Mohali: Jiye sportsmanship; blogs & facebook buzz; Salman Ahmad’s dedication to both teams & nations

Posted on March 29, 2011 by beenasarwar

Mohali, Chandigarh: Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi and Indian captain M S Dhoni smile ahead of the opening ceremony

Posted to my yahoogroup earlier:
I don’t usually post articles that haven’t been published yet, but will make an exception for what I’ve written ahead of the ‘mother of all matches’ in Chandigarh on March 30, 2011. If you are not Indian or Pakistani and don’t follow cricket, this may mean nothing to you. If you are, it doesn’t need explaining. My two short pieces to be published in The News on Mar 30th (Mohali: let it be an ‘aman ka chakka’ and “Something happening in Mohali today?” Salman Ahmad, rocking to a cross-border beat – ‘tension leney ka nahi’), below for the weekly Aman ki Asha page.

But before that, a news flash: Aman ki Asha’s Milne Do campaign against visa restrictions for Indians and Pakistanis wanting to visit each other’s countries won Best Campaign award at the APNS awards ceremony last night.

Back to Mohali: My uncle Zawwar Hasan, a retired sports journalist, predicts India will win. My aunt says that all his predictions so far have been wrong, so the odds in favour of Pakistan winning are high 🙂 heh Read his lively commentary at his blog

My favourite placard from the 2004 series: "NO nuclear test, NO missile test, just TEST CRICKET"

Some blogs I came across that reflect the spirit we’d like to see prevail:
Cricket – An Opportunity For Peace Between India & Pakistan (Loud Thinking)
Boom Boom Cricket! (Mullah, Military & Media, by )
May the Best Side Win! (Silsila-e-Mah-o-Saal, by Sabahat24)

These blogs are from Pakistan, but it was two Indian journalists (Shivam Vij & Dilip D’Souza) who courageously started a facebook ‘event’ called “Indians who want Pakistan to win the Mohali semi-final and vice-versa” -. Not a very popular position, but incredibly, it gained over 100 ‘likes’ in one day. More popular on facebook, with over a 1500 likes already is “Together We Shall Win“ started by two Indians and two Pakistanis, mentioned in my article below:

SHORT PIECE – 1
Mohali: let it be an ‘aman ka chakka’
Many, including Aman ki Asha, will cheer both sides, be happy for the winner Continue reading →

Filed under: Cricket, Pakistan-India | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Karachi today

Posted on August 3, 2010 by beenasarwar

Karachi, Aug 3: Tension grips the city today – the first of three days of mourning declared by the MQM – but some brave (and desperate) souls venture out.

A Walls ice-cream cycle vendor’s electronic bell (really annoying normally, but most welcome today) cuts through the humid air. I ask him where he’s coming from. Korangi, he says. Took a rickshaw. Buses weren’t running. 18 people died there yesterday. They (the miscreants) burnt the furniture market. But daily wagers like him have to risk going out. If they don’t earn, their families don’t eat.

Petrol pumps are closed. Our driver can’t make it because pumps in his area (Korangi) are closed and he has no gas in his motorbike. I have to attend a family wedding lunch. Pick up another guest. Drive to the other end of town. But it’s ok. Sparse traffic, lots of police vehicles, but calm.

Traffic picks up towards the evening as we head home. We notice a couple of overcrowded buses. As on any holiday, boys play cricket wherever they can – an open ground, a residential lane.

I head to office later – there’s a page to be made. Page designer Tanveer says he found a petrol pump open and was able to get gas to make it to work.

My colleague Muniba is thrilled to find an open khoka on main Drigh Road (now called Shahra-e-Faisal) where she could buy cigarettes. “There were about 20 people around that khoka,” she chuckles. “You know us cigarette addicts, we’ll do anything to get a ciggie.” Sadly, yes.

Geo News reports that 46 people have died since yesterday, over 123 injured. Several vehicles were torched, property destroyed. All leaders have “appealed for calm”. Tomorrow is another day.

p.s. Here’s the link to a radio interview I gave NPR’s The World (Boston) about this day (before I knew what the death toll was)

Filed under: Politics | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

So beautiful and so bitter: Fatima Bhutto and her versions of truth

Posted on April 30, 2010 by beenasarwar
fatima-bhutto

Photo: Courtesy Mag Weekly

Post updated Jan 2019, on request by her agent, to embed a link to Fatima Bhutto’s profile page with the mention below “to help her to gain more traction and booking requests”. Interestingly the profile mentions an ‘aunt’ who was ‘violently killed’ without saying *who* the ‘aunt’ was… Also updated to add another link: if I can do that for Fatima, why not for Victoria Schofield?

——-

She’s beautiful and bright (looks so much like her late aunt Benazir) – no wonder journalists (outside Pakistan notably) have been bowled over, leading to an overdose of fawning media attention (Khuswant Singh’s article takes the cake) in which few have tried to go beyond the surface.

Her father Murtaza’s cousin Tariq Islam (Z.A. Bhutto’s sister’s son) is one of the few people to have publicly challenged her version of the truth in at least one aspect. In her recently published, highly publicised book, Fatima Bhutto alleges that Z.A. Bhutto wrote to Murtaza to set up a militant base Afghanistan to wage an armed struggle against the military dictator, Zia ul Haq. Continue reading →

Filed under: capital punishment, Gender, History, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

A standing ovation for an innings of the ages

Posted on February 13, 2010 by beenasarwar
GHB & Sara

Proud father with daughter at her graduation

Published in The News Feb 12, 2010

Pioneering sports journalist and statistician Gul Hameed Bhatti remembered

By Beena Sarwar

Karachi, Feb 12: There was laughter and some tears as friends, relatives and admirers gathered at an informal reference for the late veteran sports journalist and former Sports Editor The News, and former Editor The News Karachi Gul Hameed Bhatti, at The Second Floor community space near Defence Library.

Prominent speakers highlighted Bhatti’s thorough decency and honesty, selflessness, professionalism, his pioneering role in establishing cricket statistics in Pakistan and on a more personal level, his sense of fun, his love for music, cinema, food and off-colour jokes, his unreserved support of his journalist wife’s career and dedication to their children Kamil and Sara. Continue reading →

Filed under: Cricket | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Combatting corruption with ‘zero’, Bindiya Rana, and more

Posted on February 4, 2010 by beenasarwar

This post is based on a note I began compiling over a week ago, sent to my yahoogroup the other day, which includes links to some articles on corruption and politics and a somewhat related note on Bindiya Rana, the Khwaja Sira (hijra) who features in Ragni Kidvai’s film ‘Bindiya Chamke Gi’…

‘Paying Zero for Public Services’: An Indian NGO called 5th Pillar gives the public a powerful ally, an imaginative way to combat petty corruption: a zero rupee note (“eruption against corruption”! – love it). Why can’t we do this in Pakistan?  (thanks Omar Ali)

Speaking of corruption: “The NRO judgment cannot be all about the evil in Asif Zardari. It must be seen on its own. It is a reminder of the time when the military’s illegal acts against Nawab Akbar Bugti were being tolerated because the latter was an unsavoury person” – ‘Flaws in the judgment‘ by Asma Jahangir
Continue reading →

Filed under: Gender, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Never forget… the day she arrived and the day she died

Posted on December 27, 2009 by beenasarwar

Oct 18, 2007: Benazir returns. Photo by Beena Sarwar

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on this day two years ago was utterly devastating for many of us. Here is the link to a piece I wrote for IPS just before she returned to Pakistan. On Oct 18, 2007, Absar Alam and I were both at the Geo TV studios in Karachi. We hopped onto a motorbike and headed for the airport, a cameraman and assistant on another motorbike. Absar managed to get us onto the truck on which Benazir was riding. See photos taken with my cell phone at this web album. Absar scooped a brief interview of her – her first to a Pakistani journalist on home soil since her exile – broadcast on Geo shortly afterwards.

Even those who had been her sternest critics over the years were unable to stem the tide of grief that hit them on learning of her death. I wrote this article after her murder – I was in Lahore, on my own at a friend’s house and it was an incredibly difficult piece to write, in between breaking down, monitoring the television, and calling people for quotes and information.

To those who even on this day, her second death anniversary, focus on her alleged corruption and plundering: please read M. Hanif’s article ‘My Benazir murder fantasy’ posted in Jan 2008 that the Newsline blog just re-posted. Extracts: “Even if all the allegations about her corruption and arrogance are true, one should keep in mind that she was active in politics for 30 years, out of which she was in power only for four and a half years. The rest of the time she struggled against two of the most well entrenched military dictators in the region…

“The reason we don’t see very many dossiers on the financial corruption during General Zia and General Musharraf’s regimes is that when Bhutto was in power the intelligence agencies went into over drive documenting or sometimes inventing her misdemeanours. When the generals or their cronies are in power all the intelligence leaks just dry up.”

This is not to suggest that corruption should be condoned or excused, but it is important to get some perspective on the issue.

 (ends)

Filed under: Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Pervez Hoodbhoy strikes back; More on the NRO ruling

Posted on December 22, 2009 by beenasarwar

More on the NRO ruling below – but this response by Pervez Hoodbhoy to the scurrilous attack on him by an expat professor deserves mention (he doesn’t usually respond to personal attacks),  published originally in Counterpunch on Dec 14 (later on Chowk on Dec 18) and is worth a read: “Is The Cheque In The Mail? – The Confessions of a Pakistani Native Orientalist”

Below, more about the NRO short order and its implications, including the emphasis on morality and acceptance of the “Islamic provisions” of the Constitution:

1. Two comments on Dec 19 by Asma Jahangir on the NRO ruling, one in a BBC Urdu interview, and “Another aspect of the judgment” oped in Dawn – Extract: “Witch-hunts, rather than the impartial administration of justice, will keep the public amused. The norms of justice will be judged by the level of humiliation meted out to the wrongdoers, rather than strengthening institutions capable of protecting the rights of the people.”

2. Aasim Sajjad Akhtar argues against simplifying the NRO ruling in ‘After the verdict’ (The News on Sunday, Dec 20): “…the structures that produce one bad apple after another need to be interrogated and eventually replaced. There can be no shortcut to justice, and the ‘rule of law’ brigade would do well to bear this in mind.”

3. ‘Legal, moral, political‘ – in this oped (Dawn, Dec 20) Asha’ar Rehman points out some inherent ironies and contradictions, eg “If the legal, political and moral must mingle, how can a lawyer, hailed as the author of the constitution, allow himself to defend a dictator who held the document in abeyance, and also defend his referendum — and then, a few years later, contest an ordinance fashioned by the same dictator?”

4. Letter to Chief Justice Ifitkhar Chaudhury from Bilal Qureshi at Foreign Policy Blogs, December 18, 2009, in which he calls upon the CJ to:

Continue reading →

Filed under: Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

NRO ruling and its fallout

Posted on December 18, 2009 by beenasarwar

There must and should be accountability, but selective accountability, and cases filed motivated by political victimisation do not serve the cause of justice.

Text messages doing the rounds include the following questions:
– NRO is unconstitutional but the Oct 1999 military coup was constitutional because Supreme Court approved it, and so was the LFO (legal framework order) of 2002?
– The murder of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was constitutional because SC approved it?
– Hudood Ordinances & 8th Amendment were constitutional?
– Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) on which the current CJ took oath was constitutional?
– No larger bench discussed violation of Article 6 of Mehran Bank scandal (in which ISI allegedly gave funds to IJI for the 1990 elections).
– Why has there been no judicial inquiry into Rs 94 billion Mulk Sanwaro Qarz Utaro scheme?

(Re Mehran Bank case – see Foqia Sadiq Khan’s article in TNS in Sept 2009, ‘Far from over’)

Also doing the rounds is a clip of Benazir Bhutto on Youtube, on the Supreme Court and NRO, talking about political victimisation

The Sindh Assembly passed a unanimous resolution in support of Zardari – and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani just told the Punjab media they are ‘playing to the gallery’…

Ayesha Siddiqa in Dawn today, ‘After the NRO‘ points out that the ruling has weakened the civilian government in relation to the army, a point also made by the senior analyst C. Raja Mohan, in Indian Express, ‘Pakistan: Zardari falls, Kayani rises‘ in which he writes:

Lahore’s lawyers have surely won the point on the illegality of the Musharraf-Bhutto deal, which gave special protection to Benazir and her husband from the many previous charges of corruption. But they might be losing the larger struggle for establishing the civilian primacy over the military in Pakistan, as the nation’s latest experiment with democracy begins to unravel.

(ends)

Filed under: Politics | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Defending President Zardari

Posted on November 13, 2009 by beenasarwar
zardari2

Let the democratic process continue…. A must-read: I.A. Rehman’s article in Dawn, Nov 12, 2009, ‘The Locus of power’

Extract: “All elected prime ministers, from Mr Bhutto to Mr Nawaz Sharif, tried with varying degrees of earnestness, to get rid of the halter around their necks and all of them came to grief. Now that it is possible to think of democratic advancement the reasons for their failure must be thoroughly examined and adequately addressed.”

Below, Defending President Zardari, an article in the Business Recorder, Nov 13, 2009 worth reading all the way through.

by SYED SHAHID HUSAIN Continue reading →

Filed under: Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Dirty Tricks Brigade grinds on: “Salary for a Member of NATIONAL ASSEMBLY (MNA) (No wonder we are in this mess)”

Posted on October 27, 2009 by beenasarwar

The allegations below about Pakistani parliamentarians’ salaries and perks have been emailed around since at least 2006 and found their way into various blogs and websites. I thought the figures appeared to be inflated but didn’t bother digging into the matter until a well-known journalist and women’s rights activist forwarded it from Shaheen Attiq-ur-Rahman (daughter of General Atiq-ur-Rehman, former parliamentarian and a member of the PML-Q). It reminds me of the fraudulent photos circulated allegedly of Benazir Bhutto’s ‘palace’ in Dubai that people kept emailing around… – ‘Dirty Tricks Brigade‘ refers to my article published in Dawn, Jan 9, 2008.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Politics | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »