Saturday, May 2, 2015

Altaf Hussain's Rants; Indian Media on Pak Beef in Nepal; Baltimore Protests

Is Altaf Hussain mentally stable? Why did he react as he did to Police Superintendent Anwar Rao's allegations of MQM-RAW connections? 



What caused Baltimore riots? What is the history of race relations in American cities?

Why was a beef product sent to the Nepal earthquake victims, by the Pakistanis?  Why is the Indian media making a big deal of it

Is the Baloch insurgency dying? Is the Pakistani media choosing self-censorship after Sabeen Mahmud’s murder? Are talks like "Un-Silencing" on Balochistan normally one-sided, against Pakistani state? 

ViewPoint from Overseas host Misbah Azam (www.politicsinpakistan.com) discusses these and other questions with panelists Riaz Haq(www.riazhaq.com), and Ali H Cemendtaur (www.Cemendtaur.net) in Silicon Valley, California, USA. 

کیا ایم کیو ایم کے الطاف حسین کا دماغی توازن درست نہیں ہے یا وہ نشے میں تقریر کرتے ہیں؟ ایس پی رائو انور کی پریس کانفرینس کے بعد الطاف حسین کی بے ہنگم تقریر اور اس پہ اٹھنے والا طوفان، اور پھر الطاف حسین کی معافی کیا معنی رکھتی ہے؟ نیپال میں زلزلے سے متاثرین کی مدد کے لیے پاکستان سے گائے کا گوشت کیوں گیا؟ اگر یہ غلطی تھی تو بھارتی میڈیا اس غلطی پہ اس قدر شور کیوں مچا رہا ہے؟ امریکہ میں سیاہ فام اور سفید فام لوگوں کے درمیان تنائو اور پے درپے سیاہ فام نوجوانوں کا سفید فام پولیس افسران کے ہاتھوں مارے جانے کے واقعات کیوں ہورہے ہیں؟ کیا سبین محمود کے قتل کے بعد بلوچستان کے موضوع پہ پاکستانی میڈیا نے سینسرشپ اختیار کرلی ہے؟ بلوچستان پہ ہونے والے سیمینار میں ان لوگوں کی آواز کیوں نہیں سنی جاتی جن کے رشتہ داروں کو بلوچ دہشت گردوں نے بے دردی سے قتل کیا ہے؟
ویو پواءنٹ فرام اوورسیز کے میزبان مصباح اعظم کی ریاض حق، اور علی حسن سمندطور سے گفتگو۔

https://vimeo.com/126692020



VPOS 050115-ipad from WBT TV on Vimeo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMyEAN1KcNs





Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Indian Media Propaganda Against Pakistan Relief Supplies in Nepal Quake

Who Killed Sabeen? Why?

Gwadar as Hong Kong West?

Pak-China Industrial Corridor

Gangs of Karachi

American Hypocrisy on Dr. Afridi's Sentence

Post Cold War World: Pakistan-China-Russia Vs India-US-Japan

How Strategic Are China-Pakistan Ties?

Alaska Permanent Fund: A Model For Balochistan?

Has Modi Stepped Up India's Covert War in Pakistan?

Serious Issues Undermining Baloch Insurgency

8 comments:

Mohd said...

U were right.
#GoHomeIndianMedia trending worldwide of insensitive Indian media in Nepal.

Riaz Haq said...

A letter to CNN from a Nepali woman on Indian media's insensitive coverage after earthquake:

when saw your news and news reports, my heart cried and hurt more than those destruction caused by 7.9 Richter magnitude of earthquake. Like all the medical personnel are taught and trained for potential disasters in future, as a reporter, I hope there is some kind of training on how to report different events. Your media and media personnel are acting like they are shooting some kind of family serials. If your media person can reach to the places where the relief supplies have not reached, at this time of crisis can’t they take a first-aid kit or some food supplies with them as well?

There has been one viral news report going on where a reporter presented how people were fighting for food and one women got injured badly. Thanks to the reporter who had enough time to grab the victim and bring to the camera to show the victim hurt badly on her head. But how surprising, he did not have a minute to grab a piece of cloth to stop bleeding . That reporter did not have a minute to grab the wrist of that person who was beating others with helmet. There was of course a cameraman who does not want to miss a second so that a dramatic news could be presented. I think you are a human before you become a media person. As a responsible person, it was your duty to save someone.

Next, there was this one reporter who had so much time to disturb the rescue workers on asking about technology. If you cannot save one life on that spot, could you please stop bothering others? It looks like , the reporter is new to the world of technology. A show where these technology launching program happens would be better for him to host. Thanks to tons of reporters who came to Nepal from those rescue planes of India, you took a seat where a victim could be transported to hospitals/ health camps. Thanks to you all reporters, you took a seat where a bag of food and supplies could be placed to send to those hardly hit places.

As a human, show your humanity. There are enough programs in this world of television where people can see dramatic shows, family serials, horror shows and nonsense reality shows. You do not have to add more at least in this time of crisis.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1238314

Sadhna said...

Riaz Haq said...
A letter to CNN from a Nepali woman on Indian media's insensitive coverage after earthquake


In Journalism Ethics Class at Univ of Kolkata, all students participate in vigorous round table discussions and let me tell you, television around the world is endemic with "shock" reporting.

Let me give you an example of Pakistan Media during the Kashmir quake as reported by DAWN:

"The incident reminded me of Pakistani news coverage of the Kashmir earthquake in 2005. For most of our media channels, the suffering was more about television ratings than broadcasting sympathetic appeals for help. No doubt, the mainstream media played a significant role in highlighting the people’s plight and conveying calls for help. But at the same time, I wouldn’t deny that looking back today I see the coverage of that quake as the beginning of the media’s fetish for gory images and commercialising the suffering of victims.

Since that point, certain media outlets have been cashing in on sensational news items without a flicker of self-doubt. From riots to bomb blasts, it’s all about breaking news in the most nerve-wracking way possible."

I have reviewed some of your blogs as well. For example, when you highlight "farmer suicides" or "poverty in India", you clearly want your Pakistani audience to feel good about that. Furthermore, you are not appealing for humanitarian help. Definitely that is insensitive too!

Riaz Haq said...

Baby '#Pakistan' born in #Nepal in Pakistani-run field hospital. #NepalEarthquake http://ara.tv/98wba via Al Arabiya English​

The second baby to be born in a Pakistan Army field hospital in Nepal since the devastating earthquake on April 25, has been named Pakistan in honor of the country that aided its birth, the news website Dawn reported citing Inter-Services Public Relations on Monday.

The field hospital was built by the Pakistan Army to support relief efforts in earthquake-struck Nepal.

According to Pakistan daily, the Foreign Office stated last week “the first baby born at a Pakistan Army field hospital had been named ‘Lahore’.”

During a visit by Nepal Army Chief General Guarav SJB Rana to a Bhaktapur field hospital on May 3, he expressed ‘his gratitude over the support extended by Pakistan’ through the army, and that the country would always be remembered by the people for providing medical care and supplies to the victims of the earthquake.

Riaz Haq said...

Law enforcement analysts are calling for numerous changes to the way police are trained in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore and the fatal police shooting of Walter Scott in South Carolina.

Recent high-profile deaths of African-American men are just the latest cases putting the spotlight on how police officers interact with the public, especially in black communities. But each circumstance was slightly different, meaning the changes would range from how police approach suspects to how they deal with suspects once in custody.

Any procedural changes that departments undergo will likely take months or even years to implement but some are underway already.

Though Baltimore is still reeling in the wake of destructive protests and a week-long, citywide curfew, the city’s mayor has already called for reforms in its police department. One city that has already started implementing changes after a high-profile case of excessive use of force is New York, where Staten Island resident Eric Garner died after being put in a choke hold by police. After the incident, the NYPD announced a major overhaul to their training practices including revised training for firearms, communication skills and appropriate uses of force.

Technological advancements in "less than lethal" weapons, such as Tasers, rubber bullets and pepper spray, are also seen as tools that could help.

"Technology is constantly evolving so we have to be aware of that so we can send officers out with the best technology,” James O'Keefe, the former Deputy Commissioner for Training at the NYPD who currently works as a criminal justice professor at St. John’s University, told ABC News.

Tweaks to training venues and how specifically they are trained could also help. Richard Beary, the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, predicts that more departments will begin using “scenario-based training” models, where officers train in simulation programs as opposed to “just standing there shooting at targets.”

Some training policies have been in place for decades, such as the 21-foot rule, a guideline used by police to determine when to use lethal force against an armed attacker. A report published in the 1980s claimed an armed attacker could cover a distance of 21 feet in the same time it took an officer to draw, aim and fire their weapon.

“Pretty much every police department in the country covers that in their curriculum,” O'Keefe noted. “It’s a guideline not a rule. But if that’s not taught properly, some young cop could shoot a guy and he could find himself in civil and or criminal trouble.”

O’Keefe said he expects the rule to remain in the NYPD's curriculum but that educators will be more detailed in the way they teach the guideline. The NYPD declined a request by ABC News for comment on the 21-foot rule.


http://abcnews.go.com/News/law-enforcement-analysts-call-police-training-recent-incidents/story?id=30827523

Riaz Haq said...

With mainstream suspicion of the MQM’s ‘ethnic’ politics and in clinging on to this image of the party, critics seldom take account of the MQM’s complex and highly organised – though rigidly hierarchical and violently policed – structure through which it has been able to ingratiate itself into the networks of patronage and service delivery that characterise everyday politics in Karachi and many other parts of Pakistan. It is this intervention in the everyday, quotidian politics of electricity connections, telephone lines, water supply and channelling of youth energies (through collective activities) that generates the spontaneous consent the MQM generates among large swathes of Karachi’s Urdu-speaking middle and working classes. Moreover, it is exactly such mechanisms of service delivery that interact with its minutely organised local units and militant wing to generate the MQM’s ‘dual power’ structure in Karachi as (almost) an alternative state. The refusal to see the MQM as a complex reality beyond its militant wing also obscures the very real imbalances in Pakistan’s power structure and Karachi’s political economy which laid the groundwork for the party’s emergence. Most serious observers and scholars of Pakistan are aware of the shift in Pakistan’s civil-military state apparatuses since the 1960s, and especially following Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s civil service reforms. Since the late 1970s, the suppression of Karachi’s once vibrant labour movement, weaponisation due to civil-military elites’ participation in American imperialism’s ever-expanding war machine, demographic changes due to in-migration from other parts of Pakistan, state patronage of fundamentalist groups, and intensification of certain forms of labour control and informality, have created ripe conditions for the rise of various types of exclusivist, proto-fascist groups. Thus, the relative marginalisation of Urdu-speaking middle classes from Pakistan’s power structure and changes in Karachi’s political economy due to the above mentioned factors created ideal conditions for the emergence of a new type of political subject which, while drawing upon historical tropes of sacrifice, would interact with existing narratives of regional/ethnic marginalisation of other communities in Pakistan, to forge a ‘threatened’ Urdu-speaking community. The MQM also channelled existing discourses of modernisation which intersected with its class and ethnic bases to create the image and rhetoric of a ‘liberal’ and ‘secular’ party. However, a detailed elaboration of the MQM’s political identity is beyond the scope of this piece. Suffice it to say, the popularity of its brand of politics was less a conspiracy of indiscriminate coercion and/or foreign forces than the result of contingent political articulations growing organically out of Karachi and Pakistan’s changing social realities. Coming to our present predicament, it has to be recognised that many of the structural conditions that led to the rise of the MQM and other exclusivist groups in Karachi remain in force today with even greater intensity. These include Pakistani elites’ continued embroilment in the American war machine, continuous retreat of the welfare arm of the state, the unprecedented in-migration into Karachi (unparalleled in any other mega-city in the world) post-2005 earthquake and civil war in northwest Pakistan, and intensification of informality in both workplace and residential area politics. However, while conditions still remain ripe for the rise of protofascist and violent political forces in Karachi, in light of the changing demographics of the city and the MQM’s inability to reinvent itself – name change notwithstanding – as ‘Muttahida’ rather than ‘Mohajir’, the days of untrammelled dominance of the MQM in Karachi are inevitably bound to come to an end.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-316585-The-complex-reality-of-the-MQM

Riaz Haq said...

#MQM chief #AltafHussain inches away from being arrested in #London #England: George Galloway https://shar.es/1pSgTg via @sharethis

LONDON: Member of UK parliament George Galloway on Wednesday claimed that the Scotland Yard was just inches away from arresting Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain.

In a statement, George Galloway said Altaf Hussain's era of tyranny is nearing its logical end.

Galloway said he had, in the past, warned the MQM chief of lodging a case against him in UK but now such a move is no longer needed.

He advised the MQM chief to abandon the practice of 'murders and creation of chaos' in Karachi from his ‘base’ in London.

George Galloway is an elected member of British parliament from Bradford West - a Muslim majority area.

Riaz Haq said...

Indian media and beef controversy: Using Nepal’s tragedy to defame Pakistan
By Birat Gautam Published: May 7, 2015

The Indian team seemed to only be concerned with rescuing Indian nationals residing in Nepal. TIA was overcrowded due to hundreds of Indians waiting to be airlifted and a large number of Indian planes parked at the runway. This caused utter chaos since it disrupted the schedule of other planes that had to land. For instance, a plane from China had to be sent back because the airport was overflowing with Indian planes and passengers. A TIA official stated that TIA was virtually being controlled by Indians.

Kathmandu witnessed a large number of Indian soldiers and media-persons. Quake affected locals reported that the Indian search and rescue teams on social media were reporting and advertising rather than rescuing survivors. Three Indian helicopters rescued 118 people, whereas four Nepalese helicopters rescued 656 people,

The reason behind this gaping difference in rescued people was that the Indian aircraft was only concerned with airlifting Indians; moreover, they reported this incident on Indian news channels under the pretence that Indians are rescuing Nepalese survivors – and not just Indian nationals. Apart from this incorrect coverage, India has been vocally anti-Pakistan since the beginning of this tragedy.

Online media reported that India hinted to the Nepalese foreign ministry to not allow Pakistani support through, ensuring that India would do everything instead. However, the foreign ministry did not oblige to India’s request and Pakistani aid started to pour into Nepal, in the form of sacks of eatables and relief materials.

The Indian media kept a close tab on Pakistani goods and searched every possible loophole to blame the Pakistanis in some issue or the other. Later on, the Indian media reported that Pakistani relief materials contained ‘beef masala’. This became a topic of controversy since the relief packages were sent to a Hindu-majority republic.

Pakistani foreign office spokesperson, Tasnim Aslam, cleared the issue by publically announcing that,

“There was no beef content in the ready-to-eat food dispatched by Pakistan to Nepal.”

Despite this official clearance on the accusation and no statement by Nepal, the Indian media are turning the issue into a propaganda aimed at derailing relations between Pakistan and Nepal. Many Nepalese were saddened by the Indian propaganda which was aimed at damaging Nepal’s proximity with Pakistan.

Officials at the Nepalese Press Council, Nepal’s media monitoring authority, and the former chairperson of the organisation of Nepali journalists, Suva Gaule, and many other Nepalese were critical of India’s anti-Pakistan activities in Kathmandu, as reported by Nepal’s popular online news portal onlinekhabar.com.

Hindu volunteer organisations and its activists are at the forefront of the anti-Pakistan activities in Nepal. Popular yoga guru, Ramdev, was at the forefront of the beef propaganda, as was obvious from his Facebook updates. However, beef masala was not of any concern amongst Nepalese citizens.

Instead, numerous famous artists and citizens staged a demonstration against unnecessary Indian interference in Nepal.

Nepal is a Hindu-majority Himalayan nation; it is not a ‘Hindu kingdom’ as described by India’s Zee News. Nepal is a federal democratic republic as well as a secular nation. True, the Nepali Civil Code Amendment 1990 has made cow-slaughtering punishable by 12 years in prison, but, it does not mean imported beef items are completely banned. No Nepali law states a ban on beef items from foreign countries. At present, Kathmandu’s star hotels import beef items to serve foreigners.

The entire point of sensationalising such a petty issue only reflected badly upon the Indian government, not Pakistan.

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/27560/indian-media-and-beef-controversy-using-nepals-tragedy-to-defame-pakistan/