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Friday, November 13, 2015

VOL. 25/46 - 1 Safar 1437 H

Islamabad: Pakistani officials told

visiting US envoys on Wednesday that Islamabad hopes to revive peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban that collapsed earlier this year.

A Foreign Ministry statement said Tariq Fatemi, the prime minister’s special assistant on foreign affairs, told acting US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Laurel Miller that his country favors an “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process.”

He also reiterated Pakistan’s “desire to build a constructive and trust-based relationship with Afghanistan.”

The US Embassy said Miller and Peter Lavoy, the president’s special assistant for South Asian affairs, had “productive meetings” with senior Pakistani officials on Tuesday and Wednesday.

They “reiterated the United States’ deep appreciation for the sacrifices Pakistan has made in the fight against terrorism,” it said.

The Pakistan-brokered peace talks broke down weeks after

Reham Khan Was Divorced Via SMS

Is Imran Khan Getting the Right Advice?

In Memoriam: Mohammad Afzal Khan US Assured of Pakistan’s Resolve to Revive Afghan Talks

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US & Canada $1.00

Navy’s Operational Capabilities Lauded

The forces at sea demonstrated a range of naval warfare operations against traditional and non-traditional threats

ENVOYS, P28

Karachi: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has reposed complete trust and confidence in the operational capabilities of Pakistan Navy and urged that “the challenges at hand necessitate eternal vigilance to safeguard against external and internal

Army Voices Concern over NAP’s Poor Enforcement

ISPR Statement Reveals Government’s Incompetence

Islamabad: The army went public on Tuesday with its concerns about poor implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) and warned that efficacy of its counter-terrorism efforts could be undercut by inadequate supporting actions by civilian agencies.

Presiding over a corps commanders’ meeting at the General Headquarters, Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif underlined the need for matching/complementary initiatives on the part of the government to secure long-term gains of the operations (against terrorists) and enduring peace in the country, according to the Inter Services Public Relations.

The meeting reviewed the country’s internal security situation and the progress on the implementation of the 20-point NAP. Some of the areas pointed out by the army that require immediate attention are implementation of ARMY, P28

threats”.

He was speaking at the concluding event of Pakistan Navy’s maritime exercise ‘Sea Spark 2015’ on Wednesday.

The event was held to showcase the combat readiness of the

navy. The premier witnessed the wide ranging maneuvers by an array of naval combat platforms in North Arabian Sea. The naval forces demonstrated a range of naval warfare

CAPABILITIES, P28

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Shafqat Mehmood

Islamabad:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Shafqat Mehmood said on Wednesday the military’s media wing’s statement a day earlier highlighted the incumbent government’s

incompetence.

“We have told the government to perform from time to time but they have no interest,” Mehmood said, while addressing the National Assembly.

The PTI leader said the ISPR statement was a matter of concern for the federal government.

Arif Alvi, another PTI leader, also supported the ISPR statement and

said that military and civilian courts should operate in a complementary manner.

On Tuesday, army chief General Raheel Sharif used a corps commanders’ meeting to call for taking ‘governance initiatives’ to complement efforts of the security forces in the fight against terrorism.

Commenting on the ISPR statement, Leader of the Opposition in the National assembly Khursheed Shah said ISPR’s announcement is a clear message for the government and Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif.

“We hope the premier will understand the army chief ’s message and bring his cabinet in order,” STATEMENT, P28

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www.PakistanLink.com Implementing NAP Is a Shared Responsibility, Govt. Reiterates Islamabad: The federal government said on Wednesday “the implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) is a shared responsibility and all institutions have to play their role, while remaining within the ambit of the constitution”.

This reminder came a day after the military called for greater civilian cooperation to fight terrorism.

The government stated that it will continue to pursue the National Action Plan (NAP) and all other initiatives to bring about a positive change in the life of the common man.

According to a statement issued by the government’s spokesperson, the decisive action taken by the government against extremism and terrorism over the past two years has been widely acknowledged.

“Successful implementation of this strategy was only possible due to broad political consensus achieved by this government, brave action by men and officers of armed forces and coordinated efforts by provincial governments, police, civil armed forces and intelligence NAP, P28

Pakistan Thump England Courtesy Hafeez Ton

Abu Dhabi: Mohammad Hafeez hit

a sparkling century to help Pakistan beat England by six wickets in the first day-night international at Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, taking a 1-0 lead in the four-match series.

The 35-year-old finished with an unbeaten 130-ball 102 to steer Pakistan to the modest target of 217 in 43.4 overs, carrying his batting form from the preceding 2-0 Test series win last week into the limitedovers clash.

Hafeez added 106 for the unbroken fifth wicket stand with

CRICKET, P28

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OPINION

P4 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

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n By Mowahid Hussain Shah

I

n politics, as in real life, there is a huge problem in admitting mistakes. It goes to judgment and this is where the human tendency is not to concede, but to conceal, even when mistakes are revealed. Saying sorry is an aberration.

It was therefore a rare departure from this precedent and pattern when Obama apologized to Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) for the atrocity committed by US forces on its hospital operated in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Perhaps Obama could do so because he admittedly is now ‘liberated’ from the shackles of reelection.

One of the reasons why Japanese-Chinese rancor continues to fester in international politics is Japan’s dismissive treatment of the horrific Rape of Nanking in 1937.

A senior Pakistani politician who, with the help of aides, was attempting to write his autobiography once asked my input. I took a cursory glance at the draft manuscript and asked where in it was there an admission of mistakes made in the public sphere? His immediate startled riposte was, “But what will the public say?”

Persisting with errors ensures repetition of mistakes.

A notable example in American life is that of Malcolm X, who after returning from Mecca after Hajj, experienced epiphany and rejected

Saying Sorry

racial exclusivity, seeing unity in common humanity.

In Burma, Nobel Laureate recipient Aung San Suu Kyi has yet to

From Bangladeshi perspective, Pakistan may not have adequately apologized for 1971. True. But did Bangladesh do so for its own endur-

From Bangladeshi perspective, Pakistan may not have adequately apologized for 1971. True. But did Bangladesh do so for its own enduring mistreatment of Bihari inhabitants?

Has Pakistan apologized for abandoning its Pakistani citizens left stranded in former East Pakistan? Yet, the indomitable Majid Nizami did continuously carry a plea under the banner of Nawa-i-Waqt publications to help the stranded Biharis utter a single word of empathy or contrition for the inhumane treatment by the Burmese Buddhist majority against its Muslim minority.

ing mistreatment of Bihari inhabitants? Has Pakistan apologized for abandoning its Pakistani citizens left stranded in former East Pakistan?

Yet, the indomitable Majid Nizami did continuously carry a plea under the banner of Nawa-i-Waqt publications to help the stranded Biharis.

The sterling example that stands tall is that of South African leader F W de Klerk. De Klerk was a product of apartheid and a beneficiary of that system. Yet, in a remarkable turnaround, he changed course and accosted his own Afrikaner community, telling them to their faces 25 years ago that apartheid was wrong.

After releasing Nelson Mandela from prison, he appealed to the conscience and pragmatic self-interest of white South Africans and was able, after a tremendous effort of feat of persuasion, to win through referendum a mandate to end apartheid.

Convincing his own constituency about its unsustainability, and making them aware of dire alternatives, he succeeded in negotiating a peaceful end to the system of apartheid, and by doing so, bequeathed to all South Africans a legacy of change and hope.

Today, South African skipper Hashim Amla is an inspiring emblem of post-apartheid healing.

Contemporary examples of course-correction are right here in our midst. Germany did it recently; a country that created refugees 70 years ago became a haven for refugees in 2015.

Nations, cultures, and societies who do not voluntarily rectify the errors of their ways leave the doors open for outsiders to do so, often with brutal results. Saying sorry can avert many a disaster, as de Klerk proved.

Journey into Europe: A Visual Contemporary Parable of the Good Samaritan n By The Rev. Dr Carol Flett Ecumenical & Inter-religious Officer for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC

A

s an Episcopal priest responsible for nurturing Interfaith Relations in the Episcopal diocese of Washington, I have known and worked with Dr Akbar Ahmed for several years.

We have an ongoing relationship of mutual respect and passion for bridging the gaps between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We call each other whenever we need the voice and opinion of the other in interfaith gatherings, classrooms and adult education programs, and so it was a privilege to share Dr Ahmed’s most recent documentary film, Journey into Europe, with my congregation in Washington, DC, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church. A crowd of 100 attended, eager to learn from Dr Ahmed’s most recent study on the past and present experiences of Muslims in Europe. The film explains the past history of Islam in Europe and presents the current situation in full color as Dr Ahmed’s team interviews people in the street, religious leaders, scholars, and government leaders.

The film opens with the fearful, hateful, and disturbing voices of non-Muslims in response to the increasing immigration of Muslims into Europe, particularly in Denmark, Germany, France, and Greece. Evidence of Islamophobia, racism, discrimination, ignorance, and intolerance appears to be rampant in countries previously repentant of their racist past. But political and economic instability has generated fear of those who are bring-

ing different languages, talents and practices, and their economic needs

The film reminded me of the Christian parable of the Good Samaritan (Gospel of Luke chapter 10), in which Jesus responds to a lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” with a tale about a man of unknown background, who was robbed, beaten, and lay in a ditch, and then was ignored and passed over by two men of good standing in their faith community. Jews, Christians and Muslims are all taught to love God and to love their neighbor, but ignorance and fear have again replaced compassion for

the stranger, our neighbor

to European culture.

Some Europeans interviewed

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claim that “Muslims cannot be Europeans”. A new question is being asked, “Is Muslim European a new identity?”, and the ancient biblical question, “Who is my neighbor?” is again being asked.

The film reminded me of the Christian parable of the Good Samaritan (Gospel of Luke chapter 10), in which Jesus responds to a lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” with a tale about a man of unknown background, who was robbed, beaten, and lay in a ditch, and then was ignored and passed over by two men of good standing in their faith community. The man in the ditch was finally helped by a Samaritan man, a person who had experienced discrimination himself, but who recognized the victim as a human being in need of care, and was not concerned about the victim’s racial or religious difference. The biblical Parable is intended to inspire compassion, by asking the question, “Which of these three,

do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The man who asked the original question, “Who is my neighbor?” responded, “The one who showed him mercy”. Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise”.

Jews, Christians and Muslims are all taught to love God and to love their neighbor, but ignorance and fear have again replaced compassion for the stranger, our neighbor.

The film Journey into Europe is a visual contemporary parable of the Good Samaritan. The man in the ditch could be a Muslim, in need of assistance and acceptance, but many non-Muslims are either acting as bystanders or provocateurs of dissension and discrimination. The film points out the need for religious leaders to speak up and teach compassion, and bring interreligious education to children and adults of all faith traditions so that everyone recognizes the other as their neighbor and a child of God, created by the one and the same God.

Views and opinions express e d by authors and contributors in articles, letters, opinion pieces, reports, advertisements, etc appearing in Pakistan Link and Urdu Link are their own. The paper neither shares nor endorses them and thus should not be held responsible for the views/opinions of the writers & advertisers.

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NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P5

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OPINION

P6 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015 n By C. Naseer Ahmad Washington, DC Pictures courtesy Atlantic Council

“

The listeners give energy to the speaker,” says a Persian proverb. Perhaps, it was some tacit support from the audience that kept visiting Pakistani Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif going despite the spirited effort of a protestor shouting “Free Baluchistan” and accusing him of being a “friend of Bin Laden” – to throw him off script in the speech at the US Institute of Peace (USIP) on October 23, 2015.

Despite his impoliteness, it was nice that the irate heckler was not hurling shoes; lucky for PM Sharif.

Good things come to those who are patient, it is said. And, PM Sharif patiently waited for the protestor to be ejected from the auditorium by muscular policemen.

While introducing PM Sharif, USIP President Nancy Lindborg informed the audience that he is the first person in Pakistan’s history to serve as Prime Minister for three times. Regardless of one’s view about him, and notwithstanding the fact that he could not complete his earlier two terms, PM Sharif deserves the respect afforded to him during his recent US visit.

From the Twitter messages and email traffic, enthusiasm amongst PM Sharif ’s supporters and criticism from his opponents of Pakistani origin remained generally what was expected. In the eyes of his supporters, PM Sharif can do no

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Washington wrong. Likewise, no matter how well PM Sharif did during his US visit, his opponents will still disapprove and consider him a cheat. But, it was surprising to discover approval of PM Sharif ’s performance from some who were previously supporters of his opposition.

From a Pakistani perspective, PM Sharif seemed to have covered all the bases that he was supposed to - making a pitch for more investments in Pakistan while lauding the performance of the Karachi Stock Market, assuring human rights advocates that he will safeguard the rights of religious and ethnic minorities, and dangling a carrot for US companies to be able to participate in the opportunities to come from the $48 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project. Indulging in a sort of charm offensive PM Sharif gifted some pictures of President Obama’s mother during her visits to Pakistan.

“War against terrorism, continued presence of terrorist safe havens was one of the major topics of discussion with the visiting Pakistani leader,” Pakistan’s daily Dawn quoted US Senator Kaine on November 1, 2015 about his remarks at a meeting with Defense Writers Group in Washington. His remarks were based on the meeting with PM Sharif during his US visit. “My sense is that Pakistan is now really going after enclaves of terrorists in North Waziristan and other areas. They are sincerely doing it,” Senator Kaine continued.

Michael Kugelman, a Woodrow Wilson Institute scholar, noted in

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with Nancy Lindborg, head of US Institute of Peace

the Wall Street Journal on October 23, 2015 that the “joint statement issued after his meeting with Obama reiterated long-standing pledges of

the speech, the Wall Street Journal carried a headline – “Powerful Pakistan General Eclipses Prime Minister ‘Soldier-Statesman’ has be-

Emerging Pakistani leaders

cooperation and announced a series of modest though diverse initiatives in areas ranging from clean energy to girl’s education.” Additionally, the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan provided something to show for.

However, there were “no splashy headlines or substantive outcomes— just as expected,” Kugelman said.

Ironically, on the same day of

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come a cult here for battling terrorism, criminal gangs.” This was perhaps in recognition of the military’s pacification of Karachi – a megacity where many languages were spoken through the barrel of a gun.

Visits of key Pakistani leaders, civilian or military, certainly provide valuable insight into the ebbs and flows of this bilateral re-

lationship between two longstanding allies. But, a more interesting and promising development is the Emerging Leaders of Pakistan (ELP) Fellowship program announced in late September 2015 by the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, US Embassy Islamabad and the Meridian International Center.

The stories of these emerging young leaders deserve attention.

For instance, after surviving a suicide attack Hussain Haider from Chakwal, Punjab, “founded Bey-

Hussain Haider from Chakwal, Punjab, “founded Beydaar Society, an organization raising a voice for basic human rights, freedom of speech, and quality education for all.” Syed Azhar Shah from Mardan “believes in the power of technology to address the humanitarian crises afflicting his country.” Rafia Farooqui from Karachi, Sindh, is a social activist and aspiring water expert in Pakistan daar Society, an organization raising a voice for basic human rights, freedom of speech, and quality education for all.” Another emerging leader is Syed Azhar Shah from Mardan who “believes in the power of technology to address the humanitarian crises afflicting his country.”

Rafia Farooqui from Karachi, Sindh, is a social activist and aspiring water expert in Pakistan. Her goal is to “work towards not only creating awareness but also executing actionable ideas to prevent Pakistan from becoming more water-scarce.”

VISIT, P9

OPINION n By Dr Mohammad Taqi

M

Florida

ohammad Afzal Khan of Swat, known reverently by the honorific Khan Lala, passed away this past weekend. Pashtuns and Afghans living on both sides of the Durand Line and the diaspora, mourn the demise of the octogenarian nationalist icon who spent a lifetime pleading and leading for Pashtun national unification (qaumi wahdat).

To many Pakistanis he was known for his resolutely valiant stand against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) butchers in his native Swat in 2008 and 2009. Despite losing several family members and personal associates in jihadists’ attacks and himself receiving bullet injuries, Khan Lala dug in and put up a heroic resistance against the TTP when others, including the state and its organs, were capitulating. Ever kind to me, Khan Lala spoke to me in 2009 from his then besieged compound in his native Upper Durushkhela village: “How can I leave my family spread over five villages and my people all over Swat?” Khan Lala castigated his own Awami National Party (ANP) for signing an agreement with the Taliban, which he accurately predicted would embolden the jihadists to encroach upon other regions. He only came out of Swat after the deal with the TTP backfired and a military operation was launched, something he had consistently called for.

Afzal Khan Lala’s disagreement

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P7

In Memoriam: Mohammad Afzal Khan with his own party in 2008-2009 was not an aberration. Throughout his long political career he never shied away from speaking his mind and standing firm for what he truly believed in. Afzal Khan Lala was one of the top few landowners (Khans) of the Swat valley. He completed his studies in history, political science and law from Peshawar and Lahore, and briefly taught as well. He joined the leftist National Awami Party (NAP) in 1969 and became its provincial president for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then NWFP) in 1970. He was elected to the provincial assembly from Swat in the 1970 elections and become the provincial minister for information and agriculture in the coalition government of the NAP and Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam (JUI). The late Prime Minister (PM), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, later banned the NAP in one of the worst political victimizations in Pakistan’s history.

Khan Lala, along with the top Pashtun and Baloch leaderships, was imprisoned in what became known as the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case.

Khan Lala had been charged with leading a “militant separatist” group called the Pashtun Zalmay (the Pashtun youth). In an absolute travesty of justice, NAP was outlawed through a Supreme Court (SC) decision in October 1975. On November 5, 1975, the National Democratic Party (NDP) was launched by Sardar Sherbaz Mazari along with the leaders of NAP who were still free. After the politically motivated Hyderabad tribunal was disbanded, Afzal Khan Lala became the provincial president of the NDP.

The ANP was formed in 1986 through a merger of four leftist and/ or nationalist parties including the

Ever kind to me, Khan Lala spoke to me in 2009 from his then besieged compound in his native Upper Durushkhela village: “How can I leave my family spread over five villages and my people all over Swat?”

NDP and Afzal Khan Lala was elected its second provincial president in 1987. Afzal Khan Lala was a very

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close associate of Khan Abdul Wali Khan, who had led the NAP, NDP and ANP but vehemently opposed the ANP cutting a deal with Mian Nawaz Sharif ’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) in 1989. Khan Lala parted ways with Wali Khan’s ANP and formed what was called the ANP Haqiqi (real), which morphed into the Pashtunkhwa Qaumi Party (PQP) by merging with the Qaumi Inquilabi Party of Lateef Afridi and Afrasiab Khattak, who had also quit the ANP due to the same concerns.

Khan Lala won a National Assembly seat from Swat in alliance with the late Benazir Bhutto’s PPP. The alliance then fielded him as a candidate for the PM slot in a lopsided contest against Mian Nawaz Sharif.

He remained the deputy opposition leader in the 1990 National Assembly and became the first lawmaker to use the word Pakhtunkhwa in the house, much to the chagrin of the

then speaker, Gauhar Ayub Khan.

In 1993, Afzal Khan Lala won his seat again and became the federal minister for tribal affairs in Benazir Bhutto’s cabinet. Khan Lala promptly demanded adult franchise for FATA and a right to appeal the draconian FCR in the regular courts.

PM Bhutto took the flack from the establishment for Khan Lala’s proclamation and, according to his own account, asked him to modify his position. Khan Lala told the late and much lamented Benazir Bhutto: “Madam PM, I cannot change my stance. You may have to change my ministry.” Tribal affairs were swiftly removed from Khan Lala’s charge and he was given the Kashmir portfolio instead! Khan Lala continued with parliamentary politics for a bit but his heart was set on reunification of the Pashtuns across various geographical divisions.

Unlike the Marxist irredentism of the late Ajmal Khattak and Nawab Khair Bux Marri, who saw national and class struggles intertwined with each, Afzal Khan Lala’s approach was indigenous and was anchored in the Pashtun tradition of the jirga to raise awareness and for collective decision making. Just like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan went door to door with his message, his disciple Khan Lala also reached out to the mighty and humble alike to join the reunification effort. He arranged a series of jirgas inviting Pashtuns from both sides of the Durand Line, the last one being in 2012. He rejoined the ANP in 2006 but was never given his rightful station. The ANP overlooked Afzal Khan Lala in the senate elections, even after his monumental stance against the TTP, when it

KHAN, P9

OPINION

P8 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

Punjab and Sindh Must Amend Laws to Empower the Local Bodies n By Salahuddin Haider

T

Karachi, Pakistan

he divorce was not only illtimed for Imran Khan, it was loaded with problems for the Tehreek-Insaaf chief, who now seems to be at the crossroads of his political career once again. But the landslide victories in Sunday’s elections, while bringing joy and smiles for PML-N and PPP, have simultaneously put them on trial. They need to amend their respective local bodies laws, to devolve authority, concentrated in the hands of their respective chief ministers, and vest administrative and financial powers in the hands of the newly elected members of the local government institutions.

Failure to do so will render the entire exercise, conducted at a huge cost to the public exchequer, absolutely meaningless. The two governments in the Punjab and Sindh should now bow before public aspirations to strengthen democracy at the grassroots level.

Lessons need to be learnt from practices followed for decades in established democracies of the world.

In Europe and America, and even in former communist blocs of Eastern Europe, China and Russia, power for resolving local problems rests with the lowest tiers of the administration. If in the United States, a system of community police has been

in practice with an elected sheriff, America, England and several other European countries have county system, with mayors as administrative heads while China has pursued for decades a commune system for resolving problems at the lowest levels of administration.

Practices followed in Sweden, and Switzerland, must help us reform our archaic system of wasteful expenditures, pomp and show, which is the least re- q u i r e d these days. It must be clearly understood by Islamabad that democracy does not mean mere elections. Deliverance counts more than anything else. This is the 21st century where people have easy access to modern technologies, and can, within seconds, compare their own country with those, reaping rich harvests of good governance, devolution of power, and cost-effective mechanism of State management.

All these things have sadly been missing in the Pakistani society, whose founding fathers had public welfare uppermost in their mind. Their labor and hard work to establish a new State for the people of the sub-continent, blessed with rule of law, equality, justice and fair play, have, unfortunately, all been thrown to the winds. Laws are framed to protect those at the helm and justice is denied to the poor and the helpless.

In Sweden, the prime ministers are not allowed official residence, drive their own cars, are allowed drivers only on State functions or while receiving foreign dignitaries,

have no servants. They are denied anything and everything that will be a burden on tax payers’ money.

Switzerland, a small country with a population of 8 million, is administratively divided in 26 cantons. The country has a small cabinet of just

It must be clearly understood

by Islamabad that democracy does not mean mere elections.

Deliverance counts more than anything else 7 ministers, drawn from the ruling and opposition parties. They elect one of them president of the country, with no salary, no emoluments, perks or privileges, which are allowed only for official purposes.

They do not have these facilities for

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their personal life.

Fortunately, I was witness to such austerity when in 1975, I saw the then Swedish prime minister, Olaf Palme, who was shot dead while cycling to home from a movie house, rushing out of the terminal building at the Stockholm airport, trying to wear his jacket, and storming into the aircraft carrying the late Mr Z A Bhutto. On enquiry we found later that the host had apologized to Mr Bhutto, then prime minister of Pakistan, that his wife had an appointment with her doctor, and he had to prepare breakfast for his children. Hence the delay of 6/7 minutes.

Can we ever think of emulating such examples? Former civil servant, Qudratullah Shahab, an eminent literary figure has mentioned in his book “Shahabnaama” that as a

personal staff member of the Quaidi-Azam, he learnt that the founder of Pakistan wanted to enquire as to how a chair costing Rs 47 was bought for his sister, Miss Fatima Jinnah. On being told that she, as his aide, had to be with him all the time, hence the new chair was bought for her. Impeccably honest and in the habit of keeping account of every penny, the Quaid told the Governor General officials that Miss Jinnah did not have any official position. He asked them to deduct Rs 47 from her personal account. The government cannot pay for a non-official.

Alas, we could not follow such a shining example. Austerity, like the Holy Qur’an, has been put on the shelf in Pakistan.

If security in a terror-stricken country is of a paramount consideration for VIPs, let there be a few efficient and highly trained men be with the President, and Prime Minister, governors and chief ministers.

The practice of carrying a convoy of 50 to 60 cars for the security of VIPs, causing inconvenience to people by blocking roads for their movement in major cities, must now be discarded for good for they are an enormous burden on the tax payers’ money. An efficient, reliable security system must replace the present fleet of vehicles on duty escorting head of State and others on their tour of cities or while leaving for the airport.

Politicians and parliamentarians can have their own private security. They are not supposed to burden the exchequer. Every penny POWER, P9

OPINION

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P9

Is Imran Khan Getting the Right Advice or Acting on His Whims? n By Karamatullah K. Ghori

N

Toronto, Canada

one should expect Imran Khan to not know how important timing is in cricket. He rose to legendary heights in that sport because of his impeccable timing.

But doesn’t he also know that, as in cricket, timing is equally the main catalyst for success, or failure, in the arcane game of politics, particularly the one in Pakistan?

Imran’s critics and detractors—and there are legions of them in Pakistan as well as among the Pakistani diaspora—have long dismissed him as a dismal failure in politics. They wag their tongues with impunity to remind all and sundry that a loose cannon like him can’t be a politician in a country where traditional politicians are like clams—devious and secretive and, when so required, treacherous beyond belief.

Lately, however, even some of his followers and aficionados—those whose faith in him remains intact—have often been asking this question: does he know where he’s going?

This past week must easily go down in Imran’s diary as a horrible week.

First, there was the shocking news— as most of his fans would describe it—of his split for good with his bride of a few months—nine or ten months, to be accurate—Reham Khan. It was shocking and hit his followers like a ton of bricks because it was totally unanticipated.

And, then, quick on its heels—in fact, only a day later—came PTI’s mauling at the Local Bodies elections in Punjab. It was a drubbing at the polls in the real sense of the term; a humiliating defeat for a party with a rising graph of popularity in the country, especially among its educated classes. The defeat was so terrible that it forced the hand of Senator Shafqat Mehmood, one of the ‘wise men’ in Imran’s inner circle of advisers, to resign.

Shafat Mehmood has, no doubt, done something noble, something unheard of in the Pakistani political culture, by accepting full responsibility for his party’s poor performance at the LB polls. That’s how defeat draws blood from the vanquished in democratic societies. But don’t expect others—especially in major, mainstream, political parties, such as N-League and PPP—to take Mehmood’s morally-correct example to heart; their politics has no room for shame of any kind; their politics has a one-line agenda of going for power for power’s sake.

Look at that doddering knave, Qaim Ali Shah, for example, in Sindh; he remains glued to his seat of the province’s Chief Minister by just turning a deaf ear to all the legitimate critique of his dismal performance as Sindh’s head honcho.

Shafqat Mehmood may have volunteered to put his head on the chopping block out of sheer good grace; that’s how noble men used to react to shame and humiliation when nobility wasn’t a lost art as it is in Pakistan.

It wasn’t uncommon for knights-in-shiningarmor to fall on their own sword to save their name from being sullied or dishonored.

But has Mehmood been made the fallguy, the proverbial sacrificial lamb, to take all the blame in order to absolve PTI’s Kaptan Imran Khan of primary responsibility for his party’s debacle at the polls?

Is it not a fact that the outcome of LB polls, as far as PTI’s fortunes are concerned, has been heavily influenced and shadowed by the announcement of Imran-Reham split on the eve of the election?

It would be hard to deny that Imran has faltered badly on the critical issue of timing in this whole episode.

Imran isn’t a spring chicken to not know that the dominant trait of Pakistan’s pathetically archaic feudal society is that hardly anybody sweeps before his own door, but are ad-

ept at conjuring up mountains of dirt at the neighbors’ door-steps.

Who on earth advised him, if at all, to break the story of his breakup with his bride of 9-months barely hours before the people of Punjab, and those of Sindh, were ready to go to the polls to elect their LB representatives?

The news was Manna to the Nawaz propaganda sleuths, led by that mealy-mouthed but perversely psychotic Senator Pervez Rashid—the man carrying a chip on his shoulder, perennially, against Imran. The Nawaz minions went to town with all kinds of snide comments on Imran’s character. The slogan instantly coined in that moment was that if Imran couldn’t keep his own house in order, how could he be relied upon to keep Pakistan in shape?

The bile from Nawaz’ camp was all poison and poured out in tons. That was enough for a socially-sick and mired-in-nihilisticsocial-taboos people to instantly suspect Imran’s character and leadership potential.

To any jaded pundit of the Pakistani scene, there is no surprise at all in PTI getting trounced at the LB polls at the hands of Nawaz League, whose dirty politics paid them handsome dividends at the polls.

In fact, any uncharitable pundit would be prone to pronounce that PTI shot itself in the foot or, rather, it was an own goal by PTI against itself.

Yes, this bleak outcome largely scripted

by Imran or whoever was advising him, invites a host of questions about his ability to keep his nerves cool under pressure and not act whimsically when a situation may demand of him a total control on his nerves and thought process. He seems to have flunked the test on this occasion.

None has any right to question his decision to part company with Reham Khan who, he might have come to conclude, wasn’t ready to be content merely playing the role of a home-maker. Perhaps, she became too ambitious about her own role and place in the scheme of things around since marrying an international celebrity like Imran—an icon to millions of Pakistanis?

Or, perhaps, Reham was ambitious, to begin with and Imran erred—badly, again— in anticipating that she would change her stripes once she’d tied the knot with him?

I’ve known Imran fairly closely in the period when he was still one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. There was interaction with him on the question of what kind of life partner he would settle for. The impression I, and some other friends of mine who were also in on the conversation, gathered was that he wanted a woman as close in social values of a wife as his mother—his role-model—was to his father: a simple, domesticated woman totally attached to her home, husband and children.

But if that was the paradigm of a wife in his mind, he obviously went against his own grain both times that he tied the knot, with

Jemima and Reham, respectively.

I’d be quite happy to give him the benefit of doubt and say that he was relatively younger—though not quite at 40-plus— when he got married to Jemima in 1995. She was an international socialite who, to give her full credit for her effort, tried her best to become a wife and mother after Imran’s liking. That Imran’s first marriage didn’t work out was most unfortunate.

But he was 62 when he got hitched to Reham, with absolutely no room for him or anyone to plead of immaturity or inexperience. She was a divorcee and a mother of three. The least Imran and the team around him could have done was to try find out why her first marriage didn’t work? What her first husband, Dr Ejaz said, a few weeks ago in an

His personal life is, indeed, his personal domain and should be beyond an inquisitive Pakistani news media that has been abusing its freedom beyond all decent limits.

Imran has a lot riding on his shoulders; not since the iconic MA Jinnah has a political leader so inspired and galvanized the people of Pakistan with his promise of historic change in their fortunes as Imran Khan interview with the Daily Mail, provided a generous peek into her ambitions.

Once again, I’m tempted against my own better judgment and sense of fair play to mull the question if he consulted anyone of those some very intelligent and bright people around him before walking down the aisle with Reham? Or was it an entirely solo flight?

It was unrealistic, if not naïve, of him to expect a woman who’d been a television person, an anchor, to sacrifice it all in order to become his model-wife. People don’t change after a certain age. Imran’s expectations of her were miscued, to say the least. The bottom line is that both entered this ill-starred union with expectations poles apart from each other.

Now that the hoped-for fairy tale marriage has ended on a sad, if not tragic, note it calls for a thorough introspection on Imran’s part because the early fallout of this episode

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has hugely impacted his party—and with it his political future—highly negatively.

I’m one of those viscerally convinced that in the constellation of leaders vying for the role of Pakistan’s emancipator and deliverer, Imran has the soundest and most credible credentials. He’s the only one untainted by muck of an anachronistic feudal culture that has no answers to the aspirations of the Pakistani people.

However, Imran will have to tamp his instinct of taking lead from his whims. His personal life is, indeed, his personal domain and should be beyond an inquisitive Pakistani news media that has been abusing its freedom beyond all decent limits. Imran has a lot riding on his shoulders; not since the iconic MA Jinnah has a political leader so inspired and galvanized the people of Pakistan with his promise of historic change in their fortunes as Imran Khan. (The writer is a former ambassador and career diplomat) - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com KHAN FROM P7

had the potential to send the grand old man to the upper house.

Afzal Khan Lala was the last leader who attempted to reorient Pashtun nationalism with its pan-Afghan roots. He wrote that to the east of the “Durand Line many Pashtun leaders struggled long and hard to win freedom from the British. However, in my opinion, the fundamental drawback was that (these) Pashtuns did not demand freedom from the British on the basis of the national unity of Pashtuns and for the reestablishment of Ahmad Shah (Abdali) Baba’s Afghanistan. All those great leaders tied the freedom of Pashtuns with the freedom of India. The face of the Pashtuns was thus diverted from the ‘north’ (Kabul) to the ‘south’ (Delhi). The split (Durand Line) that the British had caused in one body thus widened more.” Khan Lala wrote that the Durand Line was an “illegal, immoral and unconstitutional” demarcation but proposed for the involved parties to solve the issue through peaceful and democratic means. Just like he never imposed his devout religious views on anyone, he never forced his political vision on partisans, fellow travellers or opponents. He wanted the Pashtuns and Afghans to self-determinate their politico-national destiny. Afzal Khan Lala’s hospitality, self-reliance, dignity, towering personal integrity and determination under fire, along with his unwavering commitment to the Pashtun qaumi wahdat made him the paragon of Pashtun nationalism that he was adored as.

He lived by his favorite lines from Amir Hamza Shinwari: “So che ra ghund pa yaw markaz ye na krram Harey tapay ta da jargo sara zam” (Unless I unify Pashtuns around one centre With jirgas to their each abode I shall go).

Rest in peace dear Khan Lala; you were a league apart.

(The writer can be reached at mazdaki@ me.com and he tweets @mazdaki) VISIT FROM P6

Current Pakistani leaders will get a lot of attention, sometime passionately, during their US visits. But it might be very beneficial to pay serious attention to the emerging leaders of Pakistan such as the next generation of Pakistani leaders visiting Washington in late October who presented their views at the Atlantic Council. Each ELP provides a fresh perspective and something that the listeners must lend their ears to.

POWER FROM P8

of public money has to be accounted for.

While the PML(N) in Punjab’s 12 districts, and PPP in Sindh’s 8 districts, have recorded landslide victories, they should now amend the law for managing the new local body institutions. Chairmen, vice chairmen of POWER, P24

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PAKISTAN

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P11

General Raheel Sharif to Focus on Afghanistan during US Visit

Gen Raheel was last year awarded the US Legion of Merit for his contribution to “peace and security”

Islamabad: Army chief Gen Raheel

Sharif is expected to mainly focus on Afghanistan during his forthcoming visit to the United States.

During his stay in the US, from Nov 15 to 20, the COAS will meet senior officials at the Pentagon and the State Department, according to officials making preparation for the visit.

This will be the army chief ’s second visit to Washington in a year.

And it comes close on the heels of a visit to Washington by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last month when he discussed almost everything with President Barack Obama.

But given the extent of the military’s influence in the country’s foreign affairs and security matters, people here believe that more substantive discussions would take place during the army chief ’s US trip.

One must also not lose sight of the fact that Gen Sharif himself requested for this visit. In the words of a Washington-based source, it is not ‘a counterpart visit’. The request had been made before the prime minister toured Washington.

But that does not mean that the yearning for a meeting is one-sided.

American officials too are keen to meet the general who has successfully fought militancy at home and has appeared willing to improve relations with Afghanistan.

They see him as a “very candid, clear and upright interlocutor”.

“Many of the times he says things that would otherwise look quite undiplomatic, but he conveys the reality,” said a source who sat in some of Gen Sharif ’s meetings with US officials.

He was last year awarded the US Legion of Merit for his contribution to “peace and security”.

Gen Sharif, according to a wellplaced source, would be discussing a wide range of security issues with the US officials, but the focus would be largely on Afghanistan, where the peace process between the Taliban and the Ghani government, which started in July, remains suspended.

Besides, he would discuss the stalemate in Pak-Afghan bilateral relations, which started after the breakdown of reconciliation talks following the disclosure about Mullah Omar’s death and had been preventing the two countries from working together for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan.

The general could share his proposal about how the impasse in the reconciliation process could be overcome.

Both President Obama and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had after their White House meeting on Oct 22 called on the Taliban to initiate direct talks with the Afghan gov-

ernment and work for a sustainable settlement.

During his recent engagements with foreign leaders, the army chief had been underscoring the importance of a political settlement in Afghanistan, besides calling on “all stakeholders” to revive the reconciliation process.

Speaking at the US Centcom’s Asia Security Conference in Germany, Gen Sharif had stressed that “perpetual instability in Afghanistan had telling effects on the region”.

The Haqqani network would not be a major sticking point in the dialogue, said a source familiar with the thinking in Washington.

The US had at least three months ago threatened to hold about $300 million in Coalition Support disbursements because it was not convinced that Pakistan was doing enough to disrupt the terrorist network.

But, lately much has changed.

Top US commander in Afghanistan Gen John Campbell in his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month sounded more appreciative of Pakistani efforts even though he still pressed on Pakistan Army to do more against the Haqqani network.

A source disclosed that the urgency about action against the Haqqani network was no longer there because the American side now had a “better understanding” of what Pakistan was doing and it also received “credible assurances” from Pakistan military.

But, still the issue would be taken up by the American side, albeit with lesser emphasis, the source added.

Gen Sharif would brief his American hosts about the progress made in the Zarb-i-Azb Operation since it was launched in North Waziristan in June last year.

Pakistani security officials say the operation is in its last phase and 89 per cent of North Waziristan has been cleared of militants with the exception of a few pockets along the border with Afghanistan.

Death Toll from Lahore Factory Collapse Reaches 53

Lahore: The death toll from the col-

lapse of a factory has reached 53, rescue officials said on Sunday, nearly five days after one of the country’s deadliest industrial accidents in recent years.

More than 100 injured survivors were pulled out from the rubble after the factory collapsed on Wednesday night, but no one had been recovered alive since Friday night, said Dr Zulfiqar Ahmad, the executive district officer health Lahore.

“Now we are using sniffer dogs to try to find people,” Ahmad said.

“Only the ground floor is left ... It will take another day to clear all the rubble, after which we will be in a better position to tell the final death toll.”

“Today ... the whole operation was stopped for 45 minutes and a pin drop silence was maintained to hear sounds through voice sensors. But we found nothing.”

A handful of devastated family members still clustered around the site, clutching photographs and desperately ringing phones whose lines had gone dead.

“We are here for the last three days. Every moment gives us hope

Rescue workers search for survivors after the factory collapse near Lahore

that my younger brother Rizwan will come out of the rubble alive,” said Muhammad Imran, whose 16-yearold brother Muhammad Rizwan worked at the factory.

He spoke to his brother ten minutes before the collapse, he said, and had been calling since then. On Saturday, Rizwan’s phone went dead.

There were 160 to 175 factory workers and more construction workers inside the building when it collapsed, said Kamran Ali, a factory

official at the site.

Survivors said the factory’s owner, who was adding a new floor to the building, had ignored advice from his contractor and pleas from his workers to stop construction after large cracks appeared in the building following last month’s 7.5 magnitude earthquake.

The owner was among those killed in the collapse of the factory, which manufactured plastic bags 20 km (12 miles) south of the city of La-

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Reports of Nuclear Talks Precede Army Chief’s Visit Washington:

Pakistan’s nuclear program is once again the focus of discussions in the US capital as Army Chief Raheel Sharif prepares to visit Washington next week.

Reports in the US media, and by think tanks, however, suggest that both sides have already taken clear positions on this issue.

The Americans want Pakistan to stop making tactical weapons, halt the development of long-range missiles and sign the nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Pakistanis link their nuclear program to the security threat they face from India, want the Americans to sign a civil nuclear deal with Islamabad, and help it join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

But a senior US official told Dawn and some Pakistani media outlets in Washington that the United States was neither negotiating a civil nuclear deal with Pakistan nor seeking an international waiver.

Reports of “extensive nuclear talks” between Pakistan and the United States had also preceded Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ’s visit to the White House last month.

And a joint statement issued after Mr Sharif ’s meeting with President Barack Obama confirmed that they did discuss this issue.

The US official, who spoke to the Pakistani media, said that Washington had concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear program and those concerns were not new.

But he made it clear that the United States was not discussing a

civil nuclear deal with Pakistan, like the one it signed with India.

“The United States is not engaged in any dialogue on a civil nuclear agreement with Pakistan.

Nor are we seeking an exception for Pakistan within the NSG to facilitate civil nuclear exports,” he said.

The United States did get such a waiver for India, enabling it to join the NSG. Asked to elaborate US concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear program, the US official said the United States urged all nuclear capable states, including Pakistan, to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and their missile capabilities.

“We have ongoing dialogues where we encourage efforts to strengthen safety and security measures on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. And these dialogues are very important,” he said.

Pakistan May Be Polio-Free

by Next Year: UNICEF Peshawar:

Pakistan may be declared a ‘non-endemic country for polio virus’ by next year, a UNICEF health official said on Monday citing over 85 per cent reduction in recorded polio cases in 2015, especially in the country’s restive tribal areas.

Pakistan, which along with Afghanistan remains the only place where the crippling disease is still rife, registered only 36 polio cases so far this year, as compared to 306 cases recorded last year.

Year 2014 is considered by health experts as the darkest year for Pakistan polio eradication program.

“Efforts to eradicate the disease have been severely hindered in recent years by militants who attacked immunization teams and polio workers were not allowed in certain areas for administering drops,” said Dr Muhammad Johar, UNICEF Team Leader for Polio eradication in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

“The progress and achievement in polio eradication efforts has raised the confidence of health teams and Pakistan has set the target of complete obstruction of polio transmission in Pakistan by May 2016,” Johar said, adding, “In May 2016, Pakistan may be declared as NonEndemic country for polio virus.”

“Around 292,000 children from Khyber Agency, North Waziristan and South Waziristan Agencies were missed from immunization in 2014 due to inaccessibility of health teams in these area,” said Aqeel Ahmad, Media Liaison Officer, Polio Emergency Operation Center (EOC), FATA. hore.

The accident will once again raise questions over Pakistan’s lax enforcement of safety and building codes.

In September 2012, 289 people burned to death in a fire at a garment factory in Karachi. On the same day, a fire at a shoe factory in Lahore killed 25.

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NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P13

Bahria Town to Emerge as Media Giant

Sardar Ayaz Sadiq Re-elected as NA Speaker

Islamabad:

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz nominee Sardar Ayaz Sadiq was re-elected on Monday to the coveted office he had to relinquish after an election tribunal had nullified his election from NA-122 (Lahore V) on August 22.

While announcing the result, acting speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi said, “Shafqat Mahmood secured 31 votes, while Sardar Ayaz Sadiq got 268 votes.” A total of 300 votes were polled and one vote was found invalid.

“Sardar Ayaz Sadiq has been reelected as NA speaker,” he added.

All but one opposition party threw their weight behind Sadiq for the election of National Assembly speaker.

“I thank Almighty Allah for my reselection and this is the first time in Pakistan that a National Assembly speaker has been reelected from the same assembly,” Sadiq said.

While expressing his gratitude to all political parties and parliamentarians for their support Sadiq thanked PTI members for taking part in the democratic process.

“Together we will defend democracy and Constitution and I will play every role in making this house functional,” he vowed.

The newly elected speaker hoped to resume the process from where it stopped. “This is not my victory but the victory of democracy and Constitution.”

PTI’s Shafqat Mehmood congratulated Sadiq for getting reelected as speaker of the National Assembly.

“All national issues should be discussed inside the parliament and a consensus should be developed on national issues,” the PTI leader said in his address to the House.

He further said that all the parliamentarians should make the National Assembly functional instead of calling for all parties conferences.

“It is a huge challenge for all parliamentarians to discuss issues

Islamabad:

Sardar Ayaz Sadiq takes oath of Speaker National Assembly from acting speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi at the Parliament House in Islamabad, November 9, 2015

of great national importance in the parliament and we should try to restore people’s trust in the country’s democratic system.”

The lower house of parliament held a rare session to elect its custodian. The election process started at 9am – and the results were announced by acting speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi. It is rare for the assembly to elect a speaker midway through its five-year term and even rarer to see the same person reentering the coveted office again.

Acting speaker Mumtaz Javaid Abbasi has relinquished office of acting speaker after election of the new speaker. He would continue as deputy speaker. Under the constitution if the office of speaker becomes vacant, the deputy speaker assumes office as acting speaker, till a new speaker is elected.

Although the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf nominated its lawmaker, Shafqat Mahmood, for the contest, Sadiq had a walkover as almost all opposition parties announced support for him.

While talking to journalists, he

thanked all the parliamentary parties that had announced their support for him, including PPP, MQM, JUI-F, PML-Q, ANP, PML-Z, PMLF, and Jamaat-e-Islami.

Sadiq promised that he would remain unbiased after becoming the custodian of the house and perform even better than his previous incomplete term. “Whether someone votes for me or not, I will not consider them a separate group,” he said.

In reply to a question about Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s demand for holding elections last week, Sadiq termed the PTI leader’s action inappropriate.

Qureshi had demanded that as per rules, election for speaker should be held first before the house took up the routine agenda. Sadiq said if a party member won an election and came to the house, he would remain a stranger until he took oath.

“I wasn’t even nominated for the speaker’s slot then. He didn’t want me to take oath and become the speaker,” he claimed. PTI’s Mahmood had filed his nomination papers on Friday.

Bahria Town announced its debut into the world of Pakistani media, inviting applicants from across the country to be a part of what appears to be a new media giant in the making.

By placing full page advertisements in newspapers on Sunday, the real estate company announced how it would be entering the media world with a network of newsgathering bureaus with offices in all major cities of Pakistan. “Bahria Town will provide comprehensive coverage of news, entertainment, sports and property from across the globe,” said the advertisement, adding that the company would recruit leading journalists, entertainers, sports personalities, and technical staff to create content for the network.

The media channel will also broadcast in HD formats. This announcement comes at a time when the industry is still recovering from the shock implosion of Bol TV that sank without a trace after the New York Times exposed its fraudulent practices.

Chairman Bahria Town Malik Riaz is widely acclaimed as the largest and most successful property tycoon in the country. Media industry insiders say Riaz will make a huge impact in the media by investing heavily in technology, human resource and international best practices.

“After the Bol TV fiasco, our industry needs a boost,” said a senior TV journalist while requesting anonymity. “Bol TV hurt us badly and hundreds of us are now jobless.

A new channel promising to deliver what Bol did will be a ray of hope for us,” he says.

In recent months, the broadcast industry has seen the launch of many news channels but none has managed to dent the advertising revenue of the top channels. At present, the market is dominated by four or five channels which control the lion’s share of the advertising revenue.

However, with Bahria Town’s deep pockets, there is potential for a new channel to gatecrash into the elite channels’ club. With vast financial resources at its disposal, experts believe the Bahria channel could eat into the market share of the top channels and attract the best human resource, content and advertisement rupees.

“The TV industry should brace for some major realignments,” says an industry insider. “Malik Riaz is going to make an impact. He intends to be a force to reckon with in the media,” he added.

UK Paper Claims Imran Divorced Reham Via SMS

Civil Society Leaders Begin Unofficial Pakistan-Afghan Talks

Islamabad: Officials, civil society activists and politicians from Pakistan and Afghanistan are holding a two-day unofficial dialogue in Islamabad on how to lessen bilateral tensions, address misconceptions and build mutual confidence for jointly promoting peace and security on both sides of their shared border.

The unofficial interaction is taking place at a time of increased tension and mutual mistrust between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Addressing the opening session Monday of the so-called “Beyond Boundaries” discussions, Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Janan Mosazai emphasized the need for increased contacts to build mutual confidence.

“We believe that the civil society in Pakistan, the civil society in Afghanistan can become extremely substantial, extremely important stakeholders in the state-to-state and in the country-to-country cooperation and ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said Mosazai.

Mosazai said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani took significant steps to improve relations with Pakistan after assuming office more than a year ago, and dismissed the impression the progress and contacts have

completely halted.

“Unfortunately, where we seem to have failed the test of times is in translating our common vision, our points of convergence and our very specific decisions, when it comes to various dimensions of our relations, from words to actions,” said Mosazai.

Allegations fly: Afghan leaders allege the Pakistani military and its spy agency have not ended support for the Taliban insurgency, and Islamabad accuses Kabul of allowing anti-Pakistan militants to use Afghan soil for cross-border attacks.

Pakistani Trade Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan told the conference Islamabad is determined to prevent militants from using its territory for terrorist attacks. He hoped the two countries will overcome challenges to security cooperation in fighting terrorism.

“That is our aim to surmount in the coming days and months, but I want to emphasize this; that our commitment to achieve a shared peace, shared prosperity with Afghanistan, is stronger than it was a year ago. We want to go forward,” said Khan.

Omar’s death creates void: The Afghan-Pakistan relationship hit

new lows in July when it was revealed longtime Taliban chief Mullah Omar died more than two years ago. The disclosure disrupted a Pakistanhosted peace dialogue between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

Afghan leaders feel betrayed Islamabad kept the news of Omar’s death from them.

Since then, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor has become Taliban leader and the insurgents have widened their violent campaign in Afghanistan.

A Pakistani security analyst, Simbal Khan, attending the unofficial dialogue urged Islamabad not to respond to Afghan criticism by halting bilateral links.

“It should be understood by Pakistan that there are certain kind of realities the Ghani government is functioning under within Kabul, and they should not be too sensitive about what is said and what is not said and continue the process, continue to move it forward, continue the diplomacy,” said Khan.

Pakistani minister Khan emphasized the need for media outlets and journalists in both countries to tone down hostile rhetoric to allow the two governments to engage in constructive dialogue.

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London/Karachi: According to claims made by a British newspaper, Imran Khan divorced his wife Reham via SMS, which she received upon landing at the Birmingham airport after a long flight from Pakistan.

According to the Daily Mail, the marriage which was first reported to be an amicable parting, was anything but. The couple had “furious rows over everything” from Imran’s friends to her banning his dogs from the bedroom.

Reham received the text message communicating divorce when she stepped off the airplane. The paper claims that she was given a confirmation by Imran Khan’s chief of staff.

Citing unnamed sources the paper claims the divorce was an attempt to counter any fight-back from Reham, who was “shaken and clearly upset” upon receiving the news.

The marriage which lasted about 10 months, saw Reham be-

come bigger news than Imran Khan and the paper’s report cited a family insider who put the blame on Reham’s shoulders alleging “She made his life a living hell. The wonder is that things dragged on for as long as they did.”

With the slowly revealing story of jealousy, political ambitions and a battle for keeping the dogs out of the bedroom it is clear that the divorce was nothing like the initial amicable parting stance conveyed by the Khans to their fans.

IQBAL FROM P15

in Karachi to critically re-examine the famous Allahabad address of Iqbal and they were convinced that the Tarana-e-Hind’s creator did not want to divide India,” she adds.

Was Iqbal a great philosopher or a poet? Smiling sheepishly, the teacher says: “Iqbal is an enigma, you have to discover him.”

Nov 9 marked the 138th birth anniversary of Allama Iqbal. Dawn

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We make sure that the girls not only attend the Saghir Aslam and his wife Bushra Aslam well known best schools but they also excel in other fields. A philanthropists and founders of IEWS and Saba Homes, Martial Art & Karate trainer is hired that conduct training sessions on daily basis. for the past 48 years have been helping people. Many years back they identify the need for an institution that will cater for the most vulnerable and poorest of the poor; Regular sessions are organized for children’s character the orphans in Pakistan. They left comfortable lives they were living in America, to building, motivation and time management as part of build an institution, a home and a learning center for orphans. Purpose of Saba Homes is not just providing basic support to the orphan girls but to produce future empowerment program. leaders from among the less fortunate segment of the society.

Regular exposure visits are organized to various places including; Mansehra, Murree, Kashmir, Fort Rohtas, Faisal Mosque and Educational Institutions, for children at Saba Homes to learn and At Saba Homes orphan girls are provided with accommodation including; fully furnished rooms, rest explore. rooms, play area, state of the art kitchen, dining hall, Masjid, study room and library.

Recreational activities including; Ice Cream treat, Halwa Puri breakfast, McDonald’s, Pizza hut, KFC meal treats and morning walks are organized on weekly basis, and Eid parties twice a year Saba girls attend one of the well reputed private schools to get for the orphan girls at Saba Homes to make sure they enjoy life just like other quality education. Private tutors are hired to help girls with children. their home work and to help them further improve in their studies so that they can excel to be the best.  17 of Saba Girls Received A+ and A  15 of Our Girls Received B+ and B  Most of Saba Girls are Prefect in their class A fully equipped computer lab is setup at Saba Homes for the girls to learn computer skills.

Sponsor an Orphan Girl for $50/Month or $600/Year!

Ambish

MAKE A DONATION TODAY! Through PayPal at: www.sabatrust.org Make Your Checks Payable to “Saba Homes”

Mail Your Checks to: 17880 Sky Park Circle, Suite 125, Irvine CA 92614 Call: 714.305.5425 Email: info@sabatrust.org Tax ID No. 33-0716944

www.PakistanLink.com

PAKISTAN

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P15

Naval, Air Chiefs Vow to Fortify Vigil at Sea to Enhance Security

A plaque commemorating Allama Iqbal’s stay at Heidelberg, Germany, in 1907

Admiral Zakaullah and Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman review the ongoing naval exercise

Karachi: The Chief of Naval Staff

Admiral Muhammad Zakaullah, joined by Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman, visited the fleet units at sea on Monday and underlined the importance of maintaining constant vigil at sea in view of the prevailing security environment.

The commanders of the country’s air and naval forces were on an operational visit to fleet units at sea during the ongoing naval exercise, Seaspark 2015.

During the visit, the chief of the air staff was given a detailed briefing on various operational aspects encompassing tactical planning and execution of plans.

Admiral Zakaullah reiterated Pakistan Navy’s resolve of maintaining peace, security and stability in the region.

Interacting with officers and men on the occasion, the naval chief urged them to “put in their best to achieve professional excellence which has always remained the hallmark of

Pakistan Navy”.

The over-arching objective of this exercise is to validate PN operational plans, assess war preparedness of the naval force and enhance interoperability with the air force and the army, Zakaullah said.

Earlier on their arrival at the site, both the services chiefs were briefed on the conduct of the exercise.

During the visit, the Naval and Air Chiefs witnessed the ongoing joint operations by PN Fleet units and PAF aircraft.

The naval chief lauded the seamless integration between various echelons of Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Air Force, which is essential for synergetic response to the prevailing threats.

Both the services chiefs also witnessed the conduct of joint operations from PAF’s Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft while operating in North Arabian Sea. Admiral Zakaullah expressed his satisfaction on the operational

preparedness of the personnel and lauded their professional conduct in carrying out the task of defending the borders of the country.

Pakistan Navy is fully prepared and capable of defending these important sea lanes and one of the objectives of Seaspark 15 is to assess operational preparedness to undertake this key task, a statement quoted the naval chief as saying.

Seaspark 2015, which began in the north Arabian Sea on November 3 after a gap of three years, involves all operational units of the navy, including ships, submarines, aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, special forces and marines, along with elements of the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency, Pakistan Air Force and the army with the aim to corroborate the navy’s operational plans, assess its war preparedness and enhance its interoperability with the PAF and the army.

The exercise will conclude on November 12.

Pakistan & S. Arabia Reconcile after Rift over Yemen n By Bruce Riedel Riyadh: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are resetting their relationship, which was dealt a major setback earlier this year when Islamabad refused to join the Saudi war in Yemen.

Pakistan’s chief of army staff, General Raheel Sharif, visited Riyadh last week and held talks with King Salman, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, and Defense Minister Prince Muhammad bin Salman. A joint Saudi-Pakistani military exercise was also concluded.

The Saudi media hailed the visit as an end to the “somewhat cool” period that followed the unanimous vote in the Pakistani parliament last April against sending any troops to join the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

The vote was followed by a wave of editorials in the Pakistani press harshly critical of the Kingdom. This criticism was highly unusual given the long history of close relations between the two states. Pakistan deployed thousands of soldiers in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s to deter any aggression by Iran against the Kingdom, for example, and Saudi Arabian money has helped bankroll Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

There are also 1.5 million Pakistanis working in Saudi Arabia.

The chief of army staff ’s visit will help repair the rift over Yemen,

General Raheel Sharif called on King Salman in Riyadh last week

but doubts about Pakistan’s reliability will persist in the Gulf. Promises to come to the defense of the Kingdom and especially the two holy cities are taken with some question marks by the Gulf ’s royal families, especially in Abu Dhabi.

For their part, senior Pakistanis have doubts about the stability of the succession process in Saudi Arabia.

They are monitoring carefully the king’s son, Prince Muhammad bin Salman, who is also deputy crown prince as well as defense minister, and who is very ambitious. The king has already deposed one crown prince this year, his brother Prince Muqrin, with no explanation. Many Pakistanis are also unhappy with the Saudi response to the tragic stam-

Footprints: Finding Iqbal in Germany

pede at the Hajj this year, in which dozens of Pakistanis were killed.

Given its neutral stand in the Yemen conflict, Pakistan could play a critical role in any peace agreement there by providing the core of a peace keeping force to oversee a cease-fire. Pakistan has a long history of providing excellent forces to United Nations peacekeeping missions. It is also experienced in managing Sunni-Shia sectarian tensions, which will be crucial to any peace process in Yemen. General Sharif will be in Washington later this month and should be quietly encouraged to lean forward to assist ending the war that Islamabad wisely stayed out of. – Courtesy Brookings

www.PakistanLink.com

n By Duriya Hashmi Heidelberg: If you can escape the

panoramic view of the majestic Heidelberg Castle, you may notice the plaque on a nondescript old building in Neuenheim that reads: “Dr Mohammad Iqbal, national philosopher, poet, spiritual father of Pakistan, lived here in 1907.” Iqbal stayed in Heidelberg for six months to learn German for his PhD thesis.

As if living in his poem Aik Sham (Darya-e-Neckar, Heidelberg, ke kinare par) that was penned here in Heidelberg, I take an evening stroll along the Iqbla Ufer, a street named after him on the bank of the River Neckar. Autumn leaves rustle ahead to reveal a bush-covered German inscription of this poem in a park nearby.

I imagine Dr Mohammad Iqbal sitting with his German tutor Emma Wegenast, who is reciting the legend of Faust. As a student of philosophy and German, I wish to know if Iqbal too fumbled for German articles. How did he express his desire to stay in touch with Frau Wegenast? How to get theses answers when all the textbook essays on Iqbal merely chronicle his life as an allama while overlooking the person?

Known for its Romantics and as being a center of intellectual activity, Heidelberg influenced Iqbal to the extent that in one of the dozens of letters written to Emma, he termed his stay there as “a beautiful dream” which he yearned to repeat.

This is the place where he, according to Atiya Faizee, danced to a German folk tune and sang aloud with the mirth of a chirpy young scholar that was completely different from the egocentric cynic of the London days.

But what impact did Herr Professor Iqbal leave on German academia in Heidelberg or Munich?

Students in Heidelberg University have keine ahnung (no idea) about Pakistan’s national philosopherpoet. Thanks to his name they think this ‘poet of the East’ might be a subject of interest for the South Asia Institute.

Dr Bettina Robotka, a professor at Humboldt University’s Department of South Asia Studies, doubts that any student of philosophy in Germany knows Iqbal. His emphasis on reviving Islamic jurisprudence and his confrontation with the European system puts him at odds with the West, she says.

During my quest to find Iqbal

in Germany I bump into Fabian, a PhD student at the Institute of Islamic Studies, Bonn. He says he read Iqbal out of curiosity while studying Indology but found his poetry and political thought too confusing.

Oriental scholar and author of the essay ‘How to Carve a Saqi out of Nietzsche’, Dr Stephan Popp thinks that Iqbal’s philosophy is mostly based on poetry whereas poetry does not intrigue the European mind. For liberal Muslim scholars the poet offers a modern interpretation of Islam, and thus remains an illuminating figure for spirituality or moral philosophy. From a positivist point of view, according to Popp, he lacks luster. And while traditional biographers shun accounts of Dr Iqbal’s friendship with Emma, he says, she is an essential reference point to understand the influence of German literature on Iqbal’s formative years. Zafar Anjum, in his book on Iqbal, mentions that most of Iqbal’s love poems were written during his association with Emma in Heidelberg.

Robotka points out that Iqbal admired German culture but did not really assimilate it into his life.

For instance, he arranged for a German governess for his children but they were raised in an orthodox fashion. Both Robotka and Popp agree that Iqbal’s knowledge of German literature and culture too is overrated. According to the latter, owing to his tutor’s conservatism, he gleans more from the Romantics of his era and extols the virtues of Heinrich Heine while completely leaving out the ‘obscene’ Goethe.

According to Popp, although Iqbal defends himself for drawing heavily on Nietzsche’s Übermensch or Bergson’s elan, his concept of khudi (individuality) shows how Western philosophy left its mark on him. His Payam-e-Mashriq is regarded an obvious response to Goethe’s West-östlischer Divan.

In Popp’s view, Iqbal did not plagiarize Nietzsche or Schopenhauer as some accuse him of doing, but the scholarly exchange with Emma Wegenast influenced him subconsciously. “What is original about him, as with everybody, is not the ingredients but the mixture,” the academic says.

Robotka laments that Iqbal is studied too superficially and is exploited as state apparatus in Pakistan notwithstanding his Indian nationalism. “I asked my students IQBAL, P13

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Shahnawaz Restaurant Catches Fire Shahnawaz Restaurant in Lakewood, California, caught fire on Tuesday, November 10, around 12:30 pm. The fire started in the kitchen area. The blaze soon burnt the entire kitchen and the restaurant area. Minor damage was also caused to the banquet hall.

Luckily, no one was injured in the fire and all the employees and staff were reported safe.

Dara Khan, owner of the Restaurant, is currently out of the country. He left a couple of weeks ago for Mecca to perform Umrah.

Members of the community who placed catering orders to the Restaurant are requested to call Mr Rafi (Dara Khan Sahib’s son) at 562 402 7443. The Restaurant will arrange food as per order of the clients. www.PakistanLink.com

COMMUNITY

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P17

Community Link Friday, November 13, 2015

VOL. 25/46 PAGE 19

Reflections on Contemporary Pakistani Art

1 Safar 1437 H

PAGE PAGE21 17

PAGE 20 egum PAGE

Ved Ji’ Demise: A Colossal Loss to Kashmiris

Consequences of Religious Intolerance

For news, updated round the clock, visit

www.PakistanLink.com

Emerging Leaders of Pakistan Meet Established Leaders in Silicon Valley

Fifteen young men and women visiting the US from Pakistan met with a diverse group of Silicon Valley technologists on November 5 to brainstorm solutions to issues the visitors face in their respective fields of work

n By A.H. Cemendtaur

O

n Friday, November 5, fifteen young men and women visiting the US from Pakistan met with a diverse group of Silicon Valley technologists to discuss ideas and brainstorm solutions to issues the visitors face in their respective fields of work.

The meeting held at the residence of Osman Rashid, a role model among the PakistaniAmerican entrepreneurs, coincided with the monthly get-together of the NED Alumni of Silicon Valley. Mike Zaidi, the President of the NED Alumni, decided to merge his group’s monthly meeting with the visitors’. Moazzam Chaudry and Amra Tareen represented the Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America (OPEN) at the gathering.

The visitors were part of the

Emerging Leaders of Pakistan fellowship program arranged by the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council is a Washington DC-based think-tank primarily funded by the US Government.

Huma Haque and Nazia Khan of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center shortlisted over one thousand applicants in Pakistan, interviewed them over Skype, and later met them in person to select fifteen bright individuals.

According to the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center the Emerging Leaders of Pakistan program is currently in its fifth year.

This year’s contingent of 20-something fellows included Ali Haider, Editor-in-Chief, of Humans of Pakistan; Anam Bhatti, Co-Founder of Deeda and Chief Operating Officer of Design Pakistan; Danish Ali Bhutto, a Parliamentary Associate; Fakiha Ali, a social activist; Fatima Rizwan,

Founder and CEO of TechJuice; Hussain Haider, Founder of the Beydaar Society; Khalid Khawaja Mushtaq, CEO of Tourplanner. pk; Rafia Farooqui, a social activist interested in water issues; Rizwan Shoukat, involved in social activism through puppet theater; Saima Feroz, a law student and the Joint Secretary of Da Thor Sarro Saddar, a women’s empowerment organization; Sawai Mal, a humanitarian worker and minority rights activist heading the Minority Social Development Organization (MSDO); Syed Azhar Shah, Co-Founder and Chief Architect of TeleConvex; Usman Khan, founder of Emperor’s Bazaar; Zahra Barkat Ali, a clinical psychologist; and Zulqarnain Jameel, founder of the Tent School System in 2015.

It was obvious that the fellowship program had tried to assemble a diverse group: there were individuals from various geo-

www.PakistanLink.com

graphical regions of Pakistan — no one from Balochistan though -- and there was one member of the Hindu community too.

A number of visitors were running startup companies and social enterprises. Meeting with the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the inevitable question came up: How to raise money for an enterprise, in Pakistan? Why does that process seem so easy in the Silicon Valley where venture capital money seems to be growing on the trees?

The answer was simple, but was not articulated well. Nothing succeeds like success. Entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley succeed because the Silicon Valley is succeeding, and the Valley in turn is succeeding because the US is succeeding. Put the brightest technologist, the best businessman in a Third World country experiencing political turmoil, and you will soon see the excellence of the indi-

vidual being bogged down by the inertia of the collapsing system.

But introducing young leaders from Pakistan with the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs was just one aspect of the fellowship program.

Emerging Leaders program is all about exposure; the underlying idea being that exposing bright minds to new environments, ideas, and people in the US will further groom the visitors’ professional skills.

Even if the Emerging Leaders of Pakistan fellowship program fails in establishing a single working relationship between a fellow and the people that fellow has gotten introduced to in the US, these young people, after being together for the duration of the program, will discover each other to be the greatest support group they can lean on, in their future endeavors.

(Cemendtaur’s latest book The Green Ibn Battuta is now available at Amazon.com)

COMMUNITY

P18 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

Annual Eid ul Adha Carnival

n By Owaiz Dadabhoy

O

n October 11th, UPLIFT Charity held its 10th annual Eid-ul-Adha carnival for the families that UPLIFT serves in Orange County, the Inland Empire and neighboring cities. Approximately 700 people attended the carnival including families, children and individuals to celebrate the festivities of Eid together.

Refugees and asylum seekers from more than 10 countries attended, many of whom were from Syria, Iraq and Burma.

The concept was envisioned in 2006 after the UPLIFT team had realized that many of the families they were assisting were refugees, recent

immigrants and people who had lost everything. The idea was to get people together so that they could make a connection with another person and start to build a new network. At the same time, the UPLIFT team wanted to create a festive environment as many of the attendees were usually celebrating Eid alone.

The attendees were welcomed and served by a large team, each one with a smile on their face. More than 700 grilled burgers were served and hundreds of toys, clothing items and snack bags distributed to those attending. Our friends at UMMA Clinic administered flu shots and provided medical screenings. Our long time partners from Islamic Relief donated 3,500 pounds of meat

Help Pakistan’s Earthquake Victims

by Donating through Xoom

San Francisco, CA: In support of

those affected by the recent earthquake, Xoom, a leading digital money transfer provider, has announced that it will contribute 100% of the money transfer fees for all donations to Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS) sent from Xoom.com from November 4-15, 2015. From November 4-15, 2015, consumers can visit www.xoom. com/pakistan to send a donation directly to the PRCS. The donations will arrive instantly in PRCS’s account.

“Our prayers are with the victims and the families deeply affected by the devastating earthquake in Pakistan,” said Nasar Agboatwala, Xoom’s Marketing Manager for South Asia.

“We urge the Pakistani community to join hands in the rescue and recovery effort by sending their donations to Pakistan Red Crescent Society via Xoom.com.”

To make a donation to PRCS, consumers can follow these steps: Sign up for Xoom 1. Visit www.xoom.com and select Pakistan in the drop-down menu.

Sign in if you’re an existing Xoom customer or follow the below instructions.

2. Click on the ‘Sign-Up Now for Free’ button - and fill in the required fields 3. Confirm your email address 4. Your Xoom account is now set up!

Make a donation to PRCS 5. Enter the US dollar amount you wish to donate

6. Enter the following on the Recipient information page: • Bank name: HBL • Bank account no: 02967900456001 • First name: Pakistan Red • Last name: Crescent Society • Address 1: 1-9 Branch, Industrial area • City: Islamabad • Province: Islamabad • Email: adnan.shah@prcs.org. pk • Phone: +92-3005587375 7. Click “Continue to Payment” 8. Fill in your payment information 9. Authorize your transfer to PRCS The money will get there instantly, and Xoom will donate 100% of the transfer fee to PRCS. In addition to the money transfer fee, Xoom generates revenue when it changes your dollars into a foreign currency.

About Xoom: Xoom is a leading digital money transfer provider that enables consumers to send money, pay bills, and send prepaid mobile phone reloads for family and friends around the world in a secure, fast and cost-effective way, using their mobile phone, tablet or computer. During the 12 months ending June 30, 2015, Xoom’s more than 1.4 million active customers sent approximately $6.9 billion with Xoom. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and can be found online.

that was distributed at the end of the day to those who attended and to various low income Muslim communities near us. The children were kept entertained with a bouncer, pony rides, petting zoo, face painting and henna.

For the second year in a row the carnival coincided with Open Mosque Day at the Islamic Society of Orange County where the event was held. Visitors from many faiths visited after their tour of the mosque.

Included in those that came by to greet UPLIFT team members and attendees were former State Senator Lou Correa, Garden Grove Mayor Bao Nguyen, Garden Grove City Council member Phat Bui, and Garden Grove Planning Commissioner

Pakistani Develops Software to Erase Information Faster than Google

A

Pakistani researcher has developed a software that can erase unwanted information about you on the internet faster than Google.

Inspired by new laws in Europe as the European Union granted people the right to be forgotten, Rizwan Asghar has come up with a solution to tackle Google’s agonizingly slow process to remove unflattering photos or defamatory articles from their memory bank.

Earlier, a European Court of Justice had said that individuals have the right to have links to information about them deleted from searches in certain circumstances, such as if the data is outdated or inaccurate.

However, Google has been flooded by requests and is unable to keep up with the demand. But Rizwan Asghar, an assistant professor of computer security at the University of Auckland, and his two German colleagues, have developed a software called ‘Oblivion’ that can help erase unwanted information more swiftly.

“It can process 278 take down requests per second,” claimed Asghar, claiming it is a lot faster than Google’s current painstaking manual process.

The developers claim that unlike Google, Oblivion does not require additional information about you if you want to remove anything from the internet. “I will have to upload my driving license or my passport, which means Google can see my SOFTWARE, P28

www.PakistanLink.com

John O’Neill.

The UPLIFT team thanks all 40 volunteers for their sincere efforts in making the guests feel welcome.

Testimonials: You have showed Allah’s love and mercy by spreading so much happiness, love and joy to so many hearts. We really appreciate what you did for us and May Allah bless UPLIFT and all the people who helped in putting together such a beautiful event. - Maria White My daughter and I had a great time at this amazing carnival. My Muslim friend invited me to come and meet the community and I was so surprised to see how nice, friendly and welcoming everyone was.

Thank you for opening up your doors and hearts to us. - Blanca

Quintana It was an amazing and very organized event. My children were so excited to receive so many gifts and goodie bags. What made their day even more thrilling was riding the ponies, petting the animals and the jumper! Their favorite meal was an awesome plus. Barbecued burgers, chips, salsa, cookies and all kinds of drinks. We were sent home with not only so many gifts but also with a nice bag of lamb meat. I can’t express enough my deepest and most heartfelt sincere gratitude to all of UPLIFT as an organization, staff and volunteers for making this day such a memorable one for my children and so many others. - Anonymous

Southern California Edison Customer Rates to Decrease

Rosemead, CA: An average South-

ern California Edison residential customer’s bill would decrease about 6 percent by the end of March as a result of several actions by the California Public Utilities Commission, including a vote on Thursday for funding SCE’s day-to-day operations.

The commission’s decision authorized recovery of costs reviewed in SCE’s General Rate Case, which includes inspecting, repairing and replacing infrastructure that will make it easier to restore power after an emergency outage in the future. It also funds the people SCE employs, such as the workers who climb the poles to restore electric service in storms and answer customer service calls.

“Southern California Edison is working hard to keep rates reasonable for our customers while also making the necessary infrastructure improvements for the 21st century power network, and we were able to do that while requesting a rate decrease for our customers,” SCE President Pedro Pizarro said.

Every three years, the commission reviews a request from SCE for the next three-year spending cycle.

As of late November, an average residential customer’s bill will decrease about 2 percent as a result of the commission approval on Oct. 22 of the 2015 costs for energy sources SCE needs to supply electricity. These expenses are passed

through to customers at cost; there is no markup or profit. SCE generates about 20 percent of its own power and buys the rest through contracts and short-term markets.

These costs are approved annually.

The November bill decrease also includes settlement refunds from the 2000-2001 California energy crisis.

SCE expects the commission to approve its anticipated 2016 costs for energy sources in the first quarter of the year. If the commission approves SCE’s request, an average residential customer’s bill would decrease 4 percent. Part of that decrease will be implementation of a settlement with Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited for the San Onofre outages caused by the failures of replacement steam generators. Ninety-five percent of the net insurance proceeds will benefit customers — SCE’s share of the settlement is $312.8 million.

The General Rate Case makes up more than 40 percent of rates for the nearly 14 million people SCE serves. About half of customer rates comes from the cost of energy sources for power. The remaining portion comes from a variety of other factors, such as large transmission projects regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and programs for energy efficiency and to protect low-income customers.

For more information, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

COMMUNITY

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P19

Salima Hashmi & Imran Qureshi Reflect on Contemporary Pakistani Art

Salima Hashmi and Imran Qureshi, along with art consultant Marilyn Wyatt, reflected on contemporary Pakistani art in a panel discussion, which featured work from Hashmi’s latest book The Eye Still Seeks

n By Salina Nasir Photos by Annie Athar

O

n the evening of Saturday October 24, President of the Pakistan Arts Council Ayesha Kamran welcomed guests to the USC Pacific Asia Museum, pondering over how she could introduce the celebrated panelists for Traces of Blood: Art and Activism in Pakistan Today.

The truth is, no introduction could possibly do artists Salima Hashmi and Imran Qureshi justice.

Recognizing this, Kamran chose instead to quote writer and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel: “The opposite of art is not ugliness,” she recited. “It is indifference.”

Indeed, artists are activists who refuse to remain indifferent in the face of trouble, choosing instead to use their paintbrushes as tools to expose injustice. In fact, it was Hashmi who once said that when the world gets worse, the art gets better: “The worse the world becomes, the stronger the artists feels that their voices need to be heard,” she elaborated.

“The artist finds for people the voice that they cannot find themselves.”

Perhaps this is indicative of how artists express their grievances in ways unlike most other conventional activists who march through streets beating their drums and bugles. Rather, an artist’s grief is personal. It is creative, and though tragic, its results are beautiful.

That night, guests of the museum were shown that, indeed, such beauty is borne out in difficult times.

Hashmi and Qureshi, along with art consultant Marilyn Wyatt, reflected on contemporary Pakistani art in a panel discussion, which featured work from Hashmi’s latest book, “The Eye Still Seeks.”

“We live by poetry, music, and art. We live by these things that make human beings feel whole and put us in touch with our humanity,” said Hashmi.

Hashmi is more than just the daughter of late poetic genius Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who is still considered one of Pakistan’s most famed poets today. She is an acclaimed cultural writer and a passionate anti-nuclear weapon activist who serves as Punjab’s vice-chair person for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and is a member of Amnesty International. But perhaps most prevalent is Hashmi’s role as an art historian and creative painter whose adoration for the arts paved the way to her career at Pakistan’s renowned National College of Arts, where she taught for years before serving as the college’s principal for four years.

“By working together in art, our main objective is to create an atmosphere and a world in which peace is what we want to live by,” she said. Though she explained that peace is “elusive” in today’s world, Hashmi believes that, through art, we can make that goal very tangible.

It was at NCA where Hashmi happened upon Qureshi, a like-minded student whose artistic talent paired with his deep-rooted passion regarding societal dilemmas mirrored her very own desire to live by peace and thusly reminded her of the tangibility of her goal. Hashmi recognized, perhaps prematurely, that Qureshi was destined for greatness.

She was right. Now an internationally renowned artist, Qureshi has traveled the world, leaving his mark—rather, his paint splatters— on areas near and far, from New York to war-torn Afghanistan and his beloved Pakistan.

His creations undoubtedly serve as metaphorical expressions reflecting the issues that continue to hurt the country of his origin: traces of homegrown militancy, traces of sectarian violence, and, of course, traces of blood, as depicted by the recurring element of bold and unsettling, yet equally mesmerizing and thought-provoking, paint splatters.

“It’s not just about Pakistan, it’s also about humanity,” said Qureshi.

I want my work [to reflect] the feelings of all of the people who are suffering around the world.”

But the magnificence of some of Qureshi’s most well-known creations, including his site-specific installation Blessings Upon the Land of My Love, is that they serve as reminders that beauty exists even amidst the ugly: Foliage still blos-

www.PakistanLink.com

soms from a limitless pool of blood, as Qureshi juxtaposes his intricately painted flowers with crimson splatters of what appears to be bloodshed.

Yet such work is to be admired briefly, as his grand murals are impermanent: After exhibits, in the haste of a fleeting moment, the power of a sand blaster banishes his artwork away. “Whether it is for one minute or for forever, every artwork is equally important to me,” said Qureshi. “The art is not disappearing entirely; it will appear again at a different time somewhere else, in a different form or in some other shape.”

While the specific creation is gone and his beautifully stunning murals with blood-red paint are wiped away, what cannot be erased with such ease is the underlying, political issues that inspire much of Qureshi’s work. Instead, those issues are seemingly perpetual and have nestled deeply into the country’s narrative. But while Qureshi’s work doesn’t necessarily correct the entrenched sociopolitical ills, it surely has initiated the productive process of rewriting Pakistan’s rather tainted narrative and reconstructing the atmosphere of a country with broken hope.

“The concerns have been passed on from one generation to the next, so I am tremendously proud of Imran because I remember him as a young student who wanted

to learn everything—and he did, and more,” said a proud Hashmi. “It gives me a peculiar kind of satisfaction and joy to have him by my side because I know that he will be there when I am not. All teachers have this feeling; it is the one thing they go away with.”

Luckily, Hashmi and Qureshi are not alone in their pursuit of weaving the arts with activism.

“The Eye Still Seeks” features tons of budding artists who similarly share both passions of art and activism and have uncovered their inherent desires to merge both.

Hashmi’s book includes artworks that are more than just visually stunning masterpieces; they are artifacts that serve as a reminder of the dilemmas that currently plague societies worldwide, including issues of conflict—both external and internal—and issues of gender. Such topics demand our attention, and Hashmi’s chosen artwork has started a very necessary dialogue. In her words, the book is fearless.

“In the turbulent history that Pakistan has had, its creative people—its writers, singers, artists, poets, musicians—have enriched not only Pakistani society but also the world at large,” she said.

Together, these artists have established the paintbrush’s might, proving that, along with the pen, the paintbrush too is mightier than the sword.

COMMENTARY

P20 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

n By Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai

V

The Passing away of Ved Ji: A Colossal Loss to Kashmiris

Washington, DC

ed Bhasin Sahib, the chairman of the Kashmir Times group of publications, passed away on November 5, 2015 in Jammu. With the passing of a journalist par excellence, who was a symbol of humanity and a champion of freedom of expression, it is the end of an era.

Ved Ji was an institution by himself. He was a great friend of voiceless people and a fearless advocate of human rights and human dignity.

He was an icon of fair and balanced journalism and certainly one of the most recognizable experts on the subject of Kashmir.

I had the honor of meeting him in January 1994 when he was invited by the ‘United States Institute of Peace’ to participate in a workshop on the subject of Kashmir. The workshop was held in suburban Washington DC and lasted for two days. Ambassador Yusuf Buch, a Kashmiri American icon, who also attended the workshop told me later that Mr Bhasin’s ideas were practical and created a lot of interest during the Q&A session. Mr Bhasin had suggested, he told me, that the right of self-determination cannot remain

confined to either deciding to join India or Pakistan. It can be an independent state as well, it is for the people of the State to decide. No solution can be found by ignoring the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who are the basic party to the Kashmir dispute.

Ved Sahib was a firm believer of tripartite dialogue between India, Pakistan and Kashmiri leadership.

He said at the Capitol Hill, Washington, DC in 2004, “The solution of the Kashmir dispute can be found through the process of dialogue but that dialogue cannot be only between India and Pakistan, but, primarily, it is a dialogue that must involve the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Without the people of the Jammu and Kashmir State dialogue can never succeed.”

Ved Sahib had the clarity of vision about the future of Kashmir.

There were no ifs and buts in his approach. He was bold enough to say it loud and clear that the only solution of the Kashmir dispute is an independent state in South Asia. Ved Sahib visualized a democratic, secular, independent Jammu and Kashmir as the ideal solution. To him, that solution was the only practical solution that could satisfy, by and large, the urges and aspirations of the largest number of people in Jammu and Kashmir.

While meeting a senior official of the State Department, Ved Ji told the official that the status quo and /

or division of Kashmir were no solutions. Ved Ji said that the people will never accept the status quo as an option. He added, “The artificially divided Cease-fire Line, not only divided the territory of the State but also divides family members.

That line cannot be acceptable to the people of the State. That artificial division, whether called the line of control has actually added to miseries and suffering of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.”

When a United States Senator asked Ved Ji how to proceed to help set a stage for the settlement of the Kashmir dispute, Ved Sahib suggested without any hesitation a twophase withdrawal of troops by India and Pakistan from the whole state.

Ved Sahib added that there should be elections for the two assemblies, on the Indian and Pakistani sides

of the state, and the institution of a common council to discuss common issues such as tourism. The line of control would be made porous and there would be free movement of people and goods. This, Ved Sahib suggested, could be tried for a period of five years after which there could be an election for a united Constituent Assembly for the entire state, whose members would then determine the state’s status as part of India, Pakistan or to become independent. ‘We should be,’ reiterated Ved Ji, ‘like the Switzerland of South Asia: that situation will fully satisfy aspirations of the people of the State and will lead to peace in India and Pakistan.’

Ved Sahib was the keynote speaker at an International Peace Conference held at Montevideo, Uruguay (Central America) in 2007, which was also addressed by General Ricardo Galarza of Uruguay, former Chief of United Nations Military Observer Group of India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). Ved Sahib reiterated “the Jammu and Kashmir problem has to be solved by peaceful methods. He suggested a just and peaceful solution that is acceptable to the people of the State, belonging to different areas and various religious creeds, groups, communities.

He believed that such a kind of solution can be found only through a process of dialogue and a process of reconciliation.

He was a firm believer of non-

violent resistance in Kashmir. In Uruguay he said, “I, for one, believe that the gun is no solution. The gun cannot resolve the Kashmir crisis.

Of course, as I said, I am opposed to the cult of gun, to the use of gun, but, at the same time, we must understand why the peaceful people of Kashmir who are inspired by the glorious traditions of tolerance, peace and non-violence, they were forced to guns in 1989 and after this. And I must concede that it is because of this gun that the Indian authorities were forced to concede that there exists something called the Kashmir dispute and it needs to be resolved.”

Ved Ji never compromised on the basic principles of the Kashmir dispute. He spoke in New York City on February 24, 2005, “It has been stated that Kashmir is a dispute between India and Pakistan. I personally think that there is primarily only one party to the dispute and that is the people of the State. India and Pakistan are only secondary parties. They came there because both claim that Kashmir belongs to them. Otherwise, primarily it is the problem of the people, related to their fundamental and inalienable right to decide their own future.”

The people of the State lost an iconic leader in the field of journalism. May Ved Ji’s soul rest in peace!

(Dr Fai is the Secretary General of World Kashmir Awareness.

- gnfai2003@yahoo.com)

Race and University Admissions: Abigail Fisher v. University of Texas II n By Dr John Sparks

A

Grove City, PA

bigail Fisher applied for admission to the University of Texas at Austin (UT) as part of the entering class of 2008. Little did she know that being rejected for admission under UT’s race-conscious program would bring her before the US Supreme Court, not once, but twice.

Fisher v. University of Texas II is scheduled to be heard in the court’s new term. The outcome will shape college and university admissions policies nationwide.

The issue of whether public colleges and universities can use race as an affirmative characteristic in admissions was first addressed by the Supreme Court in Regents of the University of California v.

Bakke. There, an applicant to medical school was rejected in favor of students with less meritorious qualifications under a quota-type system that reserved seats for minority students. In a fractured and ambiguous decision, four justices, with Justice Lewis F. Powell making the fifth justice, first nixed that quota-like approach. However, four other justices, with Powell making the fifth once again, recognized that if an educational institution were trying to create a “diverse student body” to enhance students’ educational experiences, then race could be considered a positive “factor” in admission decisions.

In an effort to clarify the admissions muddle left by Bakke, and “after a series of conflicting lower court rulings were issued regarding the use of race to promote a diverse student body,” the court (in 2003) heard and decided two University of Michigan cases—one concerning

the College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts (LSA) and the other concerning the Law School. In the LSA case, the court rejected the use of race in a way that would virtually guarantee admissions, but in the Law School case it approved a complicated, largely inscrutable process of admissions which allowed Michigan to admit a “critical mass” of minority students so the individual minority students would not feel “isolated or as a spokesperson for their race.” What was allowable was still far from clear.

The lack of clarity caused the UT admissions policies to change several times over two decades. UT first used race and then abandoned race when it lost in court. At that point the Texas legislature passed the so-called “Top 10 percent Law,” which granted in-state students, regardless of race, automatic admission to public universities if they finished in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school class. In its most recent admissions policy shift, UT continued to abide by that raceneutral law but supplemented it by using race in what it called a “holistic review” of applicants.

It was this approach, using race once again, which was challenged

by Abigail Fisher. In what became Fisher v. University of Texas I, she lost in the lower federal courts, but upon appeal to the Supreme Court in 2013 the justices said that the Fifth Circuit had erred. It did not give the UT admissions process the proper level of “strict scrutiny” required whenever persons are treated differently because of race. Upon remand and after further review, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals once again found the current raceconscious admissions approach constitutionally acceptable. Fisher

appealed a second time and the Supreme Court agreed to hear her appeal once again; this became Fisher v. University of Texas II. The technical legal question now is whether or not the Fifth Circuit’s “redo” strictly scrutinized UT’s latest race-conscious admissions program. What exactly is “strict scrutiny?” This is a court’s way of saying that since using racial categories may very well subject persons involved to unfair treatment, their use can only be countenanced if the reasons for using such a classification are “compelling.” In previous cases the court has “deferred” to the university’s goal of admitting a “diverse student body” as a valid and compelling one. Therefore, unfortunately, the court is not likely to revisit that issue, although it should.

However, in addition, a second legal hurdle must be cleared by UT. The specific means used to create a diverse student body must be “narrowly tailored” to use the words of

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the court. “Narrow tailoring” means that the “reviewing court must ultimately be satisfied that no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity.”

On this issue, UT is in trouble.

The Top 10 percent Law, which remains the law in Texas, has resulted in a substantial percentage of minorities (African American and Hispanic) being admitted to UT. That law is exactly the kind of race-neutral alternative that constitutes “narrow tailoring” because it produces diversity and its benefits but without the need to use racial preferences. In a bizarre twist, UT apparently convinced the Fifth Circuit that its “holistic” admissions process (which uses race as a component), is, nevertheless, still necessary to achieve diversity.

Why? Amazingly, UT says it is because the minority students admitted under the top 10 percent law do not create the “quality” of di-

versity that UT desires. In a string of largely unsubstantiated propositions, UT appears to be arguing that students who are admitted via the Top 10 Percent Law come largely from schools where racial minorities predominate and, therefore, contribute only one type of diversity. UT believes that minority students who have been successful in predominately white schools, but have not made the 10 percent cut, contribute another kind of diversity.

The holistic policy, it argues, allows members of this latter group to be admitted.

What should the Supreme Court do with this appeal? First, it is time for the justices to insist that public colleges and universities produce convincing evidence that a diverse student body produces enough clear, compelling, benefits to justify race-conscious admissions. The court should retreat from its policy of “deferring” to universities on this issue. Secondly, if there are workable, narrowly-tailored, race-neutral admissions policies that produce a diverse student body, the court should demand that these policies be used without exception.

The court should remind public colleges and universities of what Justice Clarence Thomas warns: “The Constitution abhors classifications based on race … [because] every time the government places citizens on a racial register and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens and benefits, it demeans us all.”

(Dr John A. Sparks is the retired Dean of Arts & Letters, Grove City College, Grove City, PA. He is a Fellow in the College’s Center for Vision & Values, a member of the State Bar of Pennsylvania and a frequent contributor on US Supreme Court developments)

COMMENTARY

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P21

Top Economists Warn Modi of Negative Consequences of Religious Intolerance n By Riaz Haq

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CA

op economists have now joined the rapidly growing ranks of Indian writers, historians and other intellectuals warning Modi government of the negative consequences of rising intolerance for the entire nation.

The Wall Street Journal reported that India’s chief central banker Raghuram Rajan “made an unusual appeal for tolerance in a speech Saturday, triggering a debate about whether he was trying to send a message to the country’s leaders”. “The first essential is to foster competition in the market place for ideas,” Gov. Rajan told students at his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. “Without this competition for ideas, we have stagnation.”

Arun Shouri, BJP leader who has previously served as a federal minister and worked as World Bank economist, joined the criticism of the Modi government when he said: “There

T

is clearer belief (in the Modi government) that managing the economy means managing the headlines and this is not really going to work.”

He said the NDA government was essentially “the Congress plus a cow” in an apparent reference to the violence against minorities and kill-

he LA Times ran an article last week looking at a growing rift amongst African-American civil rights advocates. On one end were the veterans from the Civil Rights Movement, those who had been influenced by Martin Luther King, Jr., and on the other were the recent activists from the Black Lives Matters Movement. Their approaches are markedly different. According to the article, the older group is more willing to engage the powers that be by joining government or sitting with government officials while the younger group prefers to have their voice heard through civil disobedience, employing many of the tactics the older generation used to use.

The article puts a spotlight on the growing tactic employed by the millennials as a result of being frustrated by the lack of progress they see in social justice issues. They, like many, are impatient with our leaders not listening to their issues and instead pandering to the base that already agrees with them. They are well aware that our democracy is at stake, with power in America resting with a few. Coupled with Supreme Court rulings that have increased the power of corporate lobbying, these millennial activists have understandably lost confidence in en-

ings of Muslims accused by the Sangh Parivar activists of consuming beef.

Ratings agency Moody’s has also weighed in with its own warnings saying that “in recent times, the government also hasn’t helped itself, with controversial comments from various BJP

Two Sides of the Same Coin

gaging their leaders.

The perception that leaders will not listen informs their tactics. Acts of civil disobedience, disruptions, and protests

members. While Modi has largely distanced himself from the nationalist jibes, the belligerent provocation of various Indian minorities has raised ethnic tensions.

“Along with a possible increase in violence, the government will face stiffer opposition in the upper house as debate turns away from economic policy. Modi must keep his members in check or risk losing domestic and global credibility,” Moody’s said.

While the chorus of criticism of Modi’s government has been rising in recent weeks, what is different is that the economists’ warnings are inspired by practical economic concerns rather than the moral dimensions of the Hindu militancy in Modi’s India.

What Mr Narendra Modi must realize is that it is hard to reverse the real damage to the nation once the forces of bigotry and intolerance are unleashed. The difficulty he faces is the lack of his moral authority with his Hindu Nationalist power base given his own track record as the chief executive of Gujarat for many years that included the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom on his watch.

mark the primary tools of the generation. Reminiscent, and even inspired by the non-violent demonstrations of the Civil Rights Era, the millennials seek to force government and the public to take notice.

Is this tactic effective? Is it needed?

It is rare that one tactic is successful on its own. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. who called for the boycott of buses in Montgomery met with the President of the United States to encourage him to pass a federal law. Protests and disruptions can highlight an injustice and bring it attention. However, after that attention, government leaders need to be able to sit down and engage with people. The protesters provide the inconvenience of having civil society be disharmonious until a problem is addressed. However, that is only half the equation, since solutions require cooperation and engagement.

As civil rights groups mature, and as times change, whether engagement or protests takes the lead will change. However, both are needed to effectively reform policies and opinions. Instead of being diametrically opposed to each other, both should instead work in unison to achieve their similar goals.

- MPAC

Indian Muslim, Accused of Stealing a Cow, Is Beaten to Death by a Hindu Mob n By David Barstow and Suhasini Rajn

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New Delhi

mid a politically charged national debate over religious intolerance, a Muslim man was beaten to death on Monday by a mob of Hindus who suspected him of stealing a cow, a revered symbol in the Hindu religion. It was the fourth time in six weeks that Hindus had killed Muslims they suspected of slaughtering, stealing or smuggling cows.

The police found the bloodied and battered body of the man, Mohammad Hasmat Ali, early Monday morning in the remote village of Uchekon Moiba Thongkhong in Manipur, a state in northeast India. Mr. Ali, 55, married with three sons, was a leader in the neighboring village of Keirao Makting, where he was headmaster of a madrasa. Police officials said Mr. Ali had no criminal record and no known links to the cattle business.

“What is happening here is completely wrong — people taking the law into their hands,” Naba Kanta, the senior police official leading the investigation into Mr. Ali’s death, said in an interview. “We face the problem of mob justice in this area, and we are trying to do our best to contain it.”

The recent killings are occurring against a backdrop of intensifying political conflict over laws and policies aimed at protecting cows from slaughter and consumption. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., has pushed aggressively to pass state beef bans. The Delhi police, controlled

by Mr. Modi’s government, recently descended in force on a canteen after it posted beef on its menu. (It turned out to be buffalo meat.) On Wednesday, the B.J.P. ran campaign ads accusing its opponents of “insulting the holy cow.”

Several recent cases of violence have in-

Kashmiri villagers shouted pro-freedom slogans last month while carrying the body of a Muslim driver attacked by far-right extremists angered by rumors of cow slaughter, an issue that stirs religious tensions in the Hindumajority country. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

volved Hindu nationalist vigilante groups dedicated to protecting cows. The groups, including some with ties to the B.J.P., mobilize members to confront those suspected of slaughtering, eating or stealing cows, sometimes with catastrophic results.

On Sept. 28, a Muslim family was attacked in a village outside Delhi by a Hindu mob that suspected the family of eating beef, an accusation the family denied. The father, Mohammed Ikhlaq, was killed, and his son seriously wounded. Weeks later, another Hindu mob in the Kashmir Valley in north India threw a homemade bomb at a truck suspected of carrying beef; a young Muslim trucker, most of his body burned, died days later. Then, on Oct. 14, a Muslim man was killed in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh when he was attacked by a group of

Hindu activists who suspected him of smuggling cattle for slaughter.

These and other recent outbreaks of violence by Hindu nationalists have provoked a vigorous cultural and political backlash across India. Dozens of leading authors returned India’s highest literary award in protest. Hundreds of scientists, academics, actors and filmmakers have signed petitions or spoken out. On Tuesday, Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress Party and Mr. Modi’s longtime political opponent, led a march in Delhi to condemn “the atmosphere of fear, intolerance and intimidation in the country.”

Mr. Modi’s party has struggled to formulate a response, at one point urging party leaders to temper their remarks, at another point ridiculing the spreading protests as a manufactured

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controversy. On Sunday, Mr. Modi’s finance minister, Arun Jaitley, went even further, asserting in a Facebook post that Mr. Modi was “the worst victim of ideological intolerance” enforced by “Congress, left thinkers and activists.”

“Their strategy is twofold,” Mr. Jaitley wrote. “Firstly, obstruct Parliament and do not permit reforms which will bring credit to Modi government. Secondly, create, by structured and organized propaganda, an environment that there is a social strife in India.”

The events leading to Mr. Ali’s death are still being pieced together by investigators. But according to Mr. Kanta, the police official, a Hindu man known by a single name, Brajendra, heard dogs barking outside his home early Monday morning.

“Brajendra decided to go out and check,” Mr. Kanta said. “He found Mr. Ali huddled in one corner of his barn, shivering. Brajendra assumed he had come to steal his calf and raised an alarm. A crowd gathered and they started beating Mr. Ali. In the pushing and pulling, and being beaten up, Mr. Ali died.”

Mr. Brajendra has been arrested, and police officials said he had acknowledged his involvement in Mr. Ali’s death and helped identify others in the mob.

In the village of Keirao Makting, where Mr. Ali’s family lives, angry villagers this week staged protests at the local police station, blocked the main road to the city of Imphal and formed a citizens committee to conduct an independent investigation. “How can a man whose family consisted of engineers and doctors, and himself a respected headmaster, steal a calf?” asked Mohammad Raza-ud-din, leader of the citizens committee.

“He never picked a fight with anyone in the village,” Mr. Raza-ud-din said. “The children in the madrasa love the gentle Ali.” - Courtesy The New York Times

COMMENTARY

P22 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

n By Dr Basheer Ahmed Khan

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Garden Gove, CA

eople are born with different inclinations. Hafeez Sahib was born to be a poet. Apart from the nobility which he inherited from his ancestors the other thing which shaped his personality was the ever growing tension between Hindus and Muslims, fanned for political gains by communalists, leading to several riots in his province of UP.

This made every sensible person to awaken to the need of returning to the decency of human nature, discarding the acquired barbaric traits that we had acquired from the “Free Thinkers” who made us social and political animals from the human that we were created by God. Twentieth century was a century of turmoil and turbulence which has spilled over to this century. Life in the past century was not so difficult and people who had some sensitivity could think about the problems their societies faced and also write about them objectively. It is important that we visit them now when our intellectual world is dominated by coached and couched intellectuals who are taking us along the beaten path. This is essential in order to understand the root cause of our problems to deal with the bitter fruits that we are forced to eat now.

Some of the writers of the old times failed to keep the integrity of their heart and lost it to their deceptive intellect and suggested very radical and harmful measures which have dehumanized our societies. Those who maintained the integrity of their hearts and observed the situation calmly, analyzed it impartially, and presented the solutions in a lucid and constructive way without losing their wit contributed positively to literature and society.

Intellectuals who simmer like coal on the inside without submitting to the fire outside become a diamond. And those who succumb to the outside heat burn themselves and their societies with their rage.

In response to his own personal problems and those of the society, Hafeez Meeruthi simmered from inside to perfect his humanity and beautify his poetry to give us some of the powerful, inspiring, and revolutionary poetry of our time. In an atmosphere where people like to spread darkness, Hafeez Sahib is on the lookout for a place where he can light the lamp and spread the light.

Her Simth Zul-mathon Kay Paras-thar Hain Yahan Sham’a Kahan Jala-yein Kahan Raushni Karein When the poet in Hafeez Meeruthi studied the status of contemporary poetry before embarking upon it, he found it dismal. In one of his couplets he says: Kahan Ye Sath-ha Pasandi Adab ko Lay Aayee Jahan Nazar Ki Bulandi Na Dil Ki Gehra-yee The reason for it, he says, is: Dekh-nay De-thay Nahin, Sochnay De-thay Nahin Who Jo Baithay hain Nigah o Fikr par Khabza Kiye And its consequence: Ho Gaye Log Apa-haj Yahi kehthay Keh-thay Abhi Chal-thay hain Zara Raah Tho Hamwar Banay To bring about the change it is necessary that the writers do some

The Poetry of Hafeez Meeruthi -2 plain talking to awaken the masses as he says in the following couplet.

Hum Nay Jo Mehsoos Kiya Likh Bai-Thay Sawday Lafzon Mein Hum Diwane Ye Kya Janay Kya Shai Dana-ee Hothi Hai. He further says in another couplet: Ab Khul ke Kaho Baath tho Kuch Baath Banaygi Ye Daur e Isharaath o kinayath Nahein Hai. Explaining the reason as to why he takes personal risk for the good of the masses by speaking the truth, he says: Akhl Walay tho Samajh laythay hain Dil walon Ki Baath Akhl ke Maron ko laiking Kaisay Samjha-yay Koi He further says: Khirad Ki Baaath Pay Hans Kar Guzar bhi Ja Ai Dil Khirad ko Far-khay Yakheen O Gumaan Nahin Maloom But Hafeez Sahib is not naïve to ignore the dangers of ignoring intellect and following emotions. He says: Hul Ho Tho Kis Tarah Koi Mas’ala Hafeez Cha-ye Hooway Hain Akhl Pe Jazbath In Dinon.

The reason for the numbness of intellect before emotion according to Hafeez is: Dekh-nay De-thay Nahin, Sochnay De-thay Nahin Who Jo Baithay hain Nigah o Fikr par Khabza Kiye The other reason he gives for the inaction of the sincere people is: Rah Ro-kay Hu-way Rah-Numa Bai-thay Hain Ab Koi Khafila Guz-ray Tho Kahan Say Guzray Such leaders use Shaikh and Brahman to promote communal divide and divert the attention of people from actual problems, says Hafeez in the following couplet.

Zeh’n Pay-chi-da Masa-yel Se Hita-nay Kay Liye Roz Yeh Shaikh O Brahman Ka Tamasha Na Karo These leaders cause riots and bloodshed to establish their leadership.

Bay Saha-ron Ka Intizam Karo Ya-nay Ek aur Khath-lay Aam Karo.

After causing destruction they blame the suffering people, says Hafiz.

Sitham Ko who Karam Sa-bith Karenge Zihanath Unko Bakshi Hai Khuda Nay. Scoffing at the fence sitters who are silent about the atrocities around them, Hafeez Sahib says, if people are silent the stench of the burning bodies will speak the truth: Hisar e Jabr Mein Zinda Badan Jala-ye Ga-ye Kisi Nay Dam Nahin Mara Magar Dhooan Bola He cautions the wicked people who are playing with the lives of the others to take heed from the past when several such arrogant, powerful and selfish people were destroyed by the passage of time.

Apni Hasthi pay Na Ithra-ye Koi Koh-e-Ghrroor Waqt Nay Phenk Di-yay Aise Utha kar Kith-nay He cautions that if the loot continues unabated and people do not entrust their affairs to honest and sincere people a day will come when they will long for a drop and they will not get it, in the following

Kya

couplet: Abhi Kya Hai Kal Ek Ek Boond ko Tar-se Gi Ye Dunya Jo Ahle Zarf Ke Haathon Mein Pai-ma-ne Nahin Aathe.

If the people behave responsibly it is possible that every individual will be happy like a bird which is free to build its nest on any branch it likes, says Hafeez in the following couplet: Kabhi Aisi Bhi Ruth Laye-gi Fithrath Baghe Aalam Mein Ke Jab Jis Shaakh Par Chaha Basera Kar liya Hum Ne. This was the poet Hafeez Meeruthi who was put into jail in 1975 as a risk to public order when PM Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency. But the local Hindu magistrate who knew him as a poet released him in the very first hearing.

After his release from jail he was invited to three mushairas where powerful politicians and local officials were also present. The pressure on him was that he should support the emergency. But he declined. Some of the couplets which he recited in these mushairas were: Mujhe Ye Mashwira Khush Haal Log Dethe Hain Zameer Bech De Apna Khudi ka Sauda kar People suggest that I should sell my conscience and compromise my convictions for convenience of life.

Hafeez ko bhi hai Tha-yeed e Zulm ki Tha-keed Ye Log Shamaa se keh-the hai Thoo Andhera Kar These people are asking the lamp to bring darkness instead of spreading light.

Har Zaalim Se Tak-kar Li hai Such-che Fun-karon Nay Hafiz Hum who Nahein Jo Dar Kar Kehden Hum Hain Tha-bay-Daron Mein.

The real artists have always confronted the transgressors all through history, and Hafeez is not the one to surrender before the transgressor, he says in the above couplet.

Expecting his incarceration a second time, he said: Paigham Ye Mila hai Janab e Hafeez Ko

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Anjaam Pehle Soch Lein Phir Sha’eri Karein He was incarcerated again, and this time a local magistrate who knew him and his poetry was not enough to save him from a long prison sentence because he was the target of big guns. Even as he was taken to prison he said: Zanjeerayn Tho Cut Jayeingi Un-ke Nishan Rah Jayenge Mera Kya hai Zalim Tujh Ko Badnam Kareingi Zanjeerayn One day the chain will be broken and I will be free, but the marks of these chains will discredit the one who has chained me. Hafeez Sahib was released at the end of Emergency. The chains were broken and he was set free. Words that emanated from the heart of an oppressed become a reality is evident by the tragedies which PM Indira Gandhi had to suffer in her personal and political life.

During his struggle with cause of justice Hafeez Sahib lost his wife and his daughter and job, but he did not leave his mission. His mission took him to the nook and corners of India and also to a greater part of the free world. He visited the UK, US, Emirates etc. How serious he took his mission is evident from this couplet: Jamood e Zindagi mein Bay Piye hilna bhi Mushkil Tha Jihad e Zindagi mein Yad Maikhane Nahim Aathe.

When I was idling it was difficult for me to move without a drink, but in the struggle of life I hardly remember the pub.

The first mushaira in which I heard him was much later at Mysore in early eighties when Hafeez sahib had finished almost all the tests of his active life. This was the time when the Soviet Union had occupied Afghanistan and enraged Muslims all over the world. Alluding to the helplessness of the Afghans before the powerful Soviet Union, Hafeez sahib said in one of the couplets of his ghazal that got a great applause was: Bay Asaa Apni Kaleemi Ho tho Ho

Waqt Ke Fir-aun se Ghabra-yen

We may not be having the power of the staff of Moses to enforce the words expressing our outrage at the aggression of the Soviet Union, but this should not deter us from speaking against the tyranny of the pharaoh of our time.

The following couplet of Hafeez is not just the gist of his message but also a manifesto of mainstream Urdu literature.

Hamari Khadr Karo Chaudveen Ke Chaand hain hum Khood Apne Daagh Dikhane Ko Raushin ki hai.

A verbatim translation of this couplet would be: value us for we are the full moon which lit itself to show its scars. But there is more meaning to it than this for the one who shares the universal consciousness which Urdu literature engenders. In Urdu literature Apne does not stand just for the self but for the entire mankind because the benefit and loss of one ultimately results in the benefit and loss of all. Moon gradually increases in its luminosity by accepting and reflecting sunlight.

This goes to say that we should have the quality of the moon to accept the light which is shown on us by the source other than self to see our own defects and show them to others and this should be a gradual process as we see in the cyclical phases of the moon. Alas! We resent and take revenge on those who throw light on our defects, and we are fascinated by the fleeting, flashing and colorful light of the discotheque which blurs our senses to understand the realities that we face in our real life.

Hafeez Sahib felt the vacuum in the life of such people despite all their laughter, dance, music, inebriation and opulence of material success. Hundreds of people die every day because of this pop culture either by committing suicide or from an accident. Millions of families are suffering its economic, social, and legal pangs and these were not hidden from sensitive eyes of Hafeez Sahib. He knew that the cause of it is that they were made to forget their real nature and live an unnatural life. He wants to bring them closer to nature through his struggle as a poet. The following couplet reflects this desire of his: Yeh Naach-thi Gaa-thi hu-wi Is Daur Ki Tahzeeb Kya Janiye Kis Karb Ka Izhar kiye hai.

The last time when I met him was when he came to Mysore in the late eighties and stayed at my uncle’s house along with other poets who had come for a mushaira. He was a diabetic patient with neuropathy and failing kidneys. Yet, he came and presented his poem to inspire people to understand their responsibility to themselves and to the society.

As I was surfing the net to find out the date of Hafeez Sahibs I found a documentary on him which was made by the Hindus of Meeruth. It is worth watching on the web address: www.facebook.com/hafeezmeeruthi/timeline?ref=page_internal This documentary confirms every word that I have written on him. He is shown on his death bed struggling with pain. When he is asked to give his message to the viewers of the documentary, he says: I pray that all people live happily HAFEEZ, P24

COMMENTARY

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n By Ritu Marwah

ehru and Jinnah had the same problem. Their daughters loved men they did not approve of. Children of ambitious fathers, Indira and Dina, both, carried their fathers’ hopes and lived with their mothers’ pain. They were daughters who were raised in the mold of the young English ladies their fathers had gone to school with.

Jinnah’s daughter, Dina was born in Britain and, like Indira, went to school there.

What the girls did not know was that it was all fine and dandy to wear modern ideas but you don’t go to bed in them. Both girls crossed the line and fell in love with men of another faith.

Dina was born on the night between 14th and 15th August, 1919. She made a dramatic entry into the world, announcing her arrival when her parents were enjoying a movie at a local theatre in London. Stanley Wolpert’s Jinnah of Pakistan records: “Oddly enough, precisely twenty-eight years to the day and hour before the birth of Jinnah’s other offspring, Pakistan.”

When Dina was introduced to Neville Wadia she was 17 years old. The year was 1936.

Neville was born to a Parsee father and a Christian mother. His father Sir Ness Wadia was a well known textile industrialist in India. Neville was born in Liverpool, England and educated at Malvern College and Trinity College, Cambridge. Mahommedali Currim Chagla, who was Jinnah’s assistant at the time, writes in his autobiography Roses in December: “Jinnah asked Dina, ‘There are millions of Muslim boys in India, is he the only one you were waiting for?’ and Dina replied, ‘There were millions of Muslim girls in India, why did you marry my mother then?’”

Jinnah and Ruttie Jinnah, you see, was no stranger to love.

We learn about Ruttie and Jinnah from Khwaja Razi Haider’s book Ruttie Jinnah: The Story Told And Untold. Twenty years after the death of his first wife, Jinnah had turned to mush in the arms of 16 year-old Ruttie, Dina’s motherto-be, and a Zoroastrian to boot. They wanted a civil marriage and the law at the time stated that you had to foreswear religion to get married in court. Haider explains that this meant Jinnah had to resign his Muslim seat in the Imperial Legislative Council. Ruttie solved the problem by embracing Islam and marrying Jinnah. Love that had blossomed while horseriding in Darjeeling was sealed with a forbidden kiss.

Ruttie’s father, Sir Dinshaw Petit, a textile magnate and Jinnah’s client was horrified that his only child was marrying Jinnah, a man of another faith, and had forbidden them from meeting each other. Sir Dinshaw went to court and got a restraining order. The couple had to wait for two years before Ruttie reached legal age and was able to marry Jinnah and leave her parental home.

It was love’s early days. According to Haider, when Jinnah, or J as she called him, worked in stuffy offices, with stuffy men, discussing stuffy things, Ruttie, the flower of Bombay, waited patiently in the musty rooms of courts of law. She traveled with Jinnah to meetings including the Congress session in Nagpur and spoke vociferously in favor of Hindu-Muslim unity in the face of the colonial enemy Britain.

Jinnah admired and indulged Ruttie. Haider shares an interesting anecdote of their dinner at the Government House. The story goes, Mrs Jinnah wore a low-cut dress.

While they were seated at the dining table, Lady Willingdon, Marie Freeman-Thomas, Marchioness of Willingdon asked an aide-decamp (ADC) to bring a wrap for Mrs Jinnah, in case she felt cold. Jinnah rose from the table, and declared, “When Mrs Jinnah feels cold, she will say so, and ask for a wrap herself.”

Then he led his wife from the dining room; and from that time on refused to go to Government House again.

A Precarious Balance However, real life has a way of sneaking up. The first few years of Jinnah’s marriage to Ruttie also coincided with challenging times at work.

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P23

Jinnah’s Daughter

During the second and third year of his marriage, Jinnah was forced to make three remarkable decisions that reduced his role in India’s freedom struggle: he resigned from the Imperial Legislative Council, the Home Rule League and Indian National Congress.

The graph of Jinnah’s career showed an increasingly downward trend. During the 1920 session of Congress, with Ruttie by his side, Jinnah saw Gandhi hijack the movement. As opposed to Jinnah’s constitutional ways, says Jaswant Singh in his book India, Pakistan Independence, Gandhi was taking the movement to the streets with chaotic demands like Purna Swaraj (complete self rule). “Your way is the wrong way: my way is the right way—the constitutional way is the right way,” Jinnah had said to Gandhi. Jinnah parted ways with the Congress. He held no public office except for his membership of the Muslim League. Moved from the national stage, Jinnah now had a smaller platform to stand on.

Dina was a year old when India veered in the direction of non-cooperation and civil disobedience and her father, Jinnah, disagreeing with Gandhi’s tactics, took a back seat.

The family immersed themselves in the Parsee community. Professor Akbar S. Ahmed in his book Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, records how the family traveled through Europe and dined with friends at Savoy and Berkeley during that time.

Gandhi was jailed in March 1922. Ruttie and Dina saw Jinnah throw himself into the 1923 November Central Legislative Assembly elections to their neglect. Jinnah fought for adequate representation of the Muslim legislative assemblies even as Gandhi was released from jail.

Haider details how, at home, Ruttie, and nine-year-old Dina took a back seat in Jinnah’s life and for Ruttie the psychological stress caused colitis to flare up. They moved out of the house in 1928 to the Taj Mahal Hotel. Jinnah accepted his role in the failing marriage, “It is my fault: we both need some sort of understanding we cannot give.” [Haider] “Mrs Jinnah had already sailed for Europe, with her parents, when her husband left Bombay in April 1928; his political career in dark confusion, and his one experiment in private happiness apparently wrecked forever,” writes Hector Bolitho in the official biography called Jinnah. It is from Bolitho we learn that Diwan Chaman Lall, a colleague and friend took a voyage to England, and after the voyage declared, “He is the loneliest man.”

Soon after the ship arrived in England, Jinnah went to Ireland, and Diwan Chaman Lall to Paris where Ruttie and Dina were staying. Chaman Lall had been in his hotel only a few minutes when he learned that Ruttie was in a hospital, dangerously ill.

He described the story to Bolitho, “I went to the hospital immediately. I had always ad-

mired Ruttie Jinnah so much: there is not a woman in the world today to hold a candle to her for beauty and charm. She was a lovely, spoiled child, and Jinnah was inherently incapable of understanding her. She was lying in bed, with a temperature of 106 degrees.

She could barely move, but she held a book in her hand and she gave it to me. ‘Read it to me, Cham,’ she said. It was a volume of Oscar Wilde’s poems.

A few days later Jinnah arrived from Ireland. I waited in the hospital while he went in to see her—two and half hours he was with her. When he came out of her bedroom, he said ‘I think we can save her … I am sure she will pull through.’ Ruttie Jinnah recovered and I left Paris, soon afterwards, for Canada, believing they were reconciled. Some weeks passed, and I was in Paris again. I spent a day with Jinnah, wondering why he was alone. In the evening, I said to him, ‘Where is Ruttie?’

He answered ‘We quarreled: she has gone back to Bombay.’ He said it with such finality that I dare not ask any more.”

Jinnah found it difficult to maintain his position at the national level given Gandhi’s arrival and rapid ascendancy. In 1928, Motilal Nehru presented the Nehru Report in Calcutta and came out squarely on the side of Gandhi.

Jinnah sensed an unmatchable opponent. He spoke about the danger of ignoring the insecurities of the minorities. As he left, he said to Jamshed Nusserwanjee, “Jamshed, this is the parting of the ways.” [Jaswant Singh] “Dina, however, maintained that Ruttie died of colitis or something more complicated, but it certainly was a digestive disorder.

The disease caused Ruttie excruciating pain towards the end. At one stage, an overdose almost killed her, and even suggested to some people that she had attempted suicide,” wrote Akbar Ahmed in his book Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity. While Jinnah was preoccupied with work troubles, Ruttie lay in the Taj Mahal Hotel with a broken heart.

Dina watched her mother’s life ebb away.

Two months later she died—not yet twentynine years old.

Jinnah sat in the burial ceremony with Kanji Dwarkadas beside him. He talked of his political worries even as her body was lowered into the ground. He broke out of his reverie when asked to throw a handful of earth. The finality of it hit him. As the idea of a new country birthed in his frustrated mind, his love left him to inhabit another world. He had been check-mated both by his political rivals and his lover. Ten-year-old Dina watched her father crumble to the ground as he wept uncontrollably. “Ruttie’s death devastated Jinnah, according to Dina … A curtain fell over him, said Dina,” writes Akbar Ahmed.

Motherless Dina left for England with her father who had decided to abandon politics and settle in London along with his sister,

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Fatima. “I felt so utterly helpless,” said Jinnah, to the students of Aligarh eight years later, about his exit of 1931, recounts Akbar Ahmed.

Grey Wolf They moved into West Heath House in Hampstead, a three-story villa built in the style of the 1880s with a tall tower which gave a splendid view over the surrounding country.

Stanley Wolpert in To Charisma and Commitment in South Asian History writes about Dina and Jinnah’s time in London. “Dina would have morning tea with her father, sitting at the edge of his bed. Breakfast was sharp at nine o’clock. Bradbury, the chauffer took Jinnah to his chambers in King’s Bench Walk thereafter. On Saturdays and Sundays they walked on the Heath to Kenwood-past Jack Straw’s Castle, the inn where Karl Marx had sat drinking root beer with his daughter.”

One day, home for the holidays from her English school, Dina came down for breakfast to find her father engrossed in a book by H.C. Armstrong on Kemal Ataturk called The Grey Wolf, an Intimate Study of a Dictator. As thirteen-year-old Dina reached for the toast, Jinnah handed her the book, “Read this, my dear,” he said, “It’s good.” For days on end he talked about Kemal Ataturk. So impressed was he by him that Dina named him Grey Wolf.

Like any teenager, she loved to tease her father. She lightened his dark days. Dina did not realize her idyllic time with her father was coming to an end as the grey wolf was rising within him, calling him back to birth another child. “Away with dreams and shadows! They have cost us dear in the past,” Mustafa Kemal seemed to whisper in Jinnah’s ear. In 1933 Jinnah returned to India. The Hampstead home, where the Grey Wolf had lived, was sold. Dina went to live with her mother’s relatives in Bombay. [Wolpert] The Muslim Identity Young Muslim graduates thronged to Jinnah as their leader. Rising on the wave of their adoration Jinnah finally saw the world he had wanted all along and he was not willing to risk it for any ideals. Gone was the man who had stood up for his wife’s low cut blouse. In his place was a man who, Akbar Ahmed wrote in his book Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity, when visiting Baluchi tribes, agreed with his host that it would not be wise for his sister, Fatima, who did not wear a purdah, to go before the more traditional Baluchi tribesmen.

He scolded his hostess when she protested, “You are trying to ruin four years of building up sympathy for the Muslim League among the tribesmen,” he said. Later in his Presidential address Jinnah would say, “Women can do a great deal within their home, even under purdah.”

As Jinnah basked in the adoration of the Muslim masses and nurtured the idea of birthing a country, nineteen-year-old Dina spent more and more time with her mother’s family and the Parsee community. She turned to someone who was older than her and carried her mother’s spirit. She had found, it seemed, a combination of her parents, a lively, Parsee gentleman eight years her senior who had grown up, like her, in England—Neville Wadia.

Ruttie had been the only daughter of a textile magnate. And fatefully, Dina who had been 14 years of age when her mother died, married Neville Wadia, a textile magnate, within five years of her mother’s death. Neville Wadia would one day succeed his father as chairman of one of India’s successful textile concerns, Bombay Dyeing.

Marriage and Estrangement Jinnah was livid that his daughter had not chosen a Muslim husband. Dina married Neville in 1938 against her father’s wishes, writes Chagla. In 1939 Jinnah pulled down the house of memories in Mount Pleasant Road and built a mansion. Jinnah asked for “a big reception room, a big verandah, and big lawns for garden parties,” recalled the architect Claude Batley as related by Akbar Ahmed. The new mansion with its wide balconies, broad high rooms, marble portico leading to the marble terrace was fit for the great leader that he was working to become. On his 64th DAUGHTER, P24

COMMENTARY

P24 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

Time to Invest in Technology Stocks May Have Come again n By Saghir Aslam Rawalpindi, Pakistan

(The following information is provided solely to educate the Muslim community about investing and financial planning.

It is hoped that the Ummah will benefit from this effort through greater financial empowerment, enabling the community to live in security and dignity and fulfill their religious and moral obligations towards charitable activities) Technology shares led the US stock market’s recovery last week from its worst correction in four years in August, thanks to gains in Alphabets, Amazon and Microsoft, after the three companies reported better than expected earnings results. The Dow Jones industrial average rose. The S&P 500 index recovered and the Nasdaq composite close the week up. Shares across Asia, Europe and the America’s all client, boosted by Thursday’s message from European Central Bank(ECB) Chief Mario Daraghi that he was ready to increase the ECB’s bond bind program, and by an interest rate cut by China’s Central Bank.

Factors this week that may provide further support for US stocks include a Federal Reserve Policy meeting, which is not expected to raise interest rates, a report on US economic growth in the third quarter and earnings from Apple.

Intl and Microsoft have seen POWER FROM P9

Union and Town Committees, councilors etc., must be vested with complete administrative and financial authority to take care of the lower-level problems of the people. Why should someone from suburban areas, or those in the interior of the Punjab or Sindh provinces, run the capital cities of Karachi and Lahore or entrusted the task of redressing trivial problems, or running day-to-day affairs? The system of local government is meant to resolve problems at the door steps. This would be possible only when laws are amended to devolve power from the chief ministers of the provinces to the newly elected members of local administration. Lust for power and pelf has to be given up now if we want to be counted among the civilized countries of the world.

Unfortunately, a similar situation prevails in KP and Balochistan where such elections were held much earlier. But dispensaries, hospitals, schools, etc, are still suffering from minor and major problems, because the chairmen of union committees and councilors are yet to be empowered to resolve their problems.

HAFEEZ FROM P22

as one.

Hafeez Sahib was given a hefty check by the UP Government not in recognition of his services to literature and mankind but as aid. He refused it and said that he will not compromise on his principles and will not accept anything from rulers who were responsible for the suffer-

their stocks recover more than 30 percent each since august, while Amazon and Face book rose 28 percent and 23rd percent respectively.

But the “ underperformer” among these companies has been Apple, up only 14.8 percent from its August 25 close, less than the Nasdaq 100’s 15.1 percent gain in that time. However we may see Apple join the Band Wagon.

In contrast to Microsoft, Face book, Alphabet and Amazon. The bar has been raised a bit on its earnings report from where it was a week ago. The price action is telling you there is more optimism built into it.

Option market action shows traders expect Apple shares to move roughly 5 percent by the end of the next week. The average move for the stock the day after its report in the last eight quarters was 4.4 percent up or down.

The power of the moves in some of these large cap tech stocks has been breath taking.

Chip makers were also among the top five percentage gainers in the Nasdaq 100 since the index ings of his people. But when the local people including many top Hindu officials of the District administration who knew of his economic condition raised money and honored him at a function and presented him with a check of the same amount he accepted it with graciousness. The actual state in which he was in during this time is evident in this couplet: Hum Zaroo-Ruth Aur Anaa ki Kash-Makash Dekha Kiye Bheek Thukraya Kiye Da-Man Bhi Phai-laya Kiye.

Kanwar Mehender Singh Bedi introducing Hafeez Sahib in one of the mushairas said: One who enjoys popularity in his home town among his people who know his in and out alone is the man worthy of recognition. Hafeez Sahib was no doubt one such man whose inside was more beautiful than his outside.

Hafeez Sahib breathed his last on January 8, 2001 when I was in the USA. Last time when I visited India I got a book compiled by Aziz Baghravi and Intizar Nayeem about the poetry and personality of Hafeez Meeruthi from which I have taken most of the information for this article.

May his soul rest in peace and make us all restless to understand our real nature and come back to it for our own sake. Amen.

DAUGHTER FROM 23

Pakistan Earthquake

Donate Zakat & Sadaqah for families affected by Earthquake.

close at its 2015 low on August 25, with SanDisk topping the list with a 70 percent jump on the back of a takeover bid from Western Digital.

The overwhelming leadership from established technology companies is a positive for this market move higher.

The last time the Nasdaq 100 was the market leader a lot of it was speculative investments, but these (tech) companies actually return money to share holders. Tech deserves the leadership the stock market is rewarding growth. While technology stocks have let the market recovery, bio-tech stocks have been a drag on performance.

The Nasdaq Bio-tech index is down 3.5 percent from its August 25 close, and more than 20 percent below its year high. The three index components with the largest declines in market capitalization in the last eight weeks are Mylan, Illumina and Biogen.

(Saghir A. Aslam only explains strategies and formulas that he has been using. He is merely providing information, and NO ADVICE is given. Mr Aslam does not endorse or recommend any broker, brokerage firm, or any investment at all, nor does he suggest that anyone will earn a profit when or if they purchase stocks, bonds or any other investments. All stocks or investment vehicles mentioned are for illustrative purposes only. Mr Aslam is not an attorney, accountant, real estate broker, stockbroker, investment advisor, or certified financial planner. Mr Aslam does not have anything for sale.)

Donate online at: www.hidaya.org Donate by Phone: 866.244.3292 Mail Checks Payable to: Hidaya Foundation PO Box 5481 Santa Clara, CA 95056

Hidaya Foundation 866.2.HIDAYA | www.hidaya.org Hidaya Foundation is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) charitable organization with Tax ID # 77-0502583

Exchange Rates for Currency Notes* Countries

Buying Rs.

USA

UK S.Arabia Japan Euro UAE

106.40 160.00 28.25 0.84 114.10 29.00

Selling Rs.

106.65 160.70 28.40 0.87 114.60 29.15

(*11November, 2015)

Dina and Neville had two children, a daughter and then a son.

But Dina, like her mother, Ruttie, proved to be unlucky in love.

Within five years of her marriage, she left Neville. They got separated in 1943, though the divorce never took place.

On July 20, 1943, an assassin entered the house with a knife to kill Jinnah, but was overpowered.

Contrary to what Chagla wrote, Dina telephoned and then rushed to the house to see her father, writes Akbar Ahmed in Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity. In 1943 Jinnah became seriously ill and had to take a vacation in Srinagar to recover from an ailment in his lungs. As time passed Jinnah’s temper got shorter and his aloofness grew. He focused single-mindedly on the negotiations with the Congress and the British to ensure the creation of Pakistan. “There is the petulance that goes with such illness as Jinnah was suffering from,” said his doctor Dr Patel. [Ahmed] Papa Darling Jinnah succeeded in his fight for a separate homeland for the Muslims of India. Akbar Ahmed reveals that on hearing the news about Pakistan on 28th April 1947, even though she herself had no intention of moving to the new country, Dina wrote to her father.

“My darling Papa, First of all I must congratulate you-we have got Pakistan, that is to say the principal has been accepted. I am so proud and happy

birthday Jinnah moved in. This house, a perfect backdrop for the future Quaid-i-Azam (the great leader) was not frequented by Dina. According to Chagla, Jinnah had disowned his daughter.

DAUGHTER, P28

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RELIGION

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P25

Issues and Questions

Facial Plastic Surgery, Bell, Feet Covering

Gems from the Holy Qur’an

n By Dr Muzammil H. Siddiqi

Q

1. It takes me at least 15 minutes one way to reach the mosque from my work place. I spend almost 45 minutes for Zuhr’ prayer. When days are shorter, most of the times I miss ‘Asr prayer because I cannot take another 45 minutes off from work. Can I combine Zuhr and ‘Asr prayers?

What can I do about Maghrib prayer? Can I combine all these prayers or is there any other way I could prevent missing my prayers?

A 1. If you have difficulty to take time off for Zuhr and ‘Asr both prayers during your office hours, you are allowed to combine Zuhr and ‘Asr. You may pray Zuhr and ‘Asr at Zuhr time or you may delay the Zuhr prayer and pray it along with ‘Asr at ‘Asr time. Similarly Maghrib and ‘Isha prayers can also be combined.

One may pray both at Maghrib time or one may delay Maghrib and pray it along with ‘Isha at ‘Isha time.

The combining of two prayers (Jam’ bayn al-salatain) is permissible during travel or due to some illness or other difficulties. Some jurists have allowed workers at offices or students at schools to combine two prayers when it is needed. Otherwise prayers should be performed at their own time without any delay.

It is not permissible to combine more than two prayers. The combination is allowed only between Zuhr and ‘Asr or between Maghrib and ‘Isha. Any other way of combination (such as between ‘Asr and Maghrib or ‘Isha and Fajr or Fajr and Zuhr) is not permissible.

Q 2. I have a question about the bell. Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him - received inspirations that came in a bell sound but I also read a Hadith that stated that the bell is Shaitan’s instrument. Now I am confused. Can you explain the difference?

A 2. It is reported in al-Bukhari

From the translation by Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss) About the translator: Muhammad Asad, Leopold Weiss, was born of Jewish parents in Livow, Austria (later Poland) in 1900, and at the age of 22 made his first visit to the Middle East. He later became an outstanding foreign correspondent for the Franfurter Zeitung, and after his conversion to Islam travelled and worked throughout the Muslim world, from North Africa to as far east as Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. After years of devoted study he became one of the leading Muslim scholars of our age. His translation of the Holy Qur’an is one of the most lucid and well-referenced works in this category, dedicated to “li-qawmin yatafakkaroon” (For people who think).

Chapter 92, Al-Lail (The Night), Verses 1-21 (Complete Surah) ith in which the Prophet - peace be upon him - discouraged people from the use of bells (see al-Bukhari Hadith 3005) and called them the instrument of Shaitan. This does not

should be done when it is very much needed. Unnecessary plastic surgery, just to change the shape and style, is a waste of time and money and is disliked according to the Shri’ah.

It is not permissible to combine more than two prayers. The combination is allowed only between Zuhr and ‘Asr or between Maghrib and ‘Isha

Q 4. Is it not required for a Muslim man to have a Sikh woman convert to Islam before he marries her?

that the Prophet - peace be upon him - said about the Revelation (wahy) that sometimes it came to him like the ringing of the bell (mithla salsalat al-jaras, see al-Bukhari, Hadith no.

2). The commentators of the Hadith say that it means that it was as strong as the ringing of the bell. It was very clear and loud to the Prophet and he would hear it very well, grasp it and understand it. (see Ibn Hajar’s Fath al-Bari, vol. 1) There are some other Ahad-

mean that all types of bells are the instruments of the Devil. It means, most probably, those bells that were used in pagan and other non-Islamic worship or for the purpose of superstitions. It is mentioned that some Arabs used to hang bells around the necks of their camels for some superstitious reasons.

The Prophet - peace be upon him was against all superstitions and so he disliked those types of bells.

Q 3. Does Islam allow facial plastic surgery?

A 3. Plastic cosmetic surgery is permissible in Islam only if it can correct or improve a defect that bothers a person physically, emotionally or psychologically. It

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A 4. Indeed, it is required.

Muslim men should marry Muslim women. If a non-Muslim woman accepts Islam, then it is permissible to marry her.

All Muslim jurists are unanimous (ijma’) that the Qur’an’s permission to Muslims to marry the women of the People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab) is applicable to Jewish and Christian women only and it cannot be extended to any other group.

Muslim men are allowed to marry Jewish or Christian women, but even this permission is conditional. The woman must be of good moral character (muhsanah).

She should also agree that her children born in this marriage would be raised as Muslims. If there is any doubt or danger that this will not happen then it is not allowed to have this type of marriage.

Q 5. I have a question, which is important and can benefit other women also. What is the Islamic ruling on covering of feet? Somebody was saying that we are supposed to wear socks even when we offer our prayers. I think we are not to cover our feet as we do not cover our hands (feet are to legs what hands are to arms?) I can understand that we have to wear socks when we dress or skirt (that is to hide legs) but do we have to wear socks even when we are wear-

Consider the night as it veils [the earth] in darkness, and the day as it rises bright!

Consider the creation of the male and the female!

Verily, [O men!] you aim at most divergent ends!

Thus, as for him who gives [to others] and is conscious of God, and believes in the truth of the ultimate good – for him shall We make easy the path towards [ultimate] ease.

But, as for him who is niggardly, and thinks that he is self-sufficient, and calls the ultimate good a lie – for him shall We make easy the path towards hardship: and what will his wealth avail him when he goes down [to his grave]?

Behold, it is indeed for Us to grace [you with guidance;] and, behold, Ours is [the dominion over] the life to come as well as [over] this earlier part [of your life]: And so I warn you of the raging fire – [the fire] which none shall have to endure but that most hapless wretch who gives the lie to the truth and turns away [from it].

For distant from it shall remain he who is truly conscious of God: he that spends his possessions [on others] so that he might grow in purity – not as payment for favours received, but only out of a longing for the countenance of his Sustainer, the All-Highest: and such, indeed shall in time be well pleased. ing Shalwar Qameez? Are we supposed to wear socks all the times?

A 5. Women are not required to wear socks, but they should wear shirts, skirts or trousers that are long enough to cover their ankles. If whatever they are wearing does not cover their ankles then they should wear socks that are thick, not those that are sheer or the see-through type.

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P26 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

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SPORTS SPORTS

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P27

BCCI Proposes Limited-Over Series With Pakistan in India

NEW DELHI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) proposed a limited-over series with Pakistan, comprising five one-day and two Twenty20 internationals, but reiterated that the Indian team would not be travelling to Pakistan or UAE for the matches.

"We are committed to playing Pakistan in December. However, since it's not possible to play them in Pakistan or the UAE, we have to look at playing the series in Northern India in December," BCCI chief Shashank Manohar told The Hindu.

"To play against Pakistan we need to get government permission.

So we need to speak to the government and abide by whatever decision the government takes."

While the development may provide some relief to the Pakistan Cricket Board, there has been no mention of a full-fledged Test series between India and Pakistan as agreed upon between the two boards in 2014 on the sidelines of an International Cricket Council (ICC) annual conference in Melbourne.

According to Indian media, top BCCI officials have already started talks with the government and another series of discussions are expected to take place after Diwali.

Simona Halep On 2016: I Will Be Stronger CONSTANTA: It was a fantastic year for Simona Halep - biggest title of her career at Indian Wells, first US Open semifinal and getting back to No.2 in the world - and finishing the year there for the very first time. But which one of those was the Romanian trailblazer's personal highlight?

"Indian Wells of course - it was my biggest title," Halep said. "Also I played really well in the summer - I did quarterfinals and semifinals for the first time at the US Open, and I played two finals before that, so even though I lost

early at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, I'm happy with my season. I was feeling more relaxed and more confident, and I really started to enjoy every match on the court.

"Last year was a big year for me, but I think this year was better than last year." One could even say that her 2014 season was the reason her 2015 was so strong. "I can say because of last year, this year I learned many things," she said. "I learned how to play without pressure when I have to defend something, to defend points or the title. J

BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur will be approaching the Union Home Ministry to get confirmation for the series.

"We want cricketing ties to happen, we don't want politics to hamper cricket," a top BCCI official was quoted by The Indian Express.

"We will be going with a few proposals: one, where we can have five ODIs and two T20s. In the second proposal, we can have three ODIs and two T20s. All these games will be played in those parts of the country where we feel there will be no disturbance from political parties." J

Misbah-ul-Haq to Feature in Bangladesh League LAHORE: Pakistan's Test captain Misbah-ul-Haq said recently he had signed a contract with a Bangladesh Twenty20 side, deferring retirement plans after his side's 2-0 win against England last week.

The 41-year-old had hinted that last week's Test series could be his swansong, but later said he might be persuaded to return for next year's four-match series hosted by England.

The series will be Pakistan's next Test assignment and, having retired from one day cricket this year and Twenty20 internationals in 2012, Misbah is set to face eight months out of national colours. Misbah has been signed by Rangpur to play in the third edition of the BPL which begins from Nov 22. He has not played international T20 cricket since he stepped down as Pakistan captain in 2012, but he has been a consistent feature in domestic T20s and foreign leagues. In order to keep his eye in, he said he wants to play domestic cricket and has signed a contract with the Rangpur Riders in the Bangladesh Premier League. PCB chairman Shaharyar had asked Misbah to delay his Test retirement until at least the next tour in order to give Pak a longer transition period. Misbah's next assignment would be a tour of England in July 2016. Remainder of Pakistan's Test specialists will play plenty of limitedovers cricket, including the Asia Cup and the World T20 next year, but Misbah who has retired from both the shorter formats, is hoping to keep himself match-ready by playing the Quaid-e-Azam trophy, Pakistan's premier first-class tournament, and later the Bangladesh Premier League. J

www.Pakistanlink.com www.PakistanLink.com

Pakistan, England Look to Build ODI Future ABU DHABI: Pakistan and England will be aiming to build one-day sides for the future as they enter a four-match series in Abu Dhabi starting.

Pakistan, who won the preceding three-match Test series 2-0, will be in a tight corner as they seek huge improvement in their one-day ranking, in order to lift themselves for the 2019 World Cup to be held in England.

Besides hosts England, seven other top-ranked sides as of 30 September 2017 will qualify directly for the World Cup, and the only way Pakistan can move up the order is by winning matches against the higher-ranked sides.

Pakistan, currently ranked eighth as compared to England´s sixth, will be hoping they do not repeat their belowpar performances they gave in 2012 when they were blanked 4-0 in the United Arab Emirates.

Skipper Azhar Ali said the series is important for the future as well as rankings.

"We have won Tests so we want to take that morale into the one-day series which is very important," said Ali of the preceding Test win. "We need improvement in rankings as well as want to build the team for the future."

Pakistan crashed out at the quarterfinals in the 2015 World Cup in March.

But the worst came in Bangladesh where Pakistan were routed 3-0 in April -- their first series defeat against the neighbours.

Since then Pakistan beat Zimbabwe twice (home and away) and Sri Lanka in August. egarding Younis Khan´s debatable selection, despite his poor form in the one-dayers, Ali said he hopes the senior batsman will come good.

"Younis is a legend so we hope that he contributes and helps us win," said Ali, made captain after Misbah-ul-Haq and Shahid Afridi retired following the World Cup. Ace spinner Saeed Ajmal is also not in the squad after struggling with a new bowling action, which needed remodelling after it was questioned last year.

His place went to leg-spinner Yasir

Shah who will hope to carry his Test form, taking 15 wickets in two matches, into the one-day series.

To their credit, England have shown remarkable progress after being the only top side not to reach the 2015 World Cup quarter-finals.

England beat the 2015 World Cup finalists New Zealand 3-2 before going down fighting by the same result against Australia -- both at home.

England media reported some players are training under a baseball expert Julian Wood in order to develop more hitting techniques.

England captain Eoin Morgan said his team was progressing well.

"We had two very competitive series (this year) in which we have seen a lot of youngsters produce some unbelievable performances and although this series will be different the platform will hold us in good stead," said Morgan.

However, Morgan said Pakistan pose tough challenges.

"They are always challenging and a very capable side, they offer a huge amount of skills and different challenge, various amount of spin and obviously these conditions enhance that challenge."

Both Pakistan and England tuned up for the one-day series with comfortable warm-up wins against Nepal and Hong Kong respectively.

The remaining matches will be held in Abu Dhabi (November 13), Sharjah (November 17) and Dubai (November 20).

Teams (from): England: Eoin Morgan (capt), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Chris Jordan, Alex Hales, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, James Taylor, Reece Topley, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Liam Plunkett.

Pakistan: Azhar Ali (capt), Mohammad Hafeez, Ahmed Shehzad, Bilal Asif, Younis Khan, Shoaib Malik, Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Sarfraz Ahmed, Amir Yamin, Anwer Ali, Yasir Shah, Zafar Gohar, Rahat Ali, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Irfan. J

Nasir Keeps Pakistan Hopes Alive in Int'l Squash ISLAMABAD: Nasir Iqbal kept Pakistan hopes alive of winning the $25,000 President Gold Cup International Squash Tournament 2015, presented by Serena Hotels, as he brushed aside top seed Egyptian Omer Abdel Meguid 3-1 in the semifinal played here at Mushaf Squash Complex recently .

It was a treat to watch both the semifinals, as both the top seeded players were eliminated and after a long time, there would be not a single Egyptian in the final.

Omer was firm favorite to win the battle against Nasir, who was highly underdog and same was the case with Todd, who was playing very first

semifinal of $25,000 event.

Nasir failed to start on positive note and it was Omer, who dictated terms in the early part of the match and won the first game 11-6 in just 12 minutes.

Nasir was enjoying 4-1 lead in the second game, when Omer fought back well and made it 4-4.

All of sudden, the massive support from crowd highly charged Nasir who took 9-6 lead first and then won the second game 11-7 in 14 minutes.

It was all Nasir in the third game who won it 11-4 in just 11 minutes.

The real drama unfolded in the fourth game when Omer started playing his dirty tricks and game. J

PAKISTAN

P28 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015 DAUGHTER FROM P23

for you-how hard you have worked for it.

I do hope you are keeping well–I get lots of news of you from the newspapers. The children are just recovering from whooping cough, it will take another month yet.” She ended the letter with “Take care of yourself Papa darling.

Lots of love & kisses” She wrote to him again in June 1947 from Juhu: “Papa darling, At this minute your must be with the Viceroy. I must say that it is wonderful what you have achieved in these last few years and I feel so proud and happy for you. You have been the only man in India of late who has been a realist and an honest and brilliant tactician-this letter is beginning to sound like a fan mail, isn’t it? “ She again ended with “Take care of yourself. Lots of love & kisses and a big hug.”

Jinnah was seventy-year-old when he boarded the plane on August 7, 1947 and flew to Karachi forever as the Governor General and Baba-i-Qaum of his new born child, Pakistan.

As he stepped onto the aircraft, Quaid-i-Azam looked back towards the city in which he was leaving behind forever his beloved Ruttie, whose grave he had visited the previous evening; their daughter Dina; a grand-daughter, a fouryear-old grandson, Nusli holding on to his grandfather’s hat; and a house on the hill. [Haider] He said, “I suppose this is the last time I’ll be looking at Delhi.”

[Akbar Ahmed] He bade a final goodbye with a smile on his face. She would not go to her father’s new home with him and he would die in a year’s time.

His lungs, riddled with tuberculosis, finally caught up with him.

Jinnah visited Ruttie’s grave a day before he left India forever.

Dina did not travel to Pakistan until her father’s funeral in Karachi in September 1948. Their relationship would become a matter of legal conjecture and hair splitting.

[Wiki] Dina’s son, Nusli Wadia, became a Christian, but converted back to Zoroastrianism and settled in the industrially wealthy Parsee community of Mumbai. He is the chairman and majority owner of Bombay Dyeing, chairman of the Wadia group, and one of the savviest businessmen of India. The Economic Times described Nusli Wadia as “the epitome of South Bombay’s old money and genteel respectability”. He has two sons Ness and Jeh. Dina is ninety-nine years old and lives in New York with her daughter. Dina’s daughter-in-law, Maureen said to Mumbaiwala about her, “I think she’s a true New Yorker and she’s doing very well.

She knows when the Bloomingdale sales are on, and she’ll tell you when to go down to Saks. We all make it a point to go and see her at least once every two months.

When the weather is good in summer, we spend at least a couple of months with her. Nusli visits her very frequently.”

Dina fought for her inheritance, the Jinnah House in Mumbai but she never fought for a place in history. Pakistan, her sibling, does not recognize her, just as she never accepted the entity who stole her childhood and her mother’s

life.

Indira’s Journey Why did Dina and Indira marry the men they did? I think Indira speaks for both of them when she says of her mother, “I saw her being hurt and I was determined not to be hurt.” Their choice of husbands may not have been politically wise, as per their fathers, but both chose men their mothers would have been safe with. It falls on daughters to right the wrong done to their mothers. The girls crossed their father’s line and fell in love with men of another faith and yet stayed within their mothers’.

Dina was two years old when Indira was born in November 1917. Like Dina Indira too would grow up with a young mother who had frequent bouts of sickness. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru who later became the first Prime Minister of independent India, like Jinnah, was often away, directing political activities or being incarcerated in prison, while her mother, Kamala, was frequently bed-ridden with illness, and later suffered an early death from tuberculosis.

Nehru was a Kashmiri Brahmin who, like Jinnah, had gone to school in England and trained to be a barrister. Upon his return to India, he enrolled at the Allahabad High Court, and was mentored into national politics by his father Motilal Nehru and Gandhi. Nehru, though, did not marry for love.

Seventeen-year-old Kamala was a match arranged by the family. Unlike Ruttie Jinnah, Kamala was a quiet girl who spoke no English. In his autobiography, Jawaharlal Nehru, referring to his wife, stated “I almost overlooked her.”

Later, as recorded by Pupul Jayakar in her biography of Indira, Kamala would write, “I am not worthy of anyone’s love.”

Like Dina, Indira grew up watching the strange marriage of her parents and her mother’s pain.

She scolded her father in her letters, “Do you know that when Mummie was in a very bad condition the house was full of people but not one of them came to see her or sit a while with her ?”

When Indira was sixteen, much to her horror, her grandmother thought it was time to suggest suitable Kashmir Brahmin suitors to her. Indira wrote, “I wept and wept because I was so terrified at the very idea of marriage.” At that time Feroze, who was almost a part of the household, showed interest in Indira.

Feroze Jehangir Ghandy was born to a Parsi family. He met Indira and Kamala in 1930 during a protest march by a wing of Congress Freedom Fighters, the Vanar Sena. Indira and her mother Kamala were among the women demonstrators picketing outside Ewing Christian College. Kamala fainted due to the heat of the sun and Feroze went to comfort her. In the subsequent years Feroze was a big support to Kamala and tended to her when she became irrecoverably sick.

Kamla along with Indira, like Ruttie, went to Europe for treatment and there was hope that she would recover but the will to live comes from a fulfilled life. Kamala was thirty-seven years old when she died. At that time Indira was eighteen.

It was about the same time that Jinnah sold the house in Hampstead and moved to India

with Dina, that Nehru returned to India after the death of Kamala.

Jinnah set about the task of becoming Quaid-i-Azam and establishing a new country, and Nehru got elected as President of Congress and became the Veer (brave) who would establish ramrajya (Kingdom of Rama, an idyllic world).

Motherless and neglected, Indira and Dina both lost their fathers to the national movement at a time when one was eighteen and the other sixteen years of age.

When Indira wrote, “For I am lonely too–terribly lonely,” it could very well have been Dina writing it.

Both carried the loneliness of their mothers in their hearts and sought to fill it by marrying a person their mother would have approved of.

Pupul Jayakar hints that Indira was maybe in love with her German teacher whom she had met during her time at Shanti Niketan.

When it came to marriage, however, she agreed to marry Feroze, her mother’s constant companion. According to some accounts, Indira and Feroze married in London but their marriage was again formalized in Allahabad with Vedic rites.

Indira’s father Jawaharlal Nehru had opposed her marriage and approached Mahatma Gandhi to dissuade the young couple, but to no avail.

Like Dina and Neville, Indira and Feroze had a wonderful five years of marriage and birthed two children and then it all fell apart.

Indira parted with Feroze, a man she had fought the entire world to marry. However, unlike Dina, Indira joined her father and became his successor.

Feroze died in 1960 leaving behind two sons, Rajiv and Sanjiv.

Rajiv would soon follow his mother’s footsteps and become prime minister. Sanjiv or Sanjay died in an accident. Indira herself lived up to the age of sixty-seven, her life abruptly cut short by her assassin bodyguards.

If she had lived she would have been 97 years of age today.

(Ritu Marwah has pursued theater, writing, marketing, startup management, raising children, coaching debate and hiking. Ritu has a master’s degree in business and worked in London for the Tata group for ten years. Ritu is social media editor at India Currents.

Source: India Currents)

hammad Omar had died in Pakistan two years earlier. The announcement plunged the Taliban into a leadership crisis and led to the immediate suspension of the talks.

US President Barack Obama welcomed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the White House last month and commended Pakistan for hosting the July peace talks.

But Afghanistan has said the talks are unlikely to be revived unless Pakistan does more to rein in the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

CAPABILITIES FROM P1

operation against traditional and non-traditional threats including counter terrorism and anti-piracy drills, live weapons firings, and fly past by naval aviation units.

Earlier on his arrival on-board Pakistan Navy Ship (PNS) Nasr, Nawaz was received by Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Muhammad Zakaullah.

The Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Operations) gave a detailed briefing to the prime minister on the salient features of the exercise and the navy’s contributions to the maritime sector, coastal development and humanitarian assistance operations.

The naval exercise, Seaspark 2015, began in the north Arabian Sea on November 3. It involves all operational units of the navy, including ships, submarines, aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, special forces and marines, along with elements of the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency, Pakistan Air Force and the army with the aim to corroborate the navy’s operational plans, assess its war preparedness and enhance its interoperability with the PAF and the army.

NAP FROM P1

agencies”, the statement added.

It further noted, “The apex judiciary has also extended its full support to this effort. Most importantly, credit goes to the people of Pakistan, who wholeheartedly supported this operation.”

“True to its belief that it is accountable to the people of Pakistan, the government has taken all its decisions in an open and transparent manner, keeping the national interest as its foremost priority.”

“The government’s firm commitment to good governance has been the hallmark of all its policies.

The initiatives taken by the government are showing visible results in improved law and order situation and SOFTWARE FROM P18 picture even if it did not appear in vibrant economic development,” the statement concluded. the [defamatory] article,” he added.

Oblivion can also help address the issues of cyber bullying in ARMY FROM P1 a more timely manner as currently the NAP, completion of investigation by the time a take-down request is of terrorism cases by joint investigaprocessed the information is already tion teams (JITs) and Federally Adpassed on to millions. ministered Tribal Areas reforms.

Commenting on the developThe effects of the operations, ment, technology commentator Paul Gen Sharif warned, could be “underSpain said, “Potentially tens of thou- mined” if the critical areas remained sands of hours could be saved by us- unaddressed. ing this type of tool.” Oblivion would The note of caution from the become more useful if the rest of the corps commanders’ meeting came world adopted similar laws like EU, a day after Gen Sharif conveyed which would increase the number of similar concerns to Prime Minister take-down requests significantly.

Nawaz Sharif and his key minis“It seems like a really good ters in a closed-door meeting at the concept. And If Google isn’t already Prime Minister House. working on something like this then It is not the first time that such they could get significant benefit concerns have been publicly exfrom using a tool like this,” Spain pressed by the army. But surprisadded. ingly not much progress could be made in the areas of concern in the implementation of the NAP, includENVOYS FROM P1 they were launched last summer ing stopping terrorism financing, when Afghanistan’s spy agency said action against banned organizations that Taliban founder Mullah Mo- and undertaking madressah reforms.

www.PakistanLink.com

The army has also been emphasizing administrative actions by the government to improve governance in areas cleared of militants.

“Military operations have improved security situation in the country, but this progress cannot be sustained without matching betterment in governance and administration,” a source said while sharing the sense of the meeting of the army’s top brass.

The lack of progress in investigation by the JITs, the source said, was another major concern and it was noted that inquiries in high-profile cases in particular got bogged down.

STATEMENT FROM P1

Shah said.

“The government hasn’t taken Parliament seriously even after being in power for over two years. Why would ministers show up, if PM himself doesn’t come to the Parliament?” he asked.

CRICKET FROM P1

Babar Azam (62 not out) and 70 for the fourth wicket with Shoaib Malik (26).

Eoin Morgan and James Taylor hit half centuries for England in a below-par total of 216 all out in 49.4 overs. Pakistan, just like England, were rattled at the start, as left-arm paceman Reece Topley (3-26) dismissed Azhar Ali (eight), Bilal Asif (two) and Younis Khan (nine) to leave Pakistan at 41-3.

Younis, who before the start of the match announced his retirement from one-day cricket, finished his career with 7,249 runs in 265 matches.

Hafeez and Malik steadied Pakistan to 111 before Malik fell to a reckless shot off spinner Moeen Ali. Malik, when ten, completed 6,000 one-day runs in his 229th match. He is the ninth Pakistani batsman to score 6,000 or more one-day runs.

Hafeez, who hit 151 in the third Test in Sharjah last week, completed his tenth one-day century off 127 balls. He hit ten boundaries and a six.

Azam also impressed, hitting Chris Woakes for a straight six to complete his second one-day fifty, off just 55 balls. In all, he hit four sixes and two fours in his run-a-ball knock.

Hafeez dedicated his hundred to the retiring Younis.

“I want to dedicate this hundred to Younis who has been a role model for all of us,” said Hafeez of the senior batsman.

“We want to win it for him and I am happy to have contributed in this win.”

England skipper Morgan said his side’s batting had let them down. “We were quite a few runs short and with less than 220 on the board, you can’t blame the bowlers, so there is a lot to learn and pick before the next game,” said Morgan.

England, who won the toss and batted, struggled against Pakistan’s bowling led by Mohammad Irfan who took 3-35.

Morgan top-scored with 76 while Taylor made 60 as the pair added 133 for the fourth wicket as the only highlight of the innings.

England got off to a disastrous start when Irfan, the tallest player in international cricket at 7ft 1in (2.16m), produced a sharp delivery to bowl opener Jason Roy with only the second ball of the game.

Joe Root also failed as he fell leg-before to seamer Anwar Ali for nought and it became 14-3 when Anwar forced an edge off Alex Hales (ten) to slip where Younis took the catch at the second attempt.

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NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P29

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WOMENS WORLD

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 - PAKISTAN LINK

WOMEN

P30 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

S

kipping out on the fashion week calendar where Autumn/Winter events are mainstays, Karachi's Fashion Pakistan Council (FPC) has opted to host its fashion week in the tail-end of November.

Originally slotted to take place in early October, the event has now aptly been renamed 'Winter/Festive'. Better late than never - the designer line-up looks very promising, boasting Karachi's heavyweights alongside two of the biggest names in bridal fashion from Lahore.

Fashion week stalwarts Shehla Chatoor, Sania Maskatiya, Deepak Perwani, Ayesha Hashwani, Wardha Saleem, Sana Safinaz, Maheen Karim, Elan, Nida Azwer, FnkAsia, Zaheer Abbass, Zainab Chhotani, Tena Durrani, Faraz Manan and Nauman Arfeen will be showcasing at the event.

Nida Tapal's Delphi also features in the line-up, a brand that shows sporadically but never fails to hit the mark. Nilofer Shahid has been roped in for the grand finale and Umer Sayeed makes a comeback to the catwalk.

One looks forward to newcomer Hisham Malik's show. The designer won in the Bank Alfalah Rising Talent category earlier this year at the PFDC

Sunsilk Fashion Week and is going to be venturing into bridals and formals at FPW. Obaid Sheikh is another relatively new name.

Given that 'Winter is coming' - it's already prematurely arrived in some parts of the country - we're expecting the usual haul of coats, capes, shawls and variations of wraparounds.

Bridal-wear is also going to be dominating most of the collections. It has often been debated that FPC needs to separate out a day - if not an entire fashion week - to bridal design.

Bunching together ready-to-wear with anglicized luxe and shimmery bridals on the same platform can be very confusing.

Then again, with all and sundry vying to latch onto the money-minting shaadi market, even most luxury-pret these days emulates trousseau and bridal-wear. No doubt, Fashion Pakistan Week (FPW) is going to be serving up considerable doses of bling, intricate hand embroideries and cut-work detailings.

Which is fine - as long as we don't see any hackneyed digital prints or done-to-death beadwork on net or fifty shades of pastel colored bridals that rendered us colorblind at the PFDC L'Oreal Paris Bridal Week (PLBW) this October.

Will FPW's designer montage rise to the challenge of presenting cuttingedge fashion or resort to the mundane but retail-friendly? We will see. For now, here's what we find particularly interesting about the upcoming fashion week…

"All designers showcasing their formal-wear either in October or November are targeting orders that they will fulfill in the coming year.

From that viewpoint, it doesn't matter if FPW got postponed from its originally scheduled dates," reasons Wardha. "Also, with the winter party season right around the corner, this is the ideal time to show luxury-pret that can be purchased off-the-rack."

FPW was postponed due to myriad impediments including a clash of dates with the annual Lux Style Awards (LSA's) and the onset of the religious month of Muharram.

"A lot of hard work goes into orchestrating a fashion week. Of course, we wanted it to take place at a time when models were easily available for rehearsals and we could get the maximum media mileage. This would not have been possible had we gone ahead with the event just a day after the LSAs," points out Wardha.

Khadijah Shah's Elan has steadily worked its way into becoming a coun-

www.PakistanLink.com www.Pakistanlink.com

try-wide bridal favorite and it is heartening to see the brand think 'business' and participate in FPW. Hitherto, Khadija had only shown at fashion weeks in her hometown Lahore. Showing in Karachi makes sense now, she says, as she follows up her bridal showcase at PLBW two months ago with luxury-pret at FPW. "We are going to be opening our first standalone store in Karachi by early next year," explains Khadijah.

"Showing at fashion week acts as a preamble to the store launch and is a way for the brand to announce its arrival on Karachi's fashion scene."

Also flying in from Lahore is Faraz Manan, a designer who has of late evaded the fashion week circuit, opting

instead for some very successful private shows. High on the recent opening of his first store in Dubai, Faraz brings bridal and trousseau-wear to FPW. " I have shown at FPW several times and have a good working relationship with the FPC," says the designer.

"Also, my Karachi clientele is constantly enquiring after my couture and the fashion week provides us with the perfect platform to showcase it."

Given that both designers have steady clienteles in Karachi, both shows are going to be highly anticipated. Aside from a show at the Telenor Bridal Couture Week last year, designer Umer Sayeed has more or less stayed away from fashion weeks, citing them as not worth the expense.

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 - PAKISTAN LINK

ENTERTAINMENT & LIFESTYLE

ENTERTAINMENT

hen they say 'Jack of all trades, master of none', they obviously weren't thinking about Fahad Mustafa.

Mustafa seems to be on a ride that only goes up; he's been lauded for his television performances, broken records with his role in the blockbuster Na Maloom Afraad and no one can charge up a crowd like he does on Jeeto Pakistan.

Talking to Images, the 32-yearold actor opens up about future aspirations, item numbers, Botox and whether he'll still be a game show host five years down the line.

What do you prefer - acting or hosting?

Fahad Mustafa (FM): Well, I like both obviously! Acting is something I enjoy whereas hosting has become a way of earning so a healthy mix of both works for a happy life. However, if I am being honest, I do prefer acting Do you think getting into the acting field is easy and is it a stable, sustainable career? Would you recommend aspiring artists to pursue this line of work? *FM: * It's been 12 years, so I think I have done a good job sustaining my career. With any given field, you have to take your work seriously and the reward will follow.

We hear you're making a movie yourself. Can you tell us more about it?

FM: i am making two films next year: Band Toh Ab Bajay Ga, which will be directed by Anjum Shahzad and written by Yasir Hussain and it's going to be the first movie we'll produce under the Big Bang banner.

I'm also working on a movie with ARY Digital, written by Ali Imran. That one is still in the very initial stages so we haven't decided on a director yet, but both fall under the genre of comedy or rom-coms.

Do you ever see yourself step-

NOVEMBER 13, 2015 – PAKISTAN LINK – P31

W

ping into the director's shoes?

FM: No, I don't think I'll ever direct in my life. My motto is 'never say never' but I personally don't think it's for me. I have my own way of doing things and I admit that I'm lazy. I just wouldn't feel right commanding people and telling them what to do so for now, I don't see it happening. There are so many good directors out there so I think I'll let them do their job.

Do you think an item number is essential for a movie to do well?

FM: No, not particularly. I think it depends - there could be an item number in the movie and it may be

harmless but it's definitely not necessary! It's up to the director at the end of the day - it's his call to decide if the movie needs it.

Where do you see yourself in five years? Will you still be a game show host then?

FM: I'm not a host! Jeeto Pakistan became a bigger success than I ever could have imagined, but I don't know if I'll be doing any other game shows. What I do know for sure is that I'll be making movies, producing movies and I'll be acting.

The aim is to only do projects that are close to my heart, that I

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love. I don't want to be acting in everything that comes up my way!

Where do you see Pakistani cinema in five years?

FM: Flourishing, getting even bigger. I believe this is just the beginning and I feel different genres will help the revival. The same kind of cinema can't survive for too long.

Getting personal Describe yourself in three words.

FM: Comfortable, honest and happy.

What's your favorite cuisine/ restaurant in Karachi?

*FM: * I'm a real homebody, so I prefer eating at home! It doesn't even matter what I'm eating; if I'm at home, I'll eat whatever there is.

I'll even go pick up food and bring it back to eat in the comfort of my abode.

Many male artists opt to get cosmetic surgery/enhancements such as Botox or facelifts. What are your thoughts on it?

FM: I think you should age with grace, the way you are meant to. If you are 40 or 50, you should look it, there's nothing wrong with it! if you want to look good, lead a healthy lifestyle, work out and you should be fine.

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P32 – PAKISTAN LINK – NOVEMBER 13, 2015

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