Madspeak

A website which provided information on a variety of things - its name is Wikipedia, known as the online encyclpaedia - has been blocked. Is there no end to this insanity? It goes without saying that the military regime is filled with absolute idiots. In what way will blocking this website in Pakistan affect the Pakistanis abroad. They will have access to it and will know what is in it. The blogs I publish I cannot see them. But the people living outside Pakistan can read them, because the stupid laws controlling the Internet in Pakistan do not apply beyond Pakistan's borders. People read all the 'salacious' and 'scandalous' news and comments about all the people who are msruling the country. Such stories the dams are being built because that the military regime wants to make lots of money from the contracts they handout, the kickbacks will go to all the ranking officers. Of course such stuff cannot be seen here but because my page is cannot be seen, but Pak...

The Federal Minister for Information (read propaganda) Sheikh Rashid, who had been for several years had been taking bribes from the newspaper and publication owners - for ensuring that the 7th Wage Award for the newspaper employees should not be implemented– has been replaced by a senator the new Information Minister is called Durrani. Durrani was expected to tell the owners of newspapers and publications to pay the 7th Wage Award – instead he announced to the journalists in Peshawar about the setting up of Media Cities – a frivolous idea. Durrani has shown without a doubt that if he is not just as corrupt and crooked as his predecessor he aps many times more. Durrani is going to demand huge bribes so that he does not make the payment of the 7th Wage Award obligatory. How strange the owners of newspapers and publications can afford to pay large bribes for preventing a law from being enforced, but do not have the money to pay freelance journalists a decent amount of mone...

I tried to start out as a free-lance journalist and found out that the owners of newspapers (and publications) are prepared to publish, but they are not willing pay anything for any article. The situation is just as bad if one is working in newspapers - the employees of newspapers are underpaid and their effort is never appreciated. The fact that someone who can write is never paid explains why there no Pakistani novelists. Creativity is being killed. First the cinema was destroyed and now the publication industry will disappear. In local advertising agencies, copywriters are considered the most worthless of all the employees. The publication industry is resorting outright plagiarism and with the Internet it has become easier to copy entire articles and columns. So the value of someone who wants to make a living out of writing simply does not exist, because nearly all the publishing houses would print things for free - so they do not need people who want to be paid for their articl...

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...