Drishtikone
Hosting sit-down w Abid Hasan Minto, constitutional lawyer (incl. Nawaz Sharif) & communist leader from #Pakistan . http://twitpic.com/46z6v Read more
Hosting sit-down w Abid Hasan Minto, constitutional lawyer (incl. Nawaz Sharif) & communist leader from #Pakistan . http://twitpic.com/46z6v Read more
... but #India, #Pakistan, etc. need to come together on opposing "non-state" actors and not take advantage of them against each other. Read more
...occupying schools and dispensaries is not the same as providing for the welfare of the people. (Minto) #Pakistan #India #Nepal Read more
Mother, do you think theyll drop the bomb? http://cli.gs/WpZb8z #thecrisisisnow #Pakistan #Shariah #Taliban ♫ http://blip.fm/~56n8o Read more
"The One That Got Away" #Pakistan #Shariah #Taliban ♫ http://blip.fm/~56pdf Read more
Indian elections have and will see so much of dishonest and unscrupulous politicians fighting each other out. And yet somehow we keep voting for the same jokers. We don't change them and we don't speak out against most. I happened to see this poll from Gallup and was really amazed. Though the number of people believing that there will be honesty in the elections has come down, it is still very high! Almost half of us still love to live in la-la-land! So what do you think of this? Read more
Big Governments are not good for any country. Coming from India and having lived through the Nationalization era, I can say that the lesser the Government was involved in the many things, the better it has been for the lives of people. But then the other question is - is Big Business good? Now, that isn't good either. Look at how oligopolies do. The oil companies, the airlines industries have not done well for the customers after the acquisition. So, one does tend to ask - Which is worse? Big Government or the Big Business. Well, here is an article based on a Gallup poll which shows that people who believe that Big Government is a bigger threat have reduced compared to those who view the Big Business as a big threat. Although as expected, the trends amongst the Republicans and Democracts are reversed. Read more
59 Hindus were returning from a pilgrimage in Ayodhya when on February 27, 2002; their train bogies were set to fire. Men - young and old, women, and children were burnt alive. Teesta Setalvad a self-proclaimed Secularist told Washingon Post (published on February 28, 2002). The people were returning from Ayodhya after pilgrimage a full 10 years after the Babri Masjid was demolished. 'Let us not forget the provocation. These people were not going for a benign assembly. They were indulging in blatant and unlawful mobilisation to build a temple and deliberately provoke the Muslims in India.' Argument: If you are a Hindu and on a pilgrimage to Ayodhya then you are fair game. Even when you are a one year old. Worship in Ayodhya is a sin for which you could be killed at any point. It is like someone saying something similar of some Muslims returning from say Haj on a train. 2002-2004 - Best Bakery Case In November 2004, this lady Teesta Setalvad was to resurface again when a "victim" of Gujarat riots - Zaheera - was to accuse her of coercing her and her family at knifepoint to press charges against the accused. There was a lot of drama where in the end, Zaheera got one year in prison for perjury in the murder, after being found guilty by the court of lying. She had changed her statement about the happenings in the case. The Supreme Court at that time acquitted Teesta of the charges and put Zaheera behind the bars. Cut to 2009 She may have been acquitted by the Supreme Court for being right on Zaheera, but a report from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Government of India now puts her back in the dock and also brings up a feeling - "Was the Supreme Court correct in Best Bakery?" The question that one grapples is - Was Zaheera bribed by Teesta or BJP Legislator? Was Tehelka "used" to help cooking up Zaheera's case as well?? Read more
How ridiculous can customs get can be understood from this rather strange custom followed in Islamic societies based on some Islamic law. There is a clause in the religious laws on marriage according to which: if a man divorces his wife, he cannot marry her again unless another man marries her next, spends one night (have sex), and then divorces her. This temporary or contract husband - is called “Mohallel” or middleman. One person whose account I stumbled across while googling about this custom calls it a "One Night Stand" - probably the only religion-sanctioned one-night-stand in the world.[1] It is fairly obvious what problems such a custom can create. As this lady discussed when it happened in their family and the divorced wife was actually very pretty and from a big family. So the husband had the "recruit" this worker in someone's factory to do "the job". The worker spent one night with his wife, had sex, and the errant husband actually paid him a lot of money to divorce! What if - just what if the one-night-stand "contract hubby" does NOT divorce? What would happen then?? Well, this interesting angle was the subject of an award-winning movie called "Mohalel". Read more
There is a lot of worry in the US and the West right now about Pakistan. And, as expected, the Pakistani Ambassador, Hussain Haqqani, to the US has been defending his country. It's semantics whether you call his rhetoric "defense" or "denial". Somewhere along the way, the line blurs. One quote from him this week intrigued me. "We admit Taliban pose great threat to Pakistanis, and Pakistanis are Muslims and wanted implementation of their religion, but neither we believe in flogging of girls nor locking up women inside homes," he said in an interview with the BBC here Saturday. Think about it again. Read slowly. What does it mean? Why is Haqqani bringing up Taliban being Muslim and Pakistan being Muslim? If you were to decipher the semantics, it would be clear that he believes its not easy to fight Taliban when they profess an Islamic rule in a country that was clearly created for Muslims! Which, if you read the statement and pay attention to its tenor, he sorta agrees with. However, what he (and ostensibly other Pakistanis) do not agree with is the "version" of Islamic rule that Taliban will bring - flogging et al. One would want to ask - How so? How does what has been happening in Pakistan since its creation ANY different from what will happen now? Read more
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