South Asia Citizens Web

Two PDF files posted here contain reports from the Pakistani press in Urdu and English (from 26 September - 30 September 2014) on the Sindh Labour Conference held in Karachi that was hosted by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research.

For 10 years after 9/11, Pakistanis had lived in a delusionary bubble. A majority had been brainwashed into believing that terrorism in Pakistan was the work of some “foreign hand”. So, even when various militant groups angry at Pakistan proudly claimed suicide missions against military and civilian targets, they were ignored. No Muslim could kill another Muslim, was then the prevailing logic. Surely Pakistan’s eternal enemies — India, Israel, America, or maybe even Afghanistan and Iran — were responsible. The foreign hand myth was nurtured by overpaid and wilfully ignorant TV anchors

The scars inflicted on September 29, 2012 in Ramu will take a long time to heal. It has been two years now since a number of Buddhist monasteries and houses of Buddhists were razed to the ground in Ramu, Ukhia, Teknaf, and Cox’s Bazar on a night of mayhem on September 29, 2012. This carnage no doubt tarnished the image of Bangladesh both at home and abroad. The events, painful as they were and still are, still rekindled hopes about the kind of country we fought for and long for.

While the revolution is still brewing on Constitution Avenue in Punjab’s kettle, with a spoonful of tea-leaves from Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and the steaming hot water of 7th Avenue, there is another Pakistan awaiting our courtesy. This ‘other’ Pakistan is never going to be, Insha-Allah, the adret anyway for its obvious lack of brusqueness and sonorousness that our very own revolutionaries have. Despite more important issues of a ‘stolen mandate’ at hand, we might still give a perfunctory and gracious look of ours to their unnecessary noise.