The 1971 Chronicles: The State of the Stateless Biharis, Nawaz's double standards,

Afghan Mullahs Promote Birth Control to Save Lives [thanks MAK]

The 1971 Chronicles: The State of the Stateless Biharis

COLUMN: Heady tales - Intizar Husain


Rumana Husain author of Karachiwala: What inspired you to write this book?

Rumana Husain: Thinking back, I feel it must have something to do with this wonderful book series called Lands and Peoples with which I grew up. It was published in 1927 in the UK and, apparently, a part of it was published every alternate Thursday by the Amalgamated Press Ltd. My grandfather was a subscriber, and he then got them bound. My father inherited this leather-bound set of six volumes when he migrated from India after Partition.


Double Standards- Mian sahib’s aversion to looking in the mirror is not befitting in this day and age of a relatively free media and a more aware public because of it. Vowing to bring back ‘looted’ money from Swiss bank accounts is all well and good if you have set a benchmark to claim the moral high ground. Accusations have always been rife about Nawaz Sharif’s own shady methods of entrepreneurial conduct: alleged money laundering under the cover of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills back in 1998, extracting loans from the public exchequer to establish his own personal empire of mills, factories and foundries according to the Auditor General’s report in 1988, and tipping off friends and associates about the foreign currency accounts freeze after the nuclear explosions in 1998, allowing many millions to be diverted from Pakistan to rosier international pastures.

Telling it like it is - Anjum Niaz - Pakistan is cursed with a VIP culture that will just not go away. There is no cure. From Zardari down to the thanedar or the patwari, we the ordinary citizens must accept these holy cows and be meek, submissive and servile before them. God forbid, should one come in their path, one is pushed aside like a speck of dust and told to remove himself/herself, even reprimanded and warned for polluting the stratified air the VIP breathes. 'Get lost' is the message!