ECP issues nomination papers, 400 monitoring teams constituted

 The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) began the issuance of nomination papers for the upcoming elections to the respective candidates on Sunday, DawnNews reported.

Moreover, 400 monitoring teams were also formed to ensure implementation of the newly formed code of conduct for the upcoming elections in the country.

Each team would comprise of two security personnel and two cameras to record the proceedings on polling day.

Details of polling stations located in sensitive areas have been sent to the military authorities who have assured the ECP of full cooperation.

ECP further ordered for the removal of State Bank’s Deputy Governor, Ashraf Mahmood who was accused of non-transparent scrutiny of the candidates, within two day.

The distribution of 120,000 nomination forms had begun from Mar 15 till Mar 18.

According to the election schedule of 2013 issued by the ECP, The final date for the candidates to submit the nomination papers to the Returning Officers is March 29, 2013.

The nomination papers will be scrutinised from March 30 to April 5.

All appeals against these will be accommodated from April 6 to April 9.

The final decision on these appeals will be announced on April 16 whereas the last date for the withdrawal of candidature is April 17.

Musharraf vows to ‘save’ Pakistan on return from exile

Pakistan’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf returned home on Sunday after more than four years in exile, defying a Taliban death threat and vowing to “save” the country at the risk of his life.
“I have come back home today. Where are those who used to say I would never come back?” the former dictator, who plans to stand in a historic May 11 general election, told members of his political party at Karachi airport.
Hundreds of supporters had gathered at the airport, beating drums, dancing, waving green flags with pictures of Musharraf and Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and scattering rose petals.
“I don’t get scared by anyone except Allah the Almighty… I have come back by putting my life in danger,” Musharraf, who also faces a series of legal cases, told a gathering of his All Pakistan Muslim League.
“I have been ordered by my people to come back and save our Pakistan, even at the risk of my life. I want to tell all those who are making such threats that I have been blessed by Allah the Almighty.”
Musharraf was forced to scrap plans to hold a public rally at Jinnah’s mausoleum in Karachi after the Taliban threatened to send a squad of suicide bombers to assassinate him.
Party supporters said Musharraf was not now expected to make an address at around 5:00 pm and would leave the airport shortly for an undisclosed destination.
His official Facebook and Twitter accounts provided an upbeat commentary on his return, complete with photographs.
An AFP reporter said supporters on the flight from Dubai shouted “Long live Musharraf”, annoying some of the regular passengers.
Musharraf, who has been granted protective bail to lift the threat of immediate arrest on his return to Pakistan, told reporters before leaving Dubai that he was “not feeling nervous” but admitted some concern.

“I am feeling concerned about the unknown… there are a lot of unknown factors of terrorism and extremism, unknown factors of legal issue, unknown factors of how much I will be able to perform (in the elections),” he said.
One of the legal cases that has long ensnared him concerns the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, three months after she returned to Pakistan from her own self-imposed exile.
The then-ruler is accused of failing to provide her with adequate security.
Another case concerns the 2006 death of Akbar Bugti, a Baloch rebel leader in the southwest, and another relates to the 2007 sacking and arrest of judges.
Bhutto’s son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party, has accused Musharraf of his mother’s murder.

Pakistani stock market crosses 17,500 mark for first time

Pakistan’s stock market closed higher on Monday after crossing the 17,500 mark for the first time, partially fueled by gains made in the energy and textile sector as they benefited from a weaker rupee.

The Karachi Stock Exchange’s (KSE) benchmark 100-share index ended 0.40 percent, or 70.60 points, higher at 17,548.54.

The gain was mainly led by the state-run Oil and Gas Development Company, which gained four rupees per share.

Financial services company Jahangir Siddiqui Company saw renewed buying interest in anticipation of better earnings.

Although around 600 companies are listed on the exchange, less than ten percent of them see regular trading. Top companies include state-run oil and gas companies, banking companies and a few textile companies.

Both the oil and gas companies and the textile industry are benefiting from the rupee’s depreciation against the dollar. The energy companies post their profits in dollars, and textile exporters find the rupee’s slide makes their wares more competitively priced internationally.

Pakistan test fires nuclear-capable missile

Pakistan successfully carried out a test fire of the nuclear-capable and short-range ballistic missile Hatf IX (Nasr) on Monday

A statement released by the Inter Services Public Relations  (ISPR) said that the test fire was conducted with successive launches of two missiles from a state of the art multi tube launcher.
The statement further said that Nasr, with a range of 60 km, and inflight maneuver capability can carry nuclear warheads of appropriate yield, with high accuracy.
This quick response system, which can fire a four Missile  Salvo  ensures deterrence against threats in view of evolving scenarios. Additionally Nasr has been specially designed to defeat all known Anti Tactical Missile Defence Systems.

India-Pakistan relations

EVER since Pakistan came into being our mutual relations have seen many troughs and hardly any peaks.

I remember that in the 1950s, when I was a high-school student in Gujranwala, Indian forces were massed on our eastern borders. This compelled our country to get ready for the worst. Senior school students were trained for some kind of a military training just in case a war broke out. Our teachers told us then that India had not sincerely accepted the creation of Pakistan.

How true were my teachers: time and again they were proved right. The major events of 1965 and 1970 proved beyond an iota of doubt that Indian thinking is to harm us in any possible way they could.

The recent events are testimony to that thinking. The Indian rulers cannot stomach anything good coming out of our country but they broadcast the negatives as loud as they possibly can.

In spite of an international agreement they are stopping water flowing through our common rivers and trying to prevent us from getting long-term loans to build dams which we need for our survival.

This is just to mention a few roadblocks recently erected by them. So much so that they have now started showing unhappiness over the good performance of our cricket and hockey players vis-a-vis their own players. Come to think of it, these are only sports whose results could have gone either way.

Rehman Malik admits defeat in unblocking YouTube

After months of effort, sending out innumerable tweets, setting up a special committee and raising the matter in the cabinet and even enjoying four hours of success in the campaign, Interior Minister Rehman Malik finally admitted defeat in having video sharing website YouTube unblocked in Pakistan.

On Thursday, Malik tweeted from his verified account:

    “Dear All; I can only make recommendations to open the UTube and I did so. Accordingly the U tube was unblocked but was re-blocked by the Govt.”

It is the same account from which Malik had tweeted almost a month ago that people should expect a notification on YouTube being unblocked.

That joy was short lived as hours after the site was reopened, it was blocked again.

The orders for that block came from the office of the same person who had ordered it shut on September 18, 2012 – Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.

Business Express: Auditors question contract changes, suspect revenue slippages

Federal auditors have questioned the rationale behind the Economic Coordination Committee’s decision to amend a contract awarded to a private concern for operating the Business Express train service, believing it will cause a loss of Rs2 billion to the national exchequer over a period of five years.

In a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) held here on Wednesday, Acting Auditor General of Pakistan Tanveer Ahmad commented that the basis on which the ECC – the economic decision-making body of the cabinet – reduced revenue share of Pakistan Railways (PR) in Business Express “does not seem reliable”.

The revenue share of PR in the train has been slashed from 88% occupancy to 65%. This will bring down the national carrier’s earnings by Rs1.1 million per day and the loss will reach Rs2 billion for the five-year contract period.

Four Brothers, the operator of the train which was required to pay Rs3.2 million per day to the PR, will now be paying Rs2.1 million, said Arif Azeem, Secretary of the Ministry of Railways, while briefing PAC on the contours of the deal and recent changes made in it.

PR awarded the contract to Four Brothers for running the train between Karachi and Lahore on public-private partnership model with terms that they would pay an amount equivalent to 88% occupancy or Rs3.2 million per day besides investing Rs225.8 million in coaches and locomotives.

PAC members asked whether the ECC had the authority to review the agreement and whether the decision-makers would be questioned by the National Accountability Bureau. But nobody had answers to these questions.

Ex-supporter Jemima Khan says Assange has alienated allies

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange risks turning from a popular hero into an L Ron Hubbard figure, tolerating only “blinkered, cultish devotion”, said one his former backers Jemima Khan.

Jemima is Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan’s former wife and daughter of the late financier James Goldsmith.

Claiming Assange had alienated his supporters, Jemima, associate editor of the New Statesman, wrote for the weekly British magazine that Assange’s anti-secrecy organisation was now “guilty of the same obfuscation and misinformation as those it sought to expose”.

She compared the Australian to US science-fiction author Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology.

Assange has been holed up inside the Ecuadoran embassy in London after losing his battle in the British courts against extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning over allegations of rape and sexual assault. Ecuador has granted him political asylum.

Absence of the state

IT is an interesting fact that Karachi has the highest literacy rate in Pakistan, but also the highest rate of political violence. Being the economic hub of Pakistan, Karachi accounts for more than 25 per cent of the country’s GDP, 54 per cent of central government tax revenues, 70 per cent of national income tax revenue and 30 per cent of industrial output.

Contrast this with the fact that in the last three years (2010-2012), about 5,000 people have died in Karachi as a result of targeted killings, according to the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee. The question is: why is Pakistan’s most literate as well as most developed city also its most violent? What explains the descent of Karachi into a cycle of violence and chaos?

This question can be answered by examining the role of ethno-political parties in Karachi as well as the role of the state and its policing powers.

Putting the spate of ethnic violence in Karachi in a conceptual context, one notes that inter-ethnic tensions in the city have to do with the fact that ethnic groups in the metropolis are placed not in a hierarchical/ranked position vis-à-vis each other, but are rather unranked.

Afghan peace talks Pakistan’s urgent priority

Pakistan treats the Afghan peace process as an “urgent priority”, Ambassador Sherry Rehman said on Monday as the US media reported that mistrust among key players had floundered talks with the Taliban.

“Pakistan looks clearly to an Afghan-led roadmap for reconciliation, understands that this is an urgent priority,” said Pakistan’s envoy to the US, rejecting insinuations that Islamabad was trying to delay the talks.

“Pakistan also has shown support at the highest level for any track of dialogue that the Afghans deem important,” she added.

The US media reported on Monday that Mulla Omar has recently made a surprise offer to share power in a post-war Afghanistan. But “mistrust and confusion” among key players had floundered the peace effort, the report added.

The United States hopes to reach some peaceful arrangement for transfer of power in Afghanistan before withdrawing its forces from the country by 2014.

“Although the Taliban appear more ready to talk than ever before, peace talks remain elusive because of infighting among a rising number of interlocutors,” reported the Associated Press, quoting official sources in Kabul.

Urdu and Japan: a relationship of red blooms and green fragrance

Among foreign nationals who have written about, and in Urdu, the Japanese stand head and shoulders above the rest. For more than 100 years, people in Japan have been learning and teaching Urdu as a foreign language.

In the promotion of Urdu, the role of university teachers has been instrumental. Prof Gamou Reiichi, who is known as Japan’s Baba-i-Urdu, was the one to plant Urdu’s exotic sapling in Japanese soil. The sapling was tended lovingly by Prof Suzuki Takashi, a pupil of Prof Reiichi’s, and other scholars such as Prof Hiroji Kataoka, Prof Asada Yutaka, and Prof Hiroshi Hagita made sure that this alien plant kept blooming and bearing fruit. Teachers from the latter generation who worked for the promotion include Prof So Yamane, Prof T. Matsumura, Prof Hiroshi Kankagaya and Prof Kensaku Mamiya.

This plant is now producing cherry-red flowers. The fragrance of these flowers, strange as it seems, has a colour, too — it is green, the colour of our national flag. What has prompted me to write these lines is the title of a book, ‘Surkh phoolon ki sabz khushboo’, meaning the green fragrance of red flowers, which appeared in December 2012.

iPillow

China poised to control strategic Pakistani port

 China is poised to take over operational control of a strategic deep-water Pakistani seaport that could serve as a vital economic hub for Beijing and perhaps a key military outpost, according to officials.  

The construction of the port, in the former fishing village of Gwadar in troubled Balochistan province, was largely funded by China at a cost of about $200 million. It has been a commercial failure since it opened in 2007, because Pakistan never completed the road network to link the port to the rest of the country.

Chinese control of the port would give it a foothold in one of the world’s most strategic areas and could unsettle officials in Washington, who have been concerned about Beijing’s expanding regional influence.

The port on the Arabian Sea occupies a strategic location between South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It lies near the Strait of Hormuz, gateway for about 20 per cent of the world’s oil.

Empowering spy agencies: Amidst walkouts, Fair Trial Bill sails through Senate

The Senate unanimously passed the Fair Trial Bill 2012 on Friday in a session marred by back-to-back walkouts by both opposition as well as government allies.

The bill – which has already been cleared by the National Assembly – was tabled in the upper house of Parliament by Law Minister Farooq H Naek. Neither side of the aisle opposed the proposed law. Deputy Chairman Kazim Baloch presided over the proceedings.

The Fair Trial Bill 2012 empowers spy agencies to intercept private communications in order to catch terrorists. The bill triggered a controversy after certain quarters felt that the wire-tapping powers would threaten privacy and civil liberties.

Walkouts

Lawmakers from the Awami National Party (ANP) staged a walkout in protest against the fresh wave of target killings in Karachi and statements by Interior Minister Rehman Malik predicting more terrorist attacks in the country’s economic capital.

Chronicles of carnage: US ‘war’ in Pakistan regains intensity, states report

CIA drones pounded Pakistani soil with renewed intensity during the first month of 2013, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s monthly report based on the ‘Covert Drone War’ project.

In a jarring display that fuelled the recent, heightened spate of violence in Pakistan, January saw six drone strikes in merely nine days – a number exceeded only by August 2012. Compared to the January of last year, the number of strikes doubled this year.

The report also covered Yemen and Somalia. Yemen saw eight drone strikes during the month, with none of them confirmed as US attacks. No operations were reported in Somalia.

In Pakistan, there have been a total of 362 US drone attacks since 2004 – most of them during the tenure of incumbent President Barack Obama: 310 or 85.6%.

Although it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of casualties, the Bureau believes 2,629 to 3,461 people were killed and 1,267 to 1,431 wounded. Of the total fatalities, 475 to 891 were civilians, including 176 children.

High-value hits

The January drone strikes killed 27 to 54 people, of which 0 to 2 were reportedly civilians. Three senior, high-value militants were also successfully hit.

The very first strike of the month killed prized target Mullah Nazir. Nazir had been on the CIA hit-list for a long time, and had been involved with multiple attacks on Nato and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.

Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) commander Wali Muhammad Mehsud was also killed during the month, as was senior al Qaeda commander Sheikh Yaseen al Kuwaiti, reportedly hit by eight missiles while at home with daughter and wife.

The Taliban characterised

The report also indicated a supposed classification of the Taliban into two categories – ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – by the Pakistani military and intelligence community. Maulvi Nazir was apparently labelled as one of the ‘good’ Taliban because his group did not carry out terrorist attacks within the country. Following the same line of reasoning, the TTP emerged as the ‘bad’ Taliban, responsible for numerous bloody attacks in Pakistani cities.

Reservations over Pak-Iran pipeline: US

US Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Olson has said that the United States continues to have reservations over the Pak-Iran gas pipeline but is willing to support any other measure to tackle the energy crisis in Pakistan.

While addressing the participants of the US Business Forum in Lahore, the American Ambassador said that the United States is a big sponsor of the Bhasha Dam.

He further said that corruption can be eliminated from Pakistan through democracy and transparent elections, adding that the people of Pakistan will have to bring forward honest leadership if they want good governance.

Medical colleges: the ever-increasing fee

EVERY year a handful of government-run medical colleges offer a limited number of seats for pursuing studies in medicine. Thousands of students vie for a slot and remain disappointed.
The rich then approach private medical colleges, offering education on a self-finance basis.
The sufferers are those students who are left out with only a slim margin and mostly belong to the middle class and cannot afford the self-financing scheme.
Some, however, do venture but finally land into trouble as these colleges raises fee annually. The limit of increase, as I understand, is five per cent but never adhered to by colleges.
This year colleges have sent notices for a 10 per cent increase in fee structure, barring a few who are satisfied with five per cent increase. The increase runs in the thousands of rupees, which a middle class person can hardly meet, thus jeopardising the plans of students who some times have to discontinue their studies.
This is injustice to talented youths who, if given a chance, attain the highest standard of education.
My son could not get admission to government-run media college as he was short of two marks to qualify on merit.

Passport & Pakistani consulate

I APPLIED for a new passport at the Pakistani consulate in Toronto, Canada. I was informed an urgent passport is delivered within 20 days at an extra charge.
I paid for one and now after 22 days of waiting, I am shocked to learn that the consulate takes no responsibility for delivering the urgent passport within the 20 days that it commits to do.
These are just false commitments made by the Pakistani consulate. It has no control over the preparation of new passports. The extra charge for an urgent passport is outright malpractice, considering the commitment is not honoured.
My flight is booked for Feb 6 and I cannot apply for a visa for Dubai without my passport.
What am I supposed to do? What if I miss my flight because of the delay in receiving my passport? Is the consulate answerable to anyone?

A message of peace from another time

It is said that those who migrate, live in a time warp. They see their past in their present and use it to define their future as well. This distortion allows them to continue to live with the people they left behind and to bring into their lives events from another period.
Although illusionary, living in a time warp can also be a blessing. This is how we felt on the evening we gathered at the tavern to celebrate Eid-e-Milad.
We decided we will do it the old-fashioned way, the way it was when we were young. So we spread a white sheet on the floor, placed cushions along the walls and requested people to wear traditional dresses for the occasion.
We even had agar-battis and gulab-pash, a little container used for sprinkling scented water on the audience.
Near the entrance, we placed little bottles of traditional perfumes, extracts of flowers we left behind, champa, chambeli, gulab. No, we did not call them jasmine or roses, not that evening.
In the middle, we placed a red, hand-woven carpet with more cushions and a rahal, which we used in the maktab while learning to recite the Holy Quran.
There were no supersize cakes, no motorised devices, no sticks, no swords and no shooting in the air.
After recitals from the holy book by a sister-brother duo, we invited some older kids to recite na’at. And here too, we stuck to the tradition. Instead of going for modern poems composed on popular tunes, we selected three, one each by poets Hali, Zafar Ali Khan and Allama Iqbal.
Then we asked one of our members, who is associated with a local Sufi circle and is widely respected in the community for his moderate views, to “read the milad.”
He started with a tale that we often heard at milads in our days, which now seem like another age.
“God, where are you? I want to become your servant. Mend your battered shoes. Comb your hair. Wash your clothes. Kill the lice and fleas. I would bring you fresh milk,” said the shepherd.
“I wish to kiss your hand. Rub your feet. I would sweep your bedroom clean and keep it neat. And prepare your bed when you are sleepy. I’d sacrifice my herd of goats for you. Give away my life for you and those of my sons.

New provinces on administrative not ethnic grounds, says Nawaz

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif on Monday said that creation of new provinces should only be based on administrative grounds and not on linguistic or ethnic, 
Speaking while chairing the party’s consultative meeting in Model Town Lahore, he said the “Bahawalpur province” is deep-rooted aspiration of people of the area. However, he added that Punjab should only be divided according to resolution passed by the provincial assembly.
The meeting was attended, among others, by Chief Minister Punjab Shahabaz Sharif and Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
Important national issues like voter lists, limitations of constituencies and overall political situation of the country were consulted upon in the meeting.
During his speech, Nawaz Sharif said the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was raising the slogan of dividing Punjab on political grounds, adding that division of the province based on pure abhorrence would not accepted at any cost.
He reiterated that creation of new provinces should only be based on administrative grounds instead of linguistic or ethnic.