By Kamran Siddiqui The Kashmir issue is once again bringing Pakistan and India close to another armed conflict. The consequences of such conflict this time however, could be far more devastating for both countries than previous. The issue is alive for 68 years and there are still no signs of a peaceful settlement. While the public sentiments are high in […]
Written by Ujjal Dosanjh Dear Karan Johar, You don’t know me. As an introduction of sorts, let me tell you: I was the guy who many months ago wrote “Hang Ujjal Dosanjh for treason before charging Aamir Khan with sedition” in response to attacks on him for voicing his wife’s fears about the then brewing and now surging fanatical storm in […]
Even in the ninth year of uninterrupted democracy in Pakistan, the thrice-elected prime minister is not able to utter a word against the shenanigans of his generals. By Mohammad Taqi The recent terrorist attack on the Indian military base in Uri has renewed concern over whether Pakistan’s political leadership has the will or capacity to rein in the country’s military brass or, at least, […]
by Praveen Swami Jaish-e-Muhammad chief Masood Azhar has called for jihadist groups to be allowed to escalate their operations against India, arguing that “a lack of decisive decision-making” could rob Pakistan of a “historic opportunity” to seizeKashmir. His appeal, published in the current issue of the Jaish weekly magazine al-Qalam, comes amidst reports of strains between Pakistan’s civilian government and military over […]
By Sibt e Hasan Learning process is like a ladder. It upgrades itself from lower (simple) to higher (complex) levels. Learning starts when someone understands something. According to taxonomy of learning developed by a British educationist Benjamin Bloom, this process culminates when someone acquires the capability of creating new ideas. From understanding to creating, learning meanders through the stages […]
Surgical strikes: Bodies taken away on trucks, loud explosions, eyewitnesses give graphic details by Praveen Swami Eyewitnesses living across the Line of Control (LoC) have provided The Indian Express with graphic accounts of last week’s Indian Army special forces strikes on jihadists’ staging posts, describing how bodies of those killed in clashes before dawn on September 29 were loaded onto trucks for secret burials. […]
By Ahsan Yousaf Chaudhary The September 18 terrorist attack in Uri, which killed 19 Indian soldiers in peacetime, is not the first incident abetted and denied by Pakistan, perhaps nor the last. Exactly eight years ago in November 2008, when Mumbai was attacked by a squad of well-trained terrorists that killed nearly 200 people and wounded several more, Pakistan vehemently denied only to concede later — under […]
Tufail Ahmad On 22 September, just four days after the Uri attack, Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) released a statement accusing Pakistan and its military and spy agencies of betraying Kashmiris. Issued by AQIS spokesman Ustad Usama Mahmood, the statement says: “History testifies to the fact that fighting under the supervision and with the cooperation of Pakistani agencies is […]
by Khaled Ahmed One reason India and Pakistan can’t resolve the Kashmir issue is how the two interpret the Simla Agreement of 1972. The treaty put an end to the 1971 Indo-Pak war, thus endorsing the separation of East Pakistan as Bangladesh. The world takes cognisance of this treaty whenever a dispute erupts between the two South Asian rivals. What Pakistan conceded […]
Brahumdagh Bugti,founder and leader of the Baloch Republican Party, has been in exile in Switzerland since 2010 by Kanishka Singh Baloch nationalist leader Brahumdagh Bugti has decided to apply for political asylum in India, adding to Pakistan’s displeasure over the new turn of events. What role India plays with the Baloch nationalists remains to be seen, but with this new development, […]
Kamran Siddiqui Recently, a Canadian Newspaper Globe and Mail covered a story of Muslim families in a Toronto neighborhood demanding the Toronto District School Board to exempt their kids from the music class, which is a compulsory component of the Provincial Curriculum. The families are arguing that attending music class violates their Muslim faith. The Newspaper further reported that more […]
By Khaled Ahmed Nation-states inhabited by Muslim majorities tend to be permanently wobbly. These days, those that got fired by the idea of democracy in 2011 are in crisis. Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Libya were supposed to go democratic after liberation from heir dictatorships. Muslim states in fact stay stable for many years under dictators, kings and Iran-like Islamic authoritarianism. […]
By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO VATICAN CITY — She was known throughout the world as Mother Teresa, considered a saint by many for her charitable work among the poorest of the world’s poor. On Sunday morning, Pope Francis officially bestowed that title at her canonization ceremony in St. Peter’s Square. “I think, perhaps, we may have some difficulty in calling her St. Teresa: Her holiness is […]
By Samuel Ramani, The Diplomat On May 2, 2016, the Iranian government passed a law allowing families of deceased foreign Iranian Revolutionary Guard fighters to gain Iranian citizenship. Iran’s new citizenship legislation applies chiefly to relatives of Afghans and dissident Iraqis who fought for Iran against Saddam Hussein’s regime during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. However, the law has also been extended to […]
By SCOTT SHANEAUG, The Newyork Times. WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump don’t agree on much, but Saudi Arabia may be an exception. She has deplored Saudi Arabia’s support for “radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism.” He has called the Saudis “the world’s biggest funders of terrorism.” The first American diplomat […]
by Tahir Qazi Karachi is the biggest city in Pakistan. It is the country’s commercial hub, financial capital, naval base, and only operational seaport. For the past several months, this city has once again been in the grip of violence. Gunshots ringing out in poor neighborhoods claimed the lives of more than 400 individuals in the months of July and […]
By Samuel Oakford In the span of four days earlier this month, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition inYemen bombed a Doctors Without Borders-supported hospital, killing 19 people; a school, where 10 children, some as young as 8, died; and a vital bridge over which United Nations food supplies traveled, punishing millions. In a war that has seen reports of human rights violations committed […]
Within Pakistan, banned groups like JeM and JuD campaign openly for jihad against India. By Umer Ali “Bharat ka aik ailaaj, al-jihad” (“The cure to India is nothing but jihad”), the crowd chanted at the start of Jamaat-e-Islami’s anti-India rally near Nasir Bagh, Lahore. The rally, which was destined for Wahga, on Pakistan’s side of the India-Pakistan border, was filled with […]
Pakistani political groups patronise madrassas that participate in terror activities by Khaled Ahmed The Darul Uloom Haqqania of Akora Khattak at Nowshehra near Peshawar in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is in the news after the provincial government run by Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf gave the madrassa Rs 300 million to “modernise” its educational programme. The seminary is known as the madrassa of the Taliban: […]
By Kamran Siddiqui For Muslims living in Western countries, the issue of halal (permitted) and haraam (forbidden) food has become an essential component of daily life. Buying meat from specific “halal” stores, eating at specific restaurants, reading the ingredient label on almost every packed food item at the grocery store, etc., is a regular routine of Muslim families living in […]
