Today's mainstream columns

Imran has killed all of his options and now cornered really bad…and nawaz sharif you have to solve electoral reforms issue..it is not 80s or 90s anymore

http://e.dunya.com.pk/news/2014/August/2014-08-22/LHR/colum_img/x35603_68861373.jpg.pagespeed.ic.p_z_6e6zJe.jpg

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

PD dude, inqalab aa chuqa hy
its been over a year now, wake up dude.

This stage we are trying to sustain inqalab.
Don't let every one convince you.

I mean every one.

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

monkville may inqilab aa gaya?

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

naheen pakistan meen.

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

tumhay kasiay patta...tum to monkVille may rehtay ho..........

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

PD* jab aap javeed choudhry ky articles perhna choor deengy to app ko bhi pata chal jaey ga*

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

i see ...problem yae hai kay mein urdu kay columns kiyon parta aur post karta hoon!!!

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

chalo english ka column post kar deta hoon..irfan hussain is a really balanced writer

                             [Echoes from 1977](http://www.dawn.com/news/1125521/echoes-from-1977)             By [Irfan Husain](http://www.dawn.com/authors/271/dawnirfanhussain)
         Published Aug 16, 2014 06:33am
       
     
   
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           [email protected]
         

       


                           An absentee landlord can go on collecting rents from a  distance, but an absentee prime minister stays away only at his own  peril.

This is not to suggest that Nawaz Sharif’s presence in Islamabad translates into a sudden improvement in his government’s performance; but it might be useful in injecting confidence into his supporters. From all accounts, he is a remote figure, mostly inaccessible even to his cabinet colleagues.
So it came as no surprise when, in response to the rising populist threat from Imran Khan and Qadri, he reportedly said: “It hurts me and confuses me: who has given them the agenda?”
Confusion is the word that best describes his approach to the present political crisis, and I’m glad he picked it himself. Blessed with the attention span of a gnat, even Nawaz Sharif ought to have figured out ‘who has given them the agenda’ by now.
[HR][/HR] The army can shove harder than anybody else [HR][/HR] Given Pakistan’s history of fraught civil-military relations, and his own personal experience, one would have expected him to think twice before taking on the generals again. Surely he should know that when push comes to shove, the army can shove harder than anybody else.
He probably thought he had picked a winner when he promoted Raheel Sharif to succeed Kayani to become army chief last year. Although not related, he considered that his family ties with the general would ensure immunity from future military interventions, overt or covert.
But by now, even Nawaz Sharif should know that for the officer corps, the army’s institutional interests outweigh all other considerations. And while the military establishment has been outwardly detached from the ongoing political turmoil, its role cannot be ignored. From his early foot-dragging over military action against the Taliban to his support for Geo after it openly accused the head of the ISI of ordering the attempt on anchor Hamid Mir’s life, Nawaz Sharif has been on a collision course with the army.
And his unnecessary panga, or confrontation, with the generals over Musharraf’s treason trial has not helped. While sticklers for the rule of law — and hard-liners in the ruling party — welcomed this step, hackles were raised in GHQ.
But in today’s Pakistan, political realities diverge widely from legal niceties. There are times when taking the moral high ground makes you an easy target. For a year, the Election Commission and the government have been dragging their feet over allegations that elections were rigged in a number of constituencies.
It is only now, under mounting pressure, that the PM has agreed to a judicial tribunal to examine Imran Khan’s complaints. This concession reminds me of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s ban on alcohol, gambling and night clubs to neutralise the opposition alliance’s demands for Islamic rule in 1977. While this gambit did nothing to save him, the country has paid a high price for his desperate manoeuvre.

There are other parallels to those distant events. Then, Asghar Khan not only invited the military to intervene, but also rejected Bhutto’s offer to hold re-elections. Before the elections, he had announced that if the ruling PPP was declared the winner, the results would be rejected by the opposition. He also threatened to hang Bhutto from Kahuta Bridge. Does any of this sound familiar?

The reality is that most elections in Pakistan are flawed. The question is whether they have a certain crude validity. According to virtually every international and local election monitor, the 2013 elections were among the fairest held here. Of course there were several constituencies where I’m sure the numbers were massaged, and many others where the results did not depict the true picture either due to bureaucratic intervention, or to the muscle deployed by local candidates.

But few elections in the Third World are entirely free and fair. The best we can hope for is a rough and ready mandate. In 2000, when the famous ‘hanging chads’ in Miami threatened to cause a deadlock in the US presidential election, the dispute was referred to the Supreme Court. Here, a majority of the bench set up to hear the case consisted of right-wing judges, and ruled in favour of George W. Bush.

His rival Al Gore was urged by his legal team to continue fighting as he had a very good case. But Gore withdrew his petition, arguing that political uncertainty was bad for the US. While expecting this kind of lofty patriotism of Imran Khan is perhaps unrealistic, his words and actions are playing into the hands of extra-constitutional forces, as Asghar Khan’s once did.

Another similarity with the events of 1977 is that then, too, Bhutto sought help from the army to suppress the violent agitation unleashed by the opposition alliance. After initially deploying troops in the major cities, Zia staged his coup, and later hanged Bhutto.

**But despite Nawaz Sharif’s errors, can we really say that our shaky democratic edifice ought to be toppled to satisfy Imran Khan’s ambitions?
**

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

well that too is problem.
When i was in pak, we had both urdu and english paper delivered.
When you read them both for same day about same event, you know they are written for different people.

English news re more close to the truth usually, or it use to be. Not the articles but news.

If you want to take my advice, and really want to know pakistani politician, start reading economy page of any english news paper. Just keep track how stories develop over day or week or months.

I promise you would see most real face of pakistani politician real quick.

Javeed chaudhary is a thug. and munafiq....

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

The last episode By Zahid Hussain
Updated 2 days ago

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           The writer is an author and journalist.
         

       


                           The political soap opera being currently played on the  capital’s stage is getting more melodramatic. The story is unfolding  strictly according to the script in this season of ‘revolutions’. It  begins with the march on Islamabad. Now we are into the second episode:  the storming of the ‘red zone’. What next? Breakdown of the order and  entrance of the arbiter. There is little suspense about the ending, but  the next episode is going to be critical. 

If not macabre, at the very least the situation is bizarre. Imran Khan came to storm the citadel of power and destroy the old order, but may have killed his own and his party’s political future in the bargain. He is trying to rock the boat that may sink him too. His call for civil disobedience followed by the decision to resign from the assemblies is a high-stakes game that he may never win.
Imran Khan seems to have boxed himself and his party in a blind alley with no exit. One wonders if there is any logic behind this apparent madness. How can a leader of a major political party be so thoughtless in his decisions — decisions that not only threaten the entire system but also politically isolate him and his party?
He may be strictly following a prepared script, but the situation seems to be getting out of control. Can there be a new twist to the story? One is not sure. We still have to wait for the end of the political stage show gripping the capital. It may not be too long now, with the fast unfolding situation.
[HR][/HR] The support of parliament is still the biggest strength for the prime minister provided he wakes up from his slumber [HR][/HR] Away from the screen and the 24/7 hysteria, it was a different story on the ground at the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s dharna. It was not even remotely close to the ‘massive sea of humanity’ as projected by party leaders and some television commentators. Over the next five days, it turned into a part-time dharna with the protesters reassembling in the evenings — almost corresponding to prime time TV viewership — to listen to the unending rants of their leaders with the blare of song and music in the background. The atmosphere was more festive than charged with revolutionary zeal.
The disconnect between the leadership and the audience could not be more obvious. While the leaders would return to the comfort of their place of residence after the end of the late-night dharna sessions, those who came from other towns were left to spend nights in the rain. It was a chaotic setting for the struggle that promised to deliver change.
Just a few minutes’ walk across the road it was a completely different milieu where Qadri is staging his separate dharna, a round-the-clock vigil with leaders fully integrated with the cadres and the crowd much bigger and more organised and disciplined.
What has been most impressive is the huge participation of women and those who are surely more ideologically motivated. Qadri’s support comes largely from the educated lower middle class. It is a mix of religious and political following. Notwithstanding his highly questionable background such dedicated support is remarkable.
A powerful demagogue, Qadri has upstaged Imran Khan with his more radical pitch. He proclaims himself a revolutionary in the “cast of Marx and Lenin with a strong Islamic shade”. His ‘revolutionary manifesto’ presents the outline of a ‘utopia’ where everyone will be equal. In contrast, what has been lost on the kaptan is that politics is not a game of cricket. Not being in electoral politics Qadri has nothing to lose, whatever the outcome of this confrontation.
But most intriguing has been the complete disappearance from the scene of the prime minister, regarded as the villain of the piece. He has not emerged since the Aug 14 Independence Day ceremonies where his glum expression was most noticeable. He is occasionally seen in the news in a huddle with his brother. His seems to be getting more dysfunctional in the face of the Khan/Qadri challenge. The suspicion of the military backing the anti-government marches seems to have compounded his inertia.

His decision to set up a Supreme Court commission to investigate the allegations of fraud in the last parliamentary elections is not only too little too late, but may not even be implemented because of some legal and constitutional hitches. Both Imran Khan and Qadri have closed doors on any offer for talks.

A new political alignment is emerging as the threat of the winding up of the system becomes real. All major political parties have closed ranks as the country descends into chaos. Even the Jamaat-i-Islami, the PTI’s only political ally, is not willing to support its decision to quit the assemblies and call for civil disobedience.

The destructive politics of the PTI seems to have given Sharif some space to regain his initiative. The support of parliament still is the biggest strength for the prime minister provided he wakes up from his deep slumber. But it may already be too late. His options are running out as he gets more deeply mired in the turbulent waters. Even support from other political forces is not much of help. The balance of power is already shifted to Rawalpindi.

Once again Pakistani politics has taken a unique twist just when a feeling had crept in of a return to the democratic process. Whatever the outcome of the last episodes of the melodrama, it has broken that slow reassurance amongst most Pakistanis. This confidence, important both for citizens and our image internationally, has been broken by the kaptan leaving deep scars on Pakistan’s already bleeding politics.

The vacuum created by the confrontation would inevitably be filled by horsemen already in the saddle. Sharif is paying the ultimate price for his hubris, ineptness and more importantly for his conflict with the military. The sound of the boots is getting louder, pushing the country deeper into a state of uncertainty and instability

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

dude, i read dawn, friday times, and express tribune on a regular basis...almost each and every column but i tend to post urdu columns because pakistan's masses do not read english newspapers ..they read these urdu newspapers columnists and get impacted by their viewpoint....like or hate it but javed ch has over 1 million facebook fans and most of them are young masses from villages and towns..

So javed ch is thug munafiq..dekha dee na PTI wali auqat....if someone disagrees with you, you will start yelling at him...start calling him munafiq thug and chor and lafafa journalist......kaya jantay ho javed ch kay baray may tum jo iss kisam kee fazool batien shru kar dee hai maeray bhai....do you have any proof he is thug? that is a huge allegation. Allah kee panah

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

Dharnomics

By Dr Pervez Tahir
Published: August 22, 2014

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Less than two years into a peacefully transited tenure and the government is under pressure to resign. This time round, the challenge does not seem to have come from the establishment. The political class is united in defending democracy. The challenge has been posed by a party representing an upwardly mobile middle class and a quasi-religious party that has successfully mobilised the lower middle class from smaller towns of Punjab. Both have an urban bias and the followers largely hail from Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the provinces enjoying a disproportionately large share in the military-bureaucratic-judicial-media establishment. Not surprisingly, the barrage of their criticism is reserved for the ‘corrupt’ political class and family limited style of governance.

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Merit, accountability and transparency also don their platform. Allama Qadri’s 10-point programme goes further. It talks of devolution, more provinces, minority rights, women’s rights, education and health reform, housing for all, poverty alleviation, and heavily-subsidised food and other basic items of consumption. Imran’s Azadi March boils down to a single-minded pursuit of electoral reform and new elections. Give me power and all good will follow, is his constant refrain. Allama Qadri wants a national government to implement his agenda before any election can take place. He calls it revolution. Revolutions do not happen without the participation of workers and peasants.

Despite his rhetorical references to the forgotten (even by the PPP) Article 3 of the Constitution to end all forms of exploitation, and organising his followers along the lines of a communist party, the absence of workers and peasants reduces the PAT to a pressure group. In spite of a respectable presence in the Parliament and control of the government in a province, the PTI has also reduced itself to a pressure group by insisting on the resignation of the prime minister before it would discuss any matter of substance. Pressure groups do influence policy here and there, but are not known to have made revolutions in the annals of history.

A most worrying aspect of the two dharnas is an utter failure to understand that the promises made to the public have to be financed at some point. It is not enough to say, as Imran Khan does, that the recovery of the looted wealth will do it. The folly and futility of the approach is exceeded only by the recent illusion created by the government to bring back a fantastic sum of $200 billion from Swiss banks. Tax reform, the only serious way of mobilising the desired resources, is not given the attention it deserves. If anything, the talk is about reducing taxes, increasing subsidies. In a country where the elite already deems taxes as an undesirable imposition and traders prefer personal donation and zakat to paying taxes, raising the spectre of no taxation without representation was irresponsible. Warning the IMF and the World Bank that their loans will not be repaid falls in the same genre.

Dharnas are a feature of democracy, but turning them into vehicles against it is a worst political economy move. A ‘good’ dictator may provide an episode of high growth, but a functioning democracy is conducive to high and sustained economic growth. India, chided in its initial stages of development for Hindu, meaning low, growth rate, has eventually emerged as a member of the high and stable growth league. A recent working paper of the United Nations University by Masaki and Van de Walle finds positive association between democracy and growth for sub-Saharan Africa. The association is more pronounced for countries with longer periods of democracy.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22[SUP]nd[/SUP], 2014.
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re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

and i am not posting anything from jang or geo or news or friday times...

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

O Paa Aamar, Tahrir Square demonstrations never went up more than 300,000. :barbie: Usually they were in the range of 200,000 to 250,000. In fact, Egypt is not that populous a country in the first place. Das das bees bees lakh, wadda aiya!

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

What was I thinking, a person who is inspired by javeed choudhy. :nahi:

ok thats how it goes.

We have proof that NS did not pay tax + money laundering. His little brother got people killed. We have proof they rigged election.

Now a-hole writing against our struggle are doing what we call in urdu “fishing in piss”

If any one needs proof its you and your brother Javeed chaudhary…

But what he and his kind does, craft a new theory every day…
And lucky they get impaired reader like your self.

PS: biggest pain in PTI neck is Talat Husain, yet no one from PTI called him corrupt.
They in fact invited him to their convention as main speaker.

Learn some thing if you can. :slight_smile:

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

great…lol…great logic…so javed ch is thug because he did not write against nawaz sharif and nawaz is a thug…:smiley:

and now javed ch is a-hole…seriously what is wrong with you PTIans…why do you guys get so vulgar?

same story…anyone who will write against imran khan is lifafa journalist…you dont even know that javed ch covered imran a lot.

i have posted many English articles from dawn and express tribune…and one from economist as well in a separate thread…but obviously they will be a-holes as well!

anyway, theek hai bhai sahib…aap happy raho.

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

Dr Sahib has raised some really important points:

**1) A most worrying aspect of the two dharnas is an utter failure to understand that the promises made to the public have to be financed at some point.

  1. Tax reform, the only serious way of mobilising the desired resources, is not given the attention it deserves. If anything, the talk is about reducing taxes, increasing subsidies. In a country where the elite already deems taxes as an undesirable imposition and traders prefer personal donation and zakat to paying taxes, raising the spectre of no taxation without representation was irresponsible.

  2. In spite of a respectable presence in the Parliament and control of the government in a province, the PTI has also reduced itself to a pressure group by insisting on the resignation of the prime minister before it would discuss any matter of substance. Pressure groups do influence policy here and there, but are not known to have made revolutions in the annals of history.**

4) Dharnas are a feature of democracy, but turning them into vehicles against it is a worst political economy move.

re: today's mainstream columns.....Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

ok
I used to like javeed's stories, I used to listen to him.
Thats how I found out he is dishonest. No matter how much coverage he gives PTI.

He came to TV station with his brother and beat up shazeeb khanzade thoroughly.
Wont you say little strange for what the pretend to be.

Do you have trouble comprehending ? when I say this ??

[quote]

" PS: biggest pain in PTI neck is Talat Husain, yet no one from PTI called him corrupt.
They in fact invited him to their convention as main speaker. "

[/quote]

That means we don't call people name just because they disapprove us.

re: today’s mainstream columns…Imran Khan parh saktay ho to parho!

Dr Sahib has raised some really important points…let me summarize few:

**1) A most worrying aspect of the two dharnas is an utter failure to understand that the promises made to the public have to be financed at some point.

  1. Tax reform, the only serious way of mobilising the desired resources, is not given the attention it deserves. If anything, the talk is about reducing taxes, increasing subsidies. In a country where the elite already deems taxes as an undesirable imposition and traders prefer personal donation and zakat to paying taxes, raising the spectre of no taxation without representation was irresponsible.

  2. In spite of a respectable presence in the Parliament and control of the government in a province, the PTI has also reduced itself to a pressure group by insisting on the resignation of the prime minister before it would discuss any matter of substance. Pressure groups do influence policy here and there, but are not known to have made revolutions in the annals of history.

  3. Dharnas are a feature of democracy, but turning them into vehicles against it is a worst political economy move.**