Drowning humanitarian aid – by Christopher Stokes
Barely hidden beneath the surface of Pakistan’s worst flooding in living memory were the geopolitical stakes shaping both the justifications for official Western assistance and how aid was delivered to victims of the disaster. The perverse result may be a further restricting of the ability of humanitarian aid workers to assist the Pakistani population in the most volatile areas of the country. ….
….. The people I saw in the camps in the flood-devastated region of Sindh last week are the poorest of the poor. They had very little and lost everything. Their children are now filling our malnutrition treatment centers. They deserve to be helped ….
To read full article : ForeignPolicy
Daily Archives: 28/10/2010
Former Information Minister of Pakistan
Khwaja Asif on Pakistan Army
Begum Nawazish show
Going down: India more corrupt than year before
Iraq and Afghanistan today came near the top of a closely watched global list of countries perceived to be the most corrupt. India slipped from 84th position to 87th. Nearly three-quarters of the 178 countries in Transparency International’s annual survey scored on the sleazier end of the scale which ranges from zero (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (thought to have little corruption). India scored 3.3 in the corruption perception index, which ranks countries on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt).
Pakistan climbed up the corruption index from 42nd position in 2009 to 34th this year. China was at 78th position indicating it’s less corrupt than India.
“The results indicate a serious corruption problem,” the Berlin-based non-governmental organisation said.
“Allowing corruption to continue is unacceptable; too many poor and vulnerable people continue to suffer its consequences around the world,” said TI’s president Huguette Labelle in a statement. …
Read more : Hindustantimes
Afzal Bangash: the Marxist maverick
By Dr Mohammad Taqi
“I count myself in nothing else so happy, As in a soul remembering my good friends” — Shakespeare in Richard II
Reminiscing about some of the stars of the secular galaxy of Pakistan and especially Pakhtunkhwa is needed not just due to a family association or personal, feel-good nostalgia. It is a must because the current generations – being fed a steady diet of Wahabiism – ought to get acquainted with the history of this land.
Where first the state-controlled, and now the state-indoctrinated media persons have systematically relegated both our saints and secularists to oblivion while projecting larger-than-life images of the obscurantist characters from Pakistan Studies and Islamic Studies textbooks, such recollections become an obligation. One such distinguished progressive was the leader of the Mazdoor Kissan Party (MKP), Muhammad Afzal Bangash who died on this day (October 28) in 1986. ….
Read more : Daily Times
Social Change in Canada
Social change in Canada focuses on three major Canadian social movements, the women’s movement, the First Nation/ Native people movement, and the Labour movement.
Indus Asia Online Journal (Click here to go to home page)