Kamila Hyatt

 

• https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/592059-a-glimmer-of-light: On India
• https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/951928-a-land-without-law: On Punjab assembly. Very nice
  
• https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/535467-an-unclean-partition: On Kashmir
  
  
  
  

Additional reading

• https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/538976-a-little-bit-of-panic
• https://www.dawn.com/news/1686729/haughty-culture: that was awesome
  

Imran Khan And Pakistan

 Interesting articles about the man that show his character.

Imran Khan blames America for his downfall. He should blame himself.

Additional reading:

• https://www.rt.com/news/554069-political-crisis-pakistan-foreign-police/

We Don't Recognise Jio

The pandemic hit us in March 2020. Since then our professional life has become all virtual and from home. Even for young students, it's all online classes.

This post is about such students. India has about 23 crore students studying in class 1 to 12 (from https://www.mvorganizing.org/how-many-students-are-there-in-india-2020/).

Assuming 40% of them belong to the lower income group (LIG), the number of such students from LIG would be about 9 crore students. 

Imagine if the pandemic had hit the world 5 years back in 2016. India didn't have Jio then. 

Jio disturbed the internet scene in India. It's because of Jio that India has a tariff of about Rs200 (USD 3) for a month of unlimited calls to anywhere in India and about 1.5GB data per day. And it's because of Jio that other ISP's telecoms had to follow suit with similar pricing and in the end most got such a financial battering that they had to exit the business. 

For some prospective on data cost see: (though figures don't seem to be accurate)

https://www.ibtimes.co.in/india-ranks-lowest-global-mobile-data-cost-thats-great-news-heres-how-839072

The figures for India and Pakistan are given below. 

Rs 6 /GB in India

Rs 17/GB in Pakistan (from a friend)

Rs mentioned in this post refer to INR only. 

(https://www.phoneyear.com/pakistan-has-the-second-most-expensive-mobile-data-rates-south-asia/)

As I mentioned earlier, there is an estimated 9 crore young students whose parents would be in the lower income group. These are possibly children of auto drivers, milkmen, housemaids and such.

Imagine online classes for them - meaning getting used to internet, getting a smart phone, using internet data for online classes. All these has been possible for at least some fraction of those 9 crore students

Because of Jio, a good percentage (I don't know exactly how much) has been able to continue their studies online. Of course a lot depended on whether their family had or lost their source of income. But if the family could afford their school fees and books, Jio made attending online courses very possible.

Had the pandemic hit us 5 years earlier where would those students have been?

Take Pakistan in comparison where internet costs are comparatively higher. Imagine what their LIG students are going through. Those students are likely much worse off than their Indian counterparts.

Thanks, Jio. 

Disclaimer:

The author has nothing to do with Reliance and they were not paid anything by the company.

Additional reading:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/02/coronavirus-india-school-closures/

Truce Declared Between India And Pak In Jun 2020

In Feb and Mar 2020, it was China and rich Western countries leading in Corona cases and deaths.

In the last few days, the new cases are focused more in third world countries. See here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Pak has declared mosques open because of Ramzan. One can imagine the shape of Pak in Jun 2020, from the point of view of the virus.

Similarly, India's cases are likely to hit a peak by June 2020. Hordes of Tamils are leaving Dharavi (Mumbai) for Tirunelveli near the southern tip of India. Now Nellai (Tirunelveli) will get a dose of what Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai have. Just great. Bihari labourers already left Delhi for Bihar in March. 

What was an issue localised to urban India is now spreading to the rural parts.

By June, neither India nor Pak will be able to hold on to their pants. 

And my friend Tukun explained to me that when our hands are busy covering our private parts, we can't use our fingers to pull the trigger and shoot.

So there will be truce between India and Pak in June.

Let's celebrate Ramzan socially, let's have gala marriages like the CM's relative had in Bangalore last week. Let more people travel from infected areas to unaffected areas.
We will definitely get world peace.

USA Strike Against Iran

https://www.dawn.com/news/1526605 - "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been leading the backlash against Trump's decision to authorise a drone strike against Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad, an operation that Trump only officially informed Congress about on Saturday — nearly 48 hours after the event."

This decision to take out the Iranian general and the intimation of the event to Congress in the weekend and the surprise all around in the USA makes me wonder if Trump (or some of his associates) didn't do insider trading and short the market on Thursday and Friday in order to make a killing. 

Only time will tell if my suspicion is justified.

Coming closer to home Pakistan is stumbling to determine if it should take the side of religion (Iran) or economy / FATF (USA). When you have to put bread on the table, it's difficult to stick to your values (in this case aligning with Islam). 

Take To The Streets

Scroll.in: The Daily Fix: India has a loud message for Modi-Shah – we won’t let you turn us into a Hindu nation.

It's nice to see when non-Muslims come against the citizenship thing. It's nice to see women come against issues towards women. Or when men wake up to issues against women.

Makes me wonder if Imran Khan or other Muslims in pak will take to the streets when there are issues against minorities. No of course, it won't happen. It need not happen. Pak is not bound by secularism, it being a country with a single language (not English), single religion, single hatred (of Hindus and India). 

Sad.

Pak's Stand On Kashmir

From https://www.dawn.com/news/1516825/the-kartarpur-factor 

This article above is written by a person who had served as ambassador of Pakistan to India, USA etc. 

The following two excerpts were very interesting to me. That Pakistan has its eyes on ALL of Kashmir and that people from POK create a lot of disturbance in India and Kashmir with the connivance or urging of Pak come out very clearly.

I had earlier (a few years back) read that Pakistan's Constitution will recognize or accept nothing less than the whole of Kashmir. The author of the link above seems to confirm that desire. 

Once the two points are accepted as the deep driving desire of the Pak establishment, how does one negotiate with them? What does one feel about Pak?

Quotes from the article:

• "In a worst-outcome situation, neither Imran Khan nor the Pakistan Army will be able to restrain the people of Azad Kashmir and Pakistan from responding."
• "He Modi sees himself as the embodiment of a triumphant ideology that has given India great power status while putting an end to Pakistan’s dreams of Kashmir.""

Additional reading

https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2019/08/love-thy-neighbors-wife.html

FATFat Improvement

https://www.dawn.com/news/1511895/fatfs-concerns

The link above acknowledges the grave concern the newspaper sees.

The same newspaper 2 weeks back had mentioned how Pak was largely compliant in 20 out of 27 points. 

What happened in 2 weeks? Does one believe that Pak was largely compliant solely based on friendship with China, Turkey and Malaysia? 

Only a final decision from Paris makes one see reality? 

What exactly is Pak going to do now? How much brainpower is it going to deploy to address it before the next FATF meet in Feb 2020? What will make Pak realize that its obsession with religion is the cause of terrorism?

I understand India isn't much sensible either. But the state of affairs in Pak seems to be so awful it pains. 

After all Pak is just like us. Why CAN'T they improve?

Why can't India and Pak be like Canada and USA or like Ireland and Northern Ireland?

When will we forget religion? Hum bas ek jaise hi toh the?

An article which echoes similar sentiments: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/fatf-meet-verdict-pakistan-s-people-deserve-better-11571591868763.html

Sense becoming visible: https://www.dawn.com/news/1512237/sensationalism-draws-attention-away-from-what-pakistan-must-do-in-order-to-come-off-the-fatf-list

Wolf Calling The Kettle Black

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/international/rest-of-asia/china-in-touch-with-india-pak-to-bring-down-tensions

China apparently is trying to bring down tension between Pak and India after Indian army supposedly attacked terrorists in POK. The surprising thing is that China does the same thing repeatedly in Arunachal and the last such incident was only a days back. At least Pak can claim it was all terrorists, Inshallah.. 

What excuse does China have for frequent incursions into India? And now, they are planning to mediate? Ain't that something?

The wolf said "Nee illaatta ongappa": https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/158022-China-gives-Modi-shut-up-call

In Tamil there is a saying, "ooru rendu pattaal koothadikku kondaattam".

And I really wish India didn't use the phrase "surgical precision". Such a phrase implies extraordinary accuracy. Perhaps that phrase was appropriate when US marines went inside Pakistan and nabbed Osama and killed him. In the current instance? Hmm.

It is really interesting that all this time India would accuse Pak of firing across the LOC while Pak would deny. And Pak would in turn accuse India of opening firing which India would deny.  Now for a change India is claiming to have attacked (with surgical precision) across the LOC. And guess what? Pak is saying "No, you didn't". 

What's happening? How does India decide whether to claim that Pak attacked India or to claim that India attacked Pakistan? Pakistan doesn't have a problem in this regard. Pak will just deny whatever India claims. It's India that has to decide - whether to whine or roar. 

I have a larger question. Why does Pak consider India its enemy? Is it because of Kashmir? But then Kashmir was never part of Pakistan. Matter of fact, Pak itself is a child born out of India.

God help Islam... If this is how Allah's progeny have turned out...blind fanatical and filled with hatred for anything that's not Islam...

Having said that there is an absolutely cute article, published by Alizay Jaffer a Pakistani lady, which echoes my own sentiments - except I couldn't have written it as well as her. http://scroll.in/article/818069/dear-india-and-pakistan-cant-we-convert-our-grudges-into-love (or this https://m.facebook.com/alizay.jaffer/posts/884096793617: same content in both links - just in case one of the links is removed in future)

Here is another article by another Pakistani who provides another point of view: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/155974-Pathankot



Additional reading: 

• Added on 26th Jun 2017: http://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/chinese-troops-enter-india-in-sikkim-sector-jostle-with-army-jawans-destroy-indian-bunkers/736313/
• http://scroll.in/article/818027/the-strange-case-of-the-indian-soldier-captured-by-pakistan

Published on

9/29/16, 4:21 PM

India Standard Time

On Warranty

This is a nice article on warranty in a Pakistani Newspaper.

I had often thought on similar lines. I remember once dealing with a physiotherapist who was treating an elderly lady who had tremendous back pain. He said he could definitely cure her in a week. After a week, the lady still had pain. He said one more week. And then one more week. Then he said, things are not so easily predictable. Sometimes the body takes longer to heal but he recommended that the treatment continue.

I asked him if he would be willing to take payment only and after she was healed and forego the payment if the pain didn't go away.

The man was stunned. He said what I suggested was unethical. How can a person give a guarantee for a medical treatment. He looked at me as though I was crazy.

I remembered his earnest assurances to the lady when she first met him. Unethical, huh?

Published on

7/20/12, 12:06 PM

India Standard Time

ISI & Terrorist Links

I read this http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/wikileaks-isi-allowed-terrorists-to-attack-india-says-gitmo-detainee-104246 today.

This kinda ties up with what a taxi driver from Kashmir told me. He explained to me about the economy of Kashmir and life there. Youngsters are recruited and given a stipend of approximately Rs 3000 ($65) per month for undergoing military training across the border in Pakistanr. Very similar to what was depicted in the movie Roja, remember Pankaj Kapoor's little brother? Even the movie Sarfarosh was about something similar. Movie Fanaa also.

Another person told me that some Kashmiris prefer that Kashmir be aligned to Pakistan, some prefer alignment with India and some would like both India and Pakistan to let them be independent and leave them in peace. When this question (how do you want Kashmir to be aligned?) is popped to them, their heart, because of the religion, is with Pakistan. While their head says stick to India because of the economic advantage that India provides.

All this is fine and dandy, but I am unable to digest the recruitment and training of Kashmiris by people on the Muzaffarabad side with the sole idea of disturbing peace in India. 

What kind of a mind would find this to be a good thing to do?

Additional reading: 

• http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-06/pakistans-intellifence-chief-expected-to-resign-ahmad-shuja-pasha/#

Published on

5/8/11, 3:54 PM

India Standard Time

PoK and Pak

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/529743-pm-imran-heads-to-us-from-saudi-arabia

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/530114-kashmir-s-moment - "Imran has already flown to the US, refusing India's offer to use its airspace to do so." I wonder which part of India comes geographically between Pak (or Saudi, remember https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/529743-pm-imran-heads-to-us-from-saudi-arabia) and USA.

How will this end?

The army takes over because the PM isn't able to drum up international support on behalf of Kashmir? And then the army takes action against India? And get a drubbing? So that not only PoK but Pak too becomes part of India?

Oh boy. Wild thinking!

Sikh Girl And Mountbatten

I read this article today.

This is awful. Lahore is in Punjab. Pak occupied Punjab should have been part of Indian Punjab. We (India) should write to UK to meditate and get Pak occupied Punjab back to India and thus undo the holy mess (Britain's) Mountbatten did at the time of partition. Inshallah. All Punjabis belong to India. Its a shame how Pak is treating Punjabis."

Just trying to imitate Imran Khan.

Additional reading

• Imran Khan: The World Can’t Ignore Kashmir. We Are All in Danger.
• https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2019/08/love-thy-neighbors-wife.html

India Pakistan Border Video

Mast video in Kashmir. River separating the 2 countries. Religion is probably a bigger idealogy than politics. Maybe that's why Checkpoint Charlie came down 30 years back while the border between the 2 countries keeps getting stronger.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT1mYy3P2A8
• https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UxdxycwNzqY Karachi - Munnabao - Bhagat Ki Kothi

Note:
Video links may not always work, they may be removed.

Additional reading

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT1mYy3P2A8
• https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6D6qQjDZFok A Pakistani lady visits India (not a travelogue)
• https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cBCpV9jHum8 What do Pakistani's like about India
• 
  

Love Thy Neighbor's (35A) Wife

If you are in love with your neighbor's wife and if you feel that your neighbor has put her under house arrest, you would tend to feel that you personally have been affronted. And you break off relations with your neighbor not because he isn't treating his wife well but because you feel he isn't treating your wife well.

At the end of the day one wonders which is a bigger issue. That the neighbor didn't treat his wife well (assuming this to be a fact) or that you think of his wife as yours.

Do things change if the neighbor wasn't legally married to the woman but only cohabiting with her and then decided to make the arrangement legal?

Of course the woman's decision is crucial. Even if the neighbors "wife" is unwilling to go thru the marriage, what is your locus standi especially if she is an "adult over the age of 18". 

All this hoopla is only because the neighbor's woman and you belong to the same faith!!

Any resemblance of this issue to the current Kashmir issue is purely intentional. Well, if one is displeased with the behavior of men across the border, let's not forget our Biradari in our own side https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/eyeing-the-girls-of-j-k-119080901476_1.html

A sweet forward in the same spirit: 

I changed my JIO WiFi password. Now my neighbour is not happy. He is shouting that he will go to Vodafone and complain about this.. And also in anger, He swiched off his own electricity light to show his protest.. 

Funny Neighbour....

Additional reading:

• https://kishkat.blogspot.com/2019/08/real-reason-why-pakistan-is-rattled-to.html
• Economic Times: J&K bifurcation: Pakistan's double standards exposed.
• https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2019/08/kashmir-370.html
• https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/538907-china-irks-india-over-kashmir-two-days-before-summit Quote: "China thundered in August that India had "continued to undermine China´s territorial sovereignty by unilaterally changing its domestic law"."