Last Thursday we ran through the history behind the rise and fall of one of Pakistan’s largest student organisations, the Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT). This week we shall analyse the evolution of another controversial student outfit, the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation (APMSO) – the student party that became the leading reason behind the decline and at times ouster of the IJT from Karachi’s major universities and colleges....

There has been much dark talk about foreign interference in Balochistan that is fuelling the separatist flames. While this is entirely possible, outsiders can only influence events if there is fertile soil to assist their efforts. In Balochistan, there has long been a nationalist streak that has been repeatedly suppressed by state violence.

For the past three years, several private institutions in coastal and Dakshin Kannada have disallowed Muslim girls from wearing the burqa, and now even the headscarf, though they have refrained from issuing any official instruction or mentioning it in their prospectus. Interestingly, the first to impose such a ban was a Christian institution, St. Agnes College, followed by St. Anne’s and St. Aloysius College in Mangalore.

Iran's stated purpose to establish military alliance with Muslim countries is obviously hogwash, Middle Eastern politics expert, research scholar of Texas University at Austin, Saif Shahin told Trend. The expert was commenting on recent news on Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi proposing to establish military alliance between the Muslim countries.

This is typical and Zia tends to pick up the blame for conditions in Pakistan’s society. But the fact is that the Hudood laws remain on the books. Pakistan Studies and Islamiat also remain in textbooks. Why? The answer is that Ziaul Haq gave Pakistan what it wanted. Liaquat Ali Khan and the Muslim League gifted Pakistan the Objectives Resolution, committing to align law with Sharia….

Contradicting their stand against Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Americans has been financing and arming the organisation in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Egypt. They have also terrorised the minorities out of these countries so as the fragmentation of the Middle East becomes an accomplished fact. Such fragmentation will divide the region into small sectarian and ethnic entities in perpetual strife. It will weaken the resistance of the Arabs against Israel, America’s thorn in the side of the Middle East.

All reports by Israeli army and intelligence agencies to politicians in Tel Aviv state that carrying out a large scale attack on the Gaza Strip after the 25 January Revolution has become a very difficult task, because of the influence of Egyptian public opinion on decision-makers in Cairo. Reports issued by the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University state that Egyptian public opinion could pressure the Egyptian leadership to review the Camp David Treaty if Israel carried out a large scale attack on Gaza.

Despite the continued ghettoisation of Muslims in a polarised Gujarat, the Muslim community in the state has through sheer hard work shown some advances in education and wealth generation. The denial of justice to the victims of the 2002 Gujarat pogroms, despite strenuous efforts by civil society activists and interventions by the higher judiciary, remains a major issue for the community....

Tahrir was heating up again. Activists had already called for SCAF’s exit. Anti-Tantawi graffiti in and around Tahrir Square would put more pressure on the government to punish the Maspero massacre perpetrators. “There was a lot of back and forth between the Ikhwan (Brotherhood) and the SCAF. In the end SCAF walked away with a good deal,” says a source in the Defence Ministry.....

However, those who rioted aren’t getting the same treatment that Shiv Sainiks and MNS rioters do. It can be argued that attacking the police is more serious than attacking public property. But attacking unarmed citizens only because they belong to a particular faith or region — is that less serious? The MNS’s attacks on North Indians, all televised, are just four years old. Two innocents were killed then. When the National Human Rights Commission directed the State to pay compensation of Rs.5 lakh each to the victims’ families, the government spoke of financial problems. Incidentally, the MNS’s unique way of protecting Marathi pride in 2008 cost the State a loss of Rs.500 crore. As for the Shiv Sena’s record of targeting, often fatally, unarmed South Indians, Muslims, media persons, Valentine’s Day lovers, rickshaw drivers — it would be insulting the readers’ intelligence to list the details....

It is common knowledge that Iran and Saudi Arabia are competing in the wider Middle East region, wherein they back rival camps in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and the Occupied Territories. They are also at odds over the Shiite protesters in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia’s eastern province. Saudi officials routinely accuse Iran of fomenting the protests in both cases....

Needless to say, the assembly is working round the clock drafting articles relying heavily on the Sharia and asserting the supremacy of civilian authorities, with the army having to answer to the president. If the constitution is drafted in time, it will be submitted to the people in a referendum before the court has made public its decision. It will then be nearly impossible for the court to rule against the democratically expressed will of the people....

 Radical Islamists are waiting to rush into the vacuum that will be created by Assad’s fall The end game in Syria has commenced. The king has lost several of his pieces and is cornered, with little prospects of escape and win. The best he can aspire to is an honourable draw and even that would appear to be too much to hope for….

Ramadan has come. Muslims around the world, who now number more than 1.6 billion, repeat the seasonal greeting: “Ramadan Kareem,” a phrase meaning noble, generous, or holy Ramadan in Arabic. But how will Muslims celebrate Ramadan in a year when Muslim minorities are suffering oppression in a number of countries worldwide?...

The best protection against emerging totalitarianism is a working pluralistic democratic system and the practice of a tolerant Islam An expatriate friend after one of his frequent visits, described living in Pakistan as living in an Orwellian funhouse on its way to becoming a dystopian society. Dystopian societies feature different kinds of repressive social control systems and practice various forms of active and passive coercion....