Media Watch Desi Mar 24: The New Cabinet, Impeachment, Nawaz, PMLN and MQM, Energy Crisis and Hamid Mir

There is hope. There is hope. The more things change the more they remain the same. So do not raise your hopes yet. Initially the Coalition will come in with 20 Ministers. And then they will add 40 more. That is 60 Ministers governing a third world nation of 170 million. India has 50 plus.

The US has 15 Secretaries to manage the Nation's affairs. In the UK the number fluctuates between 21 and 24.

Islamabad, March 23: The Pakistan People’s Party-led government will start with 20 ministers but will have a large Cabinet of 60-70 members in due course of time, political sources said.

"The PPP has decided to haul its Cabinet size to 60-70 members in three phases in order to have room for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the Awami National Party, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, and also possibly, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement," a senior PPP leader told this newspaper. PPP plans Cabinet of 60-70 - Shafqat Ali

LAHORE: The prospect of Pervez Musharraf being the first president in the history of Pakistan to be subject to an impeachment trial hangs over his head like the Sword of Damocles. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its allied parties in parliament are planning to impeach him with a combined two-thirds vote in a joint sitting of the parliament within two weeks of the formation of government at the centre. Impeachment trial hangs over Musharraf’s head Amir Mir

MANSEHRA, March 23: Pakistan Mulism League-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif has expressed reservations over inclusion of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in the coalition government. “We, as well as those Urdu-speaking people who are not part of the MQM, have reservations over the inclusion of the MQM in the coalition government because we know who was behind the May 12 Karachi carnage which left 48 people dead,” Mr Sharif said. Nawaz opposes MQM’s inclusion in govt. - Nisar Ahmed Khan

Ejaz Haider in his daily Times column also speculates about this: Could it be that the PMLN has picked up the signal? There is an additional factor: if the MQM’s decision does indicate some kind of understanding between the PPP and the Presidency, then it is safe to surmise that the PMLN either is not part of that arrangement or is in opposition to it.

Over the same topic here is Chaudhry Nisar and here Farooq Sattar


For those who can read Urdu here are some suggestion dealing with the energy crisis by Mirza Ikhtiar Baig.


And in is Jang column Hamid Mir reveals (without naming sources) that it was Benazir who did not want Makhdoom Amin Fahim as a Prime Minister.

The Way It Was — Inside the Pakistan Army by Brig. (Retd.) Zahir Alam Khan has been dubbed by its Indian publisher ‘Natraj’ as “the first honest and no-holds-barred autobiography of a soldier in the Pakistan Army.” Brig. Khan, a trained commando, himself led the forces into Longewala, an operation which was meticulously planned. However, the author said, that as there was no support to the Pakistani troops from their own Air Force, the Indian Air Force ‘Hawker Hunters’ had a field day bombing Pakistani tank formations as these were rendered sitting ducks. Former Pakistan Brigadier spills the beans on 1971 war