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We’re back! Well almost….

After a long break from blogging to focus more on business and clients, our new corporate website is live. So, stop by the emagine group website and have a glance through the website and the complete portfolio of our design work.

I will be returning to the blogosphere in a few weeks.

In a shocking story published in this morning’s Nation, the PML (Nawaz) and PML (Quaid) have chosen to NOT distribute the application forms for the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), which would provide the foundations of a welfare system to the poor of Pakistan.

Sadly, the “party of the people (as the PML-N likes to call itself)” is not interested in providing this facility to the people of the Punjab. According to the report, all the leaders of the PML-N and PML-Q have decided that the poor of the Punjab don’t need access to this programme because they have the Sharifs to feed them.

Sources in BISP revealed that PML-N MNAs, Javed Hashmi, Memoona Hashmi and Hamza Shahbaz Sharif received their quota of BISP forms for distribution among the deserving persons, but did not return these back to the concerned department for further investigation and payment of money, thereby depriving them of the financial assistance to be given by the govt on their recommendation.

Neither of the three legislators was available when this scribe tried to contact them to seek their version. Data collected from BISP’s regional office in Lahore has revealed that 61 Punjab Assembly members mostly belonging to PML-N and PML-Q, and also including son of PM Gilani, Abdul Qadir Gilani, did not even bother to receive the BISP forms for onward distribution among the poor of their respective constituencies.

According to the break up, out of these 61 legislators, 40 belong to PML-N, 19 to PML-Q, while two have their affiliation with PPP. Punjab Assembly members who did not receive the forms include:

PML-N: Raja Fiaz Sarwar, Sheharyar Riaz, Yasir Raza Malik, Tahir Ahmed Sindhu, Khalid Imtiaz Khan Baloch, Mian Muhammad Rafique, Rai Nasir Mehmood, Ch Irfan-ud-Din, Rana Muhammad Iqbal, Imran Ashraf, Rana Shamim Ahmed Khan, Munnawar Ahmed Gill, Jamil Ashraf, Yahya Gul Nawaz, Khawaja Salman Rafique, Allah Rakha, Mehr Ishtiaq Ahmed, Ijaz Ahmed Khan, Saeed Ilahi, Syed Zaeem Hussain Qadri, Mian Naseer Ahmed, Rana Mubashir Iqbal, Peer Muhammad Ashraf Rasool, Rai Farooq Umer Khan Kharal, Mian Yawar Zaman, Malik Ali Abbas Khokhar, Muhammad Moeen Wattoo, Karam Dad Wahla, Ch Javed Ahmed Advocate, Sardar Wajid Hussain Dogar, Sardar Meer Badshah Khan Qaisrani, Sardar Atif Hussain Khan Mazari, Sardar Sher Ali Khan Gorchani, Syed Haroon Ahmed Sultan Bokhari, Asif Manzoor Mohal, Ch Muhammad Shafique, Arifa Khalid Pervaiz, Fariha Nayab, Mrs Laila Muqaddas and Ms Rehana Hadees. Read the rest of this entry »

CNN highlighted this young lady in a special report. Her words, beliefs and dreams are all a reason we need to defend this nation for their future.

Tuba is an accomplished writer and poet with dreams of doing more for the Pakistan that she loves.

We must assure there is a strong Pakistan in her future!

Governments and people are challenged to make difficult decisions each day. For most nations, those decisions are about the rights of citizens, the defense of an idea, or the solution of a problem. Few nations must make decisions that include the fight for their very existence against its own citizens. Today, Pakistanis, both inside and outside the country, must decide where their loyalties lie.

In a day filled with news of high-level meetings with the Prime Minister and his cabinet, while the Pakistan Army held concurrent meetings at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. Both meetings emerged with one understanding – we will not be held hostage by anyone, foreign or domestic.

Early in the evening, the media began circulating that the Prime Minister would be addressing the nation and most likely ending the Swat peace deal.

We are all Muslims, our faith intervowen with into the fabric of our identity as Pakistanis. But, at no point, do we accept militancy as a way to spread Islam or enforce Islamic values. ANY attack on innocent civilians – whether they be at mosques, schools, offices, hotels or homes – is not an acceptable answer to any of the problems that we face as a nation. Neither on a humanitarian nor religious level is this acceptable.

We as Pakistanis have never accepted that our nation should be used, by militants or militaries, to cause any harm to humanity. Pakistanis are a passionate, peaceful people. We believe that the continued drone attacks on Pakistani soil are detrimental to the overall fight against extremism due to the loss of innocent lives. We will continue to protest these attacks with the same passion until the United States ceases this activity.

We as Pakistanis understand that even if the drone attacks stopped and Pakistan pulled out of the global war on terror, the Taliban would not stop their march to take over Pakistan. The people that lead these militant organizations are only interested in gaining power – not establishing any form of Islamic system. This has been evidenced by the behavior of the militants in Pakistan – regularly violating the terms that they brought to the table and agreed to.

At 11 pm, when Prime Minister Gilani started his address to the nation, it was an understood that tonight, the government would declare war on the extremists that are trying to hold Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal’s Pakistan hostage. The Prime Minister’s words were strong.

In order to restore the honor and dignity of the country, the armed forces have been called in to eliminate militants and terrorists. We will eliminate those who have tried to destroy the peace of the country.

He called on the nation to stand together and fight one war against the militants, rather than fighting hundreds of wars over political positioning.

We will not compromise. The nation must stand against those who imposed their will at gun point. They have held hostage the country.

The Prime Minister’s words are clear. Read the rest of this entry »

The mounting tensions in Pakistan were brought home to me personally when I learned that the United States Central Command has rejected on security grounds the visit of Patrick Cronin to Pakistan today.To be clear, although Cronin had received clearance for the Pakistan visit from those in command in Pakistan, his visit was yesterday rejected because “facts on the ground had changed” and CENTCOM refused to override. The fact is that it easier today to visit Baghdad than Pakistan.

Cronin is Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University and Senior Adviser and former Director of Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and also served as Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Cronin’s visit to Pakistan was important not only for his own assessment of what is taking place in Pakistan — but his relations with key parts of the Pakistan military and intelligence establishment and his ability to speak with the lesser known parts of these security bureaucracies as a policy intellectual and to some degree an American national security bureaucrat. Cronin is respected by both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. and is known to be a useful source of counsel to the operations run by Robert Gates, Dennis Blair, Mike Mullen, Richard Holbrooke, and David Petraeus.

So, while President Obama is correct to say that the nuclear stockpile is secure for now, any one wanting to give Taliban insurgents a helping move could trigger another Mumbai-like terrorist attack, or create other sorts of high casualty incidents to goad the military alert level to move up.

And then what was secure no longer will be — as a matter of deeply embedded security doctrine.

One other interesting tidbit here in Qatar is that many Arabs who have moved in and around Pakistan believe that President Zardari is no longer “Mr 10%.”

They call him “Mr. 20%.”

Read the whole story at The Huffington Post.

Fox News contributor Judith Miller sharing her views on Pakistan and its government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx1ywLgi16c

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