2012

Assam, located next to Bangladesh on the north-east corner of India, has a long history of recurring violence targeting minority Bengali-speakers. In 1983, Nellie massacre when Indira Gandhi ruled India, the pogrom, carried out with crude weapons in a matter of a few hours, left some 5,000 people dead. The killers didn’t even spare young babies. South Asia is really …

Palestine is tired and has given up. Iraq is still burning. Afghanistan has yet to breathe peace. Kashmir stands disillusioned. Lebanon is simmering. Libya has been tamed. Egypt and Syria are being chiseled anew. Pakistan is on ICU resuscitation. Iran is on notice. The Muslim world could not be more chaotic and more helpless. Surely these are critical times for …

From the Geneva recommendations to the six-point peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan, nothing was endorsed with consensus. It is interesting to highlight that both the drafts had a common agenda which favoured a democratic transition at the cost of dismantling authoritarian rule. For this purpose, the notion of a government of ‘national unity’ (which allows the opposition and those …

Dr. Javaid R. Laghari Chairperson Higher Education Commission Jahangir’s World Times (JWT): What is the status of Higher Education Commission (HEC) especially after the 18th Amendment? Dr. Javaid R. Laghari: HEC has always been an autonomous body ‘before and after 18th Amendment’ and it is clearly written in the HEC Act. The act says that the controlling authority of HEC …

According to analysts on the Middle East, if Iran goes nuclear, Israel would no longer be able to continue its ambiguous nuclear policy and will have to declare its nuclear weapons. Also, it may ignite a nuclear warfare in the region which will ultimately pose existential threat to Israel. Despite the close alliance between the US and Israel, there appears …

General Ne Win, who assumed power in 1962, nationalised all businesses and Muslims were the biggest losers. He also purged the armed forces and the civil bureaucracy of Muslims. Many fled to neighbouring East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Thailand and Saudi Arabia. Anti-Muslim riots took place in Mandlay in 1997 and again in 2001. The current rioting in Rakhine State began …

These lines are an effort to understand if the CM’s habit of re-tweeting-Chomsky has any relevance with his actions or he merely uses the dissident voice of Chomsky to assert that he too is fashionable enough to meet the social demands of the elite, for appreciating Che or Chomsky or the likes of him (Manufacturing Dissent, Revolt Slogans, Overt Dictionary …

THE DISCOVERY EXPLAINED IN 5 POINTS After 8000 scientists worked for two decades, spending around 10 billion dollars, the missing link in the origin of the universe may have been found. The world is celebrating what could be this century’s biggest scientific discovery -‘God Particle’. Let’s try to understand the significance of the discovery in 5 points as to why …

The Supreme Court of Pakistan, in a verdict issued in April, directed the provincial governments to announce the timetable for local bodies’ polls. Four years ago local governments had been unceremoniously closed down by the provincial administrations. Since then there has been a lack of grass-roots democracy for the Pakistanis, which ironically is being denied to them by the very …

(1564-1593) CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE was born in Canterbury to shoemaker John Marlowe and his wife Catherine. His date of birth is not known, but he was baptized on 26 February 1564, and is likely to have been born a few days before. Thus he was just two months older than his contemporary Shakespeare. Marlowe was a dramatist, poet and translator of …