Dumbing Down Parliament....Again! fired from the hip with little clue of reality.
given the quality of graduates coming out of colleges there's no point in having this law. such a law does not exist in france or england or for that matter the US. the role of a legislator is to represent his constituents and that means he/she needs to come from "there". we had graduates for 5 years....2002 till 2007....can you please remind me Mr. Siddiqui of what legislative genius came out of that exercise?

Pakistan\'s Flawed and Feudal Princess i dont quite see how william dalrymple is qualified to write about pakistan, pakistani politics, or even the PPP and benazir bhutto for that matter. how long did william spend in pakistan to be able to write about Pakistan's "flawed" princess? how many Pakistanis did he meet and interview to be able to do it other than meeting members of a certain class with whom he socializes with in London? Did Mr. Dalrymple leave Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad and go to the real Pakistan to see what kind of emotion and support the Bhutto name invokes? While he is a brilliant historian and writer, Mr. Dalrymple's rant comes across as a writer who is carving out a niche as a "South Asian" specialist which he clearly is not. this is the 21st century, Mr. Dalrymple not Bahadur Shah Zafar's 17th century. You can fool some people sometimes but you cant fool all the people all the time to quote Bob Marley.

Preventing More Lal Masjids Doc is spot on yet again. these nutjobs should have been stopped 4 months ago and things should not have been allowed to get to this stage. what kind of students have the kind of weaponry that these guys did? what kind of teachers allow this kind of behaviour. the biggest danger to pakistan is the fundo factor. one thing though which Prof H forgot to mention was that madrassas thrive because of the lack of options that poor people have and poverty. if a madrassa feeds, clothes, and houses kids which parents struggle to do, they opt for this option. there are very few parents in Pakistan who would send their kids to madrassas if they could afford quality education and feed their kids/themselves at the same time. instead of wasting cash on retarded programs the HEC and the Ministry of Education should embark on a massive teacher training program, lunch at school, and offer incentives to break the stranglehold of madrassas. Religious education happens at home and these places are hardly imparting religious training - they`re brainwashing little children and more....

Why Atif Aslam works how sad that a badly written, poorly though out, and a piece without any substance is now making it to Chowk, Talk about a hack PR job! wow. If this piece was supposed to be a musical critique I fail to catch on to it. How was Daniyal have the gall to say mekaal hasan looks like a B-grade act in front of Atif Aslam? Atif Aslam performs a completely different genre of music from the ones he compared him to. Its like comparing apples to oranges. Sure Ali Zafar and he can be compared but why should they? is there some kind of metric he`s using? there`s no way to track record sales in pakistan because of piracy so what yardstick is he using? I`m no fan of either but pieces like this should be on this boy`s blog and not on chowk. this is a sad day for all chowk-walas.

Letter from Pakistan mildly interesting though reads a lot like manto`s ``letters to uncle sam``.

Girls Gone Wild the interacts are unbelievable as is the level of discourse. the main argument isnt whether these ``girls`` are wearing burqas or not. they`re violating the laws of the state they live in and trying to impose their brand of islam on 160 million people. nowhere does islam allow anyone to steal land and build anything on it even a mosque let alone a madrassa. these nutjobs are nothing but thugs with burqas and beards who are amassing land and wealth in the name of religion. the very fact that there are people who are on these boards talking about how liberated muslim women are because they have hijacked a children`s library is proof that human beings should need licenses before they procreate. madness. what about the 50 million women in the country who dont wear burqas and contribute to society in normal ways. shandana, good piece.

Inzi Post-Bob: An Interview nadeem,
this has to be among the most unimaginative pieces on chowk. forget the poor taste but it reads like something a 12 year old put together eagerly to show his creative writer uncle and then expect a lollypop for his brilliance. utter crud and i`m amazed how the quality at chowk has deteriorated over the years. no fan of the mullahs i`d like to point out that inzi didnt go to a madrasa so why perpetuate a stereotype. you`re quite the moron. sure your name really isnt billy bob from south dakota and you`re masquerading as nadeem paracha?

Kingdom Come absolute tripe. a waste of hard drive space and bandwidth. i thought chowk screens the pieces put on here. if this keeps up i might just stop visiting chowk.

Changing Muslim Hearts Dear Anne,
good piece and the sentiments behind it are in the right piece. as you watched the unspeakable crime against humanity and heard your 15 year old son say ``it sucks to be a muslim``. do you think 15 year old american (read caucasian/christian) kids say that when they watch CNN where it shows that 20,000 Iraqis died? I dont think so. The issue is that as a friend of mine said, ``Muslims are the new black people in America``.

Far more people have died all over the world and still do than did in NY at 9-11. I think 9-11 was a terrible atrocity but it should be kept in perspective. 3,000 dead as opposed to the million dead in Rawanda in ONE month alone. Sure they werent Americans but they were human beings.

Just because 9-11 happened doesnt mean that every thinking Muslim goes into overdrive trying to explain that Muslims arent all rabid fanatics. When Timothy McViegh was convicted I dont recall his redneck brothers and sisters talking about how all hicks werent bad.

I really think you should keep things in perspective for your 15 year old if nothing else. He needs to grow up with a broader perspective rather than trying to defend who he is.

ofcourse it`s our mess and we have to clean it up, but the world being a mess isnt entirely our fault either. the bottom line is that there is a problem where we have a major role but then the powers to be also have an equal role to play.

rumpus.

Dear Allah temporal,
great stuff!!! keep the good ones coming.
best,
rumpus

Reforms! What Reforms? re 104.
cutehumna, you`re such an idiot that it`s amusing. ``urs`` is not a word, it`s yours; besides what you meant to say was your and not ``yours``. i take your comparison to dr. hoodbhoy as a compliment! maybe you should check out this ashram mentioned in post 105 so while it might not improve your academic skills, it might help you loosen up some!

Reforms! What Reforms? #87 ``cutehumna``.
you must not have had enough iodine as a child in your water supply. not only is your command on the english language worse than a five year old, your skills of reasoning and logic are at par with my parakeet. If you were keen to know about Hoodbhoy`s accomplishments you might want to do a google search you moron!

Reforms! What Reforms? re:59 ``cutehumna`` (sic),
i am glad to know that ``HEC`` is neither one of your parents` name, but you are a case study of what is wrong with our education system, and please dont take this personally at all. you are somone who is probably at university yet you find it quite difficult to express yourself in the english language. my emphasis on english is because at the university level most of your assignments, research material, and instruction is in the english language. here lies the failure of the HEC, which is to fund PHD`s for people who cannot grasp the course work they are engaging in properly which in turn leads to substandard research and ``work``. as an employer I can safely say that 80% of the masters` level job applicants that i have seen are not even at par with someone who has passed their A-Level exams. Now that in my mind is a problem.

re: 67 ``freesoul``. you are absolutely correct. this is not a popularity contest; it`s about recognizing a problem and then fixing it. as a nation, we pakistanis, go on the defensive anytime anything other than our views are aired. what we should be doing is listening and looking within as to how we can fix our own problems.

Reforms! What Reforms? re #54.

``cute humna`` is living proof of what`s wrong with the HEC and the educational system of our country. we have university graduates/secondary school graduates who cannot even spell or form coherent sentences in English. It`s sad to say that even people with Masters` degrees cannot speak or write proper English. The point isnt about the English language; rather the implication this has on the future of this country and the people who are in charge of imparting education.

Reforms! What Reforms? re:36

charlie, i take it you`re a pretty well educated guy. you`ve just prattled off dr. ata`s ``cv``. how is it humanly possible to concurrently be the chaiman of the HEC and churn out the research papers he does, and run the family business (with government funds ofcourse)? According to the ``record`` Dr. Ata not only publishes the highest number of research papers but also supervises PHD students. WOW.

let`s look at the facts. everything dr. ata has done in the past 5 years has been half baked. his stint as the minister for science and technology came first. as a result of his half assed work pakistan faced the most embarrassing and costly internet ``breakdown`` for 12 days costing businesses millions of dollars. according to dr. ata even villages have the internet today but have you ever tried to use the internet in sahiwal? or bahawalpur? hmmm. thought not.

giving out press releases and interviews is the easy part my friend but actually delivering on what you`re claiming is another. i have no doubt that dr. ata is a bright man but he`s fallen short on all counts. he can talk the talk, but as we`ve seen he cant walk the walk.

Reforms! What Reforms? charlie,
buddy. how about you tell us what ata has done and we can talk on this! dr. hoodbhoy for one has done a hell of a lot more than ata. ata has profited nicely from his stint as he`s funneled away HR and equipment from the HEC to his own business. scratch the surface and you`ll find the scam....