Plain Talk, Salman replacing Haqqani? Humanising?

ZAHOOR'S CARTOON:

Salman replacing Haqqani?

Plain Talk by Mosharraf Zaidi - Article 37 is titled "Promotion of social justice and eradication of social evils", and it has nine bullet points. "The state shall: (a) promote, with special care, the educational and economic interests of backward classes or areas; (b) remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education within minimum possible period; (c) make technical and professional education generally available and higher education equally accessible to all on the basis of merit; (d) ensure inexpensive and expeditious justice; (e) make provision for securing just and humane conditions of work, ensuring that children and women are not employed in vocations unsuited to their age or sex, and for maternity benefits for women in employment; (f) enable the people of different areas, through education, training, agricultural and industrial development and other methods, to participate fully in all forms of national activities, including employment in the service of Pakistan; (g) prevent prostitution, gambling and taking of injurious drugs, printing, publication, circulation and display of obscene literature and advertisements; (h) prevent the consumption of alcoholic liquor otherwise than for medicinal and, in the case of non-Muslims, religious purposes; and (i) decentralise the government administration so as to facilitate expeditious disposal of its business to meet the convenience and requirements of the public."

Let's try to rein in our appetite for destruction for just one moment. Forget the ideological mishmash and the umbrage -- either of living in a country of prohibition, or of living in a country whose promise of prohibition is about as binding as its promise of the protection of minority rights. The real question is whether there is a single one of the nine clauses that are treated with any degree of seriousness in Pakistan 2010. Emphatically, the Pakistani state has failed to promote social justice or eradicate social evils -- according to Pakistan's own definition. Not Amnesty International's. Not the International Crisis Group's. Not the New York Times'. Not David Ben-Gurion's.


View: A time to humanise Islam —Ishtiaq Ahmed

There is a screaming silence from the custodians of Islam — the ulema — on the execution of Jaspal Singh, probably because he was not a Muslim. The Muslim masses have not taken to the streets in protest because they have been conditioned to protest only when something is perceived to be anti-Islam

COMMENT: Plain talk by Indian visitors —Babar Ayaz

According to Ejaz Ahmed, the Indian perception is that Pakistan’s forward strategy is to keep India engaged in Kashmir by supporting the separatist movement and by keeping sleeping militant cells all over the country. And rear strategy is to have a pro-Pakistan government in Afghanistan

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