What we have seen in the previous couple of years is a real change in the way politics are done in Pakistan.  Now presence of almost all the major parties and its candidates can be observed on twitter, Facebook and Youtube. What it shows is a change in the mindset of the political parties. there is a complete paradigm shift in politics, now the political parties realize that the voter in Pakistan is far more politically aware than let’s say what they were a couple of decades back.

Use of social media in politics is not unprecedented, the recent uprising in the Arab world started from the social media and perhaps the same is happening in Pakistan. Although the movement and uprising, in Pakistan, might not be as troublesome as it was in the Arab world. A common perception was that advocates of various issues and causes on the social media would hardly do anything for the same issues on the ground, but recent developments proved otherwise.

Couple of months back PTI and Imran Khan launched a social media movement Jaag Utho, which means Wake up, on various platforms like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. The basic purpose of starting this movement was to interact with and mobilize the youth of Pakistan, and PTI is very successful in achieving its goal.  The recent public gatherings of PTI in Lahore and Karachi clearly show the penetration Imran Khan and his party has achieved, to a great deal, through the social media. What social media does is, it leverages interaction, and that’s what PTI has done. It has interacted successfully with the public and especially with the youth of Pakistan. It shows the start of a new phenomenon, Politics 2.0 which means that now politics would be done online through social media, instead of spending billions on promotions and demonstrations fewer bucks would be spent on social media to achieve greater results.

Others are also following in the footsteps of PTI in launching their own social media movements and that clearly shows the power of social media. After the successful public gathering in Lahore and Karachi compelled the Sharifs and Co. to start taking the social media seriously and not overrule its role. The current trend would bring almost all the parties to follow and that would do one thing, only concise and clear messages would bring in more followers. So in the coming future, for the projection of ideas, we would see the parties giving more importance to the social media and more money would be spent on online political activities.

If we search the meaning of education on the internet and in dictionaries so we would be able to conclude that education means to learn, to know and to acquire a body of knowledge, not just that but learning to become humans. The irony of our education system is that instead of humanizing the students who study in it, become inhumane and

Pakistan Education System

Picture Taken from: http://funinlife.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/pakistans-education-system/

insensitive to the sensitivities of our society. They are not even able to distinguish between right and wrong, instead they follow what is commonly perceived to be wrong. As if it has been somehow installed or programmed in their analytical brain to opt for something wrong by default.

Basic education is the most important thing that can ever happen to kids of any nation. Give them good basic education and they can become intellectuals, entrepreneurs, engineers, lawyers and sound politicians. Why do we always whine about the quality of our higher education and college education? The very same reason, that all these students are a product of that pitiably wretched basic school system. How can you expect “THE GHOST SCHOOLS” to present results and make and develop your future leadership, schools which only exist in paper or where teachers exist in paper only. The schools which are a reality run on the every green method of rote learning, where students only know how to memorize things which are completely alien and unfamiliar.

Corporal punishment is one of the most concerning issues in these GOVT schools, where they come to learn education from their teachers, but instead of learning those very same teachers become the reason for the destruction of their future. I have studied in such a school where the teachers used to bestow the students with their love in the form of a dozen lashes with a freakishly hard stick in a freezingly cold weather, when you can’t even expect to move out your hands from your warm pockets. Once these students pass through this intense psychological trauma they start hating the school and the school becomes a place of torture and trauma in their minds from where they only want to run away. This thing needs to be instilled in the barbarian mind of these evil minded teachers that they are the spiritual father of these young minds, on whose shoulders lay the liability of making, molding and developing the future of these innocent little angels.

If we can spend 90 percent, public and hidden, of the budget on defense, so why not on education? Which is responsible for the development, leadership, defense and every other function that a country supposedly posses. Before it gets too late the people who are responsible should start getting serious about this gigantic problem being faced by our country, instead they should call the “Education Emergency” in place to make everybody realize that this is the most important thing for the survival of this country and nothing else but education and true education. Education is the sole panacea for almost 90 percent of the ills which has torn apart every fabric of this country. The first thing that needs to be done is to actually educate the ones who are responsible for educating others; otherwise the already leaked boat of this country is going to sink big time.

If we compare our education budget to our neighbor countries so we would be able to get a clearer picture that we are spending the least amount of money on education as compared to our neighbors, that means either they are very rich or we are very poor, but luckily none of this is correct, what we lack is administration, fiscal and financial management and most importantly of all the will to educate this country.

Like the character of a Hollywood copied Indian movie, the people of our country also forget things very quickly. If am not wrong Nawaz Sharif is the same person who signed a deal with Musharraf to be allowed comfortable life in Saudi Arab, he is the same person who attacked Supreme court and whatever he did to Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah is not hidden, he is the same person who looted nation’s money by the ” karz utharo mulk sanwaro” scheme. It amazes me to look at this fact that our people forget these things so quickly. These are some of the un-washable stains on Nawaz Sharif’s very neat and clean clothes.

The persona that Nawaz Sharif is portraying and the paragon that he is showing is only a facade. I don’t think Nawaz Sharif is sleepless at nights because of the poor state of our country.

One person who really disappointed me is “Imran Khan”, i thought he can be the next ZAB (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) in some areas and that he will be able to strengthen his party at the grass root level and then will be in a position to bring about some kind of change but to me that is very unlikely to happen. Imran Khan is also now a part of right wing politicians. I do not see any difference between other right wing politicians and Imran Khan. Together all these right wing hypocrites are trying to hold this country in abeyance.

I am a strong supporter of a strong and free judiciary but not at cost of a Martial Law. It has been only one year that we have gotten rid of the Martial Law and these Selfish and bigot politicians are again pushing this country to the acme of agitation and lawlessness.  There can be a peaceful solution to this whole drama instead of playing for themselves and damaging the country. At least they should realize that if this country exist only then can they play these gimmicks and play politics.

Our hoggish politicians’ didn’t learn anything from the sagas of 1971, 1977 and 1999. The reinstatement of judges looks more like a political gimmick rather than a fight for morality.

Alas! our politicians always rubbed their hands after doing disastrous damages to Pakistan, we can only hope that it doesn’t happen again.

]]> http://salmanahmad.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/our-tainted-politicians/feed/ 3 salmanahmad http://salmanahmad.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/in-hope-of-change/ http://salmanahmad.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/in-hope-of-change/#comments Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:28:56 +0000 salmanahmad http://salmanahmad.wordpress.com/?p=117 ]]> Change, a slogan as we heard it and read it everywhere. Everybody is hoping for change whether an American national or we Pakistani who are directly affected by any step taken by the American administration. hope is imperative for living. That’s why we should hope.

Obama who is carrying a plethora of crisis and problems on his shoulder, inherited from the Bush’s administration will face a daunting task after he has assumed the office of American President. First things that he has do it is to change the people’s perception about America, the image which is continuously sinking and shattering.

Obama has to re brand his nation. Change has to be brought in America’s image, it should be portrayed and believed as a peace loving and peace believing country. Policies regarding Muslim countries has to be reviewed. America is right now involved in killing of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, people in Pakistan’s tribal belt through drone attacks and the killing of innocent people by it nearest and dearest ally Israel.

A change can be felt keeping in mind his first few decisions. Now we can hope that he brings change in the real sense instead of limiting this slogan to only words.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Singer: Abida Parveen

Title: Alvida Benazir Bhutto Shaheed

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

If we compare the Medias of India and Pakistan so their is a great difference in their Agendas. Pakistani media mostly criticizes its own country for everything that is going wrong but the story is entirely opposite if we talk about Indian media. They blame everyone for anything and everything that is going wrong in India. Instead of criticizing their security agency’s failure to stop a group of few people from taking their business hub as hostage, they started criticizing Pakistan from the word go with out even trying to remove the black curtains off their eyes to at least investigate first.

A so called mature media, Mature in a sense that it has been nurtured in a democratic environment, it still showed an unexpected level of immaturity. They created a big hype of this incident and exaggerated things up to the extreme level.

I would give credit to Pakistani Media for calming down the nerves of Pakistanis in response to such irresponsible behavior of Indian media but at the same time i would severely criticize the Pakistani Media for not presenting our case to the world in the true sense.

Yesterday i was watching News eye with Saima Mohsin on DAWN NEWS and Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed my favorite politician from Muslim League Q was the guest. I was quite impressed with his profound thinking on this issue. He rightly termed down the Indian media as a tool for war propagation.

The need of the hour is that whether its any media it should focus on realities instead of over exaggerating a situation to their advantage. they should base their news on investigative reporting instead of hypothetical scenarios and assumptions that’s the only way media can contribute towards the prosperity and transparency in their own particular countries.
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

The Indians are so used to blaming Pakistan, no matter  what happens in their country so Pakistan is blamed for it. We the Pakistanis are used to blaming our own self no matter what happens but this thing is completely opposite in the case of Indians they blame others for anything that goes wrong. If somebody attacks Indian parliament Pakistan is blamed for the attack, if a train which is carrying most of the Pakistanis is bombed in India (Samjhota Express) so Pakistan is blamed for it. there are 16 freedom movements in India and Pakistan is blamed for all of them, even if Manmohan Singh sneezes so they will say that the virus has come from Pakistan.

I was surprised to see that during the first few hours of the Mumbai blasts the Indian were blaming Pakistan without any investigation, evidence and proofs. Indian media is used to presenting their Police’s perspective and over reacting. they are used to presenting their army, Police and country above anything in the universe. That’s why it was quite hard for them to accept the intelligence failure on their part. Every hour they were denying whatever they earlier. Once you lie, you will always have to lie to protect your lies that’s what the Indian did. their media kept on lying. Everybody was expecting that the India media will show maturity because they have spent all their time in a democratic environment unlike ours. There are some examples where Indian media has done some good job but this one is not the greatest of examples.

The first reason the Indian GOVT attacked Pakistan is that elections are round the corner. The BJP has already accused the Manmohan Singh GOVt to be softer when it comes to terrorism, the other accusation is that Congress is eyeing on Muslim votes, so to acquit itself from these accusation and get away with its failure to stop the terror attacks the Indian GOVT opted for the traditional recipe that was to throw everything on Pakistan’s shoulders.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

As a matter of fact both are important there might be some cases where you have to be judgmental because you can not always analyze the whole information, pros & cons and all the dimensions of the picture so there you have to make good use of your judgmental qualities. Being rationale is always good, but the problem with this option is that it takes too much time but the accuracy of rationale based decisions is far more than being judgmental.

When the HIACE started going, the conductor asked for the fare. I took out my wallet and was about to take out the fare which is 35 rupees, the wallet slipped off my hand. To my dismay there was a hole in the floor of the HIACE and my wallet went out through that hole. I stopped the HIACE to get my wallet from the road but before I could reach out for the wallet it was too late. The wallet had disappeared in a split of a second.

I was astonished by the sudden disappearance of wallet from the road. I couldn’t believe I have lost it. I asked people nearby the road that have they seen a wallet that just dropped out of the HIACE but all the answers were in negative.

I was extremely sad not because I had lost just a handsome amount of money but I lost my NIC (National ID card), service card, ATM card which wasn’t even activated. When I thought about the hectic job through which I am again going to pass to make these cards again I was literally getting mad.

As far as money is concerned I quickly convinced my self that may be the person who must have found my wallet needed money more than me and that it was my fate. I was cursing my self for not keeping the wallet in a safer place because I was left empty handed. I was praying that may that person return my wallet even if it’s without the money I will still be thankful to him.

May be it was a mistake on my part or may be fate but whatever it was it’s an imperishable part of my memory.

Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
Joseph Stalin