Moborate

We don't usually write about entertainment channels of the sitcom / soaps / serials variety (as opposed to entertainment channels of the news / current affairs variety) but there's a new channel airing across Pakistan for about the last two months causing all sorts of waves that is interesting to us for a number of reasons.  Urdu1's advertising blitz can be seen in magazines and on billboards For one, Urdu1 , as the channel is named, seems to have hooked a substantial number of viewers, which seems to be giving its big-name rivals in the television entertainment business all sorts of palpitations. No doubt a major part of the reason for its sudden popularity is the fact that it is broadcasting some of the most popular Indian soaps, whose ratings on the illegally (but widely) broadcast Indian entertainment channels such as Star Plus and Colors, put to shame ratings of all other Pakistani channels. It is technically able to do this because it is actually not a Pakistani chann...

The entire country seems to be seized with the issue of whether dual nationality holders should be allowed to hold public office in Pakistan . The Supreme Court is currently hearing a case against four Peoples Party parliamentarians including the President's media adviser Farahnaz Ispahani , whose National Assembly membership has been temporarily suspended by the court on prima facie evidence that she is also an American citizen. The Punjab Assembly has tried to weasel its way out of the same criteria being applied to its members by saying it has no record of which of its members are dual nationality holders . I'm not here to discuss the merits and contradictions of this issue, so if you can please leave that outrage for another time... What I'm really here to share, however, is an explosive little story that a little tweety bird with impeccable credentials has divulged to us (what, you think only Najam Sethi has mysterious chirryas ?). If you recall, a certain Interio...

When you have four stories on one patently manufactured 'issue' carried by a newspaper in five days, you can safely consider it an object lesson in how to conduct a witch-hunt. The News' City pages May 3, 2012 In the first story, titled ' City's elite schools say no to national anthem ' published in the city pages of The New s on May 3, 2012, reporter Sidrah Roghay wrote that several "elite" schools in Karachi had discontinued the tradition of singing the Pakistani national anthem during morning assembly " calling it a waste of time and energy. " She went on to imply that "regulatory authorities" were complicit in this "dismal" state of affairs, because of the schools' "influence and connections." The schools, we were told, catered mostly to the "elite, upper-middle class and middle class families." The battle lines between 'us' and 'them' being drawn, Ms Roghay and the city editor ...

We are sometimes accused by partisan supporters of opposition political parties of being soft on or for not being more vehement about denouncing the alleged corruption or misgovernance of the currently ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). While I could point to dozens of examples to dispute these claims, I would like to explain, once again, a couple of things. Firstly, we do not brook real corrupt practises, arrogance or misgovernance; our only problem is when either claims are made without substantial proof or when such allegations are made arbitrarily only against the PPP and without context, as if everyone else - from the military to the judiciary to other political parties - is innocent of any blame and everything was hunky dory aside from the times that the PPP has been in power. This is not to say that the PPP should not be hauled up for its sins, only to provide a more balanced perspective. But even more importantly than this is the fact that in the context of a mainstream medi...

I would have posted this yesterday but sometimes weekends should remain weekends i.e. work-free, no matter the happiness work may bring. In any case, this has to be the best thing to have happened in Pakistan yesterday or perhaps even the year. And may I add, it could not have happened to a better blowhard at a better occasion (a meeting of the leadership of the Duffer-e-Pakistan Council). Given his past exploits rigging elections, General Hamid Gul sahib should have known by now that there's no guarantee of the kursi once you leave it.

I came across an essay today that contained the following passages: "Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal. It’s no use pretending otherwise and telling us... that educated people are the nation’s most valuable resources. Sure, they are, but do we still want them? It doesn’t look to me as if we do. The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit.   An educated, well-informed population, the kind that a functioning democracy requires, would be difficult to lie to, and could not be led by the nose by the various vested interests running amok in this country. Most of our politicians and their political advisers and lobbyists would find themselves unemployed, and so would the gasbags who pass themselves off as our opinion makers. Luckily for them, nothing so catastrophic, even though perfectly well-deserved and widely-welcome, has a remote chance of occurring any time soon....

Some new evidence has come to light related to 'Memogate' that we think should be placed in front of the Commission investigating whether any crime was committed and if there is enough evidence to charge former Pakistan ambassador Husain Haqqani for it... Hey, with Blackberry's parent company RIM dilly-dallying about handing over crucial data , might as well go with whatever evidence you can scrounge... The bit we're focusing on begins around the 02:45 mark... Thanks to @shehryar69 via @shahidsaeed for it. Enjoy: : : : Update : : :  This old video seems to have really caught the public imagination (how could it not!). And has also led to Mr Mansoor Ijaz confirming to the Associated Press  (AP) that it is in fact him in the 2004 video. Of course he thinks it's been publicised at the behest of his current nemesis Mr Husain Haqqani in order to discredit him, which fits in perfectly with our earlier assessment of what ails him . We would just like to assure him that...

Last month, while other pyalas scuttled off to the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf's (PTI’s) Karachi jalsa with visions of free potty training seats in their heads, I stayed at home with a copy of Imran Khan ’s Pakistan, A Personal History . I read it with the intention of reviewing it here immediately but, like certain Bufo toads that can, at will, secrete a noxious hallucinogenic substance that acts as a deterrent to predators, the book did not encourage further handling. I revisited it today because I chanced upon Amir Zia’s review for Newsline last month. He succinctly articulated some of my biggest problems with the content of the memoir, saying: “Khan’s personal analysis of the origin and spirit of the Pakistan Movement underlines his simplistic and superficial understanding of those times. In fact, it appears more akin to former military ruler General Zia-ul Haq’s distorted and twisted propagandist history, which still remains a part of our curriculum. For instance, Khan, in his z...

I was never very fond of former DawnNews morning show and current TVOne anchor Faisal Qureshi - he currently hosts the show Bang-e-Dara on the latter. For some reason his style of speaking seemed a bit too smarmy for my tastes, which I realize is purely a subjective, personal reaction. But I have to admit I have a new-found respect for him now. Heck, he's my new television hero. Watch him take down Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf 's Dr Awab Alvi after the PTI jalsa in Karachi on December 25 . I think this is what the word 'merciless' was originally coined for. And the best thing is, Qureshi does it with simple substantiated facts and no recourse to grand sweeps of emotive logic (yes, those critiquing PTI are also prone to it as much as PTI supporters). By the end Dr Alvi is forced to concede that he never wants to match wits with Qureshi again. A must watch!

I had half made up my mind to tweet about my impressions of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf 's (PTI's) Karachi rally today (yes, I did go despite the lack of Christmas pudding on hand) but seeing as how each tweet usually seems to end up needing two or three more to clarify and how, inevitably, someone's who's missed them asks you why you did not say anything about such and such, I decided it might be better just to do a brief post on the whole thing. PTI Jalsa: late afternoon (Photo: via PTI website) So here goes: 1. It was a big, big crowd: Exactly how big? Who really knows? Nobody we knew had done the only acceptable way of enumeration, by counting the legs and dividing by two. But the general consensus among media hacks was that it was above 100,000 people. Could easily have been 150,000 also. No, it was not 500,000 as the PTI spinners on stage were insisting by the end. No, there weren't a huge number of people outside the main ground or inside the grounds of the Quaid...

I had promised a comprehensive post about the unraveling of Husain Haqqani when it first happened. The different aspects of the case (technical, political, legal) that led to his resignation as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States - now commonly and irritatingly dubbed 'Memogate' - however, not only required a lot more time to deal with than I then had available, but has already been commented upon in bits and pieces by various analysts all over in newspapers, on television and on the net. Far more importantly, it now seems like a footnote in the rush of current events.   Eye of the storm: Husain Haqqani Because I had promised a post on it, I will state briefly what I thought of the entire episode as well as state some things that all should be aware of: *** The Unravelling of Husain Haqqani *** 1. The military establishment was never pleased with the appointment of Haqqani as Pakistan's ambassador to the US and had been gunning for his head right from the beginni...

"Laal’s new and most revolutionary video to date. Please paste to your profile to spread awareness against religious extremism." Thus spake the Twitter-feed of Laal the band’s lead singer, guitarist-songwriter-Marxist-academic-revolutionary Dr. Taimur Rahman , announcing the upload of the band’s latest track onto YouTube. The song, which features an anti-American/CIA/ISI visual collage, plus Comrade Taimur's delightfully uninhibited-by-hipness moves, and a chorus of " Dehshatgardi Murdabad " (Death to Terrorism), hasn’t received as much hype as some of their earlier offerings. One theory is that this is not because of its subject matter, or the moves (you know someone is committed to their cause when they even dance earnestly), but because it simply isn’t good music. (Though some people feel that a song that incorporates spitting out the words " Pitthoo ", " Chamchay " and " Tattu " deserves the same special cult status reserved f...

We have been frequent critics of Imran Khan the politician in the past and with very good reason. I still hold that his prescriptions for Pakistan's various ills are entirely simplistic and that his flirtations with the mullah lobby are dangerous indicators of his muddle-headed analysis of this country's political economy. And if anything gets my back up more, it's his and his supporters' dour self-righteousness on top of it all. But even I have to admit that for the first time ever Immy bhai exhibited a sense a wit when he dubbed Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif , presiding over a grossly personalized maladministration in the Punjab , the "Dengue Biradraan" (the Dengue Brothers). It actually made me laugh. Perhaps a rising popularity graph in the province can do wonders for your self-confidence. It's certainly loosened Immy bhai's stiff neck it seems. Imran Khan addressing a big rally in Gujranwala in September A showdown of egos now looms as the P...