محبت کے طریقے مجھ سے پوچھو

محبت کے طریقے مجھ سے پوچھو

بہت اس راہ میں آیا گیا ہوں

وہ اور مجھ کو پوچھنے آئیں، نہیں نہیں

وہ اور مجھ کو پوچھنے آئیں، نہیں نہیں

یہ بات نامہ بر کی بنائی ہوئی سی ہے

میرا رفیق سفر

میرا رفیق سفر

 اتنا تو معتبر ہو 

میں پھول مانگوں تو  

یہ نا کہے کہ 

موسم گزر گیا 

Pak-Russia Joint Military Exercises: Possibility for an Emerging New Alliance?

Since the landscape of International politics is always changing, where the alliances and partnerships are also shifting with much frequency, a new emerging cooperation between Pakistan and Russia gains a huge attention as well as importance. Not only is this a significant development in itself where these two estranged states, since the Cold War, have now agreed to joined hands in military domain, but the timing of the military exercises is also quite noteworthy.

It is the time when India, a long time trusted ally of Russia, is bent upon isolating Pakistan in the international community. Hence Russian tilt towards Pakistan despite India’s motives and concerns, carry immense implications for the states as well as for the regional political and strategic dynamics. At the same time India has always banked upon Russia’s unconditional support in almost all the regional and global matters vis a vis Pakistan and other states. Hence the prevalent concern in the official circles of New Delhi about losing out on a traditional partner i.e. Russia, is a very genuine concern.

There even have been speculations that India has expressed these concerns to Russian counterparts too, demanding the exercises should be aborted. Whether these reports are true or not, one thing is confirmed that India’s long term and trusted traditional partner has opened avenues of cooperation and partnership with India’s arch rival Pakistan.

In these interesting turn of events, the Russian stance is clear yet open to debate. Russia maintains that its partnership with Pakistan is independent of its relations with India. It stresses upon the fact that India never showed concern or even stopped Russia from pursuing independent relations with any other states and that the trust between the two is still very much intact. These could be seen as true since another supporting argument is that the Pak-Russian relations are still at a burgeoning stage and will take time to evolve “if at all” to reach to the level of equation that has existed and is still present between Russia and India.

Simultaneously one can bring in the case of China in order to get better understanding of the emerging regional dynamics. China has been since long pursuing the equal handed policy vis a vis Pakistan and India, despite being the closest ally of Pakistan. Even though India and China remained alienated for long after 1962 and have divergence of opinion and clash of interest over several political issues, but they have pushed their differences to the back burner for the sake of bigger interests that serves the both positively. This can be seen as diplomatic maturity that is the need of the time.

Pakistan hasn’t lost trust in China, while China has openly claimed verbally as well as through concrete actions that its relations with India will never supersede its relations with Pakistan. This has been proven true time and again as is evident from China’s dedicated efforts for the socio-economic uplifting of Pakistan through the CPEC, as well as China’s stern statement regarding Indian hostile ambitions against Pakistan, in case of which China would voluntarily get involved, giving all out support to Pakistan. Similarly one can expect that Indo-Russia relations to not be effected by the initiation of military exercises between Pakistan and Russia.

However that is just one perspective. Another dimension to this whole scenario requires one to consider some other facts too. One cannot ignore the reality that for past some time there has been an ever increasing propinquity between the US and India. The US has been investing massively in India in lieu of its Asia Pacific policy, in which India is seen as acquiring the pivotal position. Furthermore the recent figures have reportedly revealed that US has taken over the title from Russia of being the biggest arm seller/provider to India.

The Logistic Support Agreement is another major development that has further strengthened the strategic cooperation between the US and India. All of these have not gone unnoticed by Russia. It is true that India and Russia have not lost the trust in each other but equally alarming is the growing coziness between India and the US, which Russia can’t knowingly ignore. Hence it would not be very wrong to speculate that India’s tight embrace of the US has led to Russia’s opening its channels to Pakistan.

The world politics is essentially driven by the realist school of thought. The states have been found to realigning their equations and shifting their priorities as per their ever changing national interests. It is an established fact that the states are rational actors that strive for their survivability and growth. The same can be applied to this scenario.

Concurrently Chinese massive investment inside Pakistan through the CPEC, has made Pakistan emerge in a very new light. It is now increasingly being seen as a lucrative investment destination for the international community. Most of the nations are showing their interest in joining and be part of the CPEC project. Russia might too eventually like to seek some long lasting partnership with Pakistan and may become in some way become part of the CPEC. This leads one to visualize another possible realignment of relations and emergence of Russia-Pakistan-China Nexus. Such a possibility may look too good to be true but surely cannot be ruled out.

Rating Comes Before Ethics for Electronic Media

Electronic media has never been stronger than it is now. At the same time, it is less willing to use that sort of power and influence because of its increasing commercialization. There was this tradition that the media culture we had inherited from early broadcasts was intended to be a public service. Unfortunately we have lost that, not simply in fact, but in ideal.

When we observe our society and then switch on our TV, we observe a great contrast. We see two completely different worlds. When we turn on our TV, we see news bulletins, special reports and talk shows about unimportant and absurd issues, political melodramas are the most popular among those. We often see “breaking news” after every 10 to 15 minutes where a political leader has issued a statement about his opponents, a bull has been sold at a very high price, a celebrity has lost his wallet, a cat has jumped out of a window on the 3rd floor of a building or a semi-crazy person has eaten 20 sandwiches in one minute. Even if these channels cover the real news they try their best to telecast it in such a way which attract large number of viewers.

They often by-pass all the principles of humanity during coverage of natural and man-made disasters and try to exploit the victims’ sufferings. However, we cannot blame these channels; they are competing with one another and sensationalizing the news is probably the only way to outclass one another. But what have our electronic media done to highlight the common man’s issues? Being the fourth pillar of the state, isn’t it its main responsibility to play its due role in addressing our social issues. Issues which affect the lives of majority of our population.

If one visits a common marketplace in a city, he will see children running behind cars and cleaning the windscreens, selling flowers, newspapers, shopping bags and sometimes even begging. Some children will be working in mechanic workshops, restaurants and other commercial areas. It is worth mentioning that thousands of children being dropped out of schools annually in our country where 7 million children are already out of school.

He will see old people doing hard labor while few of them who cannot do such manual work are forced to beg for their livelihood. Long queues of poor old pensioners in front of banks during first week of every month are not uncommon. Vendors and retailers charging much higher prices for the common use groceries which make it out of reach for the common man.

Government is supposed to enforce the official price lists for these items but it’s not the case in our country. While going through the marketplace, there will not be much activity because there is no electricity for 10 to 12 hours per day. Power crisis used to be a major issue but now we have settled for our fate and accepted the fact that we can never get an uninterrupted power supply in this country.

Outside the main marketplace, he will see young men and sometimes even underage kids taking drugs. Some people are selling them drugs openly. Nobody is there to take notice. Perhaps nobody cares. If that observer goes to a rural area, he will observe extreme poverty there. Over half of the rural population is living below the poverty line. Basic health facilities are not available there; schools are not enough for the population. Women have no rights and are considered as property.

On the contrary, when he sits to watch TV, he sees a different world with totally different issues. News Bulletins dominated by reports regarding political twists and turns, celebrities’ day to day lives, Youtube videos, and film stars relationship crises to name a few. All news channels hold talk shows on similar issues instead of highlighting issues of labor class and other downtrodden segments of society.

Some anchors try to cover such topics but these issues have been blown out of proportion in the wake of competition. Similar is the case with entertainment channels. Most of the TV serials and series are based on the lifestyle of elite class which is less than 5% of our society.

This shameless ignorance of our electronic media has stood in total contradiction to the code of ethics and the moral responsibility it claims. Such cynicism is sometimes known as “ratings race”. The truth is we have dozens of TV news channels as business companies’ which only care about their revenues and have no concern for common people lives. According to seasoned journalists, the main cause of deterioration of journalistic views is that the electronic media has become a whipping boy like police after its boom in 2000s during which the professionals have been replaced with owners.

News bulletins, talk shows and news reports discussed the MQM issue for the last 2 weeks. The same issue rose to the surface quite a few times in the past but nothing has been changed and it is highly unlikely that anything will change this time. However, the electronic media got a “hot” topic for their talk shows. All news channels broadcast 3-4 talk shows on the same topic. It is the story of Pakistani electronic media for the last 15 years or so.

They always focus on issues which attract viewers and boost their ratings. Be it a 4 months long sit-in against alleged election rigging when news channels used to cover speeches from the container for 3-4 hours on daily basis, Panama leaks issue or MQM saga, our electronic media has continuously covered these in news bulletins, reports, talk shows and documentaries. News channels have seldom paid heed to the issues which directly affect common people.

The past two decades have seen a revolution in every aspect of the media industry – technological change has enabled consumers to develop sophisticated and subtle patterns of behavior, constantly being updated from a variety of sources. However, it also led to information bombardment, in which it is not easy for a lay man to distinguish between truth and lies, actual and exaggerated facts. The need to fill airtime – and particularly the need to be seen to be live – means that in the heat of the moment questionable editorial judgments can be made. Broadcasting unverified and exaggerated facts and figures in not uncommon and they don’t even apologize when their facts are disproved.

The emergence of private news channels led to a revolution in the field of journalism. Freedom of media became a reality in a country where journalist community was one of the most persecuted sections of society. However, this freedom has been misused by the media outlets in many instances. Instead of enjoying the freedom and making the most of it, the media has resorted to and crossed all limits of wandering.

Sensationalizing the non-issues has remained the hallmark of Pakistani electronic media. Petty news events are broadcasted as breaking news which has undermined the validity of the term “breaking news”. Moreover, the media has made no real effort to provide quality information and a wide range of perspectives to its viewers. A lack of trust exists between people and media.

The role of Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has been disappointing so far. The government firm control has made it a dummy institution. They only take notice of those programs and news reports in which government is the prime target. But we are living in the age of information. Government cannot control all the sources of information. People will know the facts from one or other source. Therefore, it is the need of the hour to make PEMRA an independent authority so that it can play its due role.

However, PEMRA cannot dictate the news channels about their news coverage. It is the moral responsibility of the news channels to allocate sufficient time to issues of common man’s interests. It is worth mentioning that some of the long lasting has been resolved only through media campaigning but it can do a lot more. Ratings and revenues are vital for the survival of these channels but it should not be at the cost of ethics of journalism.

The Consequences of BrahMos Deployment in Arunachal Pradesh

The deployment of BrahMos missile is bound to increase the competitiveness and rivalry between China–India relations and will have a negative impact on the stability of the region. The BrahMos is a new game piece in India’s tense relationship with China. China claims parts of Arunachal Pradesh as its own and both sides have contesting claims on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which is the de-facto border between the two countries. China has warned India that increasing troops presence and the move to deploy BrahMos cruise missiles in Arunachal Pradesh can escalate tensions on the border.

Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has strongly reacted against this move of India. India deploying supersonic missiles on the border has exceeded its own needs for self-defense and poses a serious threat to China’s Tibet and Yunnan provinces. Military buildups along the Sino-Indian border have increased recently as last month India deployed nearly 100 tanks to the Ladakh region. In reaction, Beijing cautioned of possible economic consequences.

The BrahMos cruise missile is stealthy, fast and extremely difficult to shoot down. The BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile which can be launched from submarines, ships, aircraft or land. It can carry warheads weighing up to 300kg, and strike targets on land and at sea. It has been in service with the army since 2007 and is currently being tested for use by the Air Force’s Sukhoi-30 fighters.

It also has become a point of controversy in a complicated web of overlapping alliances between India, China, Russia and potentially Vietnam. Nevertheless Vietnamese Navy isn’t going to match China’s rapidly expanding fleet any time soon. But small Vietnamese ships with BrahMos missiles could pose a major threat to China’s larger military vessel. Therefore, India may attempt to cultivate an alliance with Vietnam in order to counterbalance China.

The supersonic BrahMos cruise missile has dive attack capabilities, and fits in the Sino-Indian border where it’s mostly mountain landscape. BrahMos with “steep div”” capabilities suited to mountain warfare. BrahMos began in the 1990s as a joint project between Russia and India to develop an Indian version of the P-800 Oniks cruise missile. The missile’s name is a portmanteau of the rivers Brahmaputra and Moskva in India and Russia, respectively. Technically speaking, the BrahMos is actually slightly faster at Mach 2.8 than the P-800. It also weighs twice as much as a Tomahawk, at six thousand pounds.

The BrahMos isn’t just an antishipping weapon it also can hit ground-based targets, and is ideal for exactitude attacks against fixed installations such as radars, command centers, airbases and enemy missile batteries. It can also potentially carry a 660-pound nuclear warhead, though that doesn’t appear to be its primary projected use.

Cruise missiles are designed to be fired at extended ranges from their targets so as not to expose the launching platform to enemy retaliation. During the Cold War, Russia developed unusual style of cruise missile designed to take out American aircraft carriers. These flew over the speed of sound to better evade the carrier’s defenses, which include air-to-air missiles fired by fighters, surface-to-air missiles and Gatling-cannon Close-in weapon systems, or CIWS. They were also larger to increase the likelihood of achieving a kill in one hit.

The missile’s “penetration capabilities” poses a threat to China’s border regions and therefore can’t hit any of China’s major cities on its east coast while Chinese missiles can certainly strike places like New Delhi with relative ease. Disputes over lightly populated Himalaya mountains shouldn’t constitute a truly substantive conflict of interest between the two countries.

Therefore, India must focus on promoting peace “rather than the opposite,” China has said about Delhi’s decision to put advanced cruise missiles along the border in Arunachal Pradesh. Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said “We hope that the Indian side can do more to benefit peace and stability along the border and in the region, rather than the opposite.”

CPEC And the Growing Indian Frustration: An Analysis

By now it is widely known that the CPEC is a collection of projects. It primarily aims at achieving strong trade links between China and Pakistan. This 46 billion dollars project will allow Pak-China relations to enter a new phase with added economic and strategic dimensions to it. All this development is closely monitored in Delhi with great unease. They have made no effort to conceal their unease and have openly voiced their displeasure by condemning the CPEC project.

However, both China and Pakistan are fully dedicated to turn CPEC into reality against all odds. This is naturally an alarming situation for India which is finding it hard to curb its frustration anymore. As is evident from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at a conference, in which he resolutely disapproved the initiative of China-Pakistan economic corridor. In very vivid terms he warned that China should stop developing the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) or be prepared to face dire consequences in Baluchistan.

The same rhetoric could be heard coming from Sushma Swaraj where she vehemently expressed that India would not allow the route of economic corridor to be passed through Gilgit-Baltistan, implying that the region is part of India and Pakistan first needs to seek India’s permission to carry out any activity there.

Both these statements coming from high profile and in service political leadership, raises concern for both Pakistan and China. The hurdles and challenges are bound to be there. But it will not be an exaggeration to say that the biggest challenge does come from India. The statements by Indian leadership do not leave any ambiguity that India is against the CPEC. Not only this but it is employing different ways and means to pressurize Pakistan to behave on Delhi’s terms.

India is bent upon disallowing the passage of CPEC through Azad Kashmir. India considers Azad Kashmir as “Pakistan Occupied Kashmir”, and it assumes that it has the natural right of jurisdiction over whole of Kashmir. On the other hand, constructing the corridor through Azad Kashmir means China considers it a part of Pakistan which comes in direct clash with India’s stance on Kashmir.

At the same time India feels growingly alarmed at the possibility of China’s presence so close to India. Once Gwadar port is functional, China not only gets three times reduction in the total distance that would need to be covered by the Chinese trading ships but China will also get an easy access into Indian Ocean, thereby undermining India’s supremacy and influence in the region. Chinese expected naval edge over India is naturally causing unrest among the Indian military and civil circles.

Not just that but one of the former ambassadors of India openly expressed that the CPEC is having a sole nefarious agenda of containment of India. Hence is seen as a valid threat to Indian security and sovereignty where both and China are seen to be working towards weakening India’s position in the region.

Prime Minister Modi also expressed in his Independence Day speech that people in Baluchistan have thanked him, implying that he is more closely integrated with people in Baluchistan. At the same time his threat about “facing consequences” in Baluchistan, has made it clear that India is involved in instigating the anti-state sentiments in the province. Furthermore, recently Brahmdagh Bugti have been reported to seek asylum in India, to which he has received positive response from the Indian government.

Baluchistan is the main site which holds the major concentration of the CPEC project. Hence Baluchistan has been the prime target for Indian aggressive interventionist policy. The Indian Spy Kalbuhsan Yadav was captured from Baluchistan, further reinforcing the validity of this argument.

However it is a fact that Indian frustration against CPEC, China and Pakistan is only going to grow further, along with the pressure from India against Pakistan. This will for sure add to the tension in the region for which Pakistan needs to be well prepared all the time and be in a position to counter it too.

Eventually India will have to realize that the CPEC is not just bringing dividends for Pakistan but is integral for the socio-economic uplift of the whole region and beyond. Hence staying out of the CPEC is not going to serve India any good and is not even advisable. The stronger economic ties will be guaranteeing regional security and stability and ultimately benefit all the states in the region. This is because of the pattern of interdependence that is created when countries get engaged in the economic activity with each other such as trade. This also reduces the chances of clash or war.

Hence instead of being frustrated by this mega project, India needs to see it from a much bigger perspective where this may actually compliment India’s aspirations of becoming an economic giant and ultimately emerge as a major power.

Skipper K M Nafay’s awesome all-round effort leads New Standard Secondary School to massive victory in Omar Trophy Inter-School Cricket

Skipper K M Nafay’s awesome all-round performance led New Standard Secondary School to a massive 193-run victory over The City School in their Group H fixture of the Omar Trophy Inter-School Cricket Tournament 2016, being organized by the Pakistan Veterans Cricket Association (PVCA), at the TMC Ground on October 4.

K M Nafay, adjudged Man of the Match, scored a brilliant century to help New Standard Secondary School compile an imposing total of 288 for seven in the allotted 40 overs.

He then claimed four wickets with his off-spin to send The City School crashing to 95 all out in 21.3 overs.

The captain led from the front as he himself kickstarted the New Standard Secondary School innings, having elected to bat after calling correctly. The opener smashed a couple of sixes and 14 sixes in his 83-ball 111 to flatten the bowlers.

The City School’s leg-spinner Talha Musavi caused a mini-collapse by taking three wickets in rapid succession and useful little contributions from Saqib Khan (35 off 30 balls) and Maaz Khalid (33 off 29 balls) lifted the New Standard Secondary School total to 288.

The target of 289 in 40 proved too steep for The City School and their task became increasingly difficult after the loss of quick wickets upfront. Umar Saleem (17 off 20 balls) and Areeb Moin Khan (14 off 16 balls) were the only ones among the top-order batsmen to reach double figures while lastman Rayyaz Rameez made 15 off as many balls.

The City School’s innings was rocked by the spin duo of K M Nafay (4-30) and Tariq Khan (4-32) as they dismissed the last eight batsmen for the addition of only 43 runs.

Indo-Pak veteran cricket series called off

The Pakistan Veterans Cricket Association (PVCA) has cancelled its upcoming tour to India amid escalating tensions between the South Asian neighbours.


Fawad Ijaz Khan, Chairman, PVCA, has announced that, in view of the prevailing tense conditions at the Indo-Pak border, the series which was due to be held in India during the months of December 2016 and January 2017 stood cancelled.

“The PVCA had planned to send its Over-50 veterans squad to play four in the Indian state of Kerala from December 26 to January 3. The proposed tour included a couple of 50-overs-a-side contests besides as many Twenty20 games. We were going there upon the invitation from the Board of Veterans in India (BVI),” he disclosed.

“All the four matches were scheduled to be staged in Kerala which is the busiest centre of veteran cricket activities in India as they also organize the veteran league tournaments regularly,” he added.

The PVCA Chairman disclosed that the decision of cancelling the tour of India has been conveyed to the BVI.

The decision of the PVCA has come just a day after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had asked the International Cricket Council (ICC) to not place India and Pakistan in the same group during upcoming international events. The two teams are currently scheduled to play each other in the ICC Champions Trophy to be held next year in June in England.

Previously the BCCI had ruled out the possibility of an Indo-Pak bilateral series although as of late no proposal from either side was made for a bilateral series. There hasn’t been a complete bilateral series between the Asian cricketing giants since 2007-08. The BCCI statement seemed to have cemented the notion that they were unwilling to play a series with Pakistan in the foreseeable future.

Ahmed Farooq’s sensational eight-wicket haul drives Karachi Public School in Omar Trophy Inter-School Cricket

Left-arm spinner Ahmed Farooq’s record-breaking haul of eight wickets powered Karachi Public School to an emphatic seven-wicket victory over Al Hameed Secondary School in their Group F encounter at the Eastern Star Ground while Happy Palace School whipped Zaheer Public School by 134 runs in their Group B fixture at the Hussain Lawai Naya Nazimabad Stadium in the Omar Trophy Inter-School Cricket Tournament 2016, being organized by the Pakistan Veterans Cricket Association (PVCA), on September 29.

Karachi Public School’s Ahmed Farooq set a new tournament record by claiming eight wickets, giving away only 18 runs in his spell of 7.4 overs two of which were maidens. He followed it up with an unbeaten 30 off 33 balls to cap one of the best all-round performances in the history of the competition.

Ahmed Farooq’s devastating spell of left-arm spin bowling sent Al Hameed Secondary School crashing to 66 all out in 21.4 overs as they lost their last nine wickets for only 17 runs after opener Mehrab Khan (23 off 34 balls) and Hamza Iqbal (23off 37 balls) had added 48 for second wicket.

Chasing a modest target of 67 in 40 overs, Karachi Public School lost both the openers cheaply to medium-pacer Haseebuddin before Ahmed Farooq closed the deal with his steady knock as the winning runs came in only the 13th over.

Happy Palace School completed a cakewalk victory over Zaheer Public School, after having compiled a total of 235 for nine in the allotted 40 overs,

They were put on top by the 134-run third wicket partnership between Shafiq Ahmed (81 off 111 balls) and Sameer Khan Khan (56 off 72 balls) after both the openers had been run out by the brilliance of Mohammad Saad.

Zaheer Public School’s medium-pacers Mohammad Bilal (3-21) and Syed Essa (2-34) stemmed the flow of runs in the closing stages by picking up crucial wickets which limited the total below 250.

But the task of scoring 236 in 40 overs beyond the reach of the Zaheer Public School batsmen and they were bowled out for 101 in 18.3 overs. Only Mohammad Adnan (22 off 26 balls) and Mohammad Saad (20 off 21 balls) could enter double figures as the wickets kept on falling regularly.

Medium-pacers Hamza Qureshi (2-23) and Sharif Shakeel (2-26) were the pick of the Happy Palace School bowlers but Man of the Match award was clinched by their number three batsman Shafiq Ahmed for his knock of 81.