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[-
IKRAM SEHGAL -] |
 Giving
facts a "Spin"
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A comment upon "Avoiding an
Abyss" has insinuated that in the article an
impression was made that the Shaheeds of the Armed
Forces are not looked after, and that the Army as
an institution is to blame. Misleading on both counts
and deliberately taken out of context to divert the
thrust of and obscure the actual message, the attempted
"spin" was in keeping with why the Army
gets into such trouble with its image inside and outside
the country. On the principle of "shooting the
messenger" carrying bad news, differentiation
is seldom made between friend and foe or separating
good advice from motivated criticism. If the hierarchy
perceives something unpalatable, the "spin masters"
are tasked to distort the substance of the message,
directly or indirectly. If such an impression was
created even inadvertently or remotely, I stand corrected......more
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The
Underdog Feeling |
Barely three months ago the paths
of terrorism and cricket crossed in Lahore. Terrorism
we can do without, what we cannot do without is international
cricket on our soil. Given the amount of food and
water in the backpacks of the terrorists, the primary
aim of the ambush was not to kill but to kidnap. Prabhakaran
and the remnants of the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) were making
their last stand at Killonochi against the relentless
Sri Lankan Army, possible that the aim was to take
the Sri Lankan team as hostages and barter their freedom
or was the timing just an amazing coincidence?....more
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Confronting
Adversity Positively
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When faced with a man-made human catastrophe of the
Swat magnitude, it is not enough just to provide relief
and succour, one must plan for mental resuscitation
to force-multiply physical rehabilitation. To confront
the adversity faced by the Internally Displaced Persons
(IDPs) positively and turn adversity into an opportunity,
a three members "Rapid Mission" was constituted
at the innovative initiative of the outstanding Chairman
Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC), Dr Zafar
Altaf. The Rapid Mission visited 8 IDPs camps located
at Mardan, Takht Bhai, Swabi, Nowshera and Peshawar.
This article examines their Diagnostic Survey to assess
and analyse the present situation. Their assessment
viz (1) identifies the issues related to drinking
water, sanitation, solid waste, wastewater and disposal
of waste and rain-water (2) diagnosed problems relating
to food, health and security and (3) identified prospects
of short-term agricultural interventions in the IDPs
camps.....more
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Avoiding
a Quagmire?
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The
magnificent performance of the rank and file of the
Army fighting the counter-insurgency in Swat is no surprise.
Whether in Kashmir in 1947-48, Dir in 1958 and 1976,
the Rann of Kutch, occupied Kashmir (Operation Gibraltar)
and later in the full-fledged war of 1965, during the
1971 war, in the Balochistan counter-insurgency in 1973-5,
Siachen continuously since 1985, in Kargil in 1998 and
in FATA since 2004 (and many more small conflicts that
would take many more pages), young officers and their
men have kept their commitment “even to the peril
of their lives” in line with the oath they took
on induction into the Armed Forces....more |
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