised how strong the penetration of the religious right in our education systems really is...they control Punjab university through the goonish IJT a student body that is the student wing of the jamaat-e-Islami.while thinking about lums i observed how so much of the faculty belongs to the tableeghi Ijtimah...in fact i recalled how the professors of Lums are actually educating the Ijtimah about sciences and stuff...which is good but thts not my point..the point im making is that politically apart from the last election the religious parties havent fared so well in our country...yet now i fear that its a matter of time before they take over...heres why....they are supremely organized and extremely focused on the whole....theyve got the soft spoken loving types and theyve got the hate spewing, gun totting types...they disagree amongst themselves but unite on one common objective that Pakistan was formed for islam...pakistan should have the shariah and by and large they alone know what islam's all about...zia-ul-haq's rule helped them alot...theyve got the blashphemy and hudood laws...theyve got text books to their liking...theyve got a hold over most if not all state run universities...but most importantly for the longest part theyve had little or no effective opposition...

the real point of this post was to examine the state of the progressive movement if you can call it tht...according to my parents and other elders of mine, pakistan was a place where most believed in live and let live..cinemas were good places for family entertainment...walking on streets was safe for both sexes and generally society as a whole was much more tolerant...the liberals found themselves on the slippery slope under bhutto's rule when one concession after the other was granted to the mullahs...they are no longer on tht slippery slope instead theyre at the very bottom of the pit flailing about aimlessly while the country figures out whther to follow them in the same pit or not...unlike the right, the left lacks clarity...many dont believe in Pakistan having bought into the ideology being spewed by the right...dejected and demoralised they rail against the very institution and person that might actually rehabilitate them and this country...the army and musharraf...now before everyone starts dismissing me aas a naive musharraf lover read me out...for most of the past century the left vs right deabte was about economics...command economy vs market economy.now the market economy stands victorious and as a result the left has changed its tune in the west...now the left vs right battle is about cultural and social values...sadly many on the left in this country are still stuck in the economic philosophical debate...the right/establishment in this country over the past few decades have changed the rules of the game....theyve made common Pakistanis feel affinity more for fellow muslims to the west than to india from which we were carved out...the liberals still frame the debate in context of india....some feel partition was wrong...some yearn for the same secular, democratic ideals of india...the last part is indeed noble yet utterly useless...for starters people care more for food and employment than representative government...secondly using india as an example to follow, rightly or wrongly isnt the best way to convince people...the only way the liberals can come out of the doldrums is to beat the mullahs at their own game...they can do this by being far sighted and losing the maximalist positions they hold so dear...piggyback onto the same establishment the mullahs used cos in this post 9/11 environment this might be possible.i say this cos in musharraf they have a military leader whose world view is pragmatic and progressive...doubting and dismissing him cos he hasnt made pakistan a beacon of prosperity overnight is foolish....if he had the support of most of the liberals he wouldnt need most of the PML(Q)...liberals doubt him cos they perceive him as someone who takes one step forward two steps back...like i said the society is where it is cos the right for the past 3 decades or so infiltrated and penetrated all walks of life...it'll take some time to reverse that...but the current situation isnt so rosy...with the PPP joining up with the MMA on a single point agenda to remove musharraf the real long term losers will be Pakistan and the liberals cos with musharraf out the slow process of unziafying the army will come to a halt and we'll be back to the situation on september10th,2001....final note to liberals...look at Turkey...its the establishment that is the guardian of the progressive,secular order in turkey...something to think about....everything does not have to be black and white

weather reports be damned!!

so election year is almost upon us..alliances are being formed..charters being signed...anti government drives being planned and the government's budget is around the corner...the president has had it easy for a long time...but this last year has been a rough one...the cartoon controversy coupled with the "mehngai" followed by the disastrous Bush trip had him in a spot of bother...he's still not out of the woods yet though...if prices are brought down within the next couple of months things will die down on the whole...if he takes off his uniform soon, there'll be hardly any excuse left for the ARD wallahs to oppose.or for tht matter bush and the west..MMA will be the main opposition but it seems like the government or agencies have managed to split the MMA with fazl-ur-rehman refusing to join Qazi's anti government agitation.all thts left is for the Q-league to put its house in order which will be a tall order indeed...

read this piece by Dr. manzur Ejaz today..he compares the current situation to the era of Ayub Khan...ive never agreed with this 22 families controlling everything is bad...ok its inherently bad but what i mean to say is that korea has its chaebols, japan its conglomerates and today u look at india and u see the ambanis,tatas etc making multinational companies..i'm going to do some research on the evolution of Korea soon...see how these handul of families made LG,Samsung,Hyundai,Daewoo and in the process lifted all of Korea out of poverty and made it the worlds 11th largest economy today...korea also happens to be the most wired country with some of the most cutting edge R&D taking place there.....so i just wonder that if the nationalisation had'nt taken place, is it possible tht the saigols, habibs of this land would have established world class companies?...khair the good doctor thinks tht instead of 22 families there are 22,000 families controlling everything...i guess 22000 familiers are better than 22...

finally would like to comment on the rains that took place in most of punjab yesterday...for days people had been praying for rain...for days BBC,PTV etc had been reporting no chance of rain...Lo and behold it rained yesterday night...

intro

ive decided to initiate this new blog.this is going to be my personel opinion page about news in general and the political scnario in Pakistan in particular..i thought i'd keep my other, original blog for random stuff...its here tht ill focus on jerry's take on the news. im sorry i couldnt come up with a better name..jerry's my nick name and my mind just went blank when it came time to naming a title...suggestions for the title are welcome.