Baithak Desi May 20: Bravo Anjum Niaz, Tariq Butt, Rauf Klasra, Mumtaz who? Rasul Baksh Rais, Headlines, Cartoons

Bravo! Individuals seated on gilded chairs of power are the villains of this piece. They and not the helpless "bandits" should be lynched and torched alive. They have looted the state and not been punished for it. They have whisked away billions to foreign lands and bought themselves palaces, leaving Pakistan and its 70 percent les misérables living under $2 a day. Once again their power romping has begun. They are back performing stunts like doling out ministries, advisory positions and ambassadorships to all those who left the country with them after wiping it clean. Protected 24/7 by security guards and state-of-the-art weaponry, these politicians, civil and military afsars, crooked power brokers, religious fanatics-turned-terrorists and all those secular Mafiosi famous for drilling nails and stuffing alive men in gunny bags hacking them to death for showing defiance to their cult politics are collectively turning Karachi into a free-for-all city. The rulers who fail to provide basic necessities of life to their citizens should be put on trial, not those who are forced by circumstances to break the law. Pakistan calls itself "Islamic Republic" but its establishment and leaders have failed to provide Islamic justice and equality to its citizens. Anjum Niaz


The numbers game: In the 342-member National Assembly, the PPP has 120 seats and its allies the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has 26 MPs, the ANP (13) and the JUI-F (6) apart from the support from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and smaller factions like the Functional League and some Balochistan parties. This means that barring the PML-N’s 90 MPs, almost all the remaining 251 MPs, including the PML-Q’s 50 members in the National Assembly cluster will stand with the PPP; otherwise, the PPP would not think of sponsoring the 18th Amendment. The big if, however, is a direction from President Musharraf to his ally — the PML-Q — to vote for the amendment. Tariq Butt



By Rauf Klasra

ISLAMABAD: Retired Army generals, including some who trained and groomed Pervez Musharraf, have planned a long march and a sit-in before the Army House in Rawalpindi to get it vacated so that Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani could move in. The long march, the date of which will be announced soon, is being given final touches. The procession to force Musharraf to vacate the Army House would be led by former Army chief Mirza Aslam Beg and General (retd) Hamid Gul and about 200 retired Army officers will be there.


And the co-chairman has to watch out too: Sindh National Front (SNF) Chief Mumtaz Bhutto would start a campaign against PPP Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari from May 22 for “not fulfilling the promises made with the masses, including judges’ restoration,” sources told ‘The News’ on Monday. Mumtaz who?


Top officials of the Anti Narcotics Force (ANF) were caught off guard in the Senate body on Narcotics on Monday, when they were asked probing questions by the senators about owner of 'The Frontier Post' Rehmat Shah Afridi and who forced him to become an approver against Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari in his long nine years in jail. Rauf Klasra.
It is simple Watson: Nawaz Sharif first, who put him behind bars to pressurize Benazir, and then the Musharraf Administration.

Another reason for the death of our academia is that learning and scholastic pursuits are not valued by our society as compared to acquiring power, traditional authority, wealth and influence, which are placed higher in the ranking of social values. One thing that separates the modern world from pre-modern feudalistic culture is the respect for the learned and the teacher. The academician at a Pakistani university has always been at the receiving end of power and has got poor allocation of social and material values. I wonder how a struggling, demoralised and alienated academia could compete in the production of knowledge or match the scholarly output of universities in comparable developing or Muslim countries. analysis: Death of academia —Rasul Bakhsh Rais

Headlines

Khalid Aziz: The march of folly
Pakistani militants savor a sweet deal
India fights illiteracy with lunch
Oracle announces 1.4 billion tonnes of lignite coal at Block VI, Pakistan
In Urdu - Fauji GhoRay ki Qabar ka Qutba - Manno Bhai
‘PML-N to give cover to NRO if judges reinstated’
Unbelievable: Criminals to deal with iron hands: Rehman