Dr Abdul Wahid Soomro (MNA Pakistan Peoples Party)

The “Land of the Pure” is once again being blackmailed by Zia’s vision. His creation, the Taliban and his laws that persecute minorities are at the forefront of all that is bad in Pakistan. The controversial laws are used to resolve land disputes mainly in the rural areas of Punjab and to remove the vulnerable and untouchable members of minority religions, by intolerant communities. In many cases the real perpetrators of blasphemy, who disgrace the holy prophets by inciting hatred and enacting blasphemy claims for their own benefit, do so with impunity.
Minorities in Pakistan are very well aware of the sensitive emotions of their Muslim countrymen. It is inconceivable that they would ever use derogatory remarks for the prophets of any religion. They simply do not need to and are very aware of the fatal consequences. However, the detestation for minorities is a common theme amongst rural communities. The minority community is frequently subjected to verbal and physical abuse. They are expected to remain silent if something insulting is said regarding their religion and in the main they comply. In recent times we have seen an increase in malevolence towards the Christian community much due to the Iraq and Afghanistan War which is perceived by many extremists and those they influence, as a religious war between Christianity and Islam. This has resulted in a heightened level of blasphemy cases and large scale incidents of persecution, yet few cases attain any media attention. many cases simply go unnoticed. This rise in intolerance and hatred for minorities has been allowed to continue, mostly unchecked, by the very state whose duty it is to protect them.

ISLAMABAD, Jan 21: People’s Party leader Nabeel Gabol, who resigned as minister of state for ports and shipping, has decided to retain the post after a meeting with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani here on Friday.
Mr Gabol sent his resignation on Wednesday to the prime minister, who called the former and said he should have consulted the party leadership before tendering the resignation.
“When a raid was conducted at your home you should have contacted Interior Minister Rehman Malik or me instead of issuing statements to the media because you are a member of the PPP CEC as well,” Mr Gilani reportedly told Mr Gabol. The prime minister had also asked Mr Gabol to meet him in Islamabad.
During the meeting, the sources told Dawn, Mr Gilani contacted Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan on telephone.
Mr Asfandyar recently complained to President Asif Ali Zardari about some remarks made by Mr Gabol on a television channel.

KARACHI: After intense deliberations and the government’s intercession, the Karachi Electric Supply Company on Sunday night withdrew the order through which it had sacked 4,500 employees.

The retrenchment had set off furious protests in Karachi, disabling the utility’s network in several areas of the city.
The decision was announced at the Governor’s House by the Federal Minister for Water and Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf, and the MQM’s deputy convener Dr Farooq Sattar while talking to media after several hours of consultations between a three-member committee.
The committee comprised Raza Rabbani, Khurshid Shah and Raja Pervez Ashraf.
Displaying the order signed by the KESC’s chief executive, Tabish Gohar, reversing the sacking of employees, Raja Pervez Ashraf expressed a hope that the workers would now call of their sit-in.
He said that the government holds 26 per cent shares in the company and not only believed in protecting rights of workers but also of the investors.
He lauded the efforts made by the Sindh Governor and Chief Minister besides coalition partners and especially the nine member committee constituted by the provincial government headed by the Sindh minister for Power Shazia Marri, which in fact had done the ground work and provided the basis for the outcome.
Dr Farooq Sattar welcomed the outcome and said the decision has been taken to protect the interest of affected KESC employees and about 20 million people of Karachi who have suffered a lot because of the problem.
Raja Pervez Ashraf and Dr Farooq Sattar parried questions about the fate of FIRs lodged by the KESC management against striking employees.
Earlier in the day, the KESC management informed the government-appointed committee that it was not possible for it to reverse the retrenchment.

On 13^th January, 2011,  Chief Minister of Punjab tagged Khadim e Alla Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif very innocently complained that the increased budget of Punjab Police did not work and that the law and order situation of the province is getting worse every day. Shahbaz Sharif was very curious about where had the budget actually gone. Though stories from Shahbaz Sharif’s good governance are very bright and can easily lead one to the whereabouts of the increased budget but Khadim e Alla seems to be suffering from amnesia so being a humble boss of my Khadim I will try reminding Khadim e Alla about where his efforts led to:-

There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He would not quiet be.– John Keats

There are so many memories of those days gone by, that it is almost impossible to be coherent about them. Suffice it to say, that as I was seven years old when Salmaan was born, I ‘brought him up by hand’, as did Pip’s older sister in Great Expectations. He took his first wobbly steps under the supervision of myself and our best friends Bonnie and Deepak Surjit Singh in Simla in the 1940’s, with much applause to accompany the feat…

After that momentous wobble, Salmaan, or Billoo, as he was then called, grew into a chubby toddler with curly hair, luminous sparkling eyes and ‘a cupid’s bow mouth’, as he himself described it. As for the nickname Billoo, he grew to hate it, and eventually got rid of it by refusing to answer anyone unless they addressed him by his given name.

The Simla days saw Salmaan grow from a baby wearing smocked outfits into a rosy cheeked rascal in knickers. He was very much in the company of his aayah from Jammu, Mai Soma by then, as I was going to Simla’s Christ Church School, with scarcely any time for either him or my flaxen haired sibling Mariam, who was also rosy cheeked, but with a belligerent look to her eye, which boded ill for all those who crossed her.

From Simla we moved to Delhi, where our father was now Deputy Director of the Labour Department, after having worked in the Government of India’s Anti-War Ministry in Simla. Once again Salmaan was a little boy who was there but not really there, as he was under the supervision of Mai Soma, that formidable Jamvaal of Rubenesque proportions, which were much appreciated by the male visitors who came to our colonial-style bungalow at 48 Lodhi Road. The more visible and audible member of our trio was Mariam, whose eternal cry was, ‘Main ne bhi jaana hai,’ whenever she saw me leave on one of my excursions with my cyclist gang. She also wormed her way into the hedges in our garden which were hollow, and could be turned into rooms in which to play ‘House House’. But Salmaan remained aloof from all this terrorist activity as he was simply too little. However he certainly made his presence felt when he succumbed to a severe ear infection which would have killed him had it not been for the newly-invented penicillin drug which saved his life.

ISLAMABAD: “Those who had their loans written off have built empires. If they don’t pay back the loans, their names should be put on the exit control list (ECL) and they be put behind bars,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said on Wednesday while hearing a suo motu case regarding the Rs54 billion bad loans.

The State Bank’s counsel, Iqbal Haider, produced a list of 50 companies and individuals who had their loans waived before a three-member bench of the Supreme Court.

Barrister MS Baqir apprised the court that Indus Sugar, a company owned by former parliamentarian and chief whip of the PML-Q Nasrullah Dareshak, had Rs820 million in loans written off through eight different banks upon which, the court summoned Dareshak to the court on Wednesday.

“Isn’t the new State Bank governor interested in getting the money back?” Justice Ramday questioned, in response to which Iqbal Haider said that he would convey the court’s concerns.

“Do you still want to defend the written-off loans or do you want to get the money back?” the chief justice asked Haider to which Haider submitted that he was only defending the the State Bank’s circular.

“You have a very effective law available. We are here to assist you in getting the money back, but the State Bank hasn’t come forward,” the chief justice observed.

The Pakistani pop singer, who turned Bollywood actor with the sleeper hit Tere Bin Laden, is gearing up for the release of a new album,Jhoom, by the year-end. “It’s been four years since Masty and my fans were missing Ali, the singer,” he says, adding that he’s not just written and composed the songs this time, but also mixed and arranged them. He has even strum the guitar and features in the video that was shot in Mumbai.

Real v/s fake“The songs are more Sufist and make a distinction between what’s real and what’s fake, what’s permanent and what’s temporary,” he informs. “I’ve been part of showbiz since 2004 and I’ve realised how easy it is to lose your soul and innocence to the glamour around you. But I consider myself more of an artiste than a star. On the sets, I’m a ‘mazdoor’ (labourer); on stage, an entertainer.”

(Reuters) - U.S. and Pakistani officials on Wednesday begin a third round of wide-ranging talks to broaden relations beyond the war against Islamist insurgents, but analysts expected little headway because of differing strategic interests.

Officials plan to discuss everything from water to energy, but the thre