Madspeak

At one time the results of the examination boards of any given area was good enough for admission in any college (or university). Now the results of examination boards results are no longer considered a worthwhile qualification on the basis of which one can get an admission in a college - now college has started having entrance exams. Only if the candidates can clear the entrance exams will be they are admitted in a college. It is obvious that board examinations are no longer trusted by colleges – one of the reasons is that for every given area – the standard of education varies. It can be very poor in some parts and very high in others, the concept of a uniform standard does not exist. So if a student clears an exam of particular class from a specific examination board, it will not be the same as a student qualifying from the same class from another examination board. The owners of colleges are well aware of the rampant corruption, which exists in examination boards and their affi

There was a time scrabble use to be a board game. Of course it had all kinds of rules how it should be played. But after getting tired of the rules, we (my friends and I) would buy more scrabble games and break every rule the game had. We would have twenty blocks and come up with crazy words, which did not exist in the dictionary and some which no one used in polite company. We would laugh our heads off at the bizarre words, sometimes they would not be words instead entire phrases and even sentences. We would put several boards together and the game would never end. But coming to this day and age - the video game age - there is no flexibility no way you can make your rules - so rigid. Leave alone scrabble, we would make hash of chess. We buy as many chess games as we could and play the entire game with queens and no other pieces, the person who could wipe out the other's chess pieces would win. There was no check or checkmate, it was our version coming in with all the big

If all that we imagine were true would it not be bizarre? If all fantasies were not fantasies but very very real - then we would not have TV shows, movies and stories about them. Everything which is banned gets into the realm of fantasy. Fantasy has a price and we all love to pay for it. This one strange aspect of human nature

My brother owns a small business in USA - I tried phoning him up at his house, but he was not there - then I later I tried getting hold of him at his office. Either he or my sister-in-law. It was an educational experience. The telephone operator picked up the phone and I asked for my brother. Although both, the telephone operator and I were both speaking English - it seemed as if we were speaking two completely different languages. She, or perhaps it was a he, I could not tell, could not follow my request to let me talk to my brother or my sister-in-law. The telephone operator banged the phone, then I changed my accent made it sound very American - thanks to my exposure American TV shows - after three attempts, I was successful. The telephone operator transferred the call to my sister-in-law. Some months afterwards my brother arrived and I noticed a very marked difference in his accent and style of talking. This was not the case when he was just doing a job and before that when

The average monthly salary of a newspaper employee is US$170 (around US$ 5 per day) and there is a 1% annual increase in the salary – although the annual inflation rate of the country is 30%. Making it increasingly impossible for newspaper employees to continue working with such a low income because the raise is just simply not enough. A dismal future lies ahead for newspaper employees they are going from rags to tatters and eventually will become absolutely dirt poor. Things are very grim and judging from the attitude of the newspaper owners the situation will only get much worse as time goes by. Strangely enough, newspaper owners hire people in very senior positions who have nothing at all to do with running a newspaper, these people earn a monthly salary which is around US$7000 (almost US$240 per day) they have company maintained cars and many other perk and benefits. It is the strangest fact that those who have nothing to do with taking out the newspaper everyday are bein

General Musharraf our present dictator – (in the tradition of all preceding dictators), after having ensured that they he has consolidated his hold over the country; with the help of his traitorous cronies – he is now regularly on a world tour with an entire aircraft exclusively meant for his use and is packed with an entourage (read toadies and hangers-on) they are on ‘official trips’. The taxpayers are bearing the cost of these extremely expensive pleasure trips. As long as the general feels his job is secure, he will keep on doing this and much worse. The same money could be very well spent on so many other things, which the country desperately needs. But the money is being spent by the general and his entourage to stay in the best places and go on shopping sprees and do sightseeing. None of these trips benefit the country in any way - although the impression is given that they do. The public relations officer assigned to the entourage sends the news that the general had ‘import

Dictators have ruled Pakistan since 1958 - it is not that democracy cannot work here, it is simply not allowed to. Those who held tremendous influence and power prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947 were the feudal lords, the tribal chieftains and later on the militant mullahs. In India the first thing which was done was to get rid of feudalism, because feudal lords because of the control over acres of land would always be in a position to get the support of those on their lands - the people would not have a choice but to vote for the person on the lands they live on. In the absence of feudalism the people had greater freedom to choose whom they wanted vote for. In Pakistan the feudal lords had insidious influence on the country's politics. Democracy was and could never be in their interest. What they did not factor in was the subsequent industrialisation of the country - this meant movement of labour off the lands into the cities. As factory workers they discovered that at th