Why Most DOT.COMS Will Fail

rsridhar #172 ``Is the threat from India real or something that the military establishment have drummed up to justify all the military spendings.``

I think a bit of both. As in any bureaucracy, the path forward for any ambitious manager (or general, in case of the military) is through obtaining control over more resources and a broader mandate. No inter-state tensions, no military budgets. Applies to the Pakistan military as it does to the Indian or any other military.

On the other hand, the recent Indian military exercise on the Pakistan borders, the exploding of nuclear bombs close to the Pakistan border followed by threats to Pakistanis to understand the new situation, cannot be ignored.

All those desiring peace and progress in South Asia will welcome the recent offer of talks from Vajpayee to Musharraf. This does not, however, change the likely fact that it was triggered by the recent high profile visit to Pakistan of the Chinese prime minister and other signs of Pakistan and China warming up to one another. Regardless of the causes and which government has the moral high or low ground, any sane person with an IQ over 50 would welcome this move.

Jay #

Don`t cry too much. It is bad for health.

Also save it for future.

Greetings John & Chowk folk out there... yesterday, I bought the book, ``Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family`` by Jeff Goodell. Looking forward to reading it to get an insight into how people`s lives changed here in Silicon Valley with the invasion of the High Tech industry and a zillion & one DOt.COMs. I own 3 dot.coms myself, but have not been able to get 2 e-commerce ones off the ground yet - too much competition, too much effort to spend, too little time, and too unstable a net result. What say you, eh?

=zensufi=

TIME TO CRY,

krashid,

There are times one should cry for ones country. I never posts acts of individual crime in pakistan, like what temporal was doing about india, but there are cries that sums up the society, there are govt responses that sum up the society, and at times tears help. From dawn of today,

Ladies` parks

WOMEN are about half of our population but it is strange that while constructing new housing colonies by the government or private housing societies, no separate ladies` parks are being builtwhere they could relax in the evening without fear of male intrusion.

Allama Iqbal Town, for example, has no `purdah bagh` for women.Gulshan-i-Iqbal has already become a notorious centre for ruffians and professional eve-teasers who do not allow women to enjoy the beauty of the park with any degree of equanimity.

I suggest that no the pattern of the one set up in Samanabad, a separate walled ladies` park be built in Iqbal Town, and in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, one or two days should be reserved for women.

MAZHAR ALI ADEEB

Lahore

// the monstrocity of TNT creation, a nation that is created by hatred has to continously create ones to hate, half the population, women is a good bet. krashid, leave me alone, hate the pakistanis who are creating your homeland, in case you dont like what you read. If you like it, go and join the revelers at the park.

Ardeshir Cowasjee`s article on Jinnah 7 years ago.

btw... JAY please for god sakes leave us alone... why are Indians like you so obsessed with Pakistan????

`On His 118th Birthday`

- Ardeshir Cowasjee

I greet you, Mr Jinnah, as we near your 118th birthday. I, and many others, thank you for having

ordained that the anniversary of your birth coincide with that of the Second in Trinity, so that

Christmas Day will be a holiday in our country for as long as your name is revered. Seven years ago

in this newspaper. on August 14. 1987, I wrote in your name: You have collectively and dissolutely

pakdanced all along the Way down the year,¡Xone step forward, whirl, sidestep, swirl, two step

backward, twirl, twist, turn four steps backwad.

``Neither surprised. nor confounded¡Xcertainly not shocked` am I. Long ago I fathomed your genious

(with hindsight, I now realise how exceedingly well). Therefore, all those years ago, I deviated from

my initial adherence and set myself the task of carving out a nation for you, a territory in which you

could survive, for you to tend, a country your successors would proudly be able to call their

fatherland. Given the circumstanes, and tbe short time I had left to me, I did the best possible.

``It was not easy, negotiating with the tiresome British, dealing with the wily Mahatma, his discordant

Mahadevs, and the ironclad Sardar. It was rough going. It was not until August 7th, 1947, after

taking off from Delhi for Karachi and settling down in the Dakota, that with great satisfaction I was

able to mutter to my young ADC, Ahsan `Well, that`s that`.

``It will serve no purpose for me to now enumerate for you the multitude of your follies, shortcomings

and losses. The Master Reteree exonerated me many years ago, and I now rest content upon my

laurels. But you, on your part, could at least have made the effort to do better, rather than blindly

blunder along and merely survive.

Since you have made it beholden upon yourselves to remember me my wish is that you remember

me as I was. I do not want to be the object of hagiography I do not want to be remembered as is

momentarily convenient or politic. I want to be remembered as the normal human being I was. with

faults, foibles and failings. Yes, I took upon mysell a mission which by fortune and fate I was able to

accomplish. Having accomplished it, I died, highly apprehensive of the honesty, integrity, and

capability of those I was leaving behind to care for my cre.

``Why is it that I am so often misquoted and misunderstood? Let me be clear. I conceived and

created a nation-state, with the steadfast unwavering intention that it should be forward-looking,

democratic, and secular. Bigotry, theocracy, intolerance, hatted played no role in my ideology. Three

days before the outset, before the start of the countdowns I unequivocally declared in my speech to

your first constituent assembly: `You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go

to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any

religion or caste or creed¡Xthat has nothing to do with the business of the State`.

``These words, spoken On August 11th 1947, embody my faith, my creed and my testament to my

countrymen. Whether you like it or not, whether it suits you or not whether it all be too liberal,

humanitarian hill, tolerant and progressive for your warped minds to grasp, this is the ideology I had

planned for my country.``

To bring you up to date, Mr Jinnah. The remaining half of the country you made is now inhabited by

some 123 million mainly uneducated souls, multiplying like rabbits. They, in their illiterate state, by

ticking various symbols have elected in a free and fair election the latest of your disastrous

governments. We are now led by an awesome (or awful, depending upon how you look at it)

husband and wife twin-act. Our de jure prime minister is the wife, Benazir, for the second time

around. De facto prime minister is the husband, Asif. also for the second time around. As is the

custom in the Islamic world, husband must dominate wife in all ways, thinking included.

Those they have chosen to rule by their sides. or rather, under them, are a motley lot bereft of brain,

bone, and shame. To them, to a man, to heal- is to obey. Under their tull control and at their mercy

they have the judiciary, the bureaucracy, finance foreign investment, energy, power generation,

communications, defence, education, health, population planning, the environment¡Xyou name it.

As has been said so many times, what makes the mare go is pelf in tandem with power. But even in

pay-offs today there is `no foal, no fee` is 110 honesty. The principle of `no foal, no fee` is either

unknown. or if known, blithely disregarded.

Your profession, the law is in a shambles. The men who practise it are demoralised divided. The

judiciary is on a leash with many judges hand-picked on probation, or just plain scared.

Indpendence to them is but a dream. The dignity of our courts, as you will agree, should not be

dependent, as it is, upon the law of contempt. It should, as you would have hoped, be based on

more solid foundations. We also know that judges must be above suspicion, as white as driven

snow. This does not now hold true with us. Sitting on one high court bench we have a judge who is

out on bail on a murder charge.

As I write this, I am still recovering from the news about the appointment of new law minister.

Benazir`s original one this time around, Groovy Haider, has just been sacked. He was as honest, as

corrupt, and as supine as the rest of them, but he obviously failed tc hear the voice of the emperor

`Roma locuta est; causa finita est`. The new man, Nabi Dad Khan, is a lecturer who calls himself a

professor. Perhaps he is unable to dif ferntiate hetween the two. He is an advocate of mediocrity, no

hot-shot lawyer he. But then, what has any hot-shot lawer law minister ever done for your country?

This minister is unlikely to make any law or take earth-shaking decisions. What he is likely to do is to

give t he Press a field day when he rises to utter in the Assembly.

One most perturbing and distres sing factor of life these days, in what you quite simply and cleanly

named ``Pakistan``, is the habit of land-grabbing From head honcho downwards, to the most lowly

man in a position to do so, they all grab for themselves land that rightly belongs to the nation, its

redidual worth. So much in a hurry is each man or woman in power to grab as, grab he or she can,

that now land that is under water even at low tide planned to be reclaimed for the people, is being

taken. This greed has unbelievably also extended to land belonging to the University of Karachi, that

once fine institution. We would have expected that a university-educated head of government would

have put her foot down on this. But no.

Our anthropologist professor, Akbar Ahmed, is planning a film on your life. We await this with much

trepidation as we all know that the life portrayed on celluloid will be a know that the life portrayed

on celluloid will be a far cry from the life that was lived. He has full `government support``. The

commercially minded, amongst those sponsoring the adventure, should endeavour to put the real

Jinnah on the screen. The government of the day would then ban the film, making it a riproaring

success.

Your mazar, architecturally hideous as it is, is a focal point for all successful, and I stress the word

`successful`, politicians, sportsmen, artists, and so forth. The minute a man wins an election, or a

match, or a medal, he is to be found in Karachi, at your grave, grabbing with piously folded hands a

photo opportunity. You had the entire triumphant hockey team the other day. Had they lost the

World Cup they would not have been seen anywhere near your tomb.

The barren spaces around your resting place have luckily and by some stroke of fortune been saved

from land-grabbers (not that they did not try). The people of Karachi have now taken it upon

themselves to plant trees for you. `Treemazar` is at work and one day soon, the entire area will be

wooded.

This last is the only good news I can give. I refrain from listing today the woes of the city of your

birth, which the government is incapable of governing. Fortunately, you remain beyond `their` evil and

destructive reach.

Jay #90

Altaf Hussain Mere Mohallah Ka Larka Hai. Tu Mujhe Kia Bataye Ga Us Ke Bara Me.

And on Dr. Mehdi Hasan you are right. In Pakistan people can express different opinion.

One liner can be produced in India only.

One more for 3NT, from nation of today,

Unpatriotic

On September 26, I just happened to read a news item regarding Mr Mehdi Hassan in an Urdu daily. He was talking to an Indian channel after participating in a programme in Jaipur (the capital of Indian state Rajhistan) and the statement that he issued was so disgusting that it would make every patriotic Pakistani flinch and protest. He said that ``we know that India and Pakistan are one and will remain so. It is not good to be separate. There are some forces in both the countries which don`t want it to be so, but the artistes are trying to make both the countries one, as they are originally one``.

Now what is he trying to prove by issuing such unpatriotic statements? He must remember that this is the country which gave him name and fame. He is internationally known as a Pakistani. If he is not satisfied with the present situation then he has no right to be known as a Pakistani. I request the government to ban his entry on PTV, rather in Pakistan itself. -ASMA, Lahore, via e-mail, September 26.

krashid,

How you always miss the central argument. Greatness of a person is what he has left behind, not what a whiteman tells of him. What is the legacy of Jinnah, 140 million people in a pariah status, fleeing the Jinnah creation, a country reeking with hatred for women, kafirs; a country going backward. If Jinnah was great, he would have inculcated his values in his followers, who could have at least gave some direction, the jinnahisque direction to the country. Other than islam, and TNT, there is no other jinnaisque value left in pakistan.

Think of the 3NT, Atlaf hussain is one leader, Mullah Omar is the other, why cant you be the third, the jinnahisque leader, to divide the country into three. Just an idea.

Jay the pathetic!

You will find many examples of Yahya type.

You have to find time from hate and read your brilliant five thousand year history.

Also if you know Milosevic has also acieved all three and your country is in line to achieve all three (it has yet done two. Sorry you are too slow)

GREAT PAKISTANIS,

The other day I came across a man in NY with a poster, Yahya Khan is great, I asked him why he is great, and he gave me a book with the following line highlited, `` Only a few have changed the world map, only a very few generals surrendered 100,000 troops, only one other has supervised a holocaust: and Yahya has achieved all the three``. From the sole general by Daniel Wolpert.

I continued, `OK he has achieved three things, which in themselves are so so...``

Well he replied, ` that is the rule in pakistan, if a white man points out three thngs that is enough for a pakistani to be great. Have you heard of Jinnah``.

I dont remember his name, some torrid, lurid,...amed, ..krashid.... something.

krashid #86:

haha! good one! thank you...

Jay!

Learn to speak humour, then try to be humanistic.

Only then you will be able to differentiate between a humour and ``Phukkar Pan``.

At this stage you are far away from both.

krashid,

It is heartening to see a jihadist supporting the un-muslimisation of ahmadias should express a sense of humour, nice to know that the flame of humour is not fully extinguished by the tempest of jihad in pakistan.

krashid: who is this Bajrang?

To scout,

It is a great virtue, the ability to notice the good, and ignore the bad. Most have the inverse skills. Or better still, ignore both. Be

dis-interested: not interested and not uninterested. Watch out for temporal, with his meanings, a know it all chowk police.

regards

Jay.

Jay!

I also agree with you that meaning is important as you give an enlightened example of pregnancy.

So to give a correct impression to you, can I call you Advani Thackeray Bajrang Dali.