Sunday, May 20, 2018

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Video Report - حکومتِ سندھ نے نوجوانوں کے مستقبل کو بہتر بنانے کیلئے ۲۰۱۸ میں ایک جامع یوتھ پالیسی کا اعلان کیا۔

#India - #Pakistan Rangers seeks ceasefire along border - Tells BSF incessant firing is causing damage to civilians.

The Pakistan Rangers called up its counterpart, Border Security Force (BSF), to seek a halt to the firing and shelling along the International Border in Jammu.
A commander of Pakistan Rangers phoned a BSF officer on Saturday night and urged that Pakistan’s forward posts not be targeted as the incessant firing was causing damage to civilians.
The BSF released a 19-second thermal-imaging footage that showed the destruction of a Pakistani post across the border. A BSF officer refused to reveal the location, but said it was destroyed in the past few days. “Our officer told Pakistan Rangers that we were only responding to the unprovoked firing from across the border. We did not fire first,” he said.
Two BSF soldiers were killed in the latest round of unprovoked firing in Jammu last week. The BSF said the current spell of cross-border firing was expected as the harvest season was over. A senior official said this was the “third spell” of heavy firing from across the border this year; the first two occurred in January. The firing also coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the State on Saturday.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pakistan-rangers-dial-up-bsf-plead-for-ceasefire/article23943415.ece?homepage=true

Ex-Pakistani Prime Minister Puts Pakistani Military And China On The Spot – Analysis

Ousted Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif kicked up a storm when he earlier this month seemingly admitted that Pakistan had supported militants who attacked multiple targets in Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people.
Mr. Sharif’s admission, which he has since tried to walk back, put a finger on Pakistan’s controversial policy of selective support of militant groups at a sensitive time. Pakistan is gearing up for elections that would secure its third consecutive handover of civilian political power.
Mr. Sharif’s remarks, moreover, stirred up a hornet’s nest because Pakistan is likely to next month be put on a watch list by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global financial watchdog that monitors the funding of political violence and money laundering worldwide.
The remarks also put China in a difficult position. China has been pressuring Pakistan to crack down on militants, particularly in the troubled province of Balochistan, the crown jewel in its Belt and Road-related $50 billion plus infrastructure investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Yet, at the same time, China has at Pakistan’s behest prevented the United Nations Security Council from declaring Masood Azhar, believed to have been responsible for an attack in 2016 on India’s Pathankot Air Force Station, as a globally designated terrorist.
The militants, dressed in Indian military uniforms fought a 14-hour battle against Indian security forces that only ended when the last attacker was killed. Mr. Azhar was briefly detained after the attack and has since gone underground.
Mr. Sharif’s made his remarks as China was building up its military infrastructure in Pakistan. The build-up is occurring against the backdrop of Pakistan risking being involuntarily sucked into potential attempts to destabilize Iran if Saudi Arabia/and or the United States were to use Balochistan as a staging ground.
In line with a standard practice in Pakistan that has repeatedly seen groups that are outlawed resurrecting themselves under new names, Lashkar-e-Taibe (LeT), the banned group believed to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks, and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, widely believed to be an LeT front, are rebranding under a new name and as a political party, Milli Muslim League, that would compete in the forthcoming election.
The League is headed by Hafez Saaed, a former LeT leader, who was last year released from house arrest despite having been declared a designated global terrorist by the Security Council and the US Treasury, which put a $10 billion bounty on his head. China vetoed Mr. Saeed’s designation by the UN prior to the Mumbai attacks.
Activists, even though the party was last month designated by the US Treasury, are likely to run as independents in the election if the government maintains its rejection of the party’s registration.
So are operatives of Ahl-e-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat, a front for Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a banned, virulently anti-Shiite group that long enjoyed support from Saudi Arabia and operates multiple militant madrassas or religious seminaries in Balochistan that have witnessed an injection of funds from the kingdom in the last two years.
“Militant organisations are active. Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can’t we complete the trial? It’s absolutely unacceptable. This is exactly what we are struggling for. President Putin has said it. President Xi has said it. We could have already been at seven per cent growth (in GDP), but we are not,” Mr. Sharif said, referring to stalled Mumbai attacks-related trials in a Rawalpindi anti-terrorism court.
Taking Mr. Sharif’s comments a step further, prominent journalist and author Ahmed Rashid asserted that “the deep state of Pakistan is supporting the banned outfits as it has done in the past. This game should be stopped, and the government should show its commitment and sincerity in disarming these groups and not to allow them to enter into politics.”
Former Pakistani strongman General Pervez Musharraf, in an apparent manifestation of links between the circles close to the military and hardliners, said prior to the designation by the US announced that he was discussing an alliance with Mr. Saeed’s league.
Speaking on Pakistani television, Mr. Musharraf pronounced himself “the greatest supporter of LeT… Because I have always been in favour of action in Kashmir and I have always been in favour of pressuring the Indian army in Kashmir,” Mr. Musharraf said.
Pakistan’s military and intelligence service are believed to favour integration of militants into the political process as a way of reducing violence and militancy in a country in which religious ultra-conservatism and intolerance has been woven into the fabric of branches of the state and significant segments of society.
Critics charge that integration is likely to fail in Pakistan. “Incorporating radical Islamist movements into formal political systems may have some benefits in theory… But the structural limitations in some Muslim countries with prominent radical groups make it unlikely that these groups will adopt such reforms, at least not anytime soon… While Islamabad wants to combat jihadist insurgents in Pakistan, it also wants to maintain influence over groups that are engaged in India and Afghanistan,” said Kamran Bokhari, a well-known scholar of violent extremism.
Citing the example of a militant Egyptian group that formed a political party to participate in elections, Mr. Bokhari argued that “though such groups remain opposed to democracy in theory, they are willing to participate in electoral politics to enhance their influence over the state. Extremist groups thus become incorporated into existing institutions and try to push radical changes from within the system.”
Chinese ambiguity about Pakistani policy goes beyond shielding Mr. Azhar from being designated. A Chinese-Pakistani draft plan last year identified as risks to CPEC “Pakistani politics, such as competing parties, religion, tribes, terrorists, and Western intervention” as well as security. “The security situation is the worst in recent years,” the plan said.
Security has since improved substantially in significant parts of Pakistan. The question, however, is whether integration of militants into the political process would stabilize Pakistani politics in the absence of a concerted effort to counter mounting ultra-conservative religious fervour in the country. It may be too early to judge, but so far the answer has to be no.

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Long hours load-shedding make life miserable in Badin



Prolonged load-shedding continues in different parts of the city in day & night due to which people from different walks of life including going to office, business community, domestic residents and people who fasting & praying are facing difficulties.
Unannounced load-shedding continues not just during the day, but also at long hours in night in the different areas of city including ward no: 05, Press Club area, Shah Latif road, Kazia mori (bridge), Gharibabad, Seerani road, Village Haji Hashim Khaskheli, water supply areas and others main different areas of city are also worried about the recurrent power outages..
In different parts of the city, residents of the city were being deprived of the electricity from long a week because of no maintenance or change of the burnt or out of order electricity transformers when others main areas of city are facing up to seven hours of announced load-shedding in addition to several hours of unannounced load-shedding.
Not only were the citizens deprived of water, but those who have to go to office, business and others in the morning were also disturbed badly. According to sources more than ten electricity transformers were either burnt or out of order or requires maintenance from long a week were not reshuffled or changed irked the citizens.
Despite the order of Federal Govt for no load shedding in holy month of Ramzan, at least at time of prayers and specially Sehre and Iftar, people of Badin were hurdles of a whole long previous week even two days of holy months but higher authorities were turned off their eyes despite to heed for immediate resolve the people faced matters.
People of Badin by holding many stern protest demonstrations at different parts of the city demanded for immediate power supply and no load shedding in the holy month of Ramzan.