We do live in strange and brutal times. Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, went missing a fortnight ago as he was travelling by road through a volatile region in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. But there has been no international outrage or concern. Even the media is not bothered. If it had been a case of even one missing US/British/European soldier, the media would have then woken up and gone overboard. Shame, indeed!!! For my earlier post on the kidnapping...

Those in the USA panicking over the recent poll results/developments in Pakistan which resulted in a resounding defeat of America’s favourite military dictator President Pervez Musharraf, can have some hope. How? The Newsweek magazine team believes that Washington can expect to get along reasonably well with Pakistan’s (possible) next prime minister. “The Pakistan People’s Party, the dominant partner in the newly elected ruling coalition, has chosen the eminently trusted...

In what it describes as “special investigation”, The Times of London says that “a British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama’s fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the US presidential contender. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago.” This startling revelation comes at a time...

While the US administration’s priority in Pakistan seems to be to safeguard the position of President Pervez Musharraf (unmindful of the fact that the ex-military dictator has been humiliated in the recent polls), it delivers a homily to a country in its backyard (with whom it has been at the ‘original’ unending ‘war’ for the past 50 years) about the virtues of democracy. There has to be some limit to blatant hypocrisy. The deadly/strange antics of President Bush &...

Acres of female flesh…or some cereberal material? Find out here… And here…

The Oscar results are out. Marion Cotillard, who won the Oscar for best actress for her role in the Edith Piaf biopic “La Vie en Rose”, is the first French woman to take home the best actress Oscar since Simone Signoret’s win in 1960. Cotillard is a Greenpeace spokeswoman and was among the artists involved in “Dessins pour le climat,” an album project that was released in 2005 and raised money for the environmental activist group. The Telegraph interviewed Cottilard...

Will he?…Will he not? The once mighty ex-general Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan has become a pathetic figure desperately trying to cling on to the presidential chair. Meanwhile the new democratically elected politicians and the Pakistani public seem adamant…and are sending a clear message that the military dictator should move out of the presidential palace. Yesterday I saw the BBC’s “Have Your Say” programme that reflects opinions worldwide on a topical subject. The...

In January this year the CNN interviewed the 25-year-old Fatima Bhutto, a claimant to the legacy of her grandfather former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She is the neice of the late Benazir Bhutto, from whom she was estranged. She is an author/poet and also writes column for a wellknown Pakistani group of newpapers. Does she have a political ambition? More here… And here… You can even write to Fatima Bhutto…Or, if an enterprising journalist/blogger then interview her....

On Saturday rockets and mortars were fired towards the U.S.-protected Green Zone, leaving huge scars on the citadel of US occupation forces, and sending yet another strong signal that this immoral war begun years ago would have no end until the US troops go home. It is becoming clear that the continued US presence has spawned resistance groups that have become bolder by the day. According to the Associated Press: “Nearly 10 blasts were heard in the sprawling area in central Baghdad starting...

The river-systems in the world are under heavy strain with many facing serious crisis owing to a variety of reasons. Many civilisations prospered on the banks of the mighty rivers…and then perished when the rivers suffered. Although Murray-Darling is Australia’s longest river system, draining a basin the size of France and Spain combined, it no longer carries enough water to carve its own path to the sea. The Murray and its main tributary, the Darling, are the lifeblood of Australia’s...

Among the world leaders that fascinated me most when I was in school was John F. Kennedy (JFK). I was sad when he was killed. With my very limited pocket money (while I was studying in a Delhi college) I purchased the fat Warren Commission report published in a book form that contained details about Kennedy’s assassination…Hoping to understand why in the world somebody would kill such a charismatic leader. JFK’s murder has remained a great mystery of our times. “Police say...

It is an unusual review of an exhibition that took place in New York in 1917…and now takes place in London. “One day in spring 1917, the organisers of the forthcoming exhibition stood and gazed in consternation at one of the submissions. In fact, it was a urinal of the most common variety, in white porcelain, lying on its back. You can see it, from tomorrow, at Tate Modern’s exhibition Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia – and it’s fair to say that the response to it in 1917 in New...

Pakistan’s private Geo TV network said the political party of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and another party led by former premier Nawaz Sharif had so far won 153 seats, more than half of the 272-seat National Assembly. While Pakistan’s ruling party conceded defeat to the opposition Tuesday in parliamentary elections…that could threaten the rule of President Pervez Musharraf, a key American ally in the war on terror, reports the Associated Press. It is a great victory...

Initial results in Pakistan’s general elections today went against President Pervez Musharraf with several of his former ministers losing. While opposition PPP (the late Benazir Bhutto’s party) and PML-N (led by Nawaz Sharif) winning in their strongholds, Sindh and Punjab, respectively. The final Pakistan election results are expected by Wednesday. Here is The Tribune news story… The Times of India reports: “Pakistan’s ruling party conceded that the Opposition was doing...

President Pervez Musharraf has told Jemima Khan in an interview published in the British daily The Independent that: “My role as a president is simply the checks and balances, the seatbelts… a sort of father figure to the prime minister, but I won’t have to see him for weeks.” Jemima is the ex-wife of Pakistani politician/famous cricketer Imran Khan. “Talking peace, Musharraf said he would work with ‘everyone’, asserting that the country must move from the...

I was a full-time journalist for more than two decades. And have been a teacher for a decade now. I enjoyed the article below, especially as a weekend read…A welcome relief from the almost morbid fixation on thrills/sensationalism related to politics (as if nothing else matters in life!!!)… “We never forget our best teachers – those who imbued us with a deeper understanding or an enduring passion, the ones we come back to visit years after graduating, the educators who opened...

Just two days before Pakistan goes to poll, at least 12 people have been killed in a blast outside the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) office in Kurram Agency in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Several people, too, have been injured while the PPP candidate Riaz Hussain Shah, who was in the office, reportedly escaped unhurt. Read here… Violence before the polls is not unexpected in this subcontinent…Here’s the BBC report.

On Monday (February 18) morning, 64,000 polling stations will open in Pakistan’s 272 constituencies. Polling stations are thought likely to shut at 5 pm local time, and counts will be completed some two or three hours later. So will the elections be fair? “On a scale from terrible to great, it’ll be somewhere in the middle” is what Richard Boucher, the US assistant secretary of state for South Asia, said when asked about the possibility of fraud. For The Guardian Q&A...

I was a Beatles’ fan in my teens. A few years after the famous British pop group had visited their Guru’s ashram, I undertook a journey to Rishikesh in India. Situated on the banks of the mighty/holy river Ganga/Ganges when it enters the plains (with the Himalayas providing a picturesqe backdrop), the ashram became our abode for a few days in the early 1970s. Our co-blogger at the TMV, Brij Khindaria, who was then with the Reuters, accompanied us. It was a fascinating experience. Although...

Barack Obama’s dramatic/impressive recent victories have generated a pro-Obama hysteria in the media and the blogosphere. To an outsider, it may appear that Hillary Clinton is now lagging far behind and may not make it to the White House. However, in an extremely well written article Gerard Baker, the United States Editor and an Assistant Editor of The Times of London, argues that “Hillary Clinton can still save her bacon”. Next two weeks, he says, would be very crucial for Clinton…Only,...

Owing to a growing awareness in the West about the threat posed by tobacco smoking, the cigarette companies made a frontal assault on the vulnerable Third World markets during the past decade. The result: A recent study shows that the ‘smoker’s paradise’ India is in the grip of a smoking epidemic that is likely to cause nearly a million deaths a year by 2010. Conducted by The Center for Global Health Research at the University of Toronto, the study predicts that “one in five...

‘Gondwana Link’ —- It is an ambitious project that attempts to restore the ecology of a more than 25-million hectare swathe of land in Western Australia, running from the arid red interior of the continent to the wet forests of the southwest coast. It aims to convert the farmland, that fragments it (and is dedicated to the monotonous hectares of wheat and sheep progressively cleared over the past 60 years), back to bush. According to the New Scientist: “The belt of land lies...

The case of Joynath Victor De, an employee of India’s national domestic airlines, and his handlebar moustache has tickled the nation’s imagination no end. But for him it has been a matter of bread and butter. He was fired in 1999 after refusing to trim it, but was reinstated – complete with his moustache – after a ruling by the Calcutta High Court found in his favour. Then the authorities decided to get rid of him through compulsory retirement. “This week, in a case in which...

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday led the nation in apologising to the 460,000 Aborigines (that comprise 2% of country’s population) for “past injustices” towards them, including the forced assimilation of tens of thousands of Aborigines known as the ‘Stolen Generations’. Mr Rudd received a standing ovation from MPs and onlookers in parliament, and cheers from the thousands of Australians watching outside, when he said this step would help “remove...

For years General Pervez Musharraf appeared as the sole ‘saviour’ of Pakistan…that is, if one relied on the statements appearing in the American media quoting, among others, the big chief presiding at the White House. Poor Musharraf must be ruing the day when he decided to shed his military uniform for an ‘assured’ term of five years as Pakistan’s president. (Remember…Once he said that his uniform was as important to him as his skin!!!). Now the spotlight...