Students of a university in Rawalpindi have been made to take an oath that they would not embarrass the Punjab governor by refusing to receive medals from him, as was happened in the past and shown on TV channels countrywide. The administration of Pir Maher Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi, has taken such a solemn undertaking from 55 students to receive their medals from the governor at the convocation to be held on Wednesday.
Sources in PMAS-AAUR told The News after oaths were taken the governor has been told about it and assured he can confidently confer the medals on the students. The sources said after two incidents when some students of Lahore and Faisalabad refused to receive their medals in protest from Salman Taseer,
A writ petition has been moved in the Lahore High Court seeking disqualification of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer on allegations of holding profitable offices and turning the Governor’s House into a political office of the PPP. Petitioner Mian Waqas Riaz, chief executive of Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills, Lahore, through his counsel AK Dogar, has stated that from the day one Governor Salmaan Taseer had been openly advancing the cause of the PPP and had vowed to make the Punjab a stronghold of the party. He said this was a clear violation of the constitutional provisions because a governor was a neutral figure and was, under the Constitution, required to maintain a non-partisan image.
Link to The News
The UK-based child Sahil, kidnapped from Jehlum, has been rescued from Sialkot, meanwhile, police have also arrested two persons including a woman over kidnapping charges, Geo news quoted Punjab Law Minister as saying.
According to media reports, the arrested person, allegedly involved in abduction of child, had been issuing several threats to Sahil’s family before committing kidnapping.
Those arrested have been moved to undefined location for investigation, meanwhile, the child has been sent to UK with his father, he said.
by Qudrat Ullah
Now a day, the provinces of Sindh and Punjab are at odds over the issue of Chasma-Jhelum Canal Project which the government of Punjab is contemplating to set up at the Chasma Jhelum Canal with a total capacity of 40MW. While the province of Sindh is opposing the project fervidly, it is needed to kaleidoscopically evaluate the project to adjudge the real situation.
The country is facing acute shortage of energy which is badly affecting the economy in every sector particularly the industrial sector. Federal Government is taking a number of initiatives to meet the energy crisis and Punjab Government has also taken numerous steps to develop power projects in public as well as in private sector under the Punjab Power Generation Policy, 2006 (revised in 2009). Punjab, as a first step, decided to develop 48 preferred raw Hydel sites available on its canal falls through private sector. An advertisement in this regard was released in the national press. The site at the tail of Chashma Jhelum Canal, having pre-feasible potential of 40 MW, was also included in the said advertisement. M/S Haseeb Khan & Co. was selected and a letter of interest (LOI) was issued to the said company for carrying out the feasibility study of the site and the sponsor company completed the study on 25-10-2008. The main features of the project as bought out in the feasibility study are as under:
Location: CJ Link Canal Tail in District Khushab
Name of Canal: CJ link Canal
Design head: 13.86 m
Head Race: Brick lined
Design discharge of head race channel power house: 10500 cusecs
Capacity of power house: 44 MW
Plant factor of power house : 55%
Annual energy generation: 212.249 GWh
Tariff: 6.89 US cent/unit
After the approval of feasibility study by a panel of experts comprising of members from PPIB, WPPO/WAPDA and Irrigation and Power department Punjab, the sponsor company was asked to carry out power purchase agreement with the concerned DISCO and apply for power generation license and tariff determination to NEPRA.
During the public hearing for the grant of generation license to the said project by the NEPRA on 3/9/2009, Sindh province opposed the project on the pretext that said project is non-feasible and therefore should be scrapped.
Chasma- Jhelum canal off-takes from the river Indus at Chasma district Mianwali, Punjab. It was constructed in 1970 in consequences of Indus Waters Treaty signed with India in 1960 in order to meet the requirement of Pakistan canals off-taking from the three eastern rivers i.e., Ravi, Bias and Satluj. Consequently, Pakistan was required to construct a set of replacement works to transfer supplies from western rivers to eastern rivers which were earmarked for exclusive use by India. Accordingly, Indus Basin Replacement Project comprising of two mega dams at Mangla and Tarbela, six new headworks and seven new link canals were completed during the period 1960-1976.
Chasma Jhelum Link is one of the aforesaid Link Canals constructed to off-take from Chasma Barrage and transfer Tarbela/Indus River water to feed the Punjab Eastern River Canals. It has a full supply capacity of 21700 Cusses. Keeping in view the post accord water flow in CJ link authorized by IRSA, C-J is operated by WAPDA out of Punjab share allocated by IRSA.
Government of the Punjab, at all levels, has assured that project would be operated as per availability of water in the canal out of Punjab share allocated by IRSA. NEPRA has also conducted the hearing for tariff determination on 28-01-2010 and announced that generation license for the project has been approved. This project will be able to supply cheap renewable energy in the National Grid. This matter was also discussed in a meeting of Prime Minister of Pakistan with the Chief Minister on 18-02-2010. A delegation of Government of the Punjab visited Karachi on 20-02-2010 and had a detailed meeting with Government of Sindh to discuss Water Apportionment Accord 1991 and other issues. As a follow up of the said meeting, technical teams of irrigation Departments of the two provinces met in Lahore on 22nd February, 2010 wherein; Punjab Government maintained that Project was a private sector initiative and Government of Punjab was facilitating the investors like any other private sector project. The matter falls in the purview of NEPRA to determine whether it is feasible project or not. Government of Sindh has already filed a review petition against the approval of generation license and it is now for NEPRA to allow or disallow the project and whatever decision is taken by NEPRA, all concerned will have to abide by it.
The Punjab government has already conceded to the Sindh demand over the Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal, and voluntarily halved its share of water from the Indus zone through this vital link from Sunday. Reacting sharply to this, Opposition in the Punjab Assembly on Monday has lodged a strong gripe against, what they called “the provincial government’s voluntary surrender of its water share water from Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal to Sindh” as they alleged that Punjab has surrendered two thousand cusecs of water per day from Chashma canal to Sindh. Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif is in a quandary; he has a reputation for sacrificing for the other provinces they in turn have not reciprocated such sentiments.
However, Sindh’s feeding frenzy is without facts and historical data proves the case in Punjab’s favor. Sindh is failing to recognize Punjab’s aver that this channel is a perennial canal which provides water to Southern areas of the province and it will not in any way discourage Sindh’s water share. Moreover, the project will add 40 MW electricity to national grid station to overcome the power shortage. Sindhi nationalists should also bear in mind that it’s India which is blocking their legitimate share of water by illegally constructing 62 hydro power structures on the waters of Pakistan to turn Pakistan into a waterless retreat of hunger and famine. Punjab is main food-basked of the whole country and the water utilized by Punjabi farmers will benefit the whole country.
by Aqil Sajjad
In his latest column, Ayaz Amir has lamented the fact that we remain so mired in our internal bickering that we fail to take note of important developments in the rest of the world, especially in our own neighborhood. He points out that India’s cold start war doctrine was formulated in April 2004, but we have remained totally oblivious to this development and its implications for Pakistan for these last 6 years.
Unfortunately, what could otherwise have been a purposeful and honest article for raising these very pertinent issues, has again been turned into a non-serious exercise in point scoring. If important happenings in the world pass us by, and we do not ‘behave like a people with a modicum of understanding at their command,’ (to use Mr. Amir’s own words), it is partly because analysts like him take little interest in highlighting such issues. After all, if the cold start doctrine was developed in 2004, then Ayaz Amir also did not write about it all these years until last Friday. Yet, instead of being a bit introspective, Mr. Amir had his usual ‘holier than thou’ tone, only lecturing and ridiculing others, but not pausing for a moment to think about his own role.
The most disgusting bit in his recent piece, was yet another cheep-shot against the judiciary. While suggesting that our media should have permanent correspondents in Kabul and Delhi, he remarked: “My Lord Chief Justice, famous now for his suo moto initiatives, could consider taking notice of this strange proclivity”. Mr. Amir, could you not hold off on this below-the-belt remark, for a change?
Also, a bit of humility and introspection about your own duty as a columnist and MNA would not hurt. When was the last time you wrote something constructive? When was the last time, in your capacity as an MNA and a key member of PML-N, did you push for some legislation or governance reform? Less verbosity and a bit more substance from you, would do all of us some good, sir.
Loading ...At least 25 people were killed and 100 others wounded on Friday after two bombs planted on motorcycles struck a bus at Shahra-e-Faisal and Jinnah Hospital in Karachi.
Women and children were among 12 people killed when a motorcyle packed with explosives rammed into a bus of mourners travelling on Shahra-e-Faisal to join a procession at the end of the holy month of Muharram.
A second bomb attack took place near the emergency ward at Jinnah Hospital, where the dead and wounded were being rushed, killed another 13 people.
MQM, the strongest supporters of General Musahrraf’s regime and most vocal supporters of all his illegal actions are now pretending to be Dr. Aafia’s supporters. MQM, who control most part of Karachi from where Dr. Aafia was kidnapped along with 3 of her children, have met her family, even though they are one of the reasons to bring Dr. Aafia to this stage.
Dozens of Insaaf Students Federation (ISF) workers on Wednesday staged a peaceful demonstration against the Islami Jamiat Talaba members for beating their colleagues in the Punjab University.
The demo was held outside the Lahore Press Club. The demonstrators were holding banners and placards calling for the arrest of IJT members. They chanted slogans against the Jamiat and its violent activities. The ISF protesters condemned the torture of the ISF members.
The People’s Lawyers Forum (PLF) has rebelled against its own Law Minister Babar Awan and has demanded his sacking by President Asif Zardari, saying he is pursuing an anti-party policy and that he is a relic of the past dictator who had hanged Zulfikar Bhutto with his protege then distributing sweets.
Do you think our journalists are being compromised by attending parties at American Embassy?
Geo News is reporting firing incident at Lahore with several armed men spotted at Lahore airport.
Loading ...The accountability court has sentenced former Director General of Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) three years imprisonment and fine of Rs.11.5 million in a case of making illegal assets.
The woman judge of accountability court Mrs. Irshad Qaiser in her verdict announced three years imprisonment and fine of Rs.11.5 million. The ex director PDA Zahir Shah has been arrested after the court’s verdict. He was arrested in year 2000 under charges of making illegal assets. Zahir Shah had filed a petition in High Court against the verdict; however, High Court had maintained the punishment given by accountability court.
Responding a query regarding the court’s ruling, he said the apex court can call the Army Chief for help to get its verdicts put into action, adding there is an antecedent on this in past, when former Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah called Army Chief.
Pirzada said the Pak Army also is on oath to safeguard the constitution.
Qamar Zaman Qaira, the Federal Minister of Information from PPP has warned that PPP may support Sheikh Rasheed on NA-55 seat of Rawalpindi if PMLN keeps giving statement against PPP.
This statement should come as a shock for PPP voters in Rawalpindi area who have been traditionally die hard opposers of Shiekh Rasheed.
Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said Wednesday that the PPP’s workers could back Sheikh Rashid in NA-55 if Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Ahsan Iqbal continued to pass remarks against his party.
Speaking to newsmen outside the Parliament House here, he said that the provocative statements of PML-N leaders could cause anger among the PPP activists.
by Dr. Haider Mehdi
“Dissent is no longer the duty of the engaged citizen but is becoming an act of terrorism.”
- Chris Hedges (in an article of the same title)
My generation grew up in a different Pakistan. A different Lahore, a different Karachi, a different Peshawar, a different Quetta, a different Islamabad and an entirely different country.
In Lahore, people sat in Pak Tea House and Coffee House and talked about politics, poetry, religion, culture and friendships gave birth, on a daily basis, to youthful romanticism of our times: the mutual seduction of kindred spirits within the confines of our cultural values and the gentleness of Urdu poetry, songs, geets (lyrics) and the Lahori humor. We celebrated basant (the kite-flying festival), maila-charagha (the festival of lights) and Urs Data Gung-Baksh (the festival of a saint). We observed Muharram with great reverence.
Karachi used to be alive twenty-four hours a day all year round. It was a city of “lights”, “fashion”, hustle-bustle of a truly cosmopolitan metropolis. Ethnic diversity and tolerance was the hallmark of this city. Peshawar was a beacon of hospitality, a tribute to human gentleness and an affirmation of a rich community life. Quetta’s apple-laden trees decorated its roads everywhere and the Balochis colorful existence found its spirit in its music, songs and even in its cuisine. Pakistan’s rural society existed in purity, simplicity and the zealousness of hard-working people.
Pakistan was a different country then: we lived in relative peace, tolerance and mutual harmony. A delicious puri nashta cost one rupee, petrol was Rs. 2.50 a gallon, schooling was cheap, sugar and food were plenty, and a round-trip by PIA from Lahore to Karachi was Rs. 250.
The majority of Pakistanis were poor even then, but there was no mass starvation, deprivation suicides, forced prostitution, massive collective depressive communities, agonizing socio-psychological conditions, economic collapse, and no one knew of crippling demoralizing inner fears. We did not know of institutional violence and extensive state terror – though police brutality and legal system atrocities were common, bureaucracy was horribly cruel, corrupt, inefficient and unbelievably powerful vis-à-vis the citizenry, commerce thrived on black-marketing and the political class wholly and completely indulged in vested interests, inappropriate use of political power and mismanagement of state affairs.
Even though we lived with a million vices as a nation, but strangely enough, life was not as painful as it is in today’s democratic Pakistan. Neither was the entire nation, every one of its citizens, griped with such forceful, depleting and paralyzing fear – a fear that the management of the survival of this country has gone out of control. A fear that we all may be blown away from existence the next moment, if not literally then at least in a metaphorical sense!
Do you realize the seriousness of our contemporary political crisis?
The present state of our deplorable existence is the work of our decade-long political leadership inclusive of Pervez Musharraf’s dictatorship and the incumbent political dispensation in the country.
The fundamental failure of our national policy is this country’s ruling elite’s destructive all time political-economic-military alliance with the US and its allies (now India included).
Even at the time that I have described as the “golden days” of Pakistan’s past, our ruling elite was fully and comprehensively politically engaged with the US and its allies. However the US was in a different political mode then: it was fighting its own self-invented “demons” – the communist ideology and the communist nations (though communism was not a threat – it was a political experiment to solve mass poverty). The objective of American foreign policy was global political-economic and military domination.
In the present-day world, the policy objectives of the US and its allies remain same: worldwide imperialist hegemony and exploitation by the West’s multi-national corporations.
However, in the contemporary equation, the West’s enemies have been redefined: Now we are the “demons.” They have declared a war against Muslim nations, their people, their faith, their culture, their traditions, their values and customs, their history and even against their existence as we know it today. Huntington in “The Clash of Civilizations” warns that if we do not transform our civilization to a Western model, then we must be prepared for an ultimate obliteration through successive wars at the hands of the West: We are given no choices.
700 Pakistani citizens died in American drone attacks in 2009 alone. It is not accidental!
What the US and its Western allies do not understand is that their present war is not against an economic-political ideology (communism). This war is against a people, a faith, a history, an existential reality, an entirety of a civilization, an actual formidable historical presence and an enduring spiritual entity. They, the US and its allies (which include collaborating political elites in Muslim countries), cannot win this war. Indeed, they can unleash havoc, a wave of destruction (as they are doing now), but they cannot and will not win!
Coming back to the context of Pak-US relations, consider the following most plausible scenario in the immediate future:
Through covertly managed organized violence, collaborations, propaganda, bombings and political manipulations, the US succeeds in destabilizing Pakistan to an extent of complete political chaos, limited anarchy and a near civil war situation. Under the pretext of threat to international security, American and Nato forces are moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Pakistan’s nuclear assets are seized, a puppet regime is installed: Pakistan is de-nuclearized, India (the newest US ally) becomes a dominate regional power, Iran is contained, China-Russia growing political clout is checked, the US-West’s historical global dominance is achieved – the world is saved!
Is that what the Pakistani nation wants and deserves?
Imran Khan’s perspective on Pakistan’s foreign policy and domestic priorities is correct: we need to politically-militarily disengage Pakistan from the US-West’s global objectives. We need to immediately end this so-called “war on terror” against our own citizens. We need to negotiate peace with political dissidents in NWFP, Balochistan and in every corner of Pakistan. We must appreciate the fact that political dissent is not terror!
We ought to, by engaging our own citizens and political dissidents, quietly and secretly do a complete “cleansing” of the foreign elements and local collaborators involved in organized violence in our country. This can only be accomplished by a determined, independent, nationalist and highly efficient political leadership that can make national policy without American influence and interference. And this is the ultimate requirement of our times.
At last, Mian Nawaz Sharif, said something right the other day: the public in Pakistan needs to think in revolutionary ways now.
Allow me to go one step further: what we need is revolutionary political leadership in this country. We deserve a change in the political mindset and political conduct of this nation’s leaders. We need fresh leadership in Pakistan.
We all do not need to be politically loyal to our contemporary political dispensation or to our present political allies. We must completely reject a global political system of US-West’s dominance.
We all ought to be political dissidents! After all, dissent is a vital element of the democratic political process. It is a duty of an engaged citizenry!
One day we all might be considered terrorists by our Western “friends.”
Never mind. So be it!
The writer is an academic, political analyst & conflict-resolution expert.
US officials Sunday toughened security measures for all US-bound airline passengers, and warned those traveling from 14 targeted nations would have to undergo mandatory tight screening. In bound passengers will go through a complete body search and thorough inspection of hand carry items.
The lists includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. For Pakistani air travelers these procedures will probably be executed at a transiting point in the Middle East, Europe or Far East as no airline flies directly from Pakistan to USA.
Update: 2 January 2010, death rises to 95
At least 74 persons were killed and scores of others suffered injuries as a suicide bomber riding a car detonated explosives in a football ground in Shah Hassan Khel area of Lakki Marwat.
MIRAMSHAH: Missiles from a US drone slammed into a car killing three militants Friday, the second such strike in two days in Pakistan’s tribal region of North Waziristan, security officials said.
The northwest, rife with militant networks, has been the focus of a hail of bombings in the past month by lethal US spy planes, as Washington targets militant groups it says Pakistan is struggling to tackle.
