Category: Uncategorized

By Nasir Abbas Mirza (Daily Times)

Remote madrassas may be turning boys into drones but then there are thousands of madrassas spread all over Pakistan’s urban centres that are producing millions of neo-drones who may not become suicide bombers but are totally unfit to live in this world. These kids need to be rescued

Take a little boy and incarcerate him in a remote madrassa. Keep him far away from the rest of the world and bar any interaction with humanity. Indoctrinate him with a distorted version of a religion and tell him that he does not belong to this world. Teach him about the fanciful world that awaits him in the heaven, and that in order to attain that he has to destroy everything that stands in his way, including his own body.

By the time he is sixteen, the child would have become a drone: an un-manned man. Instead of a lively teenager, we would have a robot in living tissue ready to detonate on remote orders.

At full steam ahead in Pakistan, this is a monstrous experiment in brainwashing and it is on a par with, if not worse than, Nazi Germany’s eugenics. They did it in the name of science; here, it is being done in the name of God and religion. On a very large scale, this is a hugely successful experiment in which nurture triumphs and nature takes a beating.

Are we really prisoners of our genes? Or are we prisoners of our parents, teachers and societies? From what we are witnessing, genetic influences are secondary to environment.

Behavioural scientists have Nobel Prize-winning research material in Pakistan. Freud, Skinner or Pavlov would have worked nights to study this. Pavlov’s dogs salivated at the sound of a bell; this young man would blow himself up at the sound of a bell — his phone bell. “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man,” goes the old Jesuit saying.

It may be sinister, the Jesuit saying, but the fact remains that nobody understands the vulnerability of a child’s brain better than priests. On the one hand, witness the vigilance of parents when they let a maulvi sahib into their house to teach the Holy Quran to their children; and, on the other hand, there are parents in the same society who ‘give’ a child to madrassa-running priests not until he is seven, but until he is 14 or 15 or forever.

‘Give’ is a generalisation. Given our attitudes towards birth control, an overabundance of young children is a natural outcome. In population growth, we are not too far behind the 6 percent population growth rate of our role model country, Saudi Arabia. There is an endless supply of young boys for madrassas. There are abducted, orphaned or abandoned young boys. Then there are parents who are too poor to bring up a child. They simply sell or donate their boys for tabligh or jihad or for any other religious duty. The religious pretence converts their dastardly act into a noble deed.

Priestly abuse of children has been going on for as long as there have been priests and children. But never has this been done in such an organised manner as is the case here in Pakistan. This abuse (aside from the pervasive sexual abuse) spells disaster. Just step out of a large city and all you would see around you are hundreds and thousands of little children — from six to thirty-six months old. Until these kids are of an age to observe the ways of their elders, they live and behave like untrained dogs. That’s the real Pakistan and no military or political leader is having sleepless nights over this.

Daily Times for more
(Submitted by reader)

By Tom and Ray Magliozzi (Yahoo)

1. Don’t Drive

Want your car to last? Don’t use it. That sounds obvious, but it’s worth keeping in mind.

Chances are there are plenty of times when you currently use your car that you could be walking, biking, using public transportation or carpooling — choices that are better for the environment, your wallet, your health, and the car you won’t be driving. It’s simple: The less you drive, the longer your car will last.

2. Make Fewer Short Trips

Short trips of less than 10 minutes can be particularly hard on a car, resulting in excessive wear and tear. During a short trip, your car’s engine never has a chance to reach its full operating temperature.
So what? Here’s why it matters: One of the byproducts of engine combustion is water. When an engine reaches its operating temperature that water turns to vapor and is expunged, either out the tailpipe or the crankcase ventilation system. On a short trip, however, that water stays inside your car’s engine and exhaust. Unfortunately, water is one of only three ingredients necessary to make rust (you’ve already got the other two, oxygen and metal), and rust kills. Look at any of my brother’s cars.

A further complication of condensation and water is that it dilutes your oil, which then does a poorer job of lubricating the engine. If you can’t avoid taking lots of short trips, we recommend you change your oil frequently, such as every 2,000-3,000 miles.

Yahoo for more
(Submitted by a reader)

By B. R. Gowani

Manmohan Singh will continue as Premier
Congress will carry on the economic “reforms”
Modi and communalism downed BJP
The left has lost more ground
300 million barely surviving in poverty
Sri Lanka’s “victory over LTTE” now under obligation
Nepal’s new-born democracy under military care
Pakistan is imploding
Bangladesh is courting the powerful neighbor

US supports the Indian rulers
The capitalists are happy
(within and without India)
“Cong Gets Free Hand”
proclaims The Times of India
What more could India’s elite power want?
For now, Singh Cong is South Asia’s Master

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

By Manoj Mitta (Times of India)

The peaceful conduct of yet another election reinforces India’s claim to being the world’s largest democracy. Although the electorate clearly rejected divisive and extremist forces, it is moot whether India can profess to be a liberal democracy as well. For, when it comes to governance, India has a rather mixed record on upholding liberal values.

One example of India’s failure to uphold liberalism within the country is its reluctance to give up its blanket ban on homosexuality, which I dealt with in my last blog. This time I would like to draw attention to a recent example of India’s failure to stand for liberal values at a global forum.

Two months ago at UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva, India abstained from voting on a Pakistan-proposed resolution seeking to curtail freedom of speech in the name of combating “defamation of religions”. Devised by the powerful bloc of Islamic countries in the wake of the 9/11 backlash, this newfangled notion of defamation of religions threatens to redefine the larger concept of human rights as it seeks to shift the focus from protecting individuals to insulating groups from critical inquiry.

Yet, rather than opposing the retrograde resolution, India chose to be among the 13 fence-sitters in the 47-member HRC. Not surprisingly, the 23 countries that voted in favour of the resolution were predominantly Islamic, including of course Pakistan, while the 11 countries that opposed it were mostly liberal democracies from Europe. (The absence of the US in HRC is a legacy of the Bush administration’s overall policy of reducing its engagement with the UN.)
India, on its part, made no pretence of having any reservations about extending the purview of defamation to faith communities. If it still did not vote in favour of the resolution, it was only to protest the fact that Islam was the only religion specifically named as deserving protection. India conceded in effect that if the resolution moved by Pakistan had not been so focused on “Islamophobia”, it would have had no qualms in supporting the idea of casting criticism of religion as a human rights violation.

This is even after 200 civil society groups from across the world, including some progressive Muslim groups, called upon HRC to reject the call from Islamic countries for a global fight against defamation of religions. A conglomeration of believers, agnostics and atheists, these groups forewarned that the resolution might not only restrict freedom of speech and “academic study in open societies” but also be used to “silence and intimidate” human rights activists, religious dissenters and other independent voices.
Times of India for more

O Ganges, Why Do You Still Flow?

Singer(s): Bhupen Hazarika, Hariharan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Shaan, Hema Sardesai, Dominique, Ishaan, Mahalakshmi, Suneeta Rao, Rekha, Arpana and Chorus

Lyrics:

Bistirno parore ahonko janore hahakar huniyu nihobda nirobe bud-haal hui tumi bud-haal hui bhuvaa kiyo?

Vistar hai apar praja dono par kare hahakar nishabdha sada
O Ganga tum O Ganga baheti ho kyun?

Vistar hai apar praja dono par kare hahakar nishabdha sada
O Ganga tum Ganga baheti ho kyun?

Naitikta nashta hui manavta bhrashta hui nirlajja bhav se baheti ho kyun?

Itihas ki pukar kare hunkar O Ganga ki dhar nirbal jan ko sabal sangrami samagro gami banati nahi ho kyun?

Vistar hai apar praja dono par kare hahakar nishabdha sada
O Ganga tum O Ganga baheti ho kyun?

Anpad jan aksharhin anagin jan khadyavihin netravihin dekh maun ho kyun?

Itihas ki pukar kare hunkar O Ganga ki dhar nirbal jan ko sabal sangrami samagro gami banati nahi ho kyun?

Vistar hai apar praja dono par kare hahakar nishabdha sada
O Ganga tum Ganga baheti ho kyun?

Vyakti rahe vyakti kendrit sakal samaj vyaktitva rahit nishpran samaj ko chodti na kyun?

Itihas ki pukar kare hunkar O Ganga ki dhar nirbal jan ko sabal sangrami samagro gami banati nahi ho kyun?

Vistar hai apar praja dono par kare hahakar nishabdha sada
O Ganga tum Ganga baheti ho kyun?

Prutasvini kyun na rahi? Tum nischai chitna nahi prano mein prerna preeti na kyun?

Unmat avani Kurukshetra bani Gange janani nava Bharat mein Bhishma rupi suta samarajayi janati nahi ho kyun?

Vistar hai apar praja dono par kare hahakar nishabdha sada
O Ganga tum Ganga baheti ho kyun?

Vistar hai apar praja dono par kare hahakar nishabdha sada
O Ganga tum Ganga baheti ho kyun?

Vistar hai apar praja dono par kare hahakar nishabdha sada
O Ganga tum Ganga tum Ganga tum O Ganga tum O Ganga tum Ganga baheti ho kyun?

Ganga baheti ho kyun?

NOTE: There may be spelling mistakes in this lyric. The first line is in Assamese and the rest of the song is in Hindi.

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By Mitra Phukan

It’s the same voice: rich, highly emotive, beautifully timbered, sonorously resonant. The voice that age has not managed to fell or even to lay low, the voice that entire generations of true-blue Assamese boys and girls have grown up on, the voice that has had men and women across all social strata in our part of the world humming the tunes that he created, for several decades now. Only, this time, the format is different: MTV, no less!

For a septuagenarian singer who cut his first scratchy album on a 78 RPM disc deep in the last century, when his voice was still a clear soprano, this is indeed a long haul. From shellac discs, through cassettes, to Compact Discs, from the lamp-lit auditoriums of his youth to satellite TV, the man has truly come a long way in his artistic journey.

And yet, amazingly, in spite of the fact that Dr Bhupen Hazarika has always been so much a bard of contemporaneous events, he is also, unequivocally , a singer for all seasons, a poet and lyricist whose vision has always been uncompromisingly humanistic. It is no doubt for this reason that his music has always been relevant, no matter at what point of time the lyrics were originally penned, no matter what language they have been later translated into, no matter what culture, away from the once-tranquil, now turbulent lifestyle beside his beloved Luit (the Brahmaputra), those songs are subsequently metamorphosed into.
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by April Howard (Toward Freedom)

Salt Piles at the Salar de Uyuni

In the brine under a crust of blindingly white salt in Uyuni, Bolivia, lies nearly 50 percent of the world’s lithium reserves. Best known as a tourist attraction, the Salar is gaining fame as batteries made with this scarce element catch the attention of governments and auto-makers world wide. While on the campaign trail, President Obama promised that by 2015, there would be 1 million plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles on US roads, and, once in office, he allocated billions of economic stimulus package dollars toward battery technology and manufacturing.

In Bolivia, leftist president Evo Morales wants a state-run lithium refining and battery manufacturing industry to generate funds for health, education and poverty alleviation programs in South America’s most poverty stricken country.

As environmental and nationalist rhetoric promise big changes and bigger money for manufacturers and governments, questions still remain about the environmental effects lithium refining could have on Bolivia’s farming and tourist industry, and the viability of lithium batteries as an energy solution for the auto industry.

A Superlative Element

Lithium is the lightest known metal. At half the density of water, pure lithium has the disconcerting weight of a chunk of pine wood when held in the hand. You can cut it with a knife, but its white metallic luster tarnishes to an ashy charcoal almost immediately upon contact with oxygen. It floats in oil, burns with a bright crimson flame, and ignites in water. Modern society has used lithium in a variety of ways, ranging from mood stabilizing drugs, to the creation of the first human-made nuclear reaction. It is also used in glass, ceramics, light metal for aircrafts and, most importantly, batteries.

At an elemental level, lithium atom’s atomic radius is smaller, and in turn metallic lithium is more electro-negative, and boils at a lower temperature than any other metal. All these qualities make lithium ion batteries (LiIon) weigh less, take up less space, and last longer than alkaline batteries. Currently, LiIon batteries are making the more than 2 billion cell phones in the world light and small enough to slip in the pockets of their users. In addition, your computers, mp3 players and power tools are most likely powering up with a little bit of South American or Tibetan reserves. At the moment, nickel batteries are still less expensive than LiIon models, but if lithium supplies increase, then the cost could go down.

Currently the largest lithium reserves and producers are in Chile, Argentina and Tibet. Most refineries are dedicated solely to lithium, and discard other minerals. Since 2004, world production of lithium, especially in Chile, has skyrocketed. Argentina also has aggressive plans to expand existing plants and build new ones. Yearly production of lithium carbonate, the most easily obtained form, varies from 16 to 25 tons per year, and currently covers demand.
Toward Freedom for more

Sunday, May 24, 2009
2-5 p.m.
Cafe Kathmandu
2779 Commercial Drive, Vancouver

Discussants: Peter Julian, MP, C. Premarajah, Hari Sharma, L. Pathmayohan, and others

Tamils in Sri Lanka have been systematically deprived of their rights and reduced to second class citizenship. Now this minority is facing genocidal violence as the government pursues its military solution to the insurgency led by the LTTE.

Rejecting international appeals for ceasefire and access of relief agencies to the civilians trapped in the war zone and in camps, the Sri Lanka government has continued its bombardment, including a rocket attack on a makeshift hospital that has killed 64 patients. Over 6500 innocent civilians have been killed and more than 11000 injured. There are no figures for those who have disappeared and those who have been buried in mass graves in Vannu. There are over 300,000 internally displaced people (IDP). About 185,000 are in camps without basic necessities. This genocidal violence must be stopped. The murder, imprisonment, and intimidation of journalists daring to report on the situation must be stopped. We must support the Tamil diaspora in Canada in their effort to provide humanitarian relief for the victims of war in Sri Lanka.

By Shazia Mirza (New Statesman)

Mum asks the TV psychic questions live on air as Dad watches the show and takes notes

My parents have always been slightly absurd. But now they have taken that absurdity to a whole new level. With old age, they are becoming increasingly deranged, distracted, foolhardy and preposterous. What is more worrying is that they are in denial about their behaviour. Their word for it is “normal”. Sometimes when my dad is feeling trendy, he calls himself “eccentric”.

The crisis they are currently having has spanned 20 years. It reached a high point last week, however, when my mum called a psychic astrologer on the Pakistani Channel, live on air, to ask him why none of her five children was married. She was in one room talking on the phone to the man on TV, while my dad was in the other room watching the programme to see what reply he would give and writing down all the points.

Later, my mum called me to tell me what he had said. Of course I went crazy; I couldn’t believe she had done something so ridiculous. I said, “Mum, have you gone mad? What’s the point of calling a psychic – on TV?”

She said, “I can’t believe you are so ungrateful! Me and your dad are old. We only want to know if you’re going to get married before we die, and it was £1 a minute. We spent nearly £30 – we had five kids to get through!”

Apparently, people call this man from all over the world. Equipped only with your date of birth, he can read the stars and tell you immediately what you want to hear. He’s like the Mystic Meg of the Pakistani world. I think they call him Mystic Mo (short for Mohammed).

My parents are quite specific about what they want to hear. They ask very poignant questions, like: “Will my daughters marry doctors? Have some little doctors? And then will we be entitled to free health care? Will my sons all be millionaires very soon?”

On the Tube the other day, I overheard a woman saying to her friend: “I’m off to see my psychic on Tuesday.” Like he was a doctor, or a priest. I thought: “At least she’s going in private.” My mother went on to an international TV show, gave my date of birth, and demanded to know whether I was ever going to be Salman Rushdie’s fifth wife. My dad told me that my mum had also said to the poor psychic, “I am 63 years old now. How long have I got left?”
New Statesman for more