Crying foul

Monday, Mar 18, 2024

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·        After every election in the country, the losers always cry foul and refuse to accept that the elections were free and fair. However, as far as I can recall, never has a losing party appealed to foreigners to interfere in our internal affairs. Even in the aftermath of the extremely controversial 2018 elections, the losing parties tried not to damage Pakistan’s image abroad. But today, the party which indirectly got the largest number of appears to be doing its best to hurt the country. Its leader has asked the IMF to tie future economic aid to an audit of the 2024 election results. A few days ago, some of its supporters even staged a demonstration outside IMF headquarters in Washington DC, trying to undermine the mandate of the current government. What next? Why not ask the IMF or the World Bank to conduct fresh elections in the country?

 

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://e.thenews.com.pk/detail?id=290583


 

Gifts for the people

March 16, 2024

Both the National Assembly and the Senate should immediately pass a resolution banning the purchase of Toshakhana items by lawmakers. These gifts should be auctioned off and the proceeds distributed among the poor.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1168541-gifts-for-the-people

There's a lot of talk about the recent elections being heavily rigged. One way of disproving this is to look at pre-election surveys done by Gallup.

According to an article in The News a couple of weeks back, the number of votes polled by the three political parties were exactly the same as predicted in the surveys. In Punjab, the survey had found the PML-N and the PTI almost equally popular (35% to 34%), and this turned out to be correct. In KP, the PTI got 45 percent of the popular vote, again as predicted in the survey. 

The conclusion is that if there was any rigging, it was very little. But try telling this to any PTI supporter and if you're lucky you won't be lynched. I'm surprised at how much support this party has among youngsters. Even more surprising is that among PTI voters the majority were educated people. It proves that the standard of education has deteriorated a lot.


ROWDY STUDENTS: The residents of Defence Housing Authority (DHA) phase VIII in Karachi woke up to loud noises on the morning of Feb 28. As they later came to know, the students of some so-called high-end academic institutions had decided to disturb the peace of the locality for reasons known only to them. The ruckus continued for a while. All exit and entry roads remained blocked, office-goers and ambulances remained stranded, and even aerial firing was resorted to. All this while, the police constable on duty just stood by. Why? We still do not know.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

March 11, 2024

https://www.dawn.com/news/1820681/rowdy-students

I've often wondered why people kill themselves. Years ago, the wife of a colleague of mine in the petroleum industry first threw her four daughters from the fifth floor, then jumped to her death. A psychiatrist had warned her husband not to make her pregnant again, as she had not been able to produce a male child. Her husband asked the mullah of the neighborhood mosque, who told him that all women want to get pregnant even if they already have ten children. The poor woman again gave birth to a female (her fifth child) and decided to end her life, as she couldn't bear the taunts of her in-laws who assumed that it was her fault for not producing a son.

Yesterday a 48-year old man whom my family had known since he was a child killed himself. No one knows why he did so. He had had stomach cancer some years back but had recovered after surgery. He may have been suffering from depression. His wife, who belonged to family friends of ours, didn't want to live in Karachi, as most of her cousins and aunts lived in Canada. He was a successful businessman, his father a billionaire, so it couldn't have been poverty that caused him to kill himself. But it was a senseless death all the same.

Every few years, someone in the government demands that access to social media be banned because it is harmful for the country. Access to Twitter (X) has been denied due the vile propaganda against the judges and generals by the defeated opposition party PTI. Its activists are experts at disseminating false information. Unfortunately, banning it is depriving people like me from getting news from all over the world.

A few years back the government had banned You Tube for many years. The other day a retiring senator demanded that access to Facebook, Tik Tok and other platforms I wonder why he excluded TV and cinema houses, because those also contribute to moral degradation. I've just heard that he has withdrawn the demand, after serious criticism on social media. 

Even in countries where autocrats rule, people can easily get news instantly. I hope the current ban on X is lifted soon by the new government which assumes control tomorrow.

Most illiterate Pakistani Muslims love to lord it over women. They get incensed when they see a woman with uncovered head. But women too want their daughters to have their heads covered all the time. The question arises: do women feel different if their head is uncovered? I know that in Turkey, most young girls and even old women don't cover their heads. But I have noticed that Hindu and Sikh women in India do cover their heads, specially when they are in the presence of old men (like their fathers or other relatives), while some Hindu women in Rajhastan observe strict purdah. As for Christian women, only the nuns do it. I have also seen Pakistani Christian women in church with heads covered.

I was startled to the bitterness displayed on social media upon seeing Maryam Nawaz gently cover a seated policewoman. It seems that the woman was wearing a scarf, but it had slipped to her shoulders and she wasn't aware of it. That's natural, because a woman absorbed in her work before a computer is not likely to pay attention to such a thing. But Maryam Nawaz, after covering the woman's head, thought it would get her good publicity if she posted the video of the incident on social media. As expected, most of the criticism came from Imran Khan's supporters. 

What I would like to know is, why does no one ask Muslim men to cover their heads? Why is it that only Muslim women have to do it whenever they hear the Azaan or on religious occasions?


Not so sweet customs: While the prevalence of diabetes is high in Pakistan, we continue to consume sugar in large quantities. Our sense of celebration is directly linked to the customary distribution of sweets among the loved ones. When we visit someone’s place, customs demand we take cakes as well. Fruits are only applicable when one is visiting someone in bad health; either in hospital or at home. This excessive consumption of sugar by the wealthy is responsible, among other things, for the high prices of sugar. This needs to stop.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

February 28, 2024

https://epaper.dawn.com/DetailNews.php?StoryText=28_02_2024_007_005

I can't understand why Pakistani Muslims are such extremists. A girl in a restaurant in Lahore was almost killed yesterday by a mob because her clothes had Arabic words printed on them. The mob thought anything written in Arabic has to be a verse from the Koran. Fortunately, some shopkeepers and a lady police officer rescued the girl. They explained to the charged mob that such clothes were commonly used in Arab countries and the words were not from the holy book.

I was reminded of how, many years ago, we were cheated by an Indian in Dubai, who sent us a whole container of Arabic newspapers instead of English ones. When we tried to sell the stuff in the market, no one bought it, even though we pointed out pictures of girls in swim suits in the papers. Eventually, we had to burn the lot. In those days a man had been arrested by the cops for selling such newspapers and was released only after bribing them with a hefty amount.

How long will it take before our people become educated in the real sense? I'm sure there were some graduates in the mob but Pakistani degrees don't mean anything. I know many persons who've never read a book after graduating.


 


 Mine and no others

February 24, 2024

I have decided to set fire to my house, because a jirga has ruled that my siblings are the real owners. So, if I cannot have it, I believe that no one else should have it. Do you think I’m crazy?

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/1160802-mine-and-no-others