Imran Khan fails to get support from the people of Karachi

Imran Khan's supporters, encouraged by the turmoil in Iran, thought they could persuade the Pakhtuns of Karachi to rise against the government. It was a miserable failure. Only a few people attended, the ground was practically empty, so his henchmen made speeches on the road. 

It's easy to understand why the Pakhtuns refused to fall for his latest gambit. Imran Khan's province (KP) is reeling due to the stoppage of smuggling from Afghanistan, and this is affecting Pakhtuns all over the country. They realized that by paralyzing Karachi, the whole country would be affected and they would be the ones to suffer the most. Besides that, inflation is under control, prices of commodities have decreased due to prevention of smuggling them to Afghanistan, so the people really support the present government. Also the failure of Imran's party to improve conditions in KP (the only province under its control) has made his party very unpopular. Let's hope Imran Khan realizes now that it's better for him to remain quiet and remain in jail for another three years at least.

Jungle rule: Trump's invasion of Venezuela

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For weeks, Donald Trump had been talking of invading Venezuela and arresting its president. Yesterday the unthinkable happened: US forces captured the Venezuelan president and his wife while they were asleep. This is pure jungle rule. Trump is behaving like the neighborhood bully. Last week he said that the US would bomb Iran if demonstrators in that country were killed by the government. Of course, if he does attack Iran again, the Iranians would become more united. But would he threaten the Saudis if they did the same thing?

What I don't understand is how the US could simply walk into Venezuela and arrest its sitting president. Obviously, there must have been agents on the ground who kept the US informed of the Venezuelan president's whereabouts. But why hasn't the same thing been done to Cuba, which is avowedly anti-US? Is it because the Cuban people support their leaders?

It seems that Trump wants to control all the oil left on earth. He doesn't realize how much fossil fuels are responsible for global climate change. 

Rape case decision proves our judges are still living in the Stone Age

It's been evident for a long time that the state of education in the country has been worsening and the latest case involving the apex court's decision in a rape case proves that the mindsets of our judges is like that of those who were living in the Stone Age. Recently the same court ruled that taking DNA of a woman violated her dignity, while in another case, even though an accused woman had agreed to her DNA being taken, the court didn't allow it.

In the latest rape case, the poor victim was not believed as she didn't provide torn clothes or other evidence to prove that she'd been raped. Her contention that the rapist forced her at gunpoint was not believed, and the judges held that it was not a case of rape but consensual sex. The poor woman will have to live the rest of her life as a shameless woman because she failed to pass the two-finger test (which has long been discarded as proof of women's promiscuity).

Perhaps the judges thought that it wasn't rape because she got pregnant. An American senator once said that a woman cannot get pregnant if she's been raped, and can get pregnant only if she's agreed to have sex. Perhaps our "honorable" judges also believe this, as the rape victim did get pregnant. Whatever the case, our judges should be selected only after being vetted thoroughly.

Trump's million dollar gold and green card

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I'd never have guessed that the US economy is in such a bad state that it needs foreigners to get US citizenship for a million dollars (which is equivalent to 300 million Pakistani rupees. I know a few people among my near and distant relatives who have that kind of money, but I can't understand why anyone like that would like to live permanently in the US, now that we know how unstable that country is. But then, there are gangsters in Russia and Africa who would definitely love to settle there. In fact, as Trump said, there are about 40,000 who have applied for the gold card, some of whom may be Pakistanis.

Come to think of it, I've never wanted to live anywhere other than in Pakistan, even though I could have gone to the US in the 1960s, even though most of my life has been spent in struggling to survive. If I'd gone to the US and spent 50 years working in jobs I didn't like, I'd have gone crazy. So I suppose it's been a good decision to remain in the country I grew up in.

It's almost imposssible to enforce the minimum marriage age law

The Peoples Party deserves praise for trying to protect women in the country. It has passed the minimum marriage age bill for girls, requiring them to be married only after the age of eighteen. The only problem is that it's virtually impossible to ensure that this law is observed. One reason for this is that people in the rural areas of the country do not register the births of their children. But the main reason is that people believe that Islam requires that girls should be married as soon as they reach puberty (which most do at the age of twelve).

I once heard a judge say that he has no choice but to allow marriage of underage girls as that is the law of Sharia, even if the country's law prohibits the marriage of girls who are not yet eighteen. Naturally, if an educated man has this opinion, what can a layman say?

There is another reason: the sale of female children by men who don't earn enough to survive or buy narcotics. A maid servant once decided to go to the court for getting a divorce from her husband. the man came with ten others, demanding that his three female children should be handed over to him. He didn't want his wife back. It turned out that he'd already sold the girls and wanted to get the money from the buyers so he could continue buying drugs. In such a scenario, it's impossible to protect Pakistani girls. 

Finally, army confirms what I said long ago about Imran Khan

I think it was in 2017 (before Imran Khan was elected prime minister) that I tweeted about Imran Khan being a psycho and a security risk. It was retweeted immediately by an eminent journalist and read by more than 50,000. The journalist (Omar Qureishi) received a lot of flak from Imran Khan's followers.

In yesterday's press conference, the DG (ISPR) said the same thing repeatedly. The question arises, why were some army generals and judges not able to discern what even a layman like me could see plainly? Why did they openly support him in destabilizing the government of the day? I don't know if it'll happen in my lifetime, but a commission should be formed to find how a psycho was able to fool the establishment and formed a government that could have led to the country disintegrating again.

In the two years and three months that he's been in jail, Imran Khan has repeatedly proved that he's a mentally unstable person. Of course, there is more evidence to prove it, like his marriage to a woman who is said to believe firmly in black magic and such mumbo jumbo. But sad to say, many people I know still think he's a messiah who will lead Pakistan to greatness.

Why is Trump pardoning criminals?

President Trump is behaving like a modern-day Julius Caesar. Not only does he think he's above the law, he's apparently thinking that he can do anything illegal and get away with it. His bullying tactics to coerce the president of Venezuela to resign prove that he's mentally unbalanced. His order to attack all boats on the Venezuelan coast, his order to all airlines to stop going to that country is not something that the president of a democratic country should do. Yet he's doing it, and apparently no one can stop him.

His latest is a string of pardons to hardened and convicted criminals. The president of Honduras was serving a 45 year jail sentence, but Trump simply pardoned him. Then there was the Ponzi scheme guy who defrauded 17,000 Americans of 1.2 billion dollars. He has been pardoned after serving only 12 days in prison. The latest is a senator belonging to the Democratic party (Henry Ceullar) who was scheduled to be tried next month (together with his wife). Yet he too has been let off by Trump. Obviously, Trump is not doing such things because he loves them. There must be something in it for him too. We'll know soon enough. 

UAE has stopped issuing visas to nationals of poor countries

When I visited Taiwan in 1991, my hosts were amazed that I had gone to Singapore first. "What's there is Singapore?" one of them asked. "It's all artificial". I agreed, even though I went to Singapore later due to pressure of my family members. The same holds true for Dubai and the rest of UAE. Why do people want to go there? I would like to mention here that I've visited the UAE four times, not because I like it (I don't), but because I have close relatives living there. 

So, I'm not upset over the UAE government's refusal to issue visas to people of poor countries like Pakistan (although, in a sense, Pakistan is a richer country than even UAE, but more of that later). It  seems that Pakistanis under the age of 45 do not stand a chance of getting a UAE visa, unless they have rich relatives there who can sponsor them. 

Despite so many people not getting visas, flights from Karachi to Dubai are full, even though most of the people going there are not the kind I would like to be friendly with. Most of them are laborers working there, but some have invested heavily in real estate in Dubai. Those are the ones who've made their millions in Pakistan, but have no faith in the country's future.

Trump being cordial to Mamdani shocks Americans!

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Lo and behold, we saw another side of Trump when he met Mamdani. He even asked Mamdani to say yes when the New York mayor-elect was asked if he still considered that Trump is a fascist. This is definitely not the Trump we know, as we've seen how rudely he treated Zelensky. Let's hope that Trump changes and becomes a really nice and lovable person. 

But the question remains: will Mamdani be able to persuade billionaires like Trump to pay more taxes on their properties? It will indeed be a miracle if that happens.

I can't help comparing the situation of New York with that of Karachi. If only the taxes paid by Karachi residents were used for the city's development, it would not be the world's least livable. That can only happen only if the city is made a province. Unfortunately, that won't happen for a long time.

Why the 27th amendment was needed

It's been an open secret for a long time that the judiciary in Pakistan is not really independent (that's the case in most countries of the world), but no one ever said so in public. The twenty seventh amendment has merely legalized something illegal, which is why it's not being resisted so fiercely by lawyers (who came out twenty years ago to protest massively against the removal of then Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry by the late General Parvez Musharraf). In fact, the only retired army general so far tried and convicted by a civilian court was Musharraf himself, which made him stay out of the country for a long time (he'd been sentenced to death, but the sentence was later overturned). Until that time, it was unthinkable for any judge to do such a thing. That's the reason why the 27th amendment grants lifetime immunity to the present and future army chiefs (as well as   naval and air force chiefs).

As for granting immunity to the president of the country, that was already part of the constitution, but perhaps Zardari thought it was necessary to reinforce that clause.

There is of course the Imran Khan factor. His cases will no longer be heard by judges who like him, or judges whose mothers-in-law want him to be freed (this actually happened in the past).

Why have so many from Azad Kashmir settled in the UK?

Among the many misconceptions Pakistanis have is the belief that the British constructed the Mangla dam and gave citizenship to those who were displaced when their land was taken over for the dam's construction. Apparently such people do not know that the dam was constructed twenty years after the British left the subcontinent.

The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed in Karachi in 1960 under the aegis of the World Bank. This agreement gave three rivers to Pakistan and the other three to India. I remember waving to Nehru and Ayub Khan as they were going to the President's House in an open car. Nehru waved back to me, while Ayub was staring at a pretty girl standing a couple of feet away on my right. Karachi was the capital of the country at the time, another fact that most Pakistanis have forgotten. 

It's been 65 years since the treaty was signed, and it has survived despite so many wars between the two countries. But the Hindutva activist prime minister (Modi) of India has revoked it recently, which will mean a death blow for Pakistan if it is not restored. 

So the British could not have given citizenship to so many people from Azad Kashmir, as the UK had nothing to do with Mangla dam. What happened is that every family in the area was compensated heavily for their lands by the Pakistani government, as a result of which almost all of them migrated and settled in the UK, which was the favored destination at the time.

 

Mamdani creates history

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Most people had lost faith in democracy after seeing people like Trump and Modi getting elected. But there is some hope after all. With Zohran Mamdani getting elected as New York's first Muslim mayor (besides being the youngest so far), the people of that city have proved that they cannot be fooled by the Zionists and billionaires who did their utmost to defeat Mamdani.

I didn't know there was so much hatred against Muslims in the US until I saw a video posted on Facebook. In the video a young man is seen calling Mamdani a communist and die-hard Muslim, who would impose Sharia law in New York if he was elected. He also warned New Yorkers that their women would be forced to wear the all-enveloping burkha. 

But the most threatening tone was that of Trump himself. He warned that he would cut federal funding to the city if Mamdani was elected. Now that it has happened, he said that the US has lost its sovereignty and a communist has taken control of New York City. I don't know if it was Trump, but one US politician has claimed that Hamas has taken over NYC. The richest man in the world (Elon Musk) alleged  that the election process was a scam.

Mamdani's victory and those of other Democrats proves that Americans are not satisfied with Trump's performance. Trump and his Republican supporters should change their policies or they'll be routed in next year's mid-term elections. 

Racism in the US

We saw a lot of racism and prejudice against Muslims when we were kids in school. Even though our Catholic teachers were brown (like us), we could see that they thought Muslims were inferior. There was one male teacher who used to say that Muslims were backward and inferior to Christians and others. But we assumed, as the years went by, that most Americans and Europeans were now free of prejudice, despite occasional incidents of policemen killing blacks in the US, and Pakistanis being beaten up in the UK.

It seems that we were wrong. I've seen so much hatred of Muslims on social media that I'm shocked. A class fellow of mine (a brown Catholic and a US citizen) posted a video on Facebook in which a young boy is spewing hatred against Muslims in general and Mamdani in particular. He warns residents of New York that if Mamdani is elected mayor, they will soon see Sharia law in their city. 

But the most surprising thing is Trump's racism. He has allowed only white South Africans to immigrate to the US, and today he's asked the Pentagon to be ready to invade Nigeria to save the Christians in that country. I wonder why he didn't say anything when the Israelis were killing Christians in Gaza. In fact, all churches in Gaza have been demolished and the Christians there pray in the open. 

Banning political parties is not the answerr

Many political parties were banned in the past, but that has never worked. Bhutto banned the National Awami Party (NAP), but it resurfaced as Awami National Party (ANP). For some time, even the Peoples Party was banned, it once contested elections as PPPP (Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians). After the recent failed march to Islamabad by the extremist TLP, the government is considering banning the party, but this will make the party even more popular.

In fact, the TLP (Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan) is already very popular among Pakistan's largely illiterate population of those who follow the Barelvi version of Islam. The Punjab government is planning to take against those who have financed the party in the past (there are about 4,000 of them). The party head (Saad Rizvi) has gone underground, but in a raid on his house, the cops found gold and currency (including Indian rupees) reportedly amounting to more than a hundred million. The TLP chief also has 95 bank accounts, and the party "owns" three hundred and thirty mosques as well as 223 madressas. 

All this proves that extremism in Pakistan is rampant and will be difficult to eliminate merely by banning politico-religious parties. One wonders why the government did not take any action when the party was building mosques and seminaries on government land. But perhaps it was because the TLP was encouraged in the past to destabilize Nawaz Sharif's government by those in the Establishment who wanted to remove him from power and install their puppet Imran Khan in his place.

 

Ungrateful Afghans: will they ever change?

Afghanistan has always opposed the existence of Pakistan, right from day one. It opposed the creation of Pakistan, claiming most of the territory of the new country (despite their former rulers having accepted the Durand Line as the border). India helped them claim that the two provinces of Pakistan (KP and Baluchistan) belonged to Afghanistan. Pakistan helped Afghans in expelling the Soviets from their country. They seem to have forgotten that India did not oppose the Soviet invasion and did not boycott the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow (most countries including Pakistan boycotted). 

The Taliban government currently in power has allied itself with India to destabilize Pakistan, their foreign minister even supporting India's illegal occupation of Kashmir. He was unable to justify his government's treatment of its women. He forgot that Pakistan gave refuge to three million Afghans (half of them are still in Pakistan).

After years of bomb blasts carried out by Indian-supported Afghans, Pakistan decided that it could no longer stay silent. After Pakistan's bombing of the terrorists' sanctuaries in Afghanistan, the Taliban begged for a cease fire.  The cease fire agreed in yesterday's talks in Doha and more talks in Istanbul to be held next week, perhaps the Taliban may agree to stop terrorist activities, but I doubt if they will ever change. They want Pakistan to hand over its two western provinces to them, where they want to impose their version of Islam. Pakistan should retaliate whenever a terrorist attack takes place in the country. That's the only way to defeat them.  

Israel's so-called "victory" is anything but that

Both Trump and Netanyahu have proclaimed that the Gaza cease fire agreement is a victory for Israel, but they're both mistaken. Israel has actually lost the war and has lost the support of most Americans and Europeans. In years to come, Israel will do everything it can to sabotage the agreement, but it won't have the backing of those who were its allies until now.

Even a significant number of Israelis have turned against Netanyahu's government. During Trump's speech in the Israeli parliament, some members openly called for recognition of Palestine. In the US, opinion polls show that a majority (including Jews) believe that Israel has committed genocide. It seems that every American under the age of 30 is against Israel, and there will be immense pressure on the US government to curtail military aid to the apartheid state.

The best thing would be for Netanyahu and his hawkish ministers to be tried by the International Court of Justice and sentenced to prison terms, but of course that is not likely to happen soon.

A different approach (dealing with India)

Published in Dawn on October 12, 2025

WITH the Bihar elections in India due soon, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his henchmen are likely to do their best to blame Pakistan for all their failures. They want their people to believe that Pakistan is responsible for all their problems, including the fact that 40 per cent Indians are living below the poverty line, and many children have died after consuming contaminated cough syrups.

I suggest that instead of responding to any threats hurled by Indians, we should stay calm and not respond in kind. The best thing to do, of course, is to pretend that India does not exist, but since that is not possible, we should find an alternative way.

We could, for instance, point out that India could solve most of its problems by reducing its defence budget by half, and spend the money saved to feed its hungry masses. We could suggest that India would be better off buying fighter jets and missiles manufactured in Pakistan instead of France. Of course, the Indian government would not respond, but at least our offer would go some way towards convincing ordinary Indians not to fall for Pakistan-bashing.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1948353/a-different-approach

More non-Muslims supporting Palestinians

For some reason, we see more and more non-Muslim states openly opposing Israel. On the other hand, leaders of Muslim countries are lukewarm in their statements. Until recently, Pakistan's position was that there should be no Israel, the country should be known as Palestine. Now it supports a two-state solution. Israel, of course, will never agree to it. As far as Arab countries are concerned, the UAE actually has recognized the apartheid state, while even Saudi Arabia appears to be neutral. Why is this so?

The only reason is that Arab states are more scared of Palesinians than of Israel. Too much oil wealth has made them soft and scared to fight. In fact, there is only one Arab country which is prepared to take on Israel, and that is Yemen. The only Muslim country which is directly fighting Israel is Iran (a non-Arab country). Pakistan is another country which has fought wars, but it is not in Israel's neighborhood, so a direct confrontation with Israel is not possible.

Whatever the reason, leaders of Muslim countries will have to unite and prevent Israel and India from invading neighboring countries. 

Trump's new blows on india: H-1B visa fees and sanction on comstructing Iranian port

Suddenly, Trump has dealt two new devastating blows on India (in addition to the 50 percent duty on Indian goods). First, he removed the exemption India enjoyed for constructing Chahbahar Port in Iran. Now, he has increased the H-1B visa fees from about 2000 dollars to 100,000 dollars (which went into effect yesterday, 21 September 2025). About 75 percent of these visas are given to Indians who are mostly employed in the US IT industry. 

Even though the government made it clear that this fee would be imposed only on new applicants, and those who already had the visa need not worry, there was panic in India. Thousands of Indians working in the US were visiting India due to the marriage season and a religious festival (Durga Puja). They desperately tried to get back to the US before the deadline, as a result of which air fares to the US surged to five times the normal cost. Those already seated with boarding cards in San Francisco and other US airports begged to be off-loaded, fearing that they would be deported on returning to the US from India. One Indian IT executive even said that his annual salary is not US $ 100,000, so how could he pay that much to renew his visa.

What Indians can't explain is why they need to work in other countries, since (as they claim) India has the fourth largest economy. Already Indian exports have declined so much that a 100 million Indians have been rendered jobless (due to the 50 percent tariff on Indian goods imposed by Trump).

India has warned the US that imposing this high amount is detrimental to humanity, but Trump will not budge. People are wondering why he has suddenly turned against India. Perhaps it's because the US has now realized that India can no longer be depended upon to fight a war with China, which became evident after Pakistan inflicted a crushing defeat upon it in May this year.

Asia Cup cricket handshake controversy

I've often wondered why Hindutva BJP Indian leaders are such cry babies. In every election, they've used anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim slogans to win elections. After their humiliating defeat in the 4-day war in May this year, they've gone paranoid, since no country in the world accepted their stance that Pakistan was to blame for terrorism in their country. Now their hatred for Pakistan has spilled over into cricket, which is a gentleman's game. 

It's mandatory for captains of both the teams to shake hands before starting the game, and members of both teams also shake hands with each other after the match has ended. In last Sunday's match, the Indian team refused to do so. It turned out that instructions to refuse the handshake came from the top leadership. In their media, even some Indians are questioning why this happened. But the Indian fundamentalist government wants to show their benighted followers that they are on morally high ground where Muslims are concerned. I doubt that the voters will be fooled in the next elections, but of course there is the possibility that Modi will arrange rigging of elections again to win.