India-Pakistan: Vazira Zamindar on the raw wound of Partition

Time April 22, 1946: “MOHAMED ALI JINNAH: His Moslem tiger wants to eat the Hindu cow”

Vazira Zamindar is filling in a critical back story of fury and fear in our world, The Long Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and after. It was one of the great post-colonial wounds, and it keeps on wounding, visibly and invisibly. Partition has been the root of endless public miseries: ethnic cleansing, chronic warfare, constructed “national” and religious hatreds. It’s also, as Professor Zamindar testifies for herself, “a wound within.” It’s the mother of many millions of individual identity crises that seem never to go away.

Ahmed Rashid’s recent “lament for a troubled Pakistan” makes a similar zig-zag connection from 1947 to 2011, from the corrupted legacy of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and the frenzied fundamentalism behind the murder last month of Salman Taseer, governor of Pakistan’s Punjab state. He writes: “Jinnah was a liberal, consensual, inspired Muslim who categorically and repeatedly stated that Pakistan would be a state for Muslims to pursue their religion and culture, but never an Islamic state. He welcomed all minorities to live and worship in freedom. Jinnah himself never sold his house in Bombay. That was the kind of vision needed for a new country that was multicultural and multi-ethnic, one that had been the seat of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. That was the Pakistan we grew up in, in the 1960s and 1970s. But that Pakistan is now rapidly being lost…”

Vazira Zamindar, on the history faculty at Brown, is herself a child of one of those many “divided families” that never saw the division coming. Jinnah, she is reminding us, was a cosmopolitan lawyer who never envisioned an Islamist state.

Something that’s easily forgotten today is that the whole region was a multi-religious society, and people lived together… [with] class conflicts, and ethnic conflicts, and resource conflicts which often got translated in terms of religious boundaries… And still it was a profoundly multi-religious society, so any project to create a Muslim Pakistan or a Hindu India would necessarily have to be an extremely violent one…

The argument for Partition was decided in 1947 by a narrow elite. Instructively, ironically now, the Muslim religious leadership at the time opposed partition. Lord Mountbatten of Burma, the last British viceroy, was accused of rushing it. Nehru and Jinnah can both be charged with a heedless ambiguity about the consequences. A democratic choice in the matter would have come out differently, Vazira Zamindar is saying: “The way people actually live on the ground … is with a heterodoxy of practices. People learn to live together in ways that governments don’t learn to live together. 

I would argue that in 1947, it was still unclear how these two entities called India and Pakistan would inscribe themselves as two nation-states. I think it is the following decade that’s quite decisive, and one could say it’s still an ongoing process of creating this distinction: the need to constantly articulate this distinction, through hostilities, through enmity, through making the border between these two states almost impossible for citizens of the region to cross.

There is a line on the ground that disappears very quickly when people cross it.

Vazira Zamindar in conversation with Chris Lydon at Brown, January 31, 2011.

We are talking about the many reasons Partition is debated to this day. The fact that people keep reflecting on the question marks the spot, Vazira Zamindar says, to begin “a critique of the present… I want to hold onto that question as a sign that people can still imagine a multi-religious society. It’s a sign that people are fed up with our terribly divided present, that they don’t want these wars. They don’t want conflict.”

Sons Of Partition Seek Pakistan Peace Dividend: Corporate India

H.P. Nanda fled his burned-out home in newly independent Pakistan with $1,500 in his pocket, driving his Chevrolet past torched villages strewn with dead bodies, across the days-old frontier into India. More than 60 years later, the company he built is planning to return.

Escorts Ltd. (ESC), which sells farm and construction equipment in 40 countries and is now run by Nanda’s son, aims to exploit the biggest drive yet to bolster trade ties between India and Pakistan. The Nandas are exploring selling their machinery in their father’s former homeland as Pakistan prepares to lift punitive trade restrictions on its historic enemy by year-end.

“No country can progress by fighting with its neighbors,” Rajan Nanda, H.P.’s eldest son, said at the company’s New Delhiheadquarters. “We are incredibly keen to export to Pakistan, but we haven’t been able to because of political tensions.”

Reviving commerce across the 2,065-mile (3,323-kilometer) border would lift the world’s lowest intra-regional share of trade, a legacy of the two nations having gone to war three times in six decades. Potential beneficiaries range from Pakistani cement makers with excess capacity to Indian steel producers that could target displacing competitors from Brazil to Australia, according to Standard Chartered Bank Plc.

“They are trying to put in place enough of a momentum that, if something bad were to happen, they can sustain the process,” Kalpana Kochhar, chief South Asia economist for the World Bank, who sees commerce nearly tripling in three to four years, said in a telephone interview from Washington. “The impact is going to be much larger in the case of Pakistan,” boosting annual economic growth by as much as 0.5 percentage point, she said.

Muslim Customers

Some of India’s and Pakistan’s wealthiest businessmen, including Nanda, 69, Lakshmi Mittal and Mian Mohammad Mansha, see opportunities across a border guarded by hundreds of thousands of troops. Since peace talks resumed last year, the two governments have approved commerce in 4,000 previously banned items and opened new trade routes.

Mansha, who is chairman of Nishat Group, a financial, textile and cement-making empire, said his company has applied to the State Bank of Pakistan for permission to open branches in India.

“We can do syndications and joint loans with Indian banks,” Mansha, who was six months old when his family fled India after partition, said in a phone interview from Lahore June 20. “India has a huge Muslim population which might also find that it’s much easier to get Shariah-complaint services from us.”

Trade Opening

Pakistan agreed in November to grant India most-favored nation status, under which its exports wouldn’t be discriminated against. India, which gave Pakistan the designation in 1996, in April pledged to allow investment from its neighbor for the first time. Pakistan plans by the end of this year to remove 1,200 items on a remaining banned list.

The economic rapprochement is developing even as the two governments are stymied by domestic political strains. Pakistan on June 22 chose a new prime minister after Yousuf Raza Gilani was ousted by the judiciary for failing to pursue corruption charges against President Asif Ali Zardari. In India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s liberalizing agenda has been crippled by opposition from within his own coalition, contributing to a sell-off in the rupee and the slowest growth in nine years.

Violence Threat

Renewed violence could still extinguish the warming in ties. India scrapped dialogue with Pakistan in 2008 after an attack on Mumbai by 10 Pakistani militants of the Lashkar-e- Taiba group left 166 people dead and shattered five years of peace-building.

Talks last month over relaxing rules on business visas were dominated by wrangling over probes into the Mumbai attack and a 2007 bombing of a cross-border train in which 68 people, mainly Pakistanis, died. India charged five Hindu activists with the crime after initially blaming local Muslim extremists.

Watchtowers and soldiers with automatic rifles positioned in Indian wheat fields are a reminder of the threat of hostilities along the border. An Indian soldier was killed June 11 in an exchange of fire with Pakistani troops in Kashmir, said an Indian defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Even so, a consensus between Pakistan’s civilian and military chiefs on the need for trade to help revive a stumbling economy has encouraged business leaders on the subcontinent, said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a professor of politics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. India is engaging with its neighbor after earlier saying ties would only improve once Pakistan reined in militant groups operating from its territory.

Executive Response

Executives are responding. More than 600 Pakistani businessmen in April promoted products, including fashion textiles, jewelry, designer furniture and leather goods, at a trade fair in New Delhi. Last month, 45 Indian businessmen traveled to Lahore to meet fellow entrepreneurs.

As the U.S. plans its exit by 2014 from an 11-year war with the Taliban in Afghanistan, it also has an interest in India- Pakistan rapprochement. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta used a speech in New Delhi on June 6 to urge the two countries to overcome their differences in a bid to improve security in the region as American troops leave.

For two nations with a fifth of humanity, or 1.4 billion people, and which share mutually understandable languages, trade between India and Pakistan is relatively tiny. It was $2.7 billion last year -- less than 1 percent of their combined commerce with other nations.

World’s Lowest

That left south Asia with the lowest inter-regional trade in the world, at 1.5 percent of the region’s economic output, according to Standard Chartered. The ratio is 7 percent in East Asia and Latin America, the bank said in a June 7 note.

Elsewhere in the region, the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war has yielded a peace dividend, with economic growth exceeding 8 percent in 2010 and 2011, compared with an average 5 percent the previous decade. Indian neighbor Myanmar’s transition from dictatorship prompted theInternational Monetary Fund to dub it potentially “the next economic frontier” of Asia.

Indian companies producing cheaper and higher-quality steel are likely to benefit from higher exports to Pakistan, which now gets the metal at a higher cost from countries such as Brazil. In return, Pakistan’s cement makers with a surplus of capacity should gain by exporting to India where there’s a shortage.

Tragic Start

Cheaper imports from India may also help to reduce inflation in Pakistan, currently the fastest in Asia. Consumer prices climbed 12.3 percent in country in May from a year before.

The history of India and Pakistan was forged in blood. As Britain emerged economically ravaged from World War II and amid a growing rift between Hindu and Muslim leaders, it rushed through separation of its largest colony in a few months in 1947.

In the Punjab region, which was split between the new countries, roads were choked with bullock carts and migrant families as they attempted to flee violence that left an estimated 1 million people dead and another 10 million uprooted.

Now, hundreds of trucks roll across the countries’ border in Punjab daily. Under a sweltering sun, hundreds of men in orange turbans and faded blue uniforms used metal hooks last month to unload white sacks of dried fruit, cement, marble and other goods emblazoned with green “Made in Pakistan” signs.

‘Great Opportunity’

Jawed Salim Qureshi, chairman of the Lahore-based Four Brothers Group, began importing pesticides from India in the 1990s, through Indian agents based in Dubai. Sales of Indian- made chemicals and seeds now account for 10 percent of the company’s $76 million in turnover in Pakistan, Qureshi said in an interview last month. His company also grows vegetables on 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares) in Punjab.

“We can easily grow this trade manifold if all barriers and disparities are removed,” said Qureshi, whose father migrated to Pakistan at the time of partition and settled in Rawalpindi.

“There’s also a great opportunity for Pakistani farmers,” he said. “When we can compete in a market of over a billion people, we will definitely improve our quality and bring down the cost of production.”

India’s Prime Minister Singh accompanied Mittal, chief executive officer of ArcelorMittal (MT), the world’s largest steelmaker, at the opening of a $4 billion refinery in Punjab in April in a joint venture with Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (HPCL)

The plant, 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the border with Pakistan, is well positioned to export if talks to lift restrictions on trade in fuels are successful, S. Roy Choudhury, its director, said at the ceremony.

Gas Pipeline

Greater trade may also smooth the building of a $7.6 billion gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India, according to Standard Chartered. (STAN) The gas will help meet demand in both energy-starved India and Pakistan.

Anticipating a pickup in commerce, the Indian government in April completed a $30 million checkpoint at Wagah, the busiest border crossing between the two countries. Four new warehouses, each two soccer fields in length, have been built there, the number of customs staff doubled and a new four-lane highway now runs to the nearby city of Amritsar.

“The past is the past, we can’t be prisoners to history anymore,” said Rahul Bajaj, 73, the billionaire chairman of Bajaj Autos Ltd., whose daughter escaped unharmed when his apartment was hit by six bullets fired by the Mumbai gunmen.

Bajaj, who traveled with the Indian business delegation to Lahore last month, said that if Pakistan removes the company’s motorbikes from its remaining list of banned items, he will consider building a production plant across the border.

“Both countries have realized that 60 years of disputes and differences have reached no conclusions,” said Escort’s Nanda. “It’s time we lift up the shutters.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew MacAskill in New Delhi atamacaskill@bloomberg.net; Haris Anwar in Islamabad at hanwar2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net

Tribute to the ghazal legend Mehdi Hassan

By Talat Aziz, Ghazal Singer

Mehdi Hassan revolutionised the ghazal and gave it a new aura. After Begum Akhtar, ghazals became restricted to small mehfils, but he infused purity into them and gave them a new status. He brought them into the limelight during the '70s and every big Bollywood star wanted to be present at his concerts.

He kept the classicism of the ghazal and the beauty of the thumri, but gave it new shape. As a human being, he was a very simple person and played childish pranks. He was a musician first and concerned about little else. On stage, he was an imperious king. He had such an aura that by the time he finished his aalap, and came to the first note, listeners would be transfixed, whether they understood him or not. He may be gone, but no one can take away his contribution to the field. What he gave to ghazals perhaps no one has, or can. A beautiful heera (diamond) has gone, but his work will live on.

Mehdi Hassan Khan also famously known as the ‘King of Ghazal’ passed away on Wednesday, 13, June, 2012 after a protracted illness, in a local hospital in Karachi city of Pakistan. The 84 years old Ghazal Singer was suffering from illness for the past 12 years.

Mehdi Hassan Khan also famously known as the ‘King of Ghazal’ passed away on Wednesday, 13, June, 2012 after a protracted illness, in a local hospital in Karachi city of Pakistan. The 84 years old Ghazal Singer was suffering from illness for the past 12 years.

How far will the court go?

Supporters of Pakistan’s democratic transition fear the army is waiting to step in

Turmoil, thy name is Pakistan. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) was embroiled in a corruption scandal, as a powerful property tycoon went public with allegations that he had bribed the son of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to the tune of several million dollars in a bid to win favourable judgments from the court.

Chaudhry, the crusading judge whose refusal to step down in March 2007 when General Pervez Musharraf demanded his resignation led to Musharraf’s eventual demise a year later, is arguably the most popular public figure in Pakistan.

Would the scandal cut down the larger-than-life judge and curb his enthusiasm for judicial activism?

The answer came on July 19, and it was a resounding no. With a stroke of the pen, CJ Chaudhry, heading a three-member bench, consigned Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to the waste bin of history.

The ineffectual Gilani had led an espically incompetent and corrupt government since 2008 but ultimately was ousted by the court for something very unusual — refusing to write a letter to Swiss authorities asking them to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, Gilani’s boss as the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which led to Gilani being convicted by the SC for contempt of court in late April.

With Gilani gone, the PPP-led coalition in Islamabad chose the conciliatory route instead of going on the warpath against the superior judiciary. It proposed the name of another PPP stalwart from Punjab, Makhdoom Shahabuddin, as Gilani’s replacement.

But hours after his nomination, and a couple of days before Parliament was to meet to elect Shahabuddin, an anti-narcotics court judge in Rawalpindi announced a warrant for the arrest of the prime minister-in-waiting. The warrant came at the behest of the army-led anti-narcotics force.

Cue further turmoil. Were shadowy but powerful anti-democratic forces manoeuvring in the background to bring down an unpopular government and replace it with a technocratic one that was supposed to shore up a flagging economy and purge the political class?

Once again, the PPP chose not to fight fire with fire — but it did nominate as Shahabuddin’s replacement another minister who had earned the nickname “Rental Raja” for his role in a corruption-riddled rental power plants (RPP) scheme that was dreamt up as a response to the country’s severe power crisis and was shot down by the SC earlier this year.

On Friday, Raja Pervez Ashraf was elected PM by the National Assembly with a comfortable majority, but an uncomfortable future awaits him. The SC had already recommended that Raja be prosecuted for his role in the RPP scam and now as PM, the court could also dismiss him if, like his predecessor, he refuses to write the so-called Swiss letter, as seems likely.

As the drama continues to unfold, there is little certainty where this will end.

The real force behind the government is President Zardari and he appears determined to achieve what no civilian government has managed since the 1970s — completion of a full term in office. But that date is next March — a lifetime in Pakistani politics.

The SC, meanwhile, appears determined at the very least to establish itself as an equal player alongside the traditional power centres in Pakistan — the army and the political class.

What remains to be seen is if the court is aiming even higher — perhaps to use its newfound power to oust a dysfunctional and unpopular, but elected, government and replace it with an unelected leadership to “save” Pakistan from economic meltdown and governance paralysis?

For its part, the army has been content to watch from the sidelines — though its fingerprints were visible all over the thwarting of the Shahabuddin candidacy last week.

The fear among supporters of the tenuous transition to democracy is that the army is waiting for the increasingly internecine warfare between the government and the judiciary and among the political class to slip towards chaos — at which point the men in uniform will step in and say, “Alright, boys, enough’s enough. You’re all going home and we’re taking over.”

To the extent that the fate of the government is in its own hands now, it has two options to save the democratic process — that being no hyperbole after the events of recent weeks.

One, the government can call early elections — an act that will ease the political pressure that has built up to intolerable levels and that threatens a return to the bad old days of alternating civilian and military governments.

But because that’s precisely what the opponents and enemies of the PPP have been pressing for over the last couple of years, the government is unlikely to relent. In this game, survival depends on defiance, not capitulation.

Two, the government can improve its governance record.

And because that’s an idea likely to be met with howls of derision by anyone who has seen the present government operate — stay tuned to

Pakistan. There may be much more to come.

The writer is an Islamabad-based assistant editor with ‘Dawn’

Shifting patterns: Pakistan’s exports tilting to Asia, away from GCC, US

China and Afghan­istan are the fastes­t-growin­g market­s; Europe remain­s top destin­ation.

Published: June 24, 2012

While the European Union is still by far the largest destination for Pakistani exports, South Asia is now the second-most important market for Pakistani products.

The Middle East and the United States are decreasing in importance as export markets for Pakistan, as exporters increasingly target countries in South Asia and East Asia.

While the European Union is still by far the largest destination for Pakistani exports, South Asia – which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka – is now the second-most important market for Pakistani products. The EU absorbed 24.6% of Pakistani exports, compared to 28.4% in 2003. By contrast, South Asia used to account for just 6.3% of Pakistani exports in 2003 and is now the destination for 16.7% of Pakistan’s export earnings.

This growth appears to be led by Afghanistan, which is now Pakistan’s second-largest single country market, behind the US. Pakistan exported $3.8 billion worth of goods to the US in 2011 and about $2.7 billion to Afghanistan. The US and Canadian share of Pakistani exports has dropped from 24.7% in 2003 to 16% last year.

Perhaps surprising, however, is the growing importance of East Asia – particularly China – as an export destination for Pakistan. People are familiar with the fact that Pakistan’s imports from China have been rising substantially. Yet most seem unaware that China is also one of the two fastest growing export destinations for Pakistan (the other being Afghanistan). Pakistani exports to China have been growing at 26.3% per year for the last eight years, making China the number four destination for Pakistani exports, up from number 13 eight years ago.

Pakistan’s trade with China is, nonetheless, highly unequal and somewhat colonialist in nature. More than three-quarters of Pakistan’s exports to China are raw materials, with cotton accounting for 70% of goods leaving Pakistan for Chinese ports. (China accounts for more than half of all raw cotton exports from Pakistan.) Meanwhile, China’s exports to Pakistan – which totalled $6.5 billion last year – are mostly electronic equipment and industrial machinery.

An even more surprising fact: the importance of the Gulf Arab states to Pakistan’s exporters appears to be declining rapidly. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – comprising Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman – now accounts for 11.1% of Pakistan’s exports compared to 15% about eight years ago. Much of this shift is attributed to the fact that Pakistan now exports many more goods directly to India, compared to only a few years ago, when the UAE served as a conduit between the two countries.

And despite not granted preferential trade status to Pakistan, the EU has maintained its position as the largest destination for Pakistani exports. Within Europe, the biggest market for Pakistani exporters is Germany, followed by the United Kingdom and Italy.

While Pakistan’s trade balance has been consistently deteriorating over the past few years, it has not done so uniformly. The bulk of the increase Pakistan’s trade deficit can be attributed to higher oil prices, which have taken Pakistani imports from the Gulf to $16.1 billion in 2011, from just $3.8 billion in 2003.
The data on Pakistan’s trade patterns reflects an important point: Pakistan is no different from the rest of the world when it comes to the fact that it relies increasingly on exports to Asia, rather than the older, developed markets of Europe and the US.

However, somewhat distressingly, Pakistan’s exports do not seem to have moved up the value chain: Pakistan’s single biggest export has remained the same since 1972 – raw cotton. Before 1972, the biggest export earner for the country was raw jute from what was then East Pakistan.

And while the increased diversification has meant that Pakistani exporters are now less vulnerable to economic slowdowns in Europe and the US, Pakistan is now more vulnerable than ever to a slowdown in the Chinese economy. In addition, much of the exports to Afghanistan are likely to begin drying up once US forces exit that country in 2014. The picture for Pakistani exports is a lot less rosy than it first appears.

Say Welcome to the New PM

Congratulations countrymen! Pakistan’s got 25^th Prime minister yesterday only, the last one being removed owing to committing the contempt of court in the NRO case. Celebrations!!! This time our choice of Prime minister is seemingly finer than before, considering Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has been in-charge of the water-electric supplies leaves a lot for us to hope for.

We all have witnessed, how over the years the water and electric department has phenomenally progressed, thanks to the brilliant strategies and initiatives taken by the then responsible minister who incidentally happens to be our Prime minister today. We all have also seen how he has come out veteran in the concocted corruption case against him and still managed to make it to the saddle.

The timing of this musical chair of ministries should indeed be recorded and surely does invoke some demons. Just around the corner when the famous father-son case in the judiciary was receiving all the unnecessary attention, this election has come as a wind of change. At least people have something to gossip about now other than Mr. Chaudhary Iftikhar and Malik Riaz. Thanks a lot to the one who deserves all the praise.

However, with so much of contempt around, another contempt charge has come as a mere assertion to amount of disdain and discord that exist in the Pakistani socio-political sphere. But hats off to the PPP leadership who despite the judgment against their minister chose amenability over appeal and bowing head in front of the Justice and Order surprisingly accepted the court’s decision without a faint groan.

Analysts are predicting about the present Prime minister that……forget about it, as we need any predictions for it.

 KARACHI  - A Pakistani schoolgirl Zainab Imran, 15, selected to take part in the Olympic torch relay spoke of her delight Friday and said she hoped it could improve the country’s tarnished participate in the relay next week in Nottingham by the British Council.

 

London Olympics 2012: Schoolgirl to be Pakistan’s torchbearer

Zainab Imran chosen after involv­ement in the Games’ legacy progra­mme.

 

Zainab (fourth from left) is amongst a select group, that will take part in the Olympic torch relay. PHOTO: NOMAN AHMED/ EXPRESS

KARACHI: 

 

In a moment where every Pakistani should hold their heads up high, Zainab Imran, a 14-year-old girl from Karachi, will leave for London on June 24 to avail her opportunity of a lifetime by being the only Olympic torchbearer from Pakistan, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Zainab received the honour as a result of her involvement in London 2012’s international sports legacy programme, International Inspiration, through her Nasra Trust School and the British Council. The programme seeks to enrich the lives of millions of young people, particularly in developing countries, by using the power of sport. Organisations like the British Council, UNICEF UK, UK Sport and the British Olympic Association and British Paralympic Association partnered together to fund the programme and turn the idea into reality and fulfill the dreams of aspiring youth.

The 14-year-old is amongst a group of 20 young people from 20 different countries involved in International Inspiration, who will take part in the London 2012 Olympic torch relay in Nottingham on June 28.
Each of the 20 torchbearers were nominated and selected, either for their dedication and commitment to inspire children and young people in their communities through the power of sport, or for personal challenges they have overcome in their lives.

“I want the world to know that my country is not only about what is being portrayed by the world media,” said Zainab, while talking to The Express Tribune. She expressed her discontent with the promotion of only negative aspects of Pakistani society, and claimed that she would use this platform to promote the brighter and positive aspects of the country. She also expressed her gratitude for the support she received from her parents and teachers to pursue her dreams. “Such moments come rarely in a lifetime when you have been selected among millions to represent your country,” Zainab’s mother Amna Imran claimed. “She has got a flair for sports but it is not that she was naturally talented at it. She received the encouragement and support to pursue her dream, which parents in our society normally would not give,” her mother reiterated.

Fahd Shafiq, project manager at the British Council Pakistan for the International Inspiration programme, termed the event as “inspirational” for the youth who took part in it, as well as those who did not. He said that though this programme was launched globally in 2007, it was initiated in Pakistan by the British Council and other partners in March 2010.

“Initially, people did not show interest out of disbelief that this could really happen,” Shafiq mentioned. “But the number of applications started mounting with the passage of time,” he said. Finally, Zainab was approved as Pakistan’s representative by the organisation’s UK committee .

Chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Lord Seb Coe said, “Zainab has been a real inspiration in her community and truly demonstrates how sport can change someone’s life.”

The symbolic death of Pakistan’s mastermind

 

The show that was to make unparalleled history. The show of 20 questions that gained such mass appeal that it redefined the word Kasauti in the Urdu lughat (dictionary).

The show that started off in the Radio Pakistan building with three friends with beautiful minds teeming with information quizzing each other with 20 questions about any and every topic under the sun. Kasauti is part of our national heritage. As was Obaidullah Baig whom we lost on June 22, 2012.

The genius of Baig lies in a number of facts. The fact that he did not have scholarly education and was actually the product of Maktab based education in UP, yet so accepted was his status as a man of knowledge that a majority not just assumed that he was a trained scholar but revered him as one.

Kasauti had a monumental and lasting impact on the nation. It was a program that was intellectually stimulating, yet had mass appeal. Usually, the packaging of intelligent information in media lacks the quality that makes people relate to it. Brainy shows for thinkers are always a bit boring to the average person. Too academic, lacking the outreach quality. Often, if not always, the best brains are happy in their comfort zone bubbles of academia, research and like-minded people. They’d rather not venture into the common-brain zone. And the common man is happy not having to tax their brains too much. Polarisation in effect.  But Obaidullah Baig, Iftikhar Arif and Quraishpur’s trio changed all of that with this show that started in 1967.

 They made knowledge trendy. They made history, literature and the effects of these on society interesting. In a country that has sadly maintained its dismal rate of literacy; the show not only educated the masses but got the common man thinking.

Ghazi Salahuddin, Baig’s friend and comrade of 55 years and renowned journalist, anchored the second phase of Kasauti in the ‘90s. He thinks the same Kasauti would be obsolete today. “People’s attention spans are much shorter. Their interests have moved on to sports, technology and fashion. If today a quiz show like Kasauti were to be produced, the questions would be different, as would be the audience,” says Salahuddin, with a hint of disillusionment in his words.

In losing the man called Obaidullah Baig, Pakistan lost more than a beautiful mind. The juncture at which we have lost him is ironic. His death, in the words of Salahuddin, is “symbolic”. Symbolic of a nation’s intellectual decline.

Raja elected PM; opposition sneers at olive branch

ISLAMABAD, June 22: Propelled by a dramatic turn of events, Raja Pervez Ashraf was elected prime minister by a big majority of the National Assembly on Friday to oversee a daunting last phase of the PPP-led government, which began with the main opposition party cold-shouldering his olive branch.
 

ISLAMABAD: Raja Pervez Ashraf faces a tough road ahead after taking oath as the 25th Prime Minister of Pakistan, with the country’s electricity crisis and power riots being the main challenge of his premiership
In a policy speech after winning the vote 211-89, he offered dialogue to opposition parties to tackle national problems, including the prevailing energy crisis, in pursuing what he called the philosophy of reconciliation of assassinated leader of his Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Benazir Bhutto.

Mr Ashraf’s election for the remaining nine months of a five-year term of the coalition government came only three days after a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court disqualified Yousuf Raza Gilani as prime minister on the ground of a previous contempt-of-court conviction

The PPP had first named former textile industry minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin as its main candidate to fill in the vacancy while Mr Ashraf and former information and broadcasting minister Qamar Zaman Kaira filed their nominations as covering, or backup, candidates.

But a virtual ambush by the army-led Anti-Narcotics Force, which has had problems with the PPP government in recent months, in issuing non-bailable arrest warrants for one-time health minister in an alleged drug import scandal, came as a mortal blow to Mr Shahabuddin’s candidacy, forcing the PPP to pick up Mr Ashraf from the two backup candidates to avoid the embarrassment of putting up one who could be arrested even before the vote.

Mr Shahabuddin came to the house to cast his vote for his substitute after getting an interim bail earlier in the day from as far as Peshawar High Court.

Slogans of “Jeay Bhutto” (long live Bhutto) — referring to PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — rang through the house and some visitors’ galleries after Speaker Fehmida Mirza announced the result of the open vote taken through what is known as division in which lawmakers record their votes for their preferred candidates in separate registers.

To cheers from the ruling coalition benches, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of the eight-seat Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, withdrew from the contest, as did Mr Shahabuddin and Mr Kaira, from the contest, which was followed by speeches of the two contestants before the newly-elected prime minister and prospective members of his cabinet drove to the nearby presidential palace to be sworn in by President Asif Ali Zardari.
The five-year tenures of the present federal and four provincial governments will run out in late March next year when a caretaker set-up will come into being to oversee the next general election.

But speculation has been rife whether Mr Ashraf will be able to exhaust the remaining nine months of the federal government if, like Mr Gilani, he is asked by the Supreme Court to write to Swiss authorities to reopen disputed money-laundering charges against President Zardari. The PPP says any PPP premier will refuse to do it as did Mr Gilani.
Rental Raja gets the spot, for now

President Asif Ali Zardari administering oath to newly elected Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf at the Presidency in Islamabad on June 22, 2012. —APP Photo

Makhdoom Shahab-ud-Din alongwith other MNAs submitting his nomination papers for the election of Prime Minister to Secretary National Assembly, Karamat Hussain Niazi at Parliament House on Thursday. — Photo by ONLINE

ISLAMABAD: After a full day of twists and turns and meetings and phone calls, which provided Islamabad the chance to indulge in its favourite activity — speculation — Raja Pervez Ashraf managed to scrape past the finishing line and end up as the ruling party’s designate for the post of prime minister.
The high drama, which ended on Thursday night, began late on Wednesday night. Shortly after one, the state-run television broke the news that President Asif Ali Zardari had decided on Makhdoom Shahabuddin as the PPP’s new prime minister-designate and Raja Pervez Ashraf, the former water and power man, as the latter’s covering candidate.
The names were obviously made public with a wink and a nod from the men at the top of the government. In fact, there was a point of view that the information was made public to gauge reaction.
That there was going to be an adverse reaction was perhaps rightly expected; on Wednesday morning a newspaper had reported — out of the proverbial blue — that Makhdoom Shahabuddin was allegedly involved in the famous ephedrine scandal that had already threatened to take down the prime minister’s son and principal secretary.
It is perhaps now safe to say that both these developments ensured that the Makhdoom probably experienced his best and worst moment on the same day. As the news channels were reporting how he presented his papers for the election of the prime minister, along came the news that his arrest warrants had been obtained by the Anti-Narcotics Force, which is run by military men.
Apart from the Makhdoom, the PPP was delivered a second shock within the same week – it had just lost its prime minister on Tuesday to a court decision.
The party went into another huddle. Shortly afterwards came the news that c had also submitted his papers for the impending election as did the report that Mr Ashraf would be the party’s candidate instead of Shahabuddin. However, nothing was said officially or with finality.
The whole country was kept guessing. And what added to the uncertainty was the back and forth between the various political parties which gained momentum, adding to the sense that the situation was fluid – fluid enough to even lend credence to those who predicted the end of the system.The PML-N announced its candidate formally while also making it clear that their final goal was the next election; the party chief, Nawaz Sharif, said that if their candidate won, his first act would be to announce fresh elections.
But more than the PML-N, it was Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s decision to jump into the prime ministerial fray that had caused pulses to race – and not in a positive manner.
The Maulana, who has never lost his image of being a friend to the khaki establishment and who has also maintained good relations with President Zardari, submitted his papers to contest the race. Had he deserted the sinking PPP ship and sided with the all-time winners? The answer was not clear even though he spent most of the evening talking to various news channels in vague terms about the threats to democracy.
The uncertainty, coupled with the sense of panic afflicting the PPP, was enough to create a sense of déjà vu – a repeat of hushed whispers and gossip galore about the PPP being sent home and fresh elections being called. This mood has often descended upon Islamabad at times of crisis such as during the days of the memogate affair.
The PPP leaders who came out from meetings and made it to talk shows spoke of conspiracies and threats to the system while those who were too busy to step outside sent text messages suggesting Armageddon – one such text spoke of the “Byzantine intrigues of the deep state… [which were never] fought back with such tenacity”. Journalists roared on television about technocratic governments being formed and imposed on the people.
However, the only fighting back that the PPP did was no different from what it has done earlier – call a meeting of its allies and ask for unqualified support. And though there were rumours galore about which party rejected Mr Ashraf and which party refused to accept Mr Kaira, and what the MQM had demanded in exchange for support, the meeting at the presidency ended before midnight with a tame announcement – all allies had agreed to support the PPP and that the party would announce its candidate at eleven in the morning (today), though participants of the meeting confirmed that Mr Ashraf of the rental power fame had won the coveted spot.
But as the formal announcement was still withheld, observers pointed out that with the PPP and President Zardari being what they are and their invisible enemies being what they are, there was still a small chance that Mr Kaira may be nominated on Friday morning. After all, the president could have a last-minute change of heart or Mr Ashraf’s chances are scuttled as were Mr Shahabuddin’s on Thursday morning.
Nonetheless, two things were pretty clear on Thursday night. One that the allies had already or will claim their pound of flesh for coming to the PPP’s rescue at such a critical moment.
Second, that Mr Ashraf’s choice may not go down well because of the power shortage and the subsequent riots in Punjab. “Raja Rental”, as he is popularly known, is associated in popular imagination with incompetence and corruption. His incompetent handling of the power sector in the first half of this government’s tenure has not been forgotten (despite his successor’s lacklustre performance) and for his alleged corruption in the infamous rental power projects, about which the nation was promised that it would end all energy woes, but achieved nothing.

Court issues arrest warrant for Pakistani PM nominee

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (L) greets Pakistan's Federal Minister of Textile Industry Makhdoom Shahabuddin after the opening of the 16th Ministerial Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Nusa Dua, in Indonesia's resort island of Bali, May 25, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Enny Nuraheni/Files

By Qasim Nauman

ISLAMABAD | Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:49pm IST

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A court has issued an arrest warrant for the ruling party veteran poised to replace Pakistan's ousted prime minister, local television stations reported on Thursday, deepening political uncertainty in the strategic U.S. ally.Pakistan's president had nominated Makhdoom Shahabuddin as the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) candidate in an apparent bid for continuity ahead of elections due early next year.
Shahabuddin, the textiles minister, filed his nomination papers on Thursday. The ruling coalition has a comfortable majority in parliament, which meets on Friday in an extraordinary session to elect a new prime minister.
In an unexpected twist to Pakistan's latest political saga, an anti-narcotics court issued an arrest warrant for Shahabuddin in connection with a case of violated quota limits for the export of ephedrine while he was health minister.
That case allegedly involved Gilani's son, Ali Musa Gilani, who is accused by anti-narcotics investigators of violating the quotas. Gilani and Shahabuddin have denied any wrongdoing.
It is unclear whether the arrest warrant will undermine Shahabuddin's nomination. The PPP has meanwhile nominated another candidate, former information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, as a candidate for prime minister as well.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declared Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ineligible for office for refusing to re-open corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, triggering a new crisis in nuclear-armed Pakistan.
At the time, a senior aide to Gilani said only parliament could dismiss the prime minister, raising the possibility of a confrontation between the judiciary and government, but by nominating a new man the president has accepted the ruling and backed away from a fight.
PUBLIC FRUSTRATION
The new prime minister will face mounting public frustrations over a staggering range of problems, and a Supreme Court chief justice who prides himself on standing up to Pakistan's most powerful players.
Gilani's removal is likely to further heat up the Pakistani political arena, where the civilian leadership, the powerful military and the Supreme Court square off against each other at the expense of a public longing for stability and a stronger economy.
Pakistan's relations with the United States, which provides it with billions of dollars in aid, are at their lowest point in years.
Taliban militants still pose a major security threat, despite numerous army crackdowns. The economy is struggling and analysts predict Pakistan will again have to turn to the International Monetary Fund to keep it afloat.
Chronic power cuts, which triggered violent protests this week, show no signs of easing.
Shahabuddin, who enjoys smooth ties with coalition partners, was seen as a safe bet for the ruling Pakistan People's Party, which is gearing up for a general election due early next year.
But the former deputy finance minister will likely face the same pressures as did Gilani from Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to reopen old corruption cases against Zardari.
Thousands of corruption cases were thrown out in 2007 by an amnesty law passed under former military president Pervez Musharraf, paving the way for a return to civilian rule.
Two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that agreement illegal, and ordered the re-opening of money laundering cases against Zardari that involved Swiss bank accounts.
Gilani and his government refused to obey the court's order to write to Swiss authorities asking them to look again at those cases, arguing that Zardari had immunity as the head of state.
The United States is hoping for stability in Pakistan so that Islamabad can engage Washington and work to improve ties damaged by a series of events, most recently a NATO cross-border raid in November which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistan closed supply routes to NATO forces in Afghanistan to protest against the attack, and negotiations on re-opening the lines are deadlocked.

Arrest order for Pakistan's new prime minister

Pakistan's anti-drugs squad has ordered the arrest of the country's proposed new Prime Minister.


PAKISTAN'S anti-drugs squad has ordered the arrest of the country's proposed new Prime Minister, on the day he has lodged his application for the government's top job.

In another twist in Pakistan's chaotic governance, President Asif Ali Zardari yesterday nominated Makhdoom Shahabuddin to replace outgoing PM Yusuf Raza Gilani who was dismissed by the Supreme Court for contempt.

But, just minutes before Mr Shahabuddin put forward his nomination to lead the government, and the day before parliament was expected to confirm his ascension, the anti-narcotics force has ordered he be arrested over his connection to the illegal importation of ephedrine, used in making methamphetamine.

The case, too, relates to Mr Gilani. His son Ali Musa is accused of importing massive amounts of ephedrine illegally in 2009.

Mr Shahabuddin, who was health minister at the time, is alleged to have approved the imports. He denies wrongdoing.

Asked about the arrest warrant after filing his nomination, Mr Shahabuddin quoted a poem, saying he was unworried about ''hostile winds'' blowing against him.

But the warrant issued for him is ''non-bailable'', meaning, once arrested, he will be jailed until the case is finalised.

Information Technology Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira have also filed nominations, presumably as cover should Mr Shahabuddin go to jail.

But the warrant put out for the putative PM will only strengthen arguments in Pakistan that the government is being attacked by other state agencies, including the court and the military. Legal cases are routinely filed against Pakistani politicians by rivals as a means of weakening them.

The cases often drag on in the courts for years and the accused politicians enjoy prominent careers regardless.

Pakistan had expected to have a new prime minister by the end of today, but fresh confusion reigns.

The sacked prime minister, Mr Gilani, was found in contempt for refusing a court order to write a letter to Swiss authorities, allowing them to investigate $60 million grafted into a Swiss bank account controlled by President Zardari.

Mr Gilani argued that Mr Zardari, as head of state, enjoyed immunity.

''Nothing has been solved. The Supreme Court ruling [to dismiss Mr Gilani] has not resolved anything,'' political analyst Harris Khalique told The Age.

''Whoever is elected as the new prime minister, the court will demand they write to the Swiss authorities, and the same problem will arise.''

With elections at most nine months away, critics of the PPP, widely regarded in Pakistan as corrupt and incompetent, see the instability as a perfect chance to begin campaigning.

Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, and himself a former prime minister, held a rally in the Swat valley in the north-west province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday telling supporters the government had bankrupted the country.

''Gilani had to go home in shame … today, Pakistan is standing alone in the international community due to wrong policies of the present government. PPP plundered public wealth and transferred it to Swiss banks. We will bring public money back to the country.''