South Asia Citizens Web

Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state pushed Islam on its people as a matter of ideology. Prayers were made compulsory in government departments, punishments were meted out to those civil servants who did not fast during Ramadan, selection for academic posts required that the candidate demonstrate knowledge of Islamic teachings, and jihad was propagated through schoolbooks. Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of the spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal that has been the result of the years of grooming. A generation of poisoned minds that holds the external world responsible for all the country’s ills has led the country into collective xenophobia and psychosis. Signs suggest that a fascist religious state may be just around the corner.

During the Cold War years, Pakistan openly sided against the Soviet Union and thus, ostensibly to counter the threat from the north, found a convenient excuse to muzzle political and social criticism of any kind. A particularly harmful expression of this intolerant and myopic policy has been felt in the field of education, more specifically in the preparation and dispensation of textbooks for Pakistani students.

India is today the world’s largest importer of arms. These include fighter jet planes, missiles and radar systems for strategic partnerships and geo-political power. India is also investing in security and surveillance to combat foreign threats and resistance from its own people in places like the Kashmir valley, and the North East and tribal regions of Central India. This provides tremendous opportunity for multi-national corporations to sell and invest in India, a country marching ahead as an economic and military power.

28 May, 2011: The two-day conference on ’Labour Rights as Citizen Rights: Realising Constitutional Reforms’ concluded here in Islamabad. The Conference was organised by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, Sungi Development Foundation, and Muttahida Labour Federation. The purpose of the conference was to share labour’s concerns and initiate debate on issues related to labour in the backdrop of the 18th Amendment which has set the grounds for provincial autonomy and devolution.

The arrest of the noted human rights and peace activist and senior journalist, Gautam Navlakha, at Srinagar airport, debarring his entry into Kashmir is not only outrageous and attack on the people’s human rights but also a lawless act that needs to be condemned unequivocally by all those who cherish human rights