Owais Mughal

This show is part of the daily drill performed by Pakistan Rangers at Wahga border. We would like to hear your comments. My comments are:

dekho! is ko ‘take it easy’ lo

Adil Najam

I open the ‘top stories’ page of The News today and two headlines scream out at me. The first tells me that twelve people, including three women and two children have died in a US drone attack in Orakzai. The second tells me that militants have killed five in an ambush on a police van in Dir. All this while the tears from the carnage at Lahore are not yet dry.  For what? For whom? Why?

The Americans tell us that they must do what they are doing because they have to stamp out terror. The militants say that they too must do what they are doing because they are fighting the enemies of Islam.

All I know is that it is Pakistanis who continue to do the dying. For what? For whom? Why?

Bradistan Calling

Published memoirs by political figures while they are still politically active can be a risky strategy. In case of now U.S. President Obama it paid huge dividends financially and politically. In the case of Gen. Pervez Musharraf it caused embarrassment and innuendoes. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani’s book, Cha-e-Yousuf Say Sada, was written before he became Prime Minister, and may already be forgotten.

The book, Chah-e-Yousuf Say Sada, reads like gossip from an old friend who has attained position of authority and pays you a surprise visit. As the name suggests “Cry of Joseph from the Bottom of Pit” (chaah-i-Yousuf se sadaa) was written during his five year incarceration for corruption charges designed to keep him quiet and inactive against a military dictator or change his loyalty and betray PPP which he refused.

Premier Gillani, to his credit, put his personal grievances aside and worked under the same president for six months. This statement probably sums up Gillani’s personality of maintaining a working relationship with authority and dictatorship. The first time he served under military dictator Zia ul Haq was from 1983 till 1988.