Pakistan Ranked as THIRD most dangerous country in the world for Womens

Pakistan had cultural, tribal and religious practices harmful to women, including acid attacks, child and forced marriage and punishment or retribution by stoning or other physical abuse. More then 1,000 women and girls are victims of “honor killings” every year, according to Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, a large number of women faced domestic violence and it was also reported that women earn 82% less then men, which too is not a surprising fact
The issue here is to highlight the fact that women are seriously being oppressed in Pakistan, on one hand we have a Supreme Court judgment setting Muktaran Mai’s rapists free on the ‘lack of evidence’ while we all know how the police system works in Pakistan enough to understand the nuances of how they may have possibly presented the evidence to favor the rapists

There are ample witnesses to testify that the Panchayat did condemn her to these men and later paraded her naked on the streets, if that weren’t humiliation for women then I wonder how many more women need to be subjected to such torture before an iron clad force is used to prevent such unholy practices from reigning supreme in our country.

We must accept that there is such a problem and it must be solved. I am embarrassed to observe that educated people in the past few months have used Mukhtara Mai’s judgment as a snub against her accusing her of having fabricated the rape, which in my opinion I find utterly unacceptable, at least such an argument should not even be tolerated by anyone respectable person in society, god forbid it were to happen to one of your loved ones and had if the charges been dismissed merely on the whim of “Lack of Evidence” the humiliation and torture shall never be healed. Pakistan needs to vehemently denounce any maltreatment of women and ensure that such practices are stopped for good.

Taliban: the New Super Power?

At the time of invasion of Afghanistan it was clear in the minds of Americans that they will enjoy a quick and comprehensive victory against those who were alleged to be terrorists, blood thirsty savages, threat to the civilized world, a burden on the face of this planet and were declared disqualified for any possible negotiation. The contrary has proven to be true today. Instead of winning the war Americans are now facing a devastating defeat, and have found themselves on there knees to negotiate those who were declared as blood thirsty terrorists [in fact Americans are the ones who have proven worthy of wearing the titles they tagged Taliban’s a decade ago. This is evident from the manner in which every day in America we see any high ranking government official telling to the world that they are negotiation with the Taliban. Interestingly the Taliban's are denying with an equal intensity of receiving Americans on a negotiation table. This makes one feel like Afghan Taliban are the one who deserve to be called the superpower of the world; a true turning of tables indeed. It is important to ask at this point that what have actually caused this historic flip and that Americans are know found to be a defensive and humiliating state, as never seen before. The history tells us that such a situation arises in a battle field only when one party knows that they don't have much cards left to play with ... After 10 years of spendthrift of their military, technological and economic resources, Americans have now realized that they are running after a ghost, therefore they are now left with no option other then to beg in front of Taliban to get to a mutually agreeable situation.

Misadventure of Iraq and Afghanistan has indeed been unimaginably heavy for the American economy to bear. The military expenditure is as huge as 1.5 trillion dollars, and if all social, economic indirect expenses are included then the figure accumulates to as much as 6 trillion dollars; in view of various independent analysts as a result American economy has now been indebted so much that bankruptcy seems to be just around the next corner. It is perhaps this economic pressure which has forced Americans to think to find a financially viable alternative. However if Americans escape like a goat from battlefield then they would have to pay another cost in terms of global humiliation, as never seen before, subsequently diluting America image of the most powerful country in the world. Perhaps to safe its face, the option which now seeps plausible to Americans is that of Negotiation with Taliban.

Hamid Karzai is a puppet erected to power by American Government. It would not be possible for Karzai to imagine such a royalty without Americans. The present situation should have neared Karzai with Americans even more; however in a press conference on 19th June 2011, Karzai's words stunted the journalist community and the world. Karzai alleged America as a selfish aggressor and invader. Analysts suggests that Karzai also believes now that American victory in Afghanistan is as much possible as in a fairy tale, that is why the Americans are now trying to find a state of peaceful coexistence with the Taliban as well.

If we look closely then it will become only clearer to us that such a response from Karzai is vivid proof of American defeat in Afghanistan. If situation would have been the other way around, then Karzai would not have dared to utter such words. The extent of American helplessness can be estimated from the bitterness with which Karzai has come up, which is being tolerated as Americans now know they don't have anyone other then Karzai who could support their agenda in Afghanistan. 

This is the status of a world super power which is present in Afghanistan with its 49 allies. It is also important to note that the Taliban have approved Americans not even once for the said negotiations, it’s the Americans and its allies who have been stepping forward indeed. It is the Americans who have changed their stance toward the Mujahedeen’s, not the Mujahedeen who instead are still strong on their views and consider Americans as an aggressor, invader and occupier of their lands. They also believe that the only and only solution of these crises is to through Americans out of Afghanistan.
The altered stance of Americans in fact proves that there was no ethical or moral foundation of the narrative Americans held against Taliban in the beginning, as otherwise they would not have step forward to negotiate with those who were declared as blood thirsty terrorists, traitors, drug dealers, enemies of the civilized world etc, by none other then the America it self. Today we see that military and economic might (so called) has brought no advantage to American position against Taliban. With all its might they were not even able to produce any anxiety, disturbance or disunity among the ranks of Mujahedeen.

In amongst of all the chaos America is also trying create a conflict between Taliban and Al-Qaeda as an option of last resort, perhaps this is due to the confidence America has got due to OBL assassination, which is wrongly assumed, by Americans, to have shaken the ideological foundations of Mullah Omar or Al-Qaeda. However a job which America couldn't do when it was in a much stronger position in Afghanistan, how can it be done now when the evidence of American defeat are visible as never before.

Ramadan makes your family unit

Being a Muslim it is our duty to follow all the aspects and teachings of Islam which we got from the Qur'an and those we learn from the hadith of Prophet(pbuh). The Qur'an and hadith teach us how to behave with our family and teaches us the norms and rules which every person need follow being a member of a family.

In Today’s fast and global world we have easily neglect all the requirements of a family and neglected to think about the needs of family and our rule in a family, after all, who can cope with our fluctuating temperaments as we struggle to cope with certain daily issues that come to test us? Misunderstandings ensue when we get all too caught up with the need to provide, the need to learn, and the desire for better, causing us to fall from the grace of our loved ones.

Without realizing it, family members become strangers to each other, slowly growing apart. Our homes become hotels where we just come to visit, all of those things develop because we are not putting any efforts and time to be together, Ramadan is the month which make all the family members tied and it is only Ramadan in which most of us will sit together to have a meal whether it is the meal of sahur or the meal of iftar.

Ramadan is the month in which all of us will sit together and this is time when all the members of family sit accordingly and this is the time in which children gets benefits with keeping touch with their family like aunts, uncles and cousins and particularly grandparents. We know that everyone wants give love to their grandparents but because of the schedule they can’t make it, but Ramadan is the month which offer you a opportunity to love ones grandparents give love and show attraction towards children of the house and all these joys are there because of the holy month of Ramadan.

According to one philosopher “A family grows stronger and closer with acceptance of one another, respect of differences, open and accurate communication, assertive and non-aggressive expression of emotions, love, freedom and space to grow, trust, time and effort invested, and the will to make it work.”

Enjoy the spiritual month of Ramadan with your family

Pediatrics Gets it Wrong about ‘Facebook Depression

   

You know it’s not good when one of the most prestigious pediatric journals, Pediatrics, can’t differentiate between correlation and causation.
And yet this is exactly what the authors of a “clinical report” did in reporting on the impact of social media on children and teens. Especially in their discussion of “Facebook depression,” a term that the authors simply made up to describe the phenomenon observed when depressed people use social media.
Shoddy research? You bet. That’s why Pediatrics calls it a “clinical report” — because it’s at the level of a bad blog post written by people with a clear agenda. In this case, the report was written by Gwenn Schurgin O’Keeffe, Kathleen Clarke-Pearson and the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Communications and Media (2011).
What makes this bad a report? Let’s just look at the issue of “Facebook depression,” their made-up term for a phenomenon that doesn’t exist.
The authors of the Pediatrics report use six citations to support their claim that social media sites like Facebook actually cause depression in children and teens. Four of the six citations are third-party news reports on research in this area. In other words, the authors couldn’t even bother with reading the actual research to see if the research actually said what the news outlet reported it said.
I expect to see this sort of lack of quality and laziness on blogs. Hey, a lot of time we’re busy and we just want to make a point — that I can understand.
When you go to the trouble not only of writing a report but also publishing it in a peer-reviewed journal, you’d think you’d go to the trouble of reading the research — not other people’s reporting on research.
Here’s what the researchers in Pediatrics had to say about “Facebook depression:”
Researchers have proposed a new phenomenon called “Facebook depression,” defined as depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression.
Acceptance by and contact with peers is an important element of adolescent life. The intensity of the online world is thought to be a factor that may trigger depression in some adolescents. As with offline depression, preadolescents and adolescents who suffer from Facebook depression are at risk for social isolation and sometimes turn to risky Internet sites and blogs for “help” that may promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviors.
Time and time again researchers are finding much more nuanced relationships between social networking sites and depression. In the Selfhout et al. (2009) study they cite, for instance, the researchers only found the correlation between the two factors in people with low quality friendships. Teens with what the researchers characterized as high quality friendships showed no increase in depression with increased social networking time.
The Pediatrics authors also do what a lot of researchers do when promoting a specific bias or point of view — they simply ignore research that disagrees with their bias. Worse, they cite the supposed depression-social networking link as though it were a forgone conclusion — that researchers are all in agreement that this actually exists, and exists in a causative manner.
There are a multitude of studies that disagree with their point of view, however. One longitudinal study (Kraut et al., 1998) found that, over a period of 8–12 months, both loneliness and depression increased with time spent online among adolescent and adult first-time Internet users. In a one-year follow-up study (Kraut et al., 2002), however, the observed negative effects of Internet use had disappeared. In other words, this may not be a robust relationship (if it even exists) and may simply be something related to greater familiarity with the Internet.
Other research has shown that college students’ — who are often older teens — Internet use was directly and indirectly related to less depression, 
Furthermore, studies have revealed that Internet use can lead to online relationship formation, and thereby to more social support which may subsequently lead to less internalizing problems.
In another study cited by the Pediatrics authors, simply reading the news report should’ve raised a red flag for them. Because the news report on the study quoted the study’s author who specifically noted her study could not determine causation:
According to Morrison, pornography, online gaming and social networking site users had a higher incidence of moderate to severe depression than other users. “Our research indicates that excessive Internet use is associated with depression, but what we don’t know is which comes first – are depressed people drawn to the Internet or does the Internet cause depression? What is clear is that for a small subset of people, excessive use of the Internet could be a warning signal for depressive tendencies,” she added.
The other citations in the Pediatrics report are equally problematic (and one citation has nothing to do with social networking and depression . None mention the phrase “Facebook depression” (as far as I could determine), and none could demonstrate a causative relationship between use of Facebook making a teenager or child feel more depressed. Zero.
I’m certain depressed people use Facebook, Twitter and other social networking websites. I’m certain people who are already feeling down or depressed might go online to talk to their friends, and try and be cheered up. This in no way suggests that by using more and more of Facebook, a person is going to get more depressed. That’s just a silly conclusion to draw from the data to date, and we’ve previously discussed how use of the Internet has not been shown to cause depression, only that there’s an association between the two.
If this is the level of “research” done to come to these conclusions about “Face book depression,” the entire report is suspect and should be questioned. This is not an objective clinical report; this is a piece of propaganda spouting a particular agenda and bias.
The problem now is that news outlets everywhere are picking up on “Face book depression” and suggesting not only that it exists, but that researchers have found the online world somehow “triggers” depression in teens. Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatrics should be ashamed of this shoddy clinical report, and retract the entire section about “Face book depression.”

Pakistan’s ranking in terrorism

A recent ‘ranking by death’ study conducted by a ‘global risks’ advisory firm, Maple croft, has listed 10 countries ‘at extreme risk’; and Pakistan is second in the count after Somalia. The list has the following countries in it: Somalia (1), Pakistan (2), Iraq (3), Afghanistan (4), Palestinian Occupied Territory (5), Colombia (6), Thailand (7), Philippines (8), Yemen (9) and Russia (10). Out of the 10, six are under threat from al Qaeda or its subsidiaries. Barring the Philippines, the killers and the killed were Muslims. Somalia killed soldiers from neighboring states Ethiopia and Burundi, sent in by the African Union.

Somalia experienced 556 terrorist incidents, killing a total of 1,437 people and wounding 3,408 between June 2009 and June 2010. In the same period, Pakistan experienced nearly 1,500 deaths including some attributable to the ‘mafia’ and ethnic wars in Karachi. In Somalia, where al Qaeda is behind the youth organization Shabab, deaths were caused by ‘foreign’ warriors too, thought to be 4,000 in number including some Pakistanis sent into Somalia after training in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Somalia may have beaten Pakistan in the ranking because of the virtual non-existence of the state there, but it is less of a trouble to the world — the Somali pirates are a problem but they fall in another category. On the other hand, Pakistan has a state structure with an army capable of taking on any external foe on the basis of its nuclear deterrence. Many in Pakistan would have thought that Afghanistan would beat Pakistan as a ‘high risk’ country. What, however, has to be taken into account is the quality of the presence of terrorist groups and the nurture Pakistan provides to foreign terrorists often killed by CIA drones in the ‘ungoverned spaces’ of Pakistan.

The study has been done for businessmen interested in investments at the global level; therefore the risk is computed with ‘capital sensitivity’ in mind. For Pakistanis, however, the long-term implications of the presence of al Qaeda on its territory are more important. Judged by that yardstick, Pakistan is far more at risk than Somalia and Yemen or even Iraq. Trouble in these two small states is containable in the long run; in Pakistan trouble is sustained over the long-term by the level of development of the state, its economy and its growing religious nature. It is now accepted by scholars that a terrorist organization like al Qaeda would be less interested in making its home in ‘thin and weak states’ with little financial capacity than in states where money and manpower are available from local sources.

EXPANSION OF PRINT MEDIA IN PAKISTAN

The expansion of print media, especially in English, is inconsistent with the number of English newspaper consumers. Apparently, there are about 150,000 buyers of all English papers put together. An extended readership will surely not be more than 500,000, which are peanuts in a population of 175 million.

Besides the three or four papers, which were in the market for more than a couple of decades (Dawn, The News, The Nation, Daily Times), there are newer ones starting very soon. While Tribune, Pakistan and Islamabad Dateline have started recently, there are at least a couple more media groups that want to enter the market. So why is it that big businessman in the country are investing their money in this sector when it doesn’t (on the surface) make any economic sense?

From a financial standpoint it would have made greater sense to invest newspapers but then this peculiar expansion of print media is supply driven, not demand driven. This means that it is not about a growing appetite for English papers. It cannot also be due to the fact that there are now more graduates in media studies, from an increasing number of private universities, in the market. Although media in relative terms has become a more attractive industry, this does not mean it has greater capacity to produce better journalists. This is because the owners are just not willing to invest in human resources. So, the tendency is to pick ‘ripe apples’ from the market — graduates from good foreign or local universities with command over the English language. These ‘new kids on the block’ may have little sense of the situation but they can write well and can be posited as Pakistan’s liberal face. Their access to the political and military elite helps in acquiring a fair amount of knowledge of the state and its politics. Unfortunately, none of this is truly backed by an ideological bent.

The above tier is assisted by a second tier of people who are better connected with the life around them. With a lesser grasp of English and non-direct connection with the elite, these aspiring journalists act as foot soldiers, responsible for gathering information, feeding it to the first tier and building ties with agencies or parts of the government that the first tier pretends they don’t care about. agencies or whoever can pay to selectively leak information or get their news printed, picks up the better or the lucky ones amongst this segment. Those who can tap into sources of information, especially in the government, have the comfort of becoming senior reporters. The main problem with this scheme of things is that the owners do not spend money on training these two tiers or invest in making them independent of the government.

Interestingly, there are no real ideological drivers to merit this increase. The only truly ideologically driven paper in the English language is perhaps the ultra right-wing, The Nation. Other papers pose to be liberal but that is mainly in terms of the space given to alternative views on India, religion, religious identity, or to some extent, national security. Generally, the emphasis is to have, what is deemed as, presenting a ‘balanced perspective.’ This means giving equal if not more space to pro-establishment views to counter alternative perspective.

The ideological perspective of a newspaper is vital to form not just the opinion of its readers but to constantly train them ideologically. Sadly, print media in this country is as problematic as the electronic one, partly due to increasing control of the owners who are tempted to get planted stories published in their papers for personal benefits. In fact, the primary explanation for why the number of English papers has risen is due to the fact that all business and industrial tycoons see benefits in becoming media barons as well. It gives them great leverage with their own government and the outside world. Newspapers and television channels are an excellent front to protect other economic and power interests. It wasn’t too long ago that a drug baron ran an exciting newspaper.

Edhi, we expected better from you

We all suffer from occasional bouts of madness. It is a hazard of being a human, a side effect of possessing a mind. We all have thoughts, wishes that cannot and should not be taken seriously. Mostly, we keep these thoughts to ourselves but sometimes, we blurt them out.

If we are lucky, not many witness our moment of insanity.

However, if you are someone with a fan following, if you are someone who motivates and inspires, someone who has a standing in society, you are expected to refrain from having public bouts of mental diarrhea.

What to say then of Abdul Sattar Edhi who recently made a very public?

Kill all corrupt political personalities, he has asked of General Kyani. Kill them so that the next generation can step into politics.

The strange thing is Edhi made this call while opposing a bloody revolution.

When I called Mr Edhi’s spokesperson Anwar Kazmi, to confirm the statement he said that Edhi was asked what could be done to improve the situation in Pakistan and he responded with the idea of a six month long martial law during which all the corrupt politicians are to be executed.

I cannot decide what is more disturbing. The fact that he actually called for death, that this call was inspired by the recent violence in Karachi, or the fact that someone like Edhi believes that killing a couple of dozen people is the key to ending violence in Pakistan.

What is it with these calls for murder?

As if the crazy mullah’s weren’t enough for hate speech, now it seems like everyone is joining the bandwagon. Talk show hosts, politicians and now Edhi!

We have been one of the world’s most volatile nations for a while, and now the mania seems to be catching the most unlikely suspects. I have heard demands like this before, but never from someone who celebrates life and humanity.

I understand his sentiment, his frustration, but I cannot understand how someone like him could think the solution lies in the killing of some corrupt individuals.

While I am disappointed by Mr Edhi’s demand, I am far more scared; if people like him, people who have previously helped and served everyone without passing judgments, without discrimination, are starting to think that military action and execution is actually a solution, we are in serious trouble.

For decades a majority of Pakistanis have denounced violence. We have felt proud to be in this country even in its darkest hours and said these terrorists aren’t really us, we are peaceful.  But today the best of us have supported a violent track. I know we don’t need any more violence, but when I go back to the question that made Abdul Sattar Edhi give this statement – what is the solution – I can come up with no answer that doesn’t involve excessive use of power and subsequent bloodshed.

Am I the only one at a loss?