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Minority affairs Minister in India, AR Antulay is in the midst of a media created controversy when he raised suspicion in the death of anti terrorism chief Hemant Karkare , our own opposition leader Mr. Nawaz Sharif created headaches for the government when he questioned the cordoning off of the village where the alleged Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Qasaab is reported by Indian media to hail from. AR Antulay asked why didn't Karkare with two other senior police officers travel to critical areas of terrorist activities on that fatal day like Oberoi , Taj or Narimen house and why all three senior people travelled in the same vehicle which apparently is a breach of protocol. Nawaz Sharif in the same vein has asked why the government is not allowing media to enter the village and question Ajmal Qasaab's family? Only two things can come out of it, either he does belong to that village in which case his family will explain that he has been missing for the last couple of ye

I was reading an article on BBC-Urdu by Muhammad Hanif where he says towards the end of his article, on the subject of attacks in Mumbai, that in reality he doesn't know what all this is that's happening, who has done it and whether it can ever be solved in our lifetime. Those are the truest words that I have heard in recent past. I am sick and tired of hearing tall claims of absolutely nailing it, knowing exactly what is happening, what organizations are involved and how to deal with it. Every person you talk to has a view on it and is willing to give his life to uphold what he KNOWS to be true. People like Obama, e.g. so he knew exactly how war on Iraq will fare, wow, we are so impressed that here is a president who knew exactly how terrible this war was going to turn out but wait a minute, he thinks Afghanistan should be the next focus of NATO's concentration! So in eight years time we will have another presidential nominee who will tell you that he opposed this war, in

One of the news items on CNN, that I read on a daily basis along with BBC and some local Pakistani newspapers, that has created an uproar is that a mother made her 16 year old daughter to dance in a compromising situation, clad in bare minimum clothes, at a hooker party, thrown by her. Shocking? No! Not for me because only News, shocks, something that you don't know about and something extreme. Level of 'shock value' increases the more you know. I read this book, 'Dancing girls of Lahore' last year about the red light area in Lahore where husbands, fathers, uncles, sons, brothers work as agents for the women in their homes. In the absence of men, mothers and grand mothers took over this role for the younger women in the family. It is not a secret, we know this is happening and whereas we do not miss any opportunity to look down upon our tinsel town and the silver screen actresses, many of whom hail from this area, how many of us actually consider and empathize with

We have a tendency to lay blame for our less then ideal state of affairs on external factors. There was an expression I heard often when I was growing up ' Apney gareiban mein jhanko ', (before pointing fingers one should look at ones self) or the very famous, ' pehley tolo phir bolo' (measure your words before you speak), these have slowly disappeared from peoples consciousness-everyone is in a rat race. I say this because I remember some incidents, two in particular that caught my attention when I was in Pakistan last summer. Which is a commentry on our social behaviour. One happened in Hyderabad, I had gone with a group of people to eat out. There were a couple of restaurants in a line and each one had some waiters or 'attractors' who try to grab customers attention as they step out of their cars. So you hear a lot of shouting and different gimmicks for grabbing your attention. Usually they read out the menu real fast or tell you about the facilities in

Just returned from a semi long walk, semi long because it snowed day before yesterday which was actually seasons first snow and today even though temperature was dipping below freezing, we had sunshine, which is killer icy condition,and I would know, I have lived 14 winters of my life in snowy conditions in Pakistan, skiing and making snowmen, so I was afraid I would slip, whereas I was wearing these boots that I had bought last summer in London which were actually boys shoes but fit me perfectly and I got such a great bargain to boot, but you cannot be certain about something until you have tested it so I cut my walk short! Phew that was a long sentence. I have noticed that apparel for women is unreasonably expensive and also of flimsy materials. Its more showy then practical. Like why on earth would you have acrylic and polyester hats, gloves and mufflers in a place like Chicago where temperatures dip down to -15C? What if some poor soul buys it and ends up freezing in this weather.

So...we find out that Baitullah Mehsud is after all our friend! Friend of Pakistan, a true patriot and all set to join our army in fighting Pakistan's common enemy i.e. India(The News, Dec 1)! Does that mean we have been playing games with these same people in the tribal areas? Do we have to engage our army at all times, so sometimes its our friends-the terrorists and sometimes our enemies-the Indians that we have to fight to use up the 'surplus' resources at our disposal. What kind of games is the army and our government playing with us? The irony is that we cannot even hold them accountable? Accountable for billions of rupees spent on this war that was sometimes ours and sometimes America's, depending upon which way the wind blew but more ironic is the fact that so many precious lives of our jawans and officers have been lost and the countless civilians who have died for what?? What kind of friends are these who burn your homes, kill your kith and kin, bring bad re