Madspeak

There can one of the two possibilities - either the government is league with the All Pakistan Newspapers Society so that the people working in newspapers should not get the 7th Wage Award, which has been pending for five years now or the other is that government is too terrified of the newspaper barons that they do not have the courage to defy them. Or the government is too inept to deal with such matters. The APNS is becoming increasingly daring and making statements that it wants the laws meant for the newspaper employees removed. Its like saying that law against murder should be removed because, it inconveniences the murderers and they should have the freedom to kill anyone they like and it should not be considered a crime, once it is not considered a crime, the police will never arrest them, they will never appear in court. Since it is not a crime they will never be imprisoned. They can just go on killing without any remorse or pity. The present government is adopting ultra-rig...

Amazing I cannot view my blog page - I continuously receive 110 timed out error message. This happens when the ISPs have been ordered not let anyone in Pakistan see what I have been writing. Oh well so much for freedom of expression. The idiocy of all this is simply that everyone living abroad - particularly Pakistanis will be able to access my blog. It does not matter if my blogs are blocked over here, readers abroad will see them. There are a number of foreign based online newspapers covering events in Pakistan. Those websites are blocked. But people send the contents of those newspapers by sending them via e-mail. There are so many ways to subvert ridiculous restrictions which have been imposed. Censorship weakens governments - the reason is simple - the government does not know what the public opinion is. A classic example how dictators falls is the case of the former Romanian dictator Caucescu - in order to ensure that no one should spread things against him - had photocopyi...

For 16 years I worked in The News – I was expecting to continue to work in it till I eventually retired. But that was not to be. I was unceremoniously fired on absolutely flimsy grounds. Another journalist who contested his termination from Business Record - Mr Baloch - contested his case for several years, he won in every single court. The owners of Business Recorder refused to concede defeat every time, they took the matter to the Supreme Court of Pakistan – even there they lost. Despite the rulings in favour of Mr Baloch in every court of the country, the owners of Business Recorder have refused to rehire him even then. The members of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society have marked as a trouble maker and have unanimously decided not to publish anything he submits, his career as a journalist is as good as dead. Somehow the Supreme Court of Pakistan is not able to make anyone follow its decisions. Business Recorder is also part of the all powerful crime syndicate the All Pakistan N...

The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) the association of all the newspaper and publication owners in the country – is the most powerful organisation after the government Although it keeps losing cases in almost every court even up to the level of the Supreme Court of Pakistan - irrespective of the rulings, even of that of the apex court against them, the APNS stands defiant. It refuses acknowledge those decisions, with utter disdain. As if they are not legally oblighed to do anything at all. A number of people have contested cases of being fired illegally, the newspaper owners have prolonged such cases to the point that it has reached the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The poor people who win suchcases, even then do not get their jobs back, in fact the APNS gangs up against working journalists in particular – ensuring that they can never find a job in any publication, none of their reports and articles are ever published. thus their careers are permanentlty destroyed. The APNS is liv...

Josh Mali Abadi a prominent poet - wrote a verse which angered the British authorities in India so much that he was detained him for a couple of days. The British Empire was crumbling because of World War II. As the saying goes the enemy of my enemy is my friend - hence Germany which was attacking Britain, was considered a friend. Hitler was greatly admired and Josh wrote his verse translated to "Oh great Hitler, drop a bomb in our name". The British authorities were were so upset that they arrested the poet. The slightest amount of dissent was not tolerated by the British rulers (despite their claims to be great upholders of democracy and human rights). During theri stay here, they had their clubs signs 'Dogs and Indians not allowed" When ''World War II' was going on another man set up an army to defeat the British in India. He allied himself with Germans and the Japanese - to end British oppression. But war took its toll on 'Great' Britain T...

US forces bombed a village in Pakistan - believing terrorists were there. What they ended up doing is killing innocent Pakistanis in the name of 'War on Terrorism'. Yesterday it was a village, the next time around it could very well be a towns and then cities. US officials say 'Although the incident was regretable but the USA will be hit any place suspected to have terrorists'. Which only can mean one thing - the USA is prepared to destroy Pakistan in order to make the USA safer and perhaps the rest of the world. Are Pakistanis cattle? Is Pakistan the next Cambodia? The reason why I am mentioning Cambodia is because that country was bombed during the time when USA was fighting a war in Vietnam. Cambodia was suspected to enable Vietnamese forces from its northern part to attack the southern. Countless innocent Cambodians lost their lives as a result of massive and merciless bombing campaign carried out by the USA. Cambodia was devastated by the bombing campaign,...

The previous military dictator – General Zia-ul-Haq introduced water supply racketeering. The water pipelines blocked or removed and water is supplied via tankers. The tankers were owned by military officers who earned a lot of money by supplying water all over the city. This racketeering continues to this day with General Musharraf’s blessings. All the military officers have a complete control over the water supply system. Instead of people receiving directly into their homes, they are forced to rely on water tankers, for which they have to pay for. To add insult to injury – an annual water supply bill is sent to the people living in any part of Karachi – although water is not being supplied. The most common question is ‘If water can be supplied via a water tanker, why cannot the same amount of water not be supplied directly through the pipeline?’. This racketeering is unlikely to be stopped as long as the military remains in power. Although a normal supply of water is possibl...