South Asia Citizens Web

Daily Star, December 12, 2008
DEBATES around religious minorities, in election season and otherwise, focus on anecdotes and analogies — positive and negative. What is largely missing in this discussion is quantitative analysis of the religious minorities status in Bangladesh.
The one variation is Professor Abul Barkat, of the Dhaka University Department of Economics. Since the 1990s, Barkat along with his large team of researchers have been applying the methods of economic, statistics (…)

This week might have been an opportunity for Pakistan to acknowledge its own internal crisis, to start looking for the lost boys who are destined for very short-lived violent careers on our small screen. For India there was a real opportunity to stop hankering for American-sized victim status and start counting its own lost boys. Instead, it has turned out to be a case of the blind accusing the blinkered and then both walking hand in hand into the smog created by the airwaves pollution.

Editorial, Kashmir Times, 13 December 2008
Terrorism is the result of injustice and denial of democratic rights
It may well be a case of absolute ignorance and naivette to demand enforcement of stringent laws like POTA and TADA to combat terror attacks in the country. Those supporting these demands are inspired by the logic that such laws will prove to be a deterrent for the terrorists and make them think twice before indulging in heinous acts of perpetrating violence against innocent (…)

The invasion of Iraq, and US imperial policies over the last decades, created a hatred for Americans that ultimately translated into support for all who fight them. Most Pakistanis do not approve of the Taliban’s fundamental and primitivist social agenda. But, by virtue of fighting the Americans, popular sentiment is still with them. So, reducing anti-Americanism is the key.
We Pakistanis have to realize that this is a war for our very existence as a civilized nation.
The Taliban and allied extremists have a real chance of winning in Pakistan. The state is already crumbling in places and it could disintegrate quite rapidly, leaving the fanatics in charge. One cannot think of a bigger disaster for Pakistan.