The Price

Arjun_M

``We dont need your support. Thanks but no thanks.``

I`m not talking about my support. I`m talking about Tauqir Zia`s support.

Dulla_Bhatti

I was talking about Sunnyvale but I don`t live there. I live in Boston, MA. Itthey chakkar lagda hai tvada?

Interesting article about Pakistan in Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19474-2001Nov26.html

Romair,

((The whole battle to control Afghanistan between Pakistan and Iran was for oil

Whether the pipeline gets built is a different story.}}

Ahhh; but that IS the relevant story. My whole point is that its crazy to build a pipeline in an inherently unstable & lawless country. Even if the govt in Afghanistan is friendly, can anyone guard thousands of miles of pipeline, without it getting blown up because some crazy warlord got ``slighted``?!

{{the West needs an alternate source of fuel than from the Persian Gulf. Because, once the Saudi kingdom topples (which should happen soon), the whole Persian Gulf (Saudi, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and UAE) will either willingly or forcibly become super anti-West. Kuwait alone has 10% of the known oil reserves. Saudi has 26%.}}

Agreed. I think, realistically a stable Russia that is supplying oil to the EU & Far East is the best solution. If the US is scared of pushing Pakistan to be a ``rogue state``, do you think it wont scare Uncle Sam if Russia is a desparately poor, rogue state?!

{{The worst thing for a Mafia boss is a challenger. The anti-US states, will openly jump on the China bandwagon. Pakistan already has, even though it is not anti-US. What happens if Iran, Iraq, Saudi (after the topple) etc. jump on that bandwagon, as well.}}

All the more reason why the US & EU should cultivate good ties with Russia. Besides, China`s ``economic miracle`` is predicated on trade with the US, primarily. Nobody knows what can happen in a totalitarian/authoritarian country. Tiannamen shows that everything isnt hunky dory in China. Did anyone predict that the Shah of Iran would fall so precipitously? or the Soviet Empire would crumble without a fight?

{{The center of the economic world in 25 years will shift from North America to EuroAsia.}}

In the 80s, everyone was banking on the fact that Japan`s economy would seriously challenge the US`s #1 spot. What happened?

{{If one person is killed in Tainaman Square, all trade with China is off. But the US quitely turns a blind eye to what is going on in Kashmir.}}

O yeah?! After Bush Sr denounces Tianammen, he quietly sends Brent Scowcroft to China . Where was trade with China ``off``?! It was NEVER off! Whether the administration is democratic or republican, they may make ``noises`` about ``human rights``, ``child labor`` & other esoteric bs. When it comes to trade & money ;its always ``business as usual``.

{{And it is understood that Musharraf is a popular leader, locally and abroad. He may not get the grand receptions in the US any longer, but he is the only leader in South Asia, whose word is greatly respected in US homes, now. Most Americans probably could not name the PM of India, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka.}}

You were right about Mushy. He`s the best leader Pakistan has had, so far (lets leave Jinnah out of this). But considering who his ``competition`` was (ie, the previous leaders of Pakistan), its not a momentous achievement.

US homes are also exposed to repeated scenes of Pakistani fundos screaming obscenities at the US, burning the Stars & Stripes, & wearing OBL T shirts. I wish the ``silent majority`` has not remained that silent, & took to the streets more.

Barring that, I agree with most of your post. What I admire most about you is your undying optimism about Pakistan. Heck you even got the ``mother of all cynics`` hamidm, to acknowlege that he should give Mushy more time to prove himself. That is nothing short of a miracle!

I wish Pakistan well, & hope your predictions come true. I think Pakistan needs more optimists like you. There is no shortage of cynics in Pakistan.

Ref Romair #232:

[The whole battle to control Afghanistan between Pakistan and Iran was for oil. Pakistan wanted its govt. in place, so the pipeline goes through Pakistan. Hence, Pakistan, along with the US, supported the Taliban.]

The US is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to oil from Central Asia. The pipeline has to go through Iran or Afghanistan/Pakistan if it is to get to a port. That is, assuming there is huge pool of oil that can be economically exploited.

[I still don`t think he (OBL) was behind the WTC bombing, though. Otherwise the US would have given out the evidence on day one, to satisfy the whole world; specifically the Muslim world. No intelligence source can be important enough, if a clash of civilisations can be avoided. And there would have been no need for the new closed military courts.]

I know; it is all a Hindu-Jewish conspiracy. It always boils down to that.

[the West needs an alternate source of fuel than from the Persian Gulf. Because, once the Saudi kingdom topples (which should happen soon), the whole Persian Gulf (Saudi, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and UAE) will either willingly or forcibly become super anti-West.]

The US can tell whoever topples the Saudi monarchy that they will get a camel allowance and they can run the Saudi government from the deserts of the Rab-al-Khali because the American military will occupy the oil fields and pump out as much oil as they want and there is diddly-squat you all can do about it except bleat like a bakra at the UN.

[The US`s main concern is China. It is now accepted that in 25 years, China will be a bigger economy than the US. It has four times the population...]

Have you ever dealt with any mainland Chinese in your profession? They don`t think for themselves, do they? Just content to take orders from another boss.

In 25 years, they will be buying more food and soap than the Americans. And even that is doubtful. There ain`t much water in most of China, so soap is out and they are more frugal with food than Americans.

[Countries want to become superpowers, not because it is an honorable act (it is usually very dishonorable, due to all the civilians one has to kill in other countries to maintain superpower status), but because one gets good deals in all the international markets.]

Have you tried dealing with the Singaporeans or the South Koreans? They get great deals in the marketplace because they pay cash on the barrelhead, not because they have a huge army.

[The anti-US states, will openly jump on the China bandwagon. Pakistan already has, even though it is not anti-US.]

Pakistan is merely out to prove to her ex-husband India what kind of a slut she can be. So, serially it has been the US, China and now back to the US and you are predicting back to China in the future.

[The center of the economic world in 25 years will shift from North America to EuroAsia.]

Americans (and the Europeans) can make money out of intangibles. They invented trading in stocks, commodities, future contracts, etc. What you are saying is that China will consume more than the West. Not likely.

[This leaves out one state, i.e. India. And this is why India is so important to the US. If India jumps on the China bandwagon, well then, the US has no one. That is why the US is going out of its way to be friendly with India. If one person is killed in Tainaman Square, all trade with China is off. But the US quitely turns a blind eye to what is going on in Kashmir.]

Before my friend Scout accuses me of dragging out old newspaper clippings, I just want to remind you that trade was NOT stopped after Tiananmen. In fact, MFN was renewed on a year-by-year basis even after Tienanmen. So let us get some facts correct here, OK?

[Things are looking very good for Pakistan. More important than the aid that came in, is the access to foreign markets, and most importantly a role in rebuilding Afghanistan (all of that will definitely come through Pakistan. It is not going thru Iran).]

Why not Uzbekistan and Tajikistan? After all, they are allowing the US to use airbases there as opposed to Mushy who was laying out all sorts of conditions in public? I am sure in private he was told to behave or else.

[And it is understood that Musharraf is a popular leader, locally and abroad. He may not get the grand receptions in the US any longer, but he is the only leader in South Asia, whose word is greatly respected in US homes, now.]

Wait till Tunku Varadarajan gets through with his diatribes on the Wall Street Journal.

[Most Americans probably could not name the PM of India, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka.]

Yes, they can. Jack Schitt, Jane Schitt and Joan Schitt respectively.

[And if the pipeline is built as well, then I am going to sell my SunnyVale house, and buy land in Gwadar.]

As they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Ref Stuka #236:

You mentioned the strip malls and the boring landscape of Sunnyvale.

How about all the Desis infesting the place, driving the Desi cars (Toyota Camry or Honda Accord) in Desi colors (metallic beige or silver), sometimes with personal plates such as ANUPAM or LALGADI (this one on a red car, an unusual color for a Desi - I saw it in Fremont, not Sunnyvale), Desi shops galore at Gandhi Nagar (try guessing that locality, no prize though for the correct answer), behaving as if coding in C++ is the cure for every known thing that ails society including the common cold..... enough to make you want to move to god-forsaken Gwadar right now and to take your chances on the gas pipeline and terminal! Or to Afghanistan - which ain`t too far, being the 45000 block of Fremont.

Nation of innocents (changed to ``nation of dickheads``)

Khan Afzal Afridi

To put the matter on record, allow me to highlight as to how many times we have been deceived on the international scene during the past fifty years.

1948: Nehru`s speech still resonates on PTV, ``We do not believe in forced marriages if they don`t like to stay with us they can go their way and we will go ours.``

1965, Indo-Pak war: The best foreign minister of our history i e no one else but ZAB assured, ``India will not cross the international border`` and they instead attacked Lahore. We were caught unawares, no one should bet on this. This scribe was at Lahore front much ahead of BRB.

1971, Indo-Pak war: Deceived by pacts like Seato, Cento, etc, our allies will come to our help as and when attacked. No one even raised a finger. The rest is a painful chapter of our history. We even deceived ourselves all along through a strange logic of strategy i e, ``The defence of East Pakistan lies in West Pakistan.`` The Bengali officers could not be fooled. The fact is we were cheating ourselves at a grand scale even on our strategic front.

November 2001, Afghanistan: Northern Alliance will not be allowed to enter Kabul. His majesty himself, i e Burhanuddin Rabbani came down and sat on the ``throne``, he never wanted to part with it even in the past and thats where the rot had started. In my humble opinion Rabbani was the cause of the disease and Taliban were the symptoms of that disease.

Abbottabad

RSaxena:

“...musharraf has repeatedly refused to discuss an economic treaty or any of the other confidence building measures india has proposed...he has yet to reciprocate the most favored nation trading status that india gave pakistan...it is more a symbolic measure than anything else, but little things go a long way...he won`t do it till kashmir (intractable!) is resolved...”

…sounds good in principle…but what happens if we start fighting, which, knowing our history, is a given, on this “confidence building” stuff?…point of no return?….but hey, i’m all in favor of some darjeeling tea for shahi supari…

ps maybe i’m mistaken but hasn’t pak conferred mfn status to india?

#262

“next time they will go after shoaib and pakistan will want india`s help, just as it has extended india that help...



…correction….they’ve already gone after shoaib numerous times….and the whole thing with john reid has been going on for a while…i don’t remember the bcci commenting on these…but i think now is the time for both the boards to stick together and give the incompetent fools in the icc a piece of their mind…

Layman:

“We want to maintain good sporting ties with Pak, but to show our displeasure with Pak terrorist activities, we do not want to play cricket with Pak.”

…..i do hope you realize how comical this sounds :)

“ I guess if Pak terrorist activity increases, it will affect ties regarding other sports too.”

…and there’d go india’s stand on their “confidence building” policy….

stuka:

``Talking of Gwadar, check out this song called Dana Pey Dana by Shazia Khushk. I think it`s Baluchi and it`s really cool. The album is called Baran Baran, and the song is on Pakistanimusic.com as well under the folk music section.``

hehe..u need to see her poerform..she takes of her chapleez and claps like a nut as she singsin her huge gharara`s...but very nice song

Romair # 221

“However, unlike the political and beaurecratic circles, for every dishonest General, there are one or two honest ones, also.”

….dishonesty aside, romair, how the hell did we produce rabid crackpot “generals” like hamid gul and aslam beg???…beg was just recently calling for the fragmentation of india and gul can be found extolling the virtues of the taliban every chance he gets…it’s scary, this…..

Stuka: You in North Cali? I read you talking about Sunnyvale in one of the posts. duniya baRhi chhoTi ay.:-)

#261 nasah

The beardos are more decent than the khakis. Consider this: jihadis get stranded in mazar and are massacred but the mullahs do not disown responsibility. The latest word is that they are concerned. A mullah is sentenced a 3-year prison term.

Soldiers are stranded in mountain peaks and get massacred. Yet the army would not even own up. The cannon fodder died a dog`s death. The man who sent them there and swept the whole thing under the rug is now ceo/president-for-life/coas/xyz...

What irony!

Romair:

Talking of Gwadar, check out this song called Dana Pey Dana by Shazia Khushk. I think it`s Baluchi and it`s really cool. The album is called Baran Baran, and the song is on Pakistanimusic.com as well under the folk music section.

http://www.sulekha.com/redirectnh.asp?cid=155000

Sunday, November 25, 2001

No Girls Please, We are Indians



PTI

New Delhi, November 25

-

Thanks to the penchant for a male child, India today has the dubious distinction of having the worst child sex ratio in the world and has emerged as one of the largest markets of `sex-determination techniques` which co@ck a snook at the law by claiming to intervene at the ``pre- -conception`` stage.

The latest addition to this burgeoning market is an imported kit claiming to ensure the conception of a `child of choice`, the advertisement of which has raised the hackles of activists and doctors who are relentlessly working to implement the seven-year-old law that prohibits the use and publicity of any such process used as a precursor for selective sex abortions.

While the Delhi Appropriate Authority, which is responsible for implementing the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prevention of Misuse) Act 1994 has already moved the court against the advertiser, a fresh debate has erupted over the use of techniques that determine sex in the pre-conception stage with some doctors saying it is legal, ethical and moral for parents to exercise their `freedom of choice.`

``Intent of the Act was to stop the declining female child sex ratio, which is as low as 793 in Punjab and less than 850 in the northern states of Haryana and Delhi; it didn`t matter at which stage sex-determination came,`` notes Dr Sabu M George, who has been campaigning against female foeticide in the country for the last 15 years.

The gains of technology have made segregation and selection (of sperms) at earlier stages, reducing guilt pangs or moral pressures that had come to be associated with infanticide or even female foeticide as a result of sonography, he says.

Even as the Supreme Court in May this year is reported to have expressed sadness over the use of modern technology to prevent the girl child from being born, a doctor in the capital spoke of the availability of sperm segregation techniques followed by artificial implantation of the fertilised eggs that are now attracting many prospective parents.

``While this is not illegal, it also is less stressful on couples opting for it,`` she said.

An editorial this week in the daily, which has come under fire for publishing the American company`s Gen-select Kit evidently aimed at India from where telephone ordering is `toll-free`, also said ``the Indian law does not prohibit a person from using any technique available to pre-determine the gender of her child before conception.``

``The PNDT Act,`` it said, ``focusses on the various medical techniques which enable a person to ascertain the sex of the child right from conception, whether or not the intent is to terminate the pregnancy or not.

``Technology has, however, always been a step ahead of the law and the need to legislate on pre-selection techniques is now being debated,`` said the editorial.

But neither the government nor medicos like Dr Sabu or activists from a host of women organisations buy that argument.

According to Dr Rekha Joshi of the Delhi Appropriate Authority, she received a complaint against the newspaper which published the ads on November 14 and 15, from five organisations - Indian Human Rights Law Network, Shama, Jagori, Nirantar and Jan Swasthya Abhiyan - on November 20.

The Delhi Appropriate Authority on November 23 filed a complaint against the daily in a lower court here, said Dr Joshi, noting that the Advertisement is in violation of the PNDT Act.

The 1994 Act, in fact, prohibits the publication or distribution of any advertisement ``in any manner regarding the facilities of pre-natal determination of sex at any genetic counselling centre, genetic laboratory, genetic clinic or any other place.``

Contravention of the clause invites a jail sentence up to three years and a fine up to Rs ten thousand. There is no mention of pre-conception or post conception stages, as some doctors have sought to argue.

According to Dr Sabu, in the most traditional sense life is considered to begin from fertilisation and earlier conception was defined as fertilisation, `pre-natal` being the time period from conception till delivery or birth of the child.

Today, technology itself has redefined conception, so as to begin from implantation of the fertilised egg in the uterus, he says, pointing towards in-vitro techniques that have helped fertilisation outside the human body.

``It is the users of these techniques who are seeking to redefine the concept of pre-natal and suggesting that the law be amended to make a specific reference to them,`` he says noting that the law in its present form is inclusive of all such methods - the misuse of which has to be prevented.

According to him, the laws are made and are interpreted in tune with times, they can`t be created every second year. The law in its present form by not making any specific reference to pre- or post-conception stages ensures that there is no misuse of the `pre-conception` techniques, the accuracy of which is doubtful.

In the Erikson`s or the sperm segregation technique which has been available in India since 1981, for instance, the chances still remain 50:50, says Dr Sabu, adding that there are just a handful of laboratories in the world which could boast of sophisticated equipment to ensure a cent per cent segregation.

``In most cases across the country, after sperm segregation, the fertilisation takes place in the human body, and the pregnancy allowed to follow the complete cycle after the sonographs confirm the `child of choice` (read son),`` he says.

However justified the argument of curtailing individual freedoms be, activists cite the skewed child sex ratio as a grim reminder that ground realities are far different and that all these techniques, however less the accuracy rates, have been tried to beget a son.

The moot point here, they argue, is not of individual freedom but that of a subtle way of gender discrimination that is slowly resulting in the elimination of the girl child thus violating the basic tenet of our very constitution

The fantasies of Pakistani liberalism

By Ayaz Amir

(excerpts)

``The Afghan situation has presented a unique opportunity to draw a line in the sand against a tiny minority of unenlightened, obscurantist and backward-looking religious extremists who hold the majority of moderate, dynamic and futuristic-looking Pakistanis hostage.`` -General Musharraf in New York

Who`s held a gun to the nation`s head? It cannot be the Beards who have never held power in the state.

While they can be accused of many things--principally of being a nuisance and of filling the airwaves with rhetoric we could all have done without-- mismanaging the nation`s affairs is not a sin that can be laid at their door.

How strange then that today they should be demonized as the source of all our problems. Who held whom hostage? It was not the madrassas which forced any government to support the Taliban.

This was a decision taken by the national security establishment in pursuit of `strategic depth` and similar notions which have characterised our Afghan policy.

The madrassas had it not in their power to hold the nation hostage. It was the army and the intelligence services which brooked no assault on the ``obscurantist elements`` because they were seen as serving the `national interest`--a bogey in whose name every last lunacy can be justified...

Of course after the change of political climate in Pakistan it is near-treason to suggest that prior to September 11 General Musharraf subscribed to the same philosophy he now so stoutly berates....

His own words on numerous occasions testify to the fact that on Afghanistan, Kashmir and the great strategic space provided to Pakistan by its nuclear capability his views were no different from that of the Beards.

Both sides, the army and the Beards, swore by the same strategic orthodoxy (this adjective, strategic, deserving close examination for all the mischief it has caused).

So there we have it. Pakistan`s problem lies not amongst its bearded population or in the obscure curriculum taught in its religious seminaries.

If it did, the solution would be simple: bulldozing the madrassas and perhaps press-ganging their students into the army.

The problem lies elsewhere: not in the minds supposedly chained to the past but in the `liberal` establishment which has always prided itself on having its eyes on the future...

(DAWN)

If I may be excused for using one of our vernacular proverbs -- this is called -- khaith khaye gadha --maar khaye joolaha``

Thank you Ayaz Amir for putting the blame squarly where it belongs -- on the shoulders of the military/religious complex.

Romair:

On cricket, I think the Indian attitude is plain wrong, so I am not going to defend it. Regarding ``discuss everything and Kashmir`` well, from what I know, that`s what we want. Pakistan agrees to it in principle, but when it comes to actual discussion, they want simultaneous movement on Kashmir. Because of the completely different positions, simultaneous movement is not possible. BTW, are you familiar with Indo-Chinese dialogues, where India feels it is the wronged party. From the heoghtended emotionalism of the 60s, Indo-Chinese relations have come on a more even and less emotional keel. We know we won`t get what we want from the Chinese, but we also know that we will get something, which we wouldn`t by armed conflict. I think Pakistan should at least consider the model.

Regarding the Gwadar thing, I was kidding man. I am sure it`s nice, but so is Northern Calif..