The Global Media Giants:
firms that dominate the world

by Edward S. Herman

Courtesy to "EDucate magazine"

Time Warner
$25 billion - 1997 sales

Time Warner, the largest media corporation in the world, was formed in 1989 through the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications. Time Warner is moving towards being a fully global company, with over 200 subsidiaries worldwide. Time Warner expects globalization to provide growth tonic; it projects that its annual sales growth rate of 14...

Global Media for Global Control

by Robert W. McChesney

Courtesy to “EDucate magazine”

A specter now haunts the world: a global commercial media system dominated by a small number of super-powerful, mostly U.S.-based transnational media corporations. It is a system that works to advance the cause of the global market and promote commercial values, while denigrating journalism and culture not conducive to the immediate bottom line or long-run corporate interests. It is a disaster...

Interview with Noam Chamsky

by Mashhood Rizvi

When I wrote a tribute to Professor Noam Chomsky, for the first issue of EDucate!, I did not expect to meet the "indefatigable rebel" in person. But I was soon honored when he recently visited Pakistan on a whirlwind trip. It would be unfair not to admit that the anticipation of being in the same space with him did not unnerve me. But, upon greeting him, my apprehension gave way to a desire for tak...

T...

My struggle to help Muslim women regain their God-given rights Dr. Riffat Hasan Courtesy to “DAWN, Nov. 7, 2002”

To understand the strong impetus to "Islamize" Muslim societies, especially with regard to women-related norms and values, it is necessary to know that of all the challenges confronting the Muslim world, perhaps the greatest is that of modernity. In this exclusive two-part essay, renowned Islamic theologian Dr Riffat Hasan presents a critical analysis of three contemporar...

THE ROLE OF YOUTH, HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

Dr.Quratulain Bakhtiari
Courtesy to “Transform”

Today the youth of Pakistan are facing a difficult and contrivances phase, None had ever faced such era to understand, standup, to challenge, to find out spaces for meaningful learning is a very low letch thought. Even survival is major challenge being faced by youth. In past youth has never experienced such challenges as they are facing today. Youth developmental age is...

Rethinking Education
In Search of a New Paradigm of Quality Education…
MANISH JAIN & WASIF RIZVI
Courtesy to “EDucate”

After a decade of focusing on access rates to schooling, the issue of quality of education was finally brought to the forefront of education debates at the World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal, April 2000). It was recognized that access and quality cannot be separated from one another. Indeed, concerns about quality of education can be heard from several se...

The importance of alternative textbooks for social and political harmony

Shah Jahan Baloch*

Educational issues and challenges are one of the core concerns of development discourse in Pakistan. During the last three decades national education plans and reforms, with heavy foreign financial and technical assistance, are claiming to improve the quality of education through various interventions.

But the actual results, particularly in the pub...

THE CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
Mass Media, Globalization, and the Public Mind
Courtesy to “EDucate”

Noam Chomsky is one of the leading intellectuals of our time. He is also regarded as one of America's most prominent political dissidents. A renowned professor of linguistics at MIT, he has authored over 30 political books dissecting such issues as U.S. interventionism in the developing world, the political economy of human rights and the propaganda role of corporate media. Chomsky, has most kin...

Alternative Radio is an hour-long, weekly public affairs program heard around the world on community and public radio, presenting views, perspectives and analyses that are ignored and distorted by the dominant corporate-controlled media. Programs most often include talks by or interviews with notable political, economic and cultural critic...

You have said elsewhere that one "has to go back to pre-colonialism to understand development. Colonialism is part and parcel of a process which was later on called development." Could you please elaborate on this? What precisely are you talking about when you say development?

I'm talking about development as it was conceived following the Second World War, a progra...

Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Islam and non-violence 

Ishtiaq Ahmed

Courtesy to “Daily Times”

Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a man of peace. He approached Islam in the hope of finding a complementary message to Gandhi’s interpretation of Hinduism as Ram Raj and ahimsa (non-violence) and he found it

A question that keeps popping up in
discussions on violence, terrorism and the Taliban is the following: is the use of force and violence intrinsic to Pakhtun culture? Superficially it seems that it must be s...

The crisis of state

Naseeb Ullah Shakhail 

Courtesy to “The Frontier Post”

Fate of hungry citizens

IN 60 years, there have been enough impositions of military rule and enough experimentation with feudal versions of democracy to demonstrate there isn’t much difference between them.

In a truly democratic environment, it would have been unacceptable audacity for an investment minister to make the cold-blooded assurance that the Middle East countries investing in corporate farming are ensured repatriation of 100 per ...

Food as weapon

Najma Sadeque

Courtesy to “Financial Post”

Martin Luther King's
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

December 10, 1964
Oslo, Norway

I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when twenty-two million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

I am mindful that only ye...

Being the Change: In Gandhi's Footsteps

	Gandhi in 1929. wikicommons

After trying for years to achieve social change through mainstream institutional activism, I have turned to an approac...

Vocabulary of arrogance – Dr Tariq Rahman

Courtesy to “Dawn”

A DEBATE is raging in a section of the English-language press in Pakistan about the use of the term ‘bloody civilians’ for the nonmilitary population of Pakistan. Before going into the issues raised in the debate, let me attempt a definition.

The Oxford English Dictionary gives many meanings of ‘bloody’. Most of them are related to blood, slaughter and the colour red. The meaning relevant to this article...

The Pakhtuns do not have their own version of history. Whatever we have about them is written by the outsiders.. Who will contradict the inherent bias in such a record? The colonial portrayal of the Pakhtuns, such as violence and fanaticism, are crossed-examined vis-á-vis the local folklore with the stipulation that the latter presents the indigenous account of histo...

Since 9/11 every day is 9/11 for Pakhtuns

Hanif-ur-Rahaman

The fateful 9/11 marks a watershed in world politics and turned the whole world topsy-turvy, forcing many a countries to adjust their policies in the light of the Bushian war cry that either you are with us or against us. The event was, no doubt, a catastrophe, not only for those killed but for America as a whole. But it is Pakistan and particularly the Pakhtuns who suffered enormously. It seems a déjà vu and a replica of ...

Analysis: Pakhtun diaspora: irresponsible and insensitive —Farhat Taj

Rich Arabs in the Middle East are ‘earning’ a place in paradise in the life hereafter through never ending generous donations to the Taliban and the madrassas producing foot soldiers and a jihadi mindset on the Pakhtun land. They do not even care to consider that their ‘pursuit’ of a place in paradise is causing so much death and destruction

This column is about the lack of action of the Pakhtun diaspora on its mo...

Confusion of the competing interpretations

Zamin Khan Momand

M.Phil. Deptt of IR, Quaid-e-Azam university Islamabad

Power creates discourse. The phrase "war on terror" was coined by the sole super power, far away in the North America backed in September 2001.The phrase altered the discourse in the international politics. New realities and concepts surfaced in intellectual circles and media. Jargo...

PEACE CULTURE:
THE PROBLEM OF MANAGING HUMAN DIFFERENCE
by Elise Boulding

Peace culture, neither a fantasy nor accident, is as central to human nature as war culture.

ELISE BOULDING is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Dartmouth College and former Secretary-General of the International Peace Research Association. Among her publications are: Children's Rights and the Wheel of Life, 1979; Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World, 1990; One Small Plot of Heaven: Ref...

A civilisation at risk in Swat

By Khurshid Khan

When Sung Yun, the famous Chinese pilgrim, came to Swat in 519.A.D, he observed “several renowned Buddhists scholars delivered Buddhist Philosophy as well as contemporary sciences in the valley. The Monasteries and schools are densely populated by uncountable students who have traveled here from far off lands. They are provided with accommodation and food.” The Chinese traveler was also impressed extremely by the heavenly peace, ...

Significance of Jirga system

Jalal Tariq Khan

In Afghanistan - the home of Aryans and the land of lofty mountains, barren plains and land-locked terrain, tribes of ethnically different origins live. For centuries, the land has echoed with the sound of barrage of bullets as warring tribes have fought a never-ending battle for power and influence. These tribes have altered allegiance, betrayed each other and disputed over power, gold, and women. Sometimes, they were dubbed as valia...

Myth-busting

Zamin Khan Momand

Mob. no. 03459423424

zkmomand@hotmail.com

M.Phil. Deptt: of International Relations, QAU Islamabad.

A joke is circulating that Pakistani military has exhausted all its options, including F-16, to put down Taliban’s insurgency. As a last resort, it will resort to its “strategic assets” to assert government writ in Pakhtunkhwa. The joke not only eulogizes the rising of the Taliban, but also connotes the busting of the “...

 Pakistan and the war on terror

Sadiq Khan Alizai

sadiq_khan0824@yahoo.com

The concept of war on terror has been a matter of debate and controversy in academia right from its inception. Coined by neocons in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the term has gained wide currency in the academic discourse. Since then various states have interpreted the term according to their own liking and interests. US attacks against the Taliban regime and their subsequent removal from power in Afghan...

The Pashtun-Talib dichotomy

Barkat Shah Kakar

The emergence and extension of Taliban sometimes betray the very mindful and vigilant dissents like Tariq Ali who equated Taliban as indigenous Pashtoon nationalists fighting with a rogue state for its rights and identity. This lecture of the reckoned dissent Tariq Ali at Toronto, last year has generated despair especially in the leftist and idealist spheres of writers and progressive social and political activists. It could be c...

US Taliban Massacre investigation; An ironic moral mask

Barkat Shah Kakar

(Social Researcher and Academician)

University of Balochsitan Quetta

bshahkakar@yahoo.com

It was probably the first week of US air-strikes on the front line of Taliban militia which almost wiped out their integrity and a lost their hold on most parts of the Afghanistan. It was a harsh time for all those who had fled to Afghanistan from Pakistan and other parts of the Arab and central Asian countries...

The Peace-War Nexus

Barkat Shah Kakar

(Social Researcher and Academician)

University of Balochsitan Quetta

bshahkakar@yahoo.com

Pakistan’s subscription to the war on terror as a front line client state has rendered several miseries till this moment. Though Gen Musharaf equated this conduct with the treaty of Hudebia, a strategic retreat for the domination of Islam, but the prevailing situation in Pakistan indicates that, perhaps it was the most tragic decision after the sepa...

Cultural Action and Baloch Nationalist Movement

Barkat Shah Kakar

bshahkakar@yahoo.com

The emerging separatist sentiments and its reflection in the Baloch belt of Balochsitan is now very much evident. Though General Musharaf symbolized this crisis as the rebellion of three tribal leaders, but the objective reality is quite different as displayed and perceived in the state's domains both today and yesterday.

The second version of identifying this movement is...

Mirani Dam; When Prosperity tunned into adversity

By: Barkat Shah Kakar

Mirani Dam has been one of the materialized mega project in Pakistan generally and in Balochistan especially which has carved disastrous impacts on the lives and livelihood of the people living around it. The feasibility of the dame was carried in 1956 with a maximum of hight of 80 ft which was then made 127 ft. Situated 43 Km in the west of the Turbat city, this dam incurred 5.8 billion rupees and w...

The Peace-War Nexus

Barkat Shah Kakar

(Social Researcher and Academician)

University of Balochsitan Quetta

bshahkakar@yahoo.com

Pakistan’s subscription to the war on terror as a front line client state has rendered several miseries till this moment. Though Gen Musharaf equated this conduct with the treaty of Hudebia, a strategic retreat for the domination of Islam, but the prevailing situation in Pakistan indicates that, perhaps it was the most tragic decision after the se...

society

Peace per Pakhtunwali

By Rafi Ullah

A generally-held belief says that violence is socially-structured in the Pakhtun society. It, however, does not interest us here to contradict this estimation as the situation on the ground seems to prove that. The point to be dwelt on here is to see if peace can be brought in the Pakhtun homeland through its culture — Pakhtunwali. Traditionally, Pakhtunwali is defined as the unwritten code of life, tribal law or constitution of the Pa...

swat

The actual perspective

How the historic Swat eclipsed into the current tenor of violence…

By Rafi Ullah

Swat makes interesting copy, both for electronic and print media these days. The world community seems to have perceived the people of this historic area as barbaric, vandals and religiously bigots. Few locals and non-locals have written about Swat but a comprehensive and holistic study of the area is still awaited.

The valley of Swat has a great importance in the a...

Islam in context

Sharia laws were introduced in the state in a way that transformed the nature of politics and society in Swat

By Rafi Ullah

Two major theories that explain the arrival of Islam in India are: 1) the religion of sword theory and, 2) the religion of persuasion. Each theory has its own advocates with abundant arguments in support of their viewpoint. It is, however, commonly agreed that Islam appeared in the Indian Sub-Continent long before the Arab military conque...