Adil Najam

Regular ATP readers know of my fascination with police cops – or ‘Tullas’ as we affectionately call them (here, here, and here; interesting pictures all, I promise).

Today, however, we write about cops doing their job right. Both in terms of nabbing those who do wrong and of encouraging others to do what is right. Excerpts from the APP story that appeared in Dawn (16 October, 2006) and elsewhere today:

ISLAMABAD: Senior Superintendent Police (traffic) Sultan Azam Temuri said here on Sunday that 149 VIPs have been fined over violation of traffic rules [in Islamabad] during the last seven months, among them were 50 federal ministers, 57 MNAs, 18 senators, 15 secretaries and nine provincial ministers. In an interview the SSP said that the efforts of Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) to ensure safe road environment are bringing fruitful results with more sense of responsibility now among road users and also a significant decrease in the accident rate.

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Guest Post by Beena Sarwar

When Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in his address to the UN on Sept 20 held up a copy of Noam Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (2003) and recommended it as essential reading to understand contemporary world politics, he could have been talking about The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad, for which Chomsky, Eqbal’s long-time friend, wrote the foreword.

Chomsky also gave the main address for this collection of Eqbal Ahmad’s writings (Columbia University Press, 2006) at the book’s launch in Cambridge, USA, on September 28, 2006. John Trumpbour and Emran Qureshi of the Labor & Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School, who organised the event, didn’t publicise the event too aggressively because of the hype Chavez had generated for Chomsky. The hall did get quite full, but they didn’t have to turn anyone away at the door. The venue may have had something to do with this. Chomsky, a linguistics professor now retired from the neighbouring MIT, is rarely invited to Harvard. Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowtiz criticises Chomsky for being too “black and white” but often has to concede the basic truth of the points Chomsky makes.

Guest Post by Unaiza Nasim

Its been a year since the devastating earthquake struck the AJK and NWFP region of Pakistan. There was an overwhelming response of Pakistani as well as the international community to the destruction caused by the quake. People opened up their hearts (and poured out their wallets) to help mankind. No religion, no language, no caste, one cause: Humanity.

But the task is not over yet.