Mast Qalandar

If you think it was the MMA who tried to introduce the “law of morality” in the Frontier province of Pakistan (NWFP), think again!

A “law of morality” was first introduced in the region much, much before the MMA or the Taliban appeared on the scene. Even before Pakistan, before the British and before the Moguls. And even before Islam – and before Jesus!

It was Emperor Ashoka (died 238 BC) who first introduced what he called the “Law of Piety” sometime in the third century BC. He even introduced “moral agents”, the equivalent of the MMA’s proposed “vice and virtue squads”, to enforce his Law of Piety.

There were important differences, though, between Ashoka’s Law of Piety and MMA’s Hasba Bill and their methods of enforcement. But that is not the subject of this post. The post is about the presence of Emperor Ashoka and his “Rock Edicts” in the NWFP, the geographic backyard of Pakistan where innumerable treasures from the past are dumped by history.

Adil Najam

In a post, written just a few days ago, I had argued that Gen. Musharraf’s hold on power which had earlier benefited so much from the machinations of one set of Chaudhries (Shujaat and Pervaiz Elahi) continues to be undermined by the unwavering resolve of another set of Chaudhries (Iftikhar and Aitizaz Ahsan). Events since then seem to be confirming the hypothesis.

Although there may be more twists about to happen over the next many hours – including a possibility that Aitizaz may be ‘detained’ or ‘released’ again but with limited mobility, the government seemed very reluctant to let the incarcerated lawyers enjoy his freedom. ChoRa bhi, pur choRa bhi nahiN.

Adil Najam

Sofizar, which works on “click fraud” and “web analytics Solutions” (maybe we at ATP should be talking to them!) describes itself as “a Carlsbad, CA based internet marketing company with development and operations based out of Lahore” won the 2007 MITCEF-OPEN Business Acceleration Plan (BAP).

Zafar Khan, the CEO of Sofizar, along with others from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America (OPEN) will speak at an event on “Pakistan: The Untold Story of Entrepreneurship and Technology” on February 2 at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the event is co-sponsored by the New England Chapter of OPEN.

The contest, which its organizers hope will become a yearly event, focuses on existing Pakistani technology companies (instead of start-ups) who are asked to prepare plans for how they intend for their business to “accelerate” towards future growth and expansion. The idea for the contest came from OPEN and the MIT Club of Pakistan Enterprise Forum (MITCEF) and was co-sponsored by P@SHA (PASHA: The Pakistan Software Houses Association) and the Pakistan Software Export Board (PESB). The MIT Entrepreneurship Development Program was actively involved in the contest including in the judging.