Where’s the idea of India?

IT is happening too often. Parochialism is rearing its ugly head in Mumbai too frequently. The Shiv Sena is threatening to throw out ‘outsiders’ from Mumbai and the rest of Maharashtra.

Self-centred party chief Bal Thackeray has created a ruckus once again, this time dragging into controversy Sachin Tendulkar, the world’s best batsman, who said that he was proud to be a Maharashtrian but that he was Indian first. How should this remark irritate anybody?

I think it is time that Mumbai was made a Union Territory. Industrially and commercially, it is the hub of India’s financial activity. Delhi is a Union Territory because it is the centre of the country’s political activity. Why should Mumbai, which is India’s financial capital, have a different status?

People from various parts of the country have settled in Mumbai making large investments and contributing to business life their labour and entrepreneurship for decades. More money has come from others, not the Maharashtrians. Even population-wise, my impression is that the non-Maharashtrians are a bit up.

If nothing else, the contribution by ‘outsiders’ should shut up the Shiv Sena and its ilk, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, that they are a burden on Mumbai or that the jobs in the state should be given to Maharashtrians alone. This pernicious thesis, the son-ofthe-soil articulation, was advanced by many states, including Maharashtra, before the Fazl Ali States Reorganisation Commission in 1955. It firmly rejected the various claims and held: “It is the Union of India that is the basis of our nationality.” In its report, the Commission said that “it (Bombay) has acquired its present commanding position by the joint endeavour of the different language groups”.

The proposal that Bombay should be constituted as a sep arate unit was first mooted by the Dar Commission when the constituent assembly was debating in 1949 the formation of linguistic states. The then ruling Congress party accepted the proposal for the reorganisation of states.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru took a fancy to the idea of keeping Bombay apart. He pushed it when Maharashtra and Gujarat were agitating against the commission’s recommendation to integrate them into one bilingual state. Nehru presented before the cabinet a proposal to have three units: Maharashtra, Gujarat and the city of Bombay. The then finance minister, C.D. Deshmukh, agreed to the formula in the cabinet. But he changed his stand following the furore in Maharashtra and submitted his resignation. Bombay was made part of Maharashtra.

Nevertheless, the linguistic states have not been of much help to the country. They are increasingly becoming ‘islands of chauvinism’. This was the danger to which Nehru drew attention after new boundaries were drawn on the basis of language. The BJPrun Madhya Pradesh is the latest one to announce that it does not want Bihari labour.

Unfortunately, the manner in which certain administrations have conducted their affairs has partly contributed to the growth of parochial sentiments. The rulers have an eye on elections, not realising that the idea of India gets defeated if people prioritise domicile considerations.

After the formation of states, it was understood that the regional language could be learnt after the recruitment. But now its knowledge has been made compulsory before a person is eligible for the job. This is making state services an exclusive preserve of the majority language group of the state.

The prosperity of some states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka has raised questions in UP, Bihar and Orissa, the economically backward areas, that they were not getting their due. Relations between the centre and the states have become strained on this count.

The country’s unity has been uppermost in the mind of policymakers. There have been a few movements here and there, raising the standard of autonomy. But the democratic system with a federal structure, established firmly after the introduction of the constitution in 1950, has taken the wind out of the separatists’ sail. Except for a few militants’ organisations in the northeast, the people’s heart is in the country’s unity.

In the late 1950s, the southern states felt that they were not getting their share. There were agitations and public rallies. Nehru was quick to convenethe National Integration Conference to discuss the various grievances. The conference appointed many committees to give their recommendations on how to bring about national integration.

Before they could submit the reports, China attacked India in 1962. All committees made just one comment: The Chinese invasion had united the entire country. Indeed, this was true because all dissenting voices died in no time.

The country had a jolt in the 1980s. The Akalis in Punjab revolted. The state was in the midst of militancy for about a decade. The Sikhs themselves turned against the militants who had made their life hell. Punjab is today a peaceful state.

The odd voice of linguistic chauvinism, the fallout of the reorganisation of the states in 1955, has been heard in some areas off and on. The real purpose has been to gain votes in the name of the ‘stepmotherly treatment’ meted out to a particular community. It must be admitted that slogans in the name of language or caste has helped.

The only state where parochialism has been constantly fostered by the Shiv Sena is Maharashtra. The group even won an election with the support of the BJP, on the slogan ‘throw out outsiders from Maharashtra’. Bihari labourers were beaten up, something which Raj Thackeray, nephew of Bal Thackeray, repeated after breaking away from the Shiv Sena.

No doubt, the basis of nationality is the Union of India. The states are but the limbs of the union. Yet the limbs must be healthy and strong. Some states have too many poor people concentrated in their territory. Yet what keeps India together is its diversity. By dividing the country into linguistic spheres or by injuring the rights of those who are in a minority, the parochial elements are posing a danger to the very idea of India. It is better that organisations like the Shiv Sena understand this. ¦ The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi.

The corruption conundrum

CORRUPTION’S back. Well, back in the news anyway. (You’d have to be incredibly naive to believe it ever really went away in substantive terms.) But I am sceptical. Let me explain.

I’m sure that those with their hands jammed down the cookie jar at the moment are having a phenomenally lucrative time of it — and that is galling. The people’s representatives, those employed by the state and political appointees aren’t meant to be working to enrich themselves. That much is obvious. Equally obvious is the fact that they often do enrich themselves through graft, bribery, corruption, all of the above, whatever.

But watching and reading the anti-corruption brigade baying for the blood of corrupt officialdom, I can’t help but wonder: do they fully understand the costs? The costs both of corruption itself and of trying to take down the corrupt in government? And does the anti-corruption brigade have a plan that could work?

My scepticism is fuelled by the fact that to each of those three questions, the answer appears to be: no, they don’t.

Start with the issue of the scale of corruption: is it ten billion or a hundred billion or a thousand billion rupees a year? Is it a tenth of one per cent of GDP or one per cent or five per cent? Depending on how angry the person making the charges is and how many ‘official’ — inevitably, unnamed — sources they quote, the figure is — well, whatever they want it to be, because the truth is, no one knows.

This is terribly problematic, and here’s why. From a societal point of view, corruption matters in the main not because it exists per se or because it is morally wrong, but because of the deleterious impact it has on the provision of public goods. For instance, we spend less than half a per cent of GDP on healthcare and two per cent on education — so if corruption is eating a comparable amount of the government’s budget, that means we are losing out on educating more of our children and keeping our population in better health.

Not knowing the scale of corruption means we cannot contextualise it at the national level and so we really don’t know how big a problem it is in the first place.

OK, who are you kidding, you ask. Corruption is massive and, in any case, it doesn’t matter how much our officials are thieving, it’s the principle of the thing — our officials shouldn’t be crooks and pilferers.

Fine. Let’s switch from the economic to the political, then. How do we resolve the corruption issue? The answer generally proffered: remove the corrupt from government, of course. We don’t need ’em, they are parasites feeding off this poor, luckless land and its people. Throw them in jail.

In the current round of corruption hysteria, the targets are pretty clear: Zardari and his buddies. But if the desire to see them ousted is fulfilled, there will be a next round and in that round the target will be Sharif, the army’s chosen political ones, whoever. The reason: we can debate whether some politicians are more corrupt than others, but few would argue that any of our potential national leaders have clean hands — so the corruption monster will rear its head again.

Now to that second question, the cost of taking down a government’s leaders. The direct cost would be further political instability, but in a country that is long used to it, the temptation is to shrug and say, so what? This too shall pass.

But what many miss are the hidden costs, which in fact may outstrip whatever ‘savings’ we can get by kicking out the corrupt. Consider just one potential cost of political upheaval at the moment: the possible scuttling of the National Finance Commission award that the centre and the provinces are trying to hammer out.

The what? Not many beyond policy wonks and geeky number crunchers care about the NFC award. But the NFC is in fact one of the planks on which the federation of Pakistan survives — and is meant to thrive. Essentially, it carves up the tax revenue and distributes it between the centre and the provinces. It even gets its own article in the constitution — Article 160.

In a very direct way, the NFC award impacts on the services and goods that the state is able to provide to us, the citizenry — government can only provide what it can pay for, and it can only pay for what its budget allows. So if the people want services, and some of those services are best provided by the centre while others by the provinces, what the centre and the provinces get to spend matters fundamentally.

Agreement on resource distribution is fiendishly difficult, though — think of it as the financial Kalabagh dam. The NFC award is constitutionally supposed to be made every five years, but 17 years lapsed between the first consensus award in 1974 and the next in 1991. The reason? Political turmoil in the late ’70s and the mid ’80s. And since the 1996 NFC, the game-changing one constituted by the caretaker prime minister Malik Meraj Khalid, we have had no new award.

Shaukat Tarin is currently trying to change that, and given that there are elected provincial governments, it would be the first award hammered out by elected representatives in nearly two decades.

So if the storm brewing over corruption allegations takes down the government or the president, the righteous will be pleased, but the finance guys will be left holding their heads because the NFC award would be scuttled yet again. That would translate into the loss of very real services that the provinces are hoping to provide by getting a larger slice of the national tax pie.

Causality would be readily determined: obsession with corruption in high office leading to political instability/change leading to the continued denial of services the people need from their provincial governments.

Preposterous, you say? Perhaps. But the point of the conjecture outlined is to highlight the desperate lack of nuanced thinking about corruption. We may not like it, and may not even realise it, but we live in a very complex world where an instant ‘good’ can lead to more ‘bad’ over the longer term.

Put another way, would you care as much about purging the corrupt from office if that means you can’t get the basic services you believe the state is supposed to provide you?

So are we supposed to do nothing about corruption? Of course not. But what we need is for the anti-corruption watchdog to be snapping at the heels of the corrupt, not sinking its teeth in the jugular of the state. And what we also need is an institutional mechanism for dealing with corruption, not emotional attacks against the corrupt.

Heard of the PPRA? That’s the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority. The only time I have seen it mentioned in the context of fighting corruption is in the excellent editorial columns of the Business Recorder. What can a muscular, independent PPRA do to fight corruption?

The answer doesn’t matter — at least as long as we are happier hunting the villains rather than trying to fix the system.

Five policemen among 22 dead Terrorists strike Peshawar twice

Peshawar went through yet another day of bloodbath on Thursday when two strikes, within a space of 14 hours, left 22 people dead.

The first target was the city’s judicial complex, where a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a court building early in the morning, and the other came late in the night when a roadside bomb destroyed a police van.

The first attack claimed the better part of the casualties — 20 dead and 50 injured. Three policemen were among the dead. The hit on the police van killed two security personnel. Blood, flesh and shattered window glass littered the ground outside the court building, whose main gate was uprooted by the force of the blast.

It was the sixth attack on the city in 11 days and came just three days after a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives, killing four people in a suburb. The attack devastated a mosque, damaged a college and a police station.

“The bomber was on foot and tried to get into the judicial complex through its main entry gate. He blew himself up when stopped by police guards at the main gate of the complex,” police officials said.

Dr Sahib Gul, head of the trauma centre of the Lady Reading Hospital, told Dawn that 16 victims were brought dead to the hospital, four died in the hospital and condition of two of the injured was critical.

The three dead policemen were identified as Assistant Sub-Inspector Khaista Gul, Constables Fazal Rahim and Irfanullah. The injured policemen were Umer Hayat, Tariq Khan, Samiullah, Arshad and Samiullah Khan.

A lawyer, Qazi Samiullah, from Dir district, and a court official, Ayub Khan, were also killed. An office assistant of the Peshawar District Bar Association, Sarwar Khan, who was deputed at the entrance and was very popular among the lawyers, also died in the bombing.

Eight to 10 kilograms of explosives laced with ball bearings were used in the blast, an official of the bomb disposal unit said.

Superintendent of Police Nisar Khan Marwat told Dawn that the bomber’s target was the main building, but the policemen stopped him at the main gate.

“Had the bomber succeeded in reaching the main building, casualties would have been far higher,” the SP said.

Cars and rickshaws parked outside the building on the main Khyber Road were badly damaged. “I was coming down the stairs in the court when shrapnel from the blast just flew past my head. I was shaken,” a court employee said.

Policeman Shakeel Ahmed, who escaped unhurt but left traumatized, told Dawn that he was going to his office on Khyber Road when his car was hit by shrapnel, human flesh and blood.

The court building comprises district civil and criminal courts and government departments.

The judicial complex has been under heightened security since early last month.

The four-storey complex is located just across the sprawling residence of the Corps Commander of Peshawar and the Pearl Continental Hotel. The hotel had been hit by a suicide bombing in June, killing 11 people and injuring 50.

The Supreme Court Bar Association’s President, Qazi Muhammad Anwer, called upon lawyers to observe a countrywide strike on Friday to condemn the attack.

Attack on police The bomb attack on the police van ripped through the vehicle, killing two policemen on the spot and wounding five civilians on the outskirts of Peshawar, adds AFP.

“It was a remote-controlled bomb packed with steel pellets, which was planted on the roadside,” senior police official Mohammad Karim Khan said.

The left side of the patrol vehicle, which can seat around six policemen in the back of the cabin, was badly damaged in the attack.

Gilani to quit if wife is found to be NRO beneficiary

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has disclosed that his wife’s name has figured on the list of the beneficiaries of the National Reconciliation Ordinance and promised to resign if the charge was proved.

“I smell a rat,” he told reporters after attending the Green Journalist Awards ceremony here on Thursday, hinting at some kind of a conspiracy against him.

“I think there is some problem somewhere. But if it is proved that my wife has taken relief from the NRO, I will resign the premiership,” Mr Gilani declared.

He regretted that despite his announcement on the floor of the National Assembly, the list of NRO beneficiaries “for certain reasons” was not presented before parliament. He said that he would hold an inquiry as to why the list was not presented.

The prime minister’s claim, if true, has further complicated the NRO issue as a number of other politicians and prominent figures, including some big names, have also questioned the authenticity of the list, prepared by National Accountability Bureau and was handed over to the law ministry.

The list shows names of MQM chief Altaf Hussain, former NWFP chief minister Aftab Sherpao and Pakistan’s Ambassador to US Hussain Haqqani, but all of them have denied that they have taken relief from NRO.

Interestingly, after the prime minister’s media talk, the NAB issued a clarification and blamed the media for wrongly mentioning the name of Fouzia Gilani, the wife of the premier. On the other hand, Mr Gilani admitted that he had himself seen his wife’s name on the list.

He said: “Last night I again asked for the list and when it was presented I saw it had my wife’s name.” Mr Gilani explained that his wife was a director in a company during the period of the Junejo government in 1985. Later, he said, the project became sick and the company defaulted.

After military takeover by Gen Pervez Musharraf in 1999, the chief executive of the company was arrested and remained in jail for eight years before the matter was closed.

The prime minister said when he was in jail, his wife used to visit him and also met the then NAB chairman, General Maqbool, and other officers to pursue his case.

He said his wife was fighting his case and wondered had there been any problem, why the authorities spared her so long.

Australia’s apology

THERE is a ghastly familiarity to the stories of the ‘forgotten Australians’, the half a million children, many from abroad, condemned to live in state- and church-run orphanages, foster homes and institutions between 1930 and 1970. As in Ireland’s residential institutions, neglect, brutality, humiliation, and, for many, sexual abuse, were routine.

Many children were wrongly told their parents were dead and siblings were separated when they arrived in Australia. To its shame, like Ireland, Australia ignored or re pressed the terrible truth for several generations. Since 1997, six reports to government have called for an apology, culminating in a 2004 senate inquiry. It unearthed hundreds of stories of abuse of children placed in care because of family breakdown, because their mothers were unmarried, or because they were considered uncontrollable.

And yesterday Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised in the presence of 900 of the victims for the “absolute tragedy of childhoods lost”, echoing his historic 2008 statement to Australia’s Aborigines.

Now British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is also to offer a welcome formal apology to up to 150,000 children aged between three and 14 sent during the last century from Britain … to Commonwealth countries… … Mr Rudd spoke of individual cases including that of Gus from Queensland who had arrived from Ireland at the age of four or five in the 1950s, “apparently born out of wedlock, having earlier spent time in a Catholic insti tution in Ireland … In Gus’s words, ‘that did me terrible mental damage’.” … But, apology notwithstanding, the government has said it will not pay compensation to vic tims, Mr Rudd promising in stead they will receive more counselling and special care in old age. He also pledged the establishment of a nation al find-and-connect service ... It is an important and wel come first step, but the issue of redress should also be ad dressed.

Washington’s welcome indecision

THE indecision in Washington over Afghanistan has prompted a plethora of criticism from a broad range of angles, but there is at least one redeeming factor that has received insufficient acknowledgment.

The vacillation is evidence of a genuine debate.

Granted, it’s a debate that ought to have taken place a long time ago. But even at this late stage, its emergence is by no means an unhealthy development. The tendency to shoot first and ask questions later, if at all, can hardly be held up as a preferable alternative.

Back in 2001, only a single member of the US House of Representatives dared to question whether the invasion of Afghanistan was indeed a sensible response to the terrorist atrocities perpetrated on Sept 11. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Barbara Lee’s voice went unheeded.

At least one senior member of the Bush administration shared her scepticism, albeit for rather different reasons. Donald Rumsfeld feared that the dearth of obvious targets in Afghanistan would make it hard for the Pentagon to demonstrate its shock-and-awe capabilities. Wouldn’t it be a better idea, he wondered out loud, to attack Iraq instead?

It is commonly assumed that the shift in Washington’s focus less than two years later seriously — perhaps even fatally — undermined its ability to reinvent Afghanistan as a relatively stable liberal democracy. That is an absurd assumption. The illegal and utterly unjustified assault on Iraq undoubtedly accounted for less attention being paid to Afghanistan, but who can say whether a deeper involvement in the latter would necessarily have wrought less baleful results?

The Taliban were not foolhardy enough to try to put up a fight. They melted away, and the US and its allies mistook this for a victory. It is certainly possible that some kind of Marshall Plan, entailing large-scale development and reconstruction without a great deal of corruption, would have positively influenced the perceptions of Afghans who were relieved by the disappearance of the Taliban, and who dared to hope that the latest manoeuvre in the Great Game might entail a period of peace.

Whether such a strategy would have sufficed to overcome, by and large, the traditional distrust of invaders is an open question, but there are plenty of grounds for scepticism. Yes, there are circumstances in which militarily occupied countries can evolve not only into stable democracies but also economic powerhouses. But Germany and Japan took that path in the wake of their defeat in the Second World War only because they consisted of highly developed societies within which substantial forces favoured such a path. That pattern is entirely alien to Afghanistan.

Vietnam is often cited as an experience that ought to have served as a warning to American militarists. There are, of course, significant differences, but perhaps the key in this context is that an influential segment of the ruling elite has striven since the mid-1970s to liberate itself from the lessons of Vietnam instead of imbibing their significance. It’s an ultimately futile struggle.

Somewhat fewer commentators tend to point out that there are also vital inferences to be drawn from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan through the 1980s. And here there are two dominant strands: the communist superpower’s inefficacy in the face of popular resistance, and the rival superpower’s misjudged and ill-motivated support for Islamist fanatics in the interests of its Cold War goals.

The present US administration has gone some way towards acknowledging its role in the birth of the Taliban, the product of an unholy ménage à involving the trois Mujahideen, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

The Obama administration has faced considerable criticism for lumping Afghanistan and Pakistan together in its so-called AfPak strategy, but the role that links between the most deleterious elements in the two countries have played in the evolution of present conditions are undeniable.

In the event, there is more than a hint of irony in reports that Pakistani officials do not want the US to disengage from Afghanistan, but are equally worried about the prospects of a big surge in American forces, as this would lead to large numbers of Afghan Taliban seeking refuge across the porous border.

In Washington, meanwhile, one influential school of opinion holds that restricting Al Qaeda to parts of Waziristan is the best that can be hoped for, and that a relatively small American force can satisfy the purpose.

There can be no doubt that American actions over the past eight years have influenced the nature of Islamist militancy in both qualitative and quantitative terms. And, given that experience, it is not easy to follow the logic of those who insist that US military engagement in the region is the only viable means of coping with the conjoined threats of religious obscurantism and seemingly random terrorism.

Both these dangers would have been considerably weaker had the US butted out in the first instance. At the moment, it is not all that hard to see how the prospect of American preponderance seems less poisonous than the threat of Islamist ascendancy. But can the latter successfully be combated while the former persists?

Ultimately, obscurantist forces, with all their dangerous fantasies and ridiculous hopes of salacious rewards in the hereafter, can be defeated only by indigenous revulsion. That holds true for Pakistan and Afghanistan alike. The latter obviously does not have a military as potentially efficacious as that of Pakistan, but it does not necessarily follow that foreign forces are an effective means of accomplishing what is necessary.

The current debate in Washington is likely to lead to a decision that won’t please anyone: a surge that doesn’t mean Gen Stanley McChrystal’s audacious demand, but also doesn’t clearly spell out an exit strategy. It’ll disappoint those who are prone to crying uncle. But a sustainable future for the region has got to be one in which Uncle Sam does not play a military role.

Brown must set withdrawal date

IN Afghanistan, Barack Obama is in a hole at least partly of his own making. The decision he must make — and it may come this week — is whether or not to stop digging and start looking for a way out. The decision Britain must make — and the matter becomes more pressing by the day — is whether it will continue to allow its armed forces, its policy, and its standing in the world to be held hostage to American political calculations.

Obama set a trap for himself during last year’s presidential campaign when he defined Afghanistan as a “war of necessity” in contrast to Iraq, the Republicans’ “war of choice”. In Afghanistan, he suggested, America was somehow fighting the good fight. Soon after taking office, he escalated US involvement by agreeing to a request from his then commander, General David McKiernan, who he lat er sacked, for an additional 20,000 troops. Obama seemingly gave the order without much thought.

Then he let things drift. Now, faced by record and rising military and civilian casualties, the egregious embarrassment of President Hamid Karzai’s fraudulent election “victory”, spiralling military expenditure (it is now estimated that it costs $1m to deploy one American soldier for one year), mutinous allies, an increasingly destabilised Pakistan, and growing public unease, Obama is belatedly giving Afghanistan a great deal of thought indeed.

In these ponderings the spectre of Vietnam and the fate of Lyndon Johnson loom large. Whatever force levels Obama eventually settles on, whatever strategic plan he finally adopts, it is already clear, given the historical precedents to which he is attuned, that he will insist on a time-limited military engagement. Rejecting the various options presented to him by the Pentagon last week, Obama said, in effect, that he did not just want a winning strategy. He wanted an exit strategy, too.

That makes good sense. But primarily, it’s partly political good sense. Obama’s deadline for substantive, quantifiable progress in Afghanistan is spring 2011 — at the latest. After that his re-election campaign begins. He and the Democrats are desperate to avoid running against a background of bodybags.

Some say he will be looking for results by autumn next year, ahead of the Congressional mid-term polls. It is in this brutishly pragmatic, unyielding and essentially uncontrollable foreign context that British policy is currently held hostage to American political calculations. The unpalatable reality is, whoever holds pow er in Downing Street cannot exercise independent military options.

Britain can nudge and push, as Gordon Brown has lately tried to do. But Obama isn’t really listening to London or, indeed, to any of his Nato allies.

On the one hand, a unilateral British “defection” on Afghanistan is unthinkable. Such a move might even trigger an allied and government collapse in Afghanistan. On the other hand, the British public remains unpersuaded by Brown’s central argument that fighting “terror” in Afghanistan makes British streets safer. That leaves the question, is Britain irredeemably trapped?

Whatever the Americans decide, Britain will, privately and/or publicly, set a date for the beginning of a UK military withdrawal. That date might sensibly be 31 December, 2010.

US asks China to help improve Indo-Pak ties

The United States wants China to help improve relations between India and Pakistan and to work with it to ensure that neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan is used as a base for terrorism, says US President Barack Obama.

Mr Obama emphasised both points in his remarks in Beijing on Tuesday and they were also included in a joint statement issued after talks between the US president and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.

“President Hu and I also discussed our mutual interest in security and stability of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And neither country can or should be used as a base for terrorism,” said Mr Obama.

The text issued by the White House in Washington also quoted him as saying that the two sides “agreed to cooperate more on meeting this goal, including bringing about more stable, peaceful relations in all of South Asia”.

President Hu, who spoke first in the briefing, however, did not mention Pakistan or South Asia.

But a joint statement, issued after their talks, included both. A text of the statement, also released by the White House, quoted the two governments as saying that they welcomed all efforts “conducive to peace, stabili ty and development” in South Asia.

“They support the efforts of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight terrorism, maintain domestic stability and achieve sustainable economic and social development, and support the improvement and growth of relations between India and Pakistan,” the statement said.

“The two sides are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.” The joint statement is the product of weeks of discussions between the two sides and that’s why it’s likely to be taken seriously in South Asian capitals.

Diplomatic observers in Washington describe this as a significant development as it indicates America’s recognition of China’s growing influence in Asia.

In doing so, the United States also has accepted the fact that China could play an important role in not only improving IndiaPakistan relations but also in bringing stability to Afghanistan.

The acknowledgement runs contrary to predictions of US foreign policy experts that the US would not accept China’s growing role in Asia.

Diplomatic observers, however, noted that the Indian government, which has always opposed third-party mediation between India and Pakistan, is likely to be worried about the new development.

Taliban said 'We are prepared for a long war'

In Peshawar a Taliban spokesman denied Tuesday that Pakistan army has won a series of battlefield victories in its offensive in tribal South Waziristan, saying the militants are drawing government soldiers into a trap.

They said that ‘We are prepared for a long war,’ Azam Tariq told an Associated Press reporter by telephone.

‘The areas we are withdrawing from, and the ones the army is claiming to have won, are being vacated by us as part of a strategy. The strategy is to let the army get in a trap, and then fight a long war.’

Tariq also denied army claims that hundreds of militants have been killed, saying only 11 have died so far.

In mid-October, the Pakistani government launched an offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region, viewed as the main stronghold in the country of both the Taliban and al-Qaida.

The military says it has pressed deep into Taliban territory and captured some Taliban strongholds. The offensive has drawn retaliatory militant attacks across Pakistan.

A few hours after Tariq's claim, the army announced that 21 militants had been killed in the past 24 hours in South Waziristan and that government forces were continuing to press into Taliban territory. It said in a statement that one government soldier had died in the past day.

Much of the fighting was in Sararogha, a Taliban base where militant leaders have long operated openly, occasionally even using it for news conferences. The army said it killed 16 fighters there as it tried to clear the town of militants.

What is actually happening, though, is impossible to confirm.

Now Pakistan has effectively sealed off the tribal areas, semiautonomous regions where the central government in Islamabad has long had only minimal authority.

After Bollywood fame Katrina Kaif keeps feet grounded

In Bollywood industry Katrina Kaif is one of Bollywood’s leading actresses – the most searched-for Indian female film star on the Internet and a former top model with an A-list boyfriend.

She is 25-year-old, whose latest film ‘Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani’ is released on November 6, said her rise to fame has not been easy and she is determined success will not go to her head.

‘It didn’t happen overnight. I was here struggling to make it as a model and tried my luck in acting,’ she said.

‘I didn’t know in the first place whether I wanted to be in acting but then good roles started coming and my films started becoming a hit. And here I am.’

Kaif, born in Hong Kong to a British mother and a father of Indian Kashmiri origin, made a faltering start in the 2003 film ‘Boom’ after being spotted in a commercial.

She has since notched up roles in high-profile films like the recent blockbuster ‘Blue’, the 2008 action comedy ‘Singh Is Kinng’ and the romantic comedy ‘Namastey London’ in 2007.

The actress in part attributes her rise to actor Salman Khan, with whom she starred in the 2005 hit comedy ‘Maine Pyaar Kyon Kiya’ and now dates, although she refuses to talk about her private life.

‘He was there to guide me in the industry when I was new over here and will always be special to me,’ she said.

Kaif said she was always confident of success, despite setbacks.

‘I have faced a lot of rejections and people always came up with one or the other excuse to reject me on flimsy grounds, but I kept going because I always knew someone would approve me,’ she added.

This year’s ‘New York’, about a group of friends in the city on the day of the September 11, 2001 attacks, was a critical and box office success – and the moment Kaif said she felt she had made it in India.

Kaif, brought up in France, Hawaii and London and one of seven sisters, said family values had helped her keep a perspective in a country that reveres Bollywood stars like gods.

‘I had a very frugal upbringing. My mother was into charity institutions and to date, she is involved in charity work, so I know what hardship means,’ she explained.

‘I never had pocket money and didn’t have access to material things.’

Her mother now lives in the southern Indian city of Chennai and works with orphans.

‘Lots of people feel that whatever I have earned is because of the goodness of her work,’ she said.

Kaif, who took Hindi and dancing lessons to help her acting career, said she never wanted to be a star.

As a skinny teenager, she said boys would not give her a second glance – though now her innocent beauty has brought worldwide fame among Bollywood fans.

‘As a girl I was fascinated about collecting marbles and my two elder sisters used to make me wash dishes in exchange for giving me marbles, which used to be the most precious possessions to me,’ she said.

‘I never knew that the marbles were very cheap and my sisters were fooling with me to do their work.’

Despite now being one of Bollywood’s biggest earners – at a reported 30 million rupees per film – Kaif said she is unchanged by fame.

‘I am still the same person. I am not a glamorous person in real life. I don’t buy handbags like lots of other women do,’ she said.

‘I don’t spend on shoes, too, and you will always find me in casual dress if I am not in a film costume.

‘I don’t want to look glamorous when I am off screen and I want to be as real as I can.’

As for criticism in the cut-throat world of Bollywood, where style often takes precedence over substance, she says she is ‘like every other girl’.

‘I am sensitive and I have my weakness. If people say, ‘You have not lived up to expectations’, I get upset,’ she added.

She further said that ‘I want to do good films. Eventually I want to be married and do things that will make me happy. I got this opportunity in the country by starting with nothing.’

The US had allowed Al Qaeda to enter Fata

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has conceded that the United States was also responsible for allowing Al Qaeda to enter Pakistan.

She said that Al Qaeda left Afghanistan. And we let them out, she told Greta Van Susteren of FOX News. You know, we should have taken them out when we had the chance back in 2001 and 2002 and they escaped. And they escaped into Pakistan.

Asked if the US was also responsible for Al Qaeda’s presence in Fata, Secretary Clinton acknowledged that if the US had done a better job in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda would not have slipped into Pakistan.

If we had done a better job going into Afghanistan and capture the people who had attacked us or killed them you know, we would be in a different position,’ she said.

Asked about the extent to which the developing US military strategy in Afghanistan bleeds into Pakistan, Mrs Clinton said: Absolutely. I mean when we first did our review upon taking office, we concluded that you had to look at Afghanistan and Pakistan together and in light of the war on terror that we had to wage.

To win the war against terrorists, she said, the US needed to build strong partnerships with both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The stronger partnership we have with Pakistan, the stronger their efforts to root out terrorists in their own country, the better the situation is across the border in Afghanistan.

The top US diplomat said she was impressed with the way the Pakistani military was confronting militants in South Waziristan.

We’re very impressed by the campaign against the Pakistan Taliban in (the Swat valley) and South Waziristan. But our point to our friends in Pakistan is that — that is an important and necessary step for you to take, but remember that there is a terrorist syndicate with Al Qaeda at the head.

She warned: You can’t just say your job is done because you’ve cleared out (Swat), you’ve cleared out South Waziristan, until we truly root out what is in my view the source of the syndicate and a lot of the problems that Pakistan, Afghanistan and the rest of us face.

Asked to comment on her statement in Lahore in which she blamed Pakistan for not doing enough to fight Al Qaeda, Mrs Clinton said it was part of her effort to build a better relationship with the country.

They said to me very clearly: Look, we have a trust deficit for you. And I said, well, look, that’s a two-way street. And I’m happy to take any of your questions. I’m happy to admit where we may not have always done as well as we could have in our relationship.

But a lot of people back home want to know, you know, how come Al Qaeda has a safe haven in Pakistan? How come we arrest somebody like Zazi and find out that he was trained in a training camp run by Al Qaeda in Pakistan?

She added: I think that’s the kind of relationship we need to have.

The United States, she said, was trying to rebuild a better relationship, removing this deep level of mistrust and suspicion about America’s intentions and actions that has built up over the last eight years.

Mrs Clinton said she came to Pakistan with the determination not to meet government officials alone but get to out into different settings, universities and business groups, and really listen to people.

Mrs Clinton said that while she acknowledges that the US should have done a better job in preventing Al Qaeda from entering Pakistan, Islamabad should also accept its responsibility.

There are home-grown terrorists here in Pakistan. They’ve made common cause with Al Qaeda. So we can look backwards through the rearview mirror and say we shoulda, coulda, woulda, and you shoulda, coulda, woulda, too, she said.

The other way of approaching this problem, she said, was to admit that both countries had a common enemy.

And we’re proud that you’re going to after the Pakistan Taliban, who are causing so much damage and destruction, that terrible bombing in Peshawar the other day. But that’s not enough. You have to help us get Al Qaeda. You will be more secure if you help us get the people who are helping to fund and train and equip the very people you’re going after in South Waziristan right now.

Mrs Clinton said she had lot of discussions with the Pakistanis over the Kerry-Lugar bill during his visit.

This really became a very big issue here in Pakistan, and I don’t think most of us in America really understood what the beef is.

18 dead in train crash in Karachi

18 people, including women and children, died on 3rd November after a passenger train collided head on with a goods train in the suburbs of the city.

The accident took place just a few minutes past 10am near Juma Goth railway junction, a couple of kilometres from Bhains Colony along the National Highway, when the driver of Allama Iqbal Express ignored a signal and rammed into another train coming from Karachi on the same track.

About 45 people were injured and at least two coaches of the passenger train were destroyed, officials and witnesses said.

‘The cargo train was dead slow and Allama Iqbal Express had also slowed down maybe after its driver saw the other train coming on the same track,’ said Haider Bukhsh, a primary schoolteacher who was among the first people to reach the scene.

‘The number of casualties is much lower than feared because both trains were moving slowly. Otherwise a head-on collision could have caused disaster,’ he said.

An official of the Pakistan Railways said the goods train was asked to move and change track from a loop line and at the same time Allama Iqbal Express was signalled to stop but its driver kept moving and collided with the goods train.

He said the delinquent driver managed to escape, but an inquiry had been ordered to fix responsibility.

People living in the vicinity tried to rescue the injured, but failed because they didn’t have the required equipment. They said rescue teams of the city government, Railways and other agencies reached the place after more than an hour.

It took over six hours to retrieve bodies because the city government’s Urban Search and Rescue Team, Pakistan Railways and charity organisations lacked resources, expertise and coordination.

‘We first approached the nearby police station and then sent some bikers to the highway to seek help,’ said Nadir Khan, a resident of Juma Goth.

The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre received 18 bodies and 45 injured. ‘Most of the dead received head injuries,’ a JPMC spokesperson said.

What Happens to Your Facebook After You Die?

Max Kelly, Facebook's head of security, announced the company's policy of "memorializing" profiles of users who have died, taking them out of the public search results, sealing them from any future log-in attempts and leaving the wall open for family and friends to pay their respects. Though most media reports claimed this was a new Facebook feature, a spokeswoman for the company told TIME that it's an option the site has had since its early days.

The company decided to publicize the policy because of a backlash caused by a new version of the site's homepage that was rolled out on Oct. 23, which includes automatically generated "suggestions" of people to "reconnect" with. Within days of the launch, Twitter users and bloggers from across the Web complained that some of these suggestions were for friends who had died. "Would that I could," complained a user on Twitter before ending her tweet with the hash tag #MassiveFacebookFail.

"We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it's important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized," Kelly said in the post. To discourage pranksters, Facebook does require proof before sending a profile down the digital river Styx. Family or friends must fill out a form, providing a link to an obituary or other information confirming a user's death, before the profile is officially memorialized. Once that is completed, the user will cease showing up in Facebook's suggestions, and information like status updates won't show up in Facebook's news feed, the stream of real-time user updates that is the site's centerpiece. If relatives prefer not to have the profile stand as an online memorial, Facebook says it will remove the account altogether.

Better publicizing memorialized profiles is an attempt by Facebook to answer lingering privacy concerns. Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart investigated the company in July and issued a report that asked Facebook to explain certain areas of its privacy policy, including policies regarding the profiles of deceased users. In response, the company promised to issue a new privacy policy that better articulates how user information is treated postmortem and offered the commissioner an outline of its memorializing policy, nearly three months before the blog post explained it to users. Spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden says the privacy commissioner was "quite pleased" with Facebook's response to the office's concerns and says the commissioner will review the detailed version of the site's new policy, expected in late October.

Facebook's attempt to clearly state its policy is prudent, as other social-networking sites have struggled with the question of users' deaths. MySpace in particular has had a difficult time with digital rubbernecking — during the site's heyday, a handful of well-trafficked blogs specialized in matching MySpace profiles directly to obituaries and posting the pairings online for all to see. By sealing profiles to family and friends and removing profiles from search results, Facebook assuages users' fears that they'll be fodder for online voyeurs in the event of their untimely demise — hopefully putting the issue to rest.

Blast on Mall Road in Rawalpindi, 30 Killed

An explosion occurred on Rawalpindi’s busy Mall Road on Monday. At least 30 people were killed, while more than 45 were reportedly injured.

According to reports, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the vicinity of the busy Mall Road, in the high-security area of Rawalpindi Cantt. Major hotels, including the Pearl Continental, as well as other important government and army installations are located in the area where the blast occurred.

Monday's explosion left bodies on the ground outside the bank and in a nearby hotel parking lot, witness Zahid Dara said. The stricken area also lies close to the army's main headquarters.

‘I was nearby and rushed toward the parking area,’ Dara told a private television channel. ‘There were many people lying on the ground with bleeding wounds, and a motorcycle was on fire with one man under it.’

The attacker rode a motorbike to the scene, and the 30 people dead included military personnel, Rawalpindi police chief Rao Iqbal said. Some 45 others were wounded, he said.

‘The bodies were lying all over,’ said Ali Babar, a rescue official who was doing a refresher course at a nearby college and rushed to the scene to help. ‘This is a terrible thing. It is happening again and again.’

The intensity of the blast left numerous buildings in the area with shattered windows. Vehicles parked in the area were also damaged.

Rescue work was underway and the injured were being shifted to hospitals.

The government declared an emergency in hospitals across the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Security forces also cordoned off the area, while military personnel also arrived at the site of the blast.

The attack comes amidst a deadly wave of terrorist attacks which have killed over 190 in the last month.

Karzai Declared Elected President

Hamid Karzai has been spoken boss of Afghanistan, after choosing officials scrapped a programmed second spin of voting.

The proclamation comes a day after Mr Karzai’s solitary challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, pulled out of the race.

Dr Abdullah, who had demanded the removal of key check officials, pronounced the opinion would not have been fair. The initial spin had been injured by fraud.

The US responded by observant Mr Karzai was Afghanistan’s “legitimate leader”.

White House orator Robert Gibbs pronounced President Barack Obama would write Mr Karzai shortly.

On Monday a orator for the Independent Election Commission (IEC), Azizullah Lodin, spoken that President Karzai, “the usually claimant for the second round”, had been “elected boss of Afghanistan”.

He pronounced the second spin on 7 Nov was being scrapped to save money, for confidence reasons and to forestall serve setbacks that could repairs Afghanistan politically and economically.

The Taliban, that carried out attacks opposite the nation during the initial round, had vowed to interrupt the polls again subsequent Saturday.

President Karzai – who was initial inaugurated Afghan boss in 2004 – had been the prime to win an additional five-year tenure in the run-off.

One of the reasons for land a determining opinion had been to try to revive a little legitimacy to the process, after the discredited initial spin on twenty August.

A series of general figures, together with US Senator John Kerry, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, had been concerned in persuading Mr Karzai to accept a run-off.

Suicide Car Bomb Blast Near Babu Sabu Interchange Lahore

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a police checkpoint near bus terminals at the entrance to the city of Lahore late Monday, killing one policeman and wounding 25 people, including seven policemen.

The bombers struck after dark at the Babu Sabu police checkpost on a link road to Pakistan’s intercity motorway that dissects the country from the northwestern city of Peshawar to the capital Islamabad and east to Lahore.

Both of the attackers were killed in the bombing as they reportedly blew themselves up while carrying out the attack.

‘A car was stopped at the check post and the two suicide bombers in the car exploded themselves. We have found legs and a head,’ city police chief Pervez Rathor told reporters at the scene.

According to Rescue 1122, at least 25 people have been injured in the attack. The injured are being taken to the Jinnah Hospital and the Services Hospital.

Presidency resolves not to present NRO in parliament

A high-level meeting of PPP, held in presidency on late Monday, has resolved not to present NRO in parliament, meanwhile, president Asif Ali Zardari held separate sittings with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Molana Fazl-ur-Rehman and Dr. Farooq Sattar to discuss NRO, Geo news reported on Monday.

According to presidency spokesman, the decision of not sending NRO into parliament for seeking its ratification came during high-level meeting of PPP here at presidency late on Monday.

The meeting was jointly presided over by PM Gilani and President Zardari. He said the meeting resolved provision of extension to PM Gilani’s stance of not bringing NRO in parliament, which PM Gilnai did in National Assembly.

Both PM and President had separate consultations, over presentation of NRO, with leaders from coalition parties before PPP’s meeting at presidency.

Earlier, President hosted dinner in honor of PPP and coalition parties’ leaders, sources said.

Addressing the political leaders, president Zardari said matters are being politicized to conceal facts from eyes of people, adding, “I believe in power of people and want to take onboard all political leaders, people of Pakistan and parliament over all internal and foreign issues”.

President vowed to restore 1973 constitution in its real state besides throwing away reservations of MQM over NRO through dialouge.

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How To Tackle With Fake Mobile Sims Issued With Your Name

A lot of fake transportable mobile sims had been issued by mobile companies which is one of the largest problem faced by Pakistani people. Six mobile sims had been issued amid my name by Mobilink, while I have owned only one of them. Seven mobile sims had been issued by Mobilink with the name of my friend, although he had owned only two of them. Mostly, this type of sims had been issued by Mobilink. May be it is so, for the reason that the Mobilink is one of the main mobile operators in Pakistan. Terrorists are using these fake sims. So, near is a prospect that any innocent person could be arrested mistakenly by security forces at any time.

So, it is requested that each person should be vigilant that how many mobile sims had been issued with his name. For this purpose, PTA has arranged a very trouble-free procedure for the convenience of people. Just go to your write message option of your cell phone and write your NIC number (without dashes) and send it to 668. You will receive a message containing whole information that how many mobile phone sims had been issued by every mobile phone company with your name.

I suggest that you should send your old NIC number also, as there is a risk that several mobile sims may be issued with your old NIC number.

After getting reply from 668 if you found any fake mobile sim issued with your name, you should block this sim at your earliest. For this purpose, you can go to any franchise of this mobile phone company. Hopefully, they will treat you on priority basis.

Abdullah Pullout Casts Doubt on Afghan Runoff Poll

If the Obama Administration had hoped so as to pressuring President Hamid Karzai interested in compliant a runoff choice would strengthen the legitimacy of the consequential Afghan government, persons hopes were dashed Sunday. existence beneath a billboard-sized poster of his challenge and the slogan, "No leadership in the midst of out an voting can be standable and lawful," Karzai's opponent, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah announced his withdrawal commencing the runoff, rendering it unimportant and leaving a further question-mark greater than the legality of Karzai's government.

It had taken practically two months and countless accusations of fraud for Afghans to finally pay attention to the outcome of the majestic 20 presidential election. though primarily recognized in addition to 54% of the vote, Karzai's tally once more than 1 million fraudulent ballots were tossed out was only 49%, the absence of a trouble-free adulthood forcing a runoff next to his nearest rival, Abdullah. Karzai had accepted a runoff solitary after significant arm-twisting by the U.S., but Abdullah complete his own chipping in conditional on electoral changes, including the sacking of the chief of the private Election Commission, appointed by the leader and seen as biased in his favor. Karzai declined, prompting Abdullah to withdraw.

"I choose to be an pattern for future elections," a teary-eyed Abdullah told a crowd of hundreds of pennant-waving supporters. "I want to respect the people who preoccupied their lives period voting in the first round. I like it to be known with the intention of no one must alter along with the secret ballot of the people, or use their intensity to have their way."

A good number Afghans acknowledge to facilitate Abdullah had barely chance of winning, not solitary for the reason that of the chronic latent for substantial fraud in Karzai's favor, but because level had the election been thoroughly fair, Abdullah simply doesn't have the political sustain to beat the incumbent. to facilitate not here his supporters saying withdrawal was his individual upright choice. "The local committee will influence the election, and the election order wish crutch Karzai regardless," says 19-year-old student Jawar Shah. "So if Karzai didn't accept Abdullah's suggestions for a cleaner election, it is in good health so as to he walk down."

Abdullah himself is suspect to maintain been less than the illusion that he would really win. "I weigh up he was using his candidature as force with the new Karzai running to advance something — a pair of governorships and a add up to of ministries for him and his friends," says John Dempsey, the Kabul-based Rule of Law Advisor for the United States Institute of Peace. "I nature of think in the vein of Abdullah was the dog to in the end wedged the car, and is now wondering, now what?"

By ranking down, Abdullah plus freed Afghans and the global community of the obligation to stand a runoff secret ballot with the intention of would be a security nightmare and would potentially permit the motherland in opinionated dividing line for numerous further weeks through the counting of ballots and processing inevitable fraud complaints.

It relics unclear, however, whether the overspill vote, provision for which are already below way, wish be staged. nearly vote officials have said it should be canceled, given the expense and safety risks involved. Members of the unconventional ballot vote duty control said that the overspill pray go as planned, and Karzai's chief work spokesman, Waheed Omar, told AFP that the run-off should at a halt seize place. "We consider with the aim of the choice has to go on, the method ought to complete itself." Some in the intercontinental community echo the opinion to facilitate the government's legality depends on the process being completed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, discussing the possibility of Abdullah's withdrawal on Saturday, said. "We see to facilitate happen in our own voters where, for at all amalgamation of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward. I don't cogitate it has no matter which to do with the legality of the election."

"Yes, convention matter," argues Dempsey. "But the thrust was ended what time Karzai was affected to acknowledge the fraud and to go along with to a extra in the first place. To go on with to insist so as to one and all check on the course now while the end result won't change, and when it puts voters in peril would be foolish." If anything, he continues, a runoff at this face would be tailored more for American broadcast drinking than for Afghans: The Obama Administration has existing uncertainty over the ballot vote and the requirement to prove the electoral authority of the direction as one object for delaying its resolution on whether to commit more troops to Afghanistan. But Afghans themselves are by and large tolerable to the extra and see it as a leftover of time and money.

"Now with the intention of Dr. Abdullah has withdrawn, it is no longer an ballot vote but a referendum," says Sanjar Soheil, editor of the state-run newspaper Eight o'Clock in the Morning. And canceling the take part in an election — and reducing investigation keen on the first-round ballot fraud — potentially sets a bad precedent that could actually push fraud in hope elections. "The leadership has the accountability to defend democracy by capturing and prosecuting folks who committed fraud," says Soheil. "I fear that now this leadership may not."

Whether Abdullah had in the beginning anticipated to befall a fighter for rule of law in Afghanistan or was basically leveraging ballot fraud by Karzai supporters for a greater stake in leadership for himself, the hostility candidate has be converted into a indication of the country's request for average elections and superior governance. In announcing his withdrawal, he was scathing about Karzai's background as president. "The natives of Afghanistan deserve improve than this," he said. "We cannot say to facilitate the finest has been ready for the country." Still, he was judicious to urge his supporters to refrain from violence. He did not ask anybody to boycott the runoff. For now, a nightmare obtain to contented himself plus the victory of having forced Karzai to acknowledge widespread fraud in the majestic vote. But he may be hoping that if he continues and his campaign for electoral transparency, he may yet figure out what to do by means of the car he caught.

Importance of Juma (Friday) Prayer in ISLAM

In Islam juma prayer has a great importance. It is also called as a mini Eid for the Muslims and is called AL.AYYAM by Prophet (PBUH).

The reward of good deeds is awarded on this day. All the Muslims perform Juma in aggregation in mosques. They get reward from ALLAH from their every right and left step that moves toward Mosque to offer this prayer.

If we look upon the Islamic history the day of juma has an importance that the universe was created by ALLAH on this day and Adam A.S came on earth on the day of juma and also Day of Judgment will be on this day.

Juma or Friday prayer has a valuable importance in the lives of Muslims as is Saturday in the Judaism and Sunday in Christian religion. On this day the Muslims move out of their houses after taking gusal or bath and go to the nearest mosques to offer Juma prayer.
When the Muslims offer prayers collectively through this the passion of brotherhood is created between them and all gaps regarding inequality are ended.

Five people killed in bicycle bomb attack in Iraq

In Iraq today a bomb was placed on a bicycle ripped through a market in the Shia city of Mussayib, south of Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding 31, according to the police.

According to police the explosive device was hidden in a cooler on the back of the bicycle which had been parked at the market in Mussayib, near Hilla, capital of Babil province about 60 kilometres from Baghdad.

Ten People Dead in India Oil Blaze...

In Jaipur India a massive fire at an oil depot in western India had left ten people dead, as the blaze raged on after more than 48 hours according to an official report.

Due to fire, a suspected oil pipeline leak, broke out Thursday night at the Indian Oil Corp (IOC) compound on the outskirts of Jaipur in the desert state of Rajasthan.

B.L. Soni, a senior Jaipur police official, told AFP two bodies had been spotted near the facility but that rescuers could not retrieve them because the temperature from the fire was too high.

Further he said that the authorities believe that the bodies belong to two IOC employees who have been missing since the inferno began.

Eight other people died in the blaze, including three more employees, and their bodies had been recovered from the sceneand number of injured people are 135, officials said.

Complete Content of NRO

NATIONAL RECONCILIATION ORDINANCE

October 5, 2007

AN ORDINANCE to promote national reconciliation

WHEREAS it is expedient to promote national reconciliation, foster mutual trust and confidence amongst holders of public office and remove the vestiges of political vendetta and victimization, to make the election process more transparent and to amend certain laws for that purpose and for matters connected therewith and ancillary thereto;-

AND WHEREAS the National Assembly is not in session and the President is satisfied that circumstances exist which render it necessary to take immediate action;

NOW, THEREFORE, in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (1) of Article 89 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the President is pleased to make and promulgate the following Ordinance;-

---

1.	Short title and commencement. (1) This Ordinance may be called the National Reconciliation Ordinance, 2007. (2) It shall come into force at once.
2.	Amendment of section 494, Act V of 1898. In the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act V of 1898), section 494 shall be renumbered as sub-section (1) thereof and after sub-section (1) renumbered as aforesaid, the following sub-section (2) and (3) shall be added, namely:- (2) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in sub-section(1), the Federal Government or a Provincial Government may, before the judgment is pronounced by a trial court, withdraw from the prosecution of any person including an absconding accused who is found to be falsely involved for political reasons or through political victimization in any case initiated between 1st day of January, 1986 to 12th day of October, 1999 and upon such withdrawal clause (a) and clause (b) of sub-section (1) shall apply. (3) For the purposes of exercise of powers under sub-section (2) the Federal Government and the Provincial Government may each constitute a Review Board to review the entire record of the case and furnish recommendations as to their withdrawal or otherwise. (4) The Review Board in case of Federal Government shall be headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court with Attorney-General and Federal Law Secretary as its members and in case of Provincial Government it shall be headed by a retired judge of the High Court with Advocate-General and/or Prosecutor-General and Provincial Law Secretary as its members. (5) A review Board undertaking review of a case may direct the Public Prosecutor or any other concerned authority to furnish to it the record of the case.
3.	Amendment of section 39, Act LXXXV of 1976. (1) In the Representation of the People Act, 1976 (LXXXV of 1976), in section 39, after sub-section (6), the following new sub-section (7) shall be added, namely:- (7) After consolidation of results the Returning Officer shall give to such contesting candidates and their election agents as are present during the consolidation proceedings, a copy of the result of the count notified to the Commission immediately against proper receipt and shall also post a copy thereof to the other candidates and election agents.
4.	Amendment of section 18, Ordinance XVIII of 1999. In the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 (XVIII of 1999), hereinafter referred to as the said Ordinance, in section 18, in clause (e), for the full stop at the end a colon shall be substituted and thereafter the following proviso shall be added, namely:- Provided that no sitting member of Parliament or a Provincial Assembly shall be arrested without taking into consideration the recommendations of the Special Parliamentary Committee on Ethics referred to in clause (aa) or Special Committee of the Provincial Assembly on Ethics referred to in clause (aaa) of section 24, respectively.
5.	Amendment of section 24, Ordinance XVIII of 1999. In the said ordinance, in section 24,- (i) in clause (a) for the full stop at the end a colon shall be substituted and thereafter the following proviso shall be inserted, namely.- Provided that no sitting member of Parliament or a Provincial Assembly shall be arrested without taking into consideration the recommendations of Special Parliamentary Committee on Ethics or Special Committee of the Provincial Assembly on Ethics referred to in clause (aa) and (aaa), respectively, before which the entire material and evidence shall be placed by the chairman, NAB. ; and (ii) after clause (a), amended as aforesaid, the following new clauses (aa) and (aaa) shall be inserted, namely;- (aa) The Special Parliamentary Committee on Ethics referred to in the proviso to clause (a) above shall consist of a chairman who shall be a member of either House of Parliament and eight members each from the National Assembly and Senate to be selected by the Speaker, National Assembly and Chairman Senate, respectively, on the recommendations of Leader of the House and Leader of the Opposition of their respective Houses, with equal representation from both sides. (aaa) The Special Committee of the provincial Assembly on Ethics shall consist of a Chairman and eight members to be selected by the Speaker of the Provincial Assembly on the recommendation of Leader of the House and Leader of the Opposition, with equal representation from both sides.
6.	Amendment of section 31A, Ordinance XVIII of 1999. In the said Ordinance, in section 31A, in clause (a), for the full stop at the end a colon shall be substituted and thereafter the following new clause (aa) shall be inserted, namely:- (aa) An order or judgment passed by the Court in absentia against an accused is void ab initio and shall not be acted upon.
7.	Insertion of new section, Ordinance, XVIII of 1999. In the said Ordinance, after section 33, the following new section shall be inserted, namely:- 33A. Withdrawal and termination of prolonged pending proceedings initiated prior to 12th October, 1999. (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Ordinance or any other law for the time being in force, proceedings under investigation or pending in any court including a High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan initiated by or on a reference by the National Accountability Bureau inside or outside Pakistan including proceedings continued under section 33, requests for mutual assistance and civil party to proceedings initiated by the Federal Government before the 12th day of October, 1999 against holders of public office stand withdrawn and terminated with immediate effect and such holders of public office shall also not be liable to any action in future as well under this Ordinance for acts having been done in good faith before the said date; Provided that those proceedings shall not be withdrawn and terminated which relate to cases registered in connection with the cooperative societies and other financial and investment companies or in which no appeal, revision or constitutional petition has been filed against final judgment and order of the Court or in which an appellate or revisional order or an order in constitutional petition has become final or in which voluntary return or plea bargain has been accepted by the Chairman, National Accountability Bureau under section 25 or recommendations of the Conciliation Committee have been accepted by the Governor, State bank of Pakistan under section 25A. (2) No action or claim by way of suit, prosecution, complaint or other civil or criminal proceeding shall lie against the Federal, Provincial or Local Government, the National Accountability Bureau or any of their officers and functionaries for any act or thing done or intended to be done in good faith pursuant to the withdrawal and termination of cases under sub-section (1) unless they have deliberately misused authority in violation of law.