South Asia Citizens Web

KARACHI, Dec 23 [2005] : Prominent labour lawyer and veteran trade union leader Ali Amjad died here in a local hospital after a protracted illness. He was 81.

Proliferation of violence has become the most serious social problem in Pakistan today. Not a week, often not a day, goes by without some terrible act of violence shaking public confidence in the state’s ability to protect citizens, and reminding us that a serious decline in civility has occurred in this country. Officials announce ever stronger measures as the cure while citizens wonder over the causes which underlie our descent into insensate savagery such as the recent massacre of mourners in a Lahore cemetery. This essay is but one man’s perspectives on the roots of contemporary violence in Pakistan.

Take the scissors away from the Censor Board
Hindustan Times, October 29, 2005 (Mumbai Edition)
The Government of India thinks you are stupid, I am an imbecile, indeed each person who steps into any cinema hall is an idiot. The Government is deeply concerned about us, which is why it has appointed wise men to take care of us. Collectively, they inhabit this space called the Censor Board and toil day and night to keep us from plunging headlong into a life of sin. Their boss is usually a (…)

Underlying the glorification of Savarkarism by the BJP-RSS-Shiv Sena are changes in the nature and objectives of the major political parties, the cynicism induced by the growing nexus between crime and politics, and the collapse of a compact that had facilitated post-independence politics.