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INTRODUCTION

Charles Darwin

Some 150 years ago, the British naturalist Charles Darwin proposed a theory based on various observations made during his travels, but which could not be supported by any subsequent scientific findings. In essence, his theory of evolution consisted of various scenarios, assumptions and conjectures that Darwin dreamed up in his own imagination.

According to his evolution scenario, inanimate substances came together by chance to give rise to the first living cell. No doubt this claim was highly inaccurate, and one that could not be corroborated by any scientific evidence or findings. Again according to that myth, this single-celled life form gradually—and again by chance—turned into the first living species of microbe—in other words, it evolved. According to the evolution error, all the life forms on Earth, from bacteria on up to human beings, emerged as the result of this same imaginary process.

Darwin’s claims were of course based on no scientific evidence or findings. But since the scientific understanding and technological means available at the time were at a fairly primitive level, the full extent of the ridiculous and unrealistic nature of his assertions did not emerge fully into the light of day. In such a climate, Darwin’s scenarios received general acceptance from a wide number of circles. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I accidentally bumped into a mild-mannered middle-aged man who turned out to be a cousin of the notorious Salamullah Tipu. Very few among the current generation of young Pakistanis are likely to have any worthwhile recollection of this character. Tipu for a while almost became a Che Guevara-like figure for a whole generation of left-wing student groups. From 1980 till his death in 1984, Tipu became a symbol of militant resistance against the Ziaul Haq dictatorship, after which he gradually faded away from Pakistan’s collective memory. Read the rest of this entry »

Your editorial of the 23rd June 2009 titled� Losing to a friend is no pain, referring to Pakistan’s victory in the T-20 World Cup finals states� inter alia, “After all, is one of the few countries that helped Sri Lanka win her war on terror.”

Pakistan has been not only a true friend in war but also in sports. This fact is most evident in cricket. When we were struggling to get Full Membership at the International cricket Council in the 1970’s it was that great benefactor of Sri Lanka Cricket, the late Abdul Hafeez Kardar, the then President of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), who single handedly pioneered our proposal at the ICC meeting in July 1975. Abdul Hafeez Kardar an Oxford Blue, who played for India before the partition and was the first captain of the Pakistan Cricket Team and became a cabinet Minister in the Ali Bhutto government at the time he was President of the PCB. At that time England and Australia had Veto powers at the ICC, and used it to bludgeon any proposal that was not to their liking. The proposal for full membership for Sri Lanka had been thrown out earlier by England and Australia using their Veto powers and this was one of the main reasons that prompted Mr Kardar to pioneer the formation of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC). Read the rest of this entry »

The king is dead; long live the king’s music. While the pall of gloom that had engulfed the world at the shocking news of Michael Jackson’s death has abated, his work, life and idiosyncrasies continue being extolled, hashed and critiqued. And since his death has become those rare, ‘Where were you’ moments — like Princess Diana’s death and 9/11— I can’t help but include him in my comment.

Michael Jackson was never ‘just another great singer’; he was and will be remembered by each one of us who grew up with his music as the defining factor of our lives. I remember exactly what phase of my childhood I was at when, ‘Don’t stop till you get enough,’ came out and who my first crush was when Thriller — the album — came into my life in the form of the first ‘LP’ I was ever to posses sent in 1983 by my brother from Fresno. ‘Beat it’ became an anthem and music attained a level of spirituality. Read the rest of this entry »

BERLIN: Formula One commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, said on Monday his comments praising Adolf Hitler were misunderstood as a top Jewish group called for a boycott of the upcoming German grand prix.

On Saturday, the 78-year-old Ecclestone caused uproar after saying in an interview with British newspaper the Times that Hitler was a man who “was able to get things done”.But he told German mass circulation daily Bild: “This was all a huge misunderstanding. Read the rest of this entry »

The present government is facing real embarrassment on poverty estimates for 2007-08. The Panel of Economists, formed by the government in April 2008 under the leadership of Dr Hafiz Pasha, found that 35-40 percent people of Pakistan were living below the poverty line in 2007-08 – up from 22.3 percent in 2005-06. The political leadership, unaware of the technical details of the estimation techniques, took the estimates of the Panel seriously and everybody, including the ministers, the prime minister and the president started mentioning the numbers within and outside the country. The political leadership had no reason to distrust the professional skills of the Panel of Economists. Their only fault was that they could not realise that some members of the Panel of Economists were positioning themselves to get ministerial jobs and some retired “experts” were trying to secure their jobs in the government. These people could have moved their way to the present regime only if they would paint a bleak picture of the state of the economy, including the substantial rise in poverty. I am positive that this Panel of Economists has had no courage to write similar three paragraphs as documented in the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies attached with the Letter of Intent, signed by the Government of Pakistan on Nov 20, 2008 with the IMF. Read the rest of this entry »

The sordid saga of legitimised thievery of expensive state gifts committed by former president Pervez Musharraf and his hand-picked ex-prime minister Shaukat Aziz seems to continue unabated. It would be in order and appropriate if your investigative reporter, Rauf Klasra, also digs into the files and let the readers know how many gifts were bestowed on the former two-time prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif, what they did with state gifts given to them during their respective tenures and how saintly they have been? Let us also have a scoop on the current leadership, in this regard. Read the rest of this entry »

The easiest, and now customary, escape from tackling felonies as heinous as child rape is to pour scorn on depraved elements, offer compensation to their prey and move on, burying both the crime and punishment. In some incidents, these last rites involve a real burial such as that of three-year-old Sana who was allegedly raped and murdered by two police constables after she went missing last week. However, a true confrontation involves a battle with the state as it is a virtual accomplice in terminating countless childhoods — civil society’s long and seemingly endless struggle to have the Child Protection Bill endorsed by parliament continues. Read the rest of this entry »

The Jews have beaten the more pious Muslims to it again. A new ‘kosher’ search engine called Koogle has been launched for orthodox Jews living in Israel, which will allow them to surf cyberspace without ever encountering unbecoming images or faith wavering text and keep the dangers of subversion and temptation at bay.  Koogle will follow the religious standards set by the rabbis and is aimed at helping orthodox Jews stay on the stipulated path. Read the rest of this entry »