Government of Punjab not allowed IDP camps

The government of Punjab has decided in principle not to permit camps for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the province.
“The IDPs can cause trouble for the province just like the Afghan refugees. So, we have decided not to allow their entry or setting up of camps for them in the Punjab,” sources in the provincial government said.

However, the Punjab government has formed an inter-provincial coordination committee (IPCC), after discussion with the ANP-led Frontier government, to provide aid to the IDPs at their camps in the NWFP.

The IPCC comprises two members each from the Punjab and the NWFP. “The NWFP members will inform the Punjab government of the requirements of the IDPs.” The director general relief and the district coordination officer (DCO), Attock, would coordinate with the NWFP members of the IPCC as representatives of the Punjab.
“If it becomes mandatory for us to accommodate the IDPs any way, a computerised registration system would be set up to ensure strict check on their activities till their return,” the Punjab official sources said.

As the Punjab describes such restrictions as part of its security policy, the Frontier government believes that such a step would create provincial disharmony as no Pakistani citizen could be barred from staying at any corner of the country.
Director Public Relations (DPR), Punjab, Mohiuddin Wani, while speaking on behalf of the provincial government, said any final decision about the issue would be taken once the IDPs started migrating to the province.
Responding to a query, the DPR said the Punjab government would welcome the displaced persons whenever it deemed necessary. Presently, the NWFP government is absorbing all the IDPs.Also, Director General Relief, Punjab, Rizwanullah Baig, said the people of the province were donating generously for the IDPs. We will provide all kinds of material assistance to the displaced persons through a coordination committee.

However, ANP Vice President Haji Muhammad Adeel said: Yes, we have heard that the Punjab is not willing to take the IDPs and this step will send a wrong message to other provinces. Adeel said the Punjab should also declare war on terror as the Frontier province had done. “Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has announced assistance for the IDPs, which is only peanuts in view of the fact that Punjab is the elder brother.”

PML-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq, in his talk with this correspondent on Monday, had given “rising temperature” as the major reason for not allowing the establishment of the IDPs’ camps in the Punjab.

A PML-N consultative round held in Islamabad last Monday with Nawaz Sharif in the chair had first discussed to adopt a policy of extending help to the displaced persons while retaining them within the NWFP.

Will Things Fall Apart – The Future Of Pakistan

Salute To The 13 Innocent Martyrs of Dir Lower

The news of martyring thirteen innocent kids of Lower Deer by a toy bomb has shocked everyone across the world. Those kids were not aware of the fact that the toy that brutal terrorist had given them would end their life. They would be happy to get a toy because they were not aware of the fact that they are living with those who doesnot even care about the life of children, who don’t even differentiate between a toy and bomb. Shame on the killers but we know that they are shameless otherwise no one would dare to kill those little flowers of our motherland. Alas these terrorists proved themselves even crueler than Hitler and Genghis Khan and the most pathetic part of the story is that they are doing all these atrocities in the name of religion.

The wound of the killing of innocents everyday becomes deeper when we litsen our media champions rationalizing the terror. Can these anchors and opinion leaders of Pakistan send their own kids in the lovely mountains of NWFP to enjoy the blessings of Taliban? If they can do this then they have the right to advocate the cause of terrorists. It is not justice that the wives and children of our elite enjoy the ice cream parlors of five star hotels and wear branded attires and their husbands in the air conditioned rooms of news channels and newspapers discuss the benefits of Swat Deal and the sons and daughters of poor got killed by toy bombs.

There should be an end to all these miseries to the common man of Pakistan Our elite be it civil or army bureaucracy or journalists, lawyer and NGO’s has to come out with the solution of this menace of terrorism. If you can’t give the innocent kids of Deer toys to play at least not give them toy bombs. Pls for God sake feel the pain of fathers and mothers of innocent martys of Dir Lower. At least I salute them that they will be remembered as the true martyrs of the war against terrorism and because of their blood we will win the war.

The So Called Liberal Secular Parties OF Pakistan Exposed

The approval of “Nizam E Adl” – The Sharia Ordinance in Swat by the National Assembly of pakistan has badly exposed the so called liberal secular champions of Pakistan. The Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has voted in favor of the bill though the people have elected them because of their secular credentials and liberal ethos. We the people of Pakistan has no grievance for the notorious role of Muslim League Nawaz( PML N) as we all know that the PML Nawaz has proven links with the extreme rightist groups of Pakistan and Mian brothers themselves in 1998 tried to become Ameer Ul Momineen by introducing the Sharia Amendment in the constitution.

Thanks to our politicians that now the spokesman of Tehreek e Nifaz e Shariat is openly threatening to impose the customs of the Stone Age on rest of Pakistan. Sufi Muhammad the man responsible for all the menace in our northern province today said in an interview that according to Islamic laws Supreme & High Courts of Pakistan are illegal “ Ghair Sharaee”. May we ask our great Lawyers movement champions and Chief Justice of Pakistan that My Lord! The Sole Savior of our beloved land, where are you Sir? Where is Ali Ahmed Kurd with his fiery speeches and Aitazaz with all the bombardment of intellectual legal expertise? Are They Afraid to Muslim Khan or Maulan Umar The Taliban Spokesmen? At least to me it is very clear that they are so threatened by Talibs that I think no one of them even dare to condemn the atrocities commited by terrorists everyday.But why does Aitazaz care? His sons and daughters are settled in Europe & America and he can go abroad by the next available flight. The problem is with the common people of Pakistan who can not go any where and there very existence is in question.

The only party which opposes the Sharia bill is MQM, one must give them a cheer of applause that they courageously voiced against the terrorism and extremism. Ayaz Ameer was the second person to voice against the law but his party being a staunch supporter of Islamic extremists did not allow him to vote against the bill.
On 18th April the silent majority of Pakistan is completely shocked by the statement of our prime minister, the heir of great Benazir Bhutto, Yuuf Raza Gilani (The New Talib), while addressing a news conference in Karachi he advocated the case of Taliban with so much zeal and enthusiasm that perhaps after this job he would definitely be offered the job of Secretary Information in Taliban regime.

But we should not give up. The majority of Pakistanis are peace loving and believe in the peaceful co-existence we don’t need any coward Yusuf Raza Gilani or his bunch of rats to decide our destiny, every single Pakistani will fight for his survival and we all should condemn the policy of appeasement by PPPP & ANP as we know that when Chamberlain appeased Hitler Second World war destroyed whole Europe and we do not want destruction. We the Pakistanis want to live & live as we want and we are not ready to be sent in the stone age.

We Codemn The Attack On Sri Lankan Cricket Team In Lahore

We all the people of Pakistan in general and the faculty and students of the Academy of Literature & Social Sciences Karachi in particular strongly condemn the terrorist attack on Sri Lankan team.

International Peace Through Knowledge- Submitted Themes for Novels

Academy of Literature is thankful to all of its students and fellow colleague for submitting the new threads for the creative writing.

Some of the most submitted threads/themes are

• The Hybrid Culture & Increasing Discontent In The Social Life
• The Issues of Rural Women in Pakistan
• The Emerging Tension of Different communities in the West
• The Problem of urbanization
• The Rise of Religious Intolerance

We are highly pleased by observing the interest of the youth of Pakistan/ South Asia in creative writing. As our program to enhance the capacity building of youth in Liberal Arts/ Creative Writing you can contact us with your piece of work and we will help you to get it published and pay you a good amount of money for your effort in the world of learning.

Mudassir Jalal
Project Director
Academy of Literature & Social Sciences,
Karachi Pakistan

Invitation for new ideas for a novel

Hi All Friends and Students,
As our plan to improve the skill of Creative Writing we would like to invite all of you to give your input on new themes.

Four legs good, two legs bad!

That quotation, as many readers will know, comes from George Orwell’s great political satire “Animal Farm.” It is the slogan invented by the pigs as they mobilise the other farm animals to revolt against their human owners.

Having four supports ensures that things are much more stable, balanced, assured; it is hard to knock a four-legged item down, whether it be a table or a carthorse. Two-legged critters are far less sturdy and reliable. (Of course, once the pigs gain absolute control and learn to walk on their hind legs, they reverse the slogan, as any good Leninist would. But that is a different story.)

Still, there may be a lesson to glean from this tale as we look at today’s battered world economy, with no countries really escaping from the international financial credit crunch and the dramatic slackening of demand for goods and services, but some looking better than others. If, as is the case, certain economic sectors have been hurt more than others, surely it is better to have one’s national welfare based upon various sources of income, rather than just two, or even one.

I was provoked to this question when recently clearing away some older statistical data, and recalling how my interest in what makes for a healthy economy had been piqued some 20 or so years ago when I came across a World Bank table of national GDP per capita that showed that Switzerland and Kuwait, both at the top of the list, enjoyed almost exactly the same income per inhabitant.

Kuwait’s high per capita income derived, of course, entirely from one source: oil. By contrast, the sources of Switzerland’s ample wealth derived from at least four flows of earnings: its strength in banking, insurance and investment services; its array of high-quality (i.e. high-added-value) manufactures, especially engineering and pharmaceutical products; its income from tourism; and its highly protected and high-income agricultural sector. Four sturdy legs indeed.

Now, there are another 175 or more countries in the world that would have loved to have had Kuwait’s oil revenues over the past few decades; yet it is fair to say that such an overwhelming reliance upon a single valuable product brings with it two great risks:

The first, to which we pay less attention, is the way in which a gushing new source of wealth has an insidious way of driving out, or weakening, other sources of national income.

Men no longer wish to work for traditional industries (fishing, farming, forestry) but for the oil industry. The vast inflow of oil income dries up prices, but, hey, that can be afforded. Foreign-made items — automobiles, electronic goods, hotels, airports — sprout up, but oil pays for it. There are no gasoline taxes, and prices at the pump are artificially low. Unless national governance is strong and responsible, corruption reigns and the economy is twisted; just look at Nigeria and Venezuela today. Even Norway, with its traditions of public service and fiscal prudence, struggles to handle the “Midas curse” of a single flow of wealth.

The second risk is one we are more familiar with today: It is the peril of a sudden collapse of the world-traded price of your precious commodity. This was not just the case of the plunge in oil prices this past year but also of the value of almost all raw products — bauxite, copper, timber, rubber and so on.

Many developing nations, their hopes raised by higher commodity prices, are now reeling backward. One might be pleased that such uncomfortable nations like Russia, Venezuela and Iran are hurting from the collapse of oil prices, but one can hardly be delighted at the profound cash-flow crises affecting numerous Third World countries; be careful what you wish for when you pray for a fall in raw-material goods!

Those nations whose economies rest upon four or more legs, and are inherently more stable, should also pay attention to the “Animal Farm” chant, though for a slightly different reason.

Switzerland, the model balanced economy cited above, is itself hurting right now because it allowed its banking/investment “leg” — specifically the careless, massive investment actions 
of a few leading banks — to have 
disproportionate significance, with nasty effects upon the country’s reputation as a bastion of solid, respectable finance. Even more sobering is the dramatic reversal of fortunes of the Republic of Ireland over the past two years. The “Celtic Tiger” has enjoyed many advantages over the past decades: membership in the EU and the Euro, a growing assembly/manufacturing base, a flourishing services industry, solid agriculture and high tourism.

But it has squandered much of its gain by a disproportionate tilt into reckless investment banking and a grotesque expansion into untenable property mortgages. In other words, one leg of Ireland’s economic “table” grew so fat and so tall that it actually bent the table itself; right now, the crockery is sliding off the far edges, with painfully loud crashes.

Neither George Orwell, nor the rapacious pigs of “Animal Farm,” were trained economists, but in their observation about “Four legs good!” I think they were on to something. What has been happening in today’s epic financial turbulences should bring us all back to a few basic verities about life and money: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket; cover your bets; seek, if you are a political leader, to get a grasp of your country’s array of strengths and weaknesses; and avoid the fast-cash Midas curse, if you can.

What does this say to the world’s most powerful economy, America’s? The United States has entered the 21st century at a time when the longer-term global balances are shifting from a so-called uni-polar system to more of a multi-polar order; in that sense, there is no real contest over America’s relative decline — the power balances are always on the move. Yet it is also true that the pace of that shift has been increased, unnecessarily, by years of excessive military actions abroad, a blatant disregard for sensible fiscal policies, and unbelievable stupidities in the real-estate/mortgage markets, all of which leave President Obama with an awful lot of smashed china that has fallen off America’s twisted table.

But Obama also inherits a nation with a lot of residual strengths, if he can activate and orchestrate them. America is not a country with a singular dependency like Kuwait, nor is it as distorted by financial excesses as (help us) Ireland. It has enormous natural resources, from agriculture to energy supplies of various forms; incredibly favourable demographics, compared with those of any of the other big Powers; vast R-and-D and research-university strengths; and remarkable labor flexibility.

Of course, it has many domestic sores: the twin curse of poverty and under-education; blighted cities and weakened infrastructure; sclerotic, interest-influenced politics; and a landscape presently choked up by half-built McMansions and foreclosed condos — not a pretty sight. The prospect is not grand. It is, also, not hopeless.

How any country, its leaders and its people respond to today’s challenges will depend upon themselves, their insight, resolve and determination to make hard choices. Whatever they do, they might recall Orwell’s pigs: having four (or more) supporting pillars is a better framework for a national economy than resting upon two legs, worse still, upon only one.

Paul Kennedy is the J. Richardson 
Professor of History and the director of International Security Studies at Yale 
University. He is currently writing a 
history of the Second World War.

Source: Khaleej Times