The photo is from Hala, Sindh and it is an advertisement banner for an educational institute called ‘Benazir English Learning Center’. I think the school management has carefully chosen the name to get free marketing points. The name ‘Benazir’ literally means ‘unique / one of a kind’. The banner is in Sindhi. I’ll translate its readable contents below.
The photo to the left shows stormy clouds gathering over Islamabad on December 16, 2008.
Today, which is just six days later from when this photo was taken, I believe there is another storm brewing in Islamabad on its political and foreign relations front. Not withstanding the conspiracy theories still circling around in Pakistan, there is growing consensus in the rest of the world that Pak-based elements were behind Mumbai attacks. Gordon Brown served a notice to Pakistan during his visit and it seems that the U.S. agrees. Moreover the steps Pakistan has taken so far haven’t been very convincing. India has called a meeting of its envoys throughout the world to discuss next steps. The last time such a meeting was called was before the 1971 war. This has led the U.S to send Adm. Mullen back to Pakistan for a second time in as many weeks. Meanwhile Pakistan high commission in India has confirmed that it has received a letter from Ajmal Kasab.
Owais Mughal and Jauhar Ismail
The division of opinion between the column writers of Urdu and English press in Pakistan has been quite stark in the past few years. May be we are generalizing the above statement too much but some degree of truth is not hidden from any regular reader of both Urdu and English print media. In the last few days, we have seen a significant increase in the number of Urdu columnists who admit that they can’t deny the ugly reality that Pakistan has become the hub of bad guys and we need to act now for the sake of our own future. Some examples of this new shift is evident from today’s (12/21) Jang columns:
(1) Sadiq Saleem’s “mohazib dunya ka hissa baniye”,
(2) Rauf Klasra’s “jang se bachna hi bahaadri hoti hai” and
(3) Jeevan Khan’s “qaumi salamti ke taqaazay”.
Dear Readers,
While All Things Pakistan has remained alive and online, it has been dormant since June 11, 2011 - when, on the blog's 5th anniversary, we decided that it was time to move on. We have been heartened by your messages and the fact that a steady traffic has continued to enjoy the archived content on ATP. While the blog itself will remain dormant, we are now beginning to add occasional (but infrequent) new material by the original authors of the blog, mostly to archive what they may now publish elsewhere. We will also be updating older posts to make sure that new readers who stumble onto this site still find it useful.
We hope you will continue to find ATP a useful venue to reflect upon and express your Pakistaniat. - Editors
