Me, Saleem Safi And One Indian

Let me share something interesting. Last night known columnist and TV personality Saleem Safi and I were part of a panel discussion on PTV's Moeed Pirzada show.

Today, an Indian tweeted: 'AQ showing his ignorance. Salim Safi chewed him up.'

Now I don't know if Saleem chewed me up or if we had an ice lolly together, but it was interesting to see an Indian monitoring Pakistani talk shows closely. And he's not alone. Twitter is infested with such Indians who don't have much of a life besides commenting on Pakistani affairs considering, of course, that India is God's paradise on Earth.

So I tell him to buzz off, get a life and mind his own business.

Saleem, by the way, is a dear friend of mine. Coincidentally, I bump into him today afternoon at an Islamabad restaurant. I tell him about this hateful Indian. Saleem had a good laugh. He's not on Twitter yet so he asks me to convey a message to the Indian hatemonger. I share the message here for the benefit of everyone. So here goes:

"Ahmed & I can disagree on our local politics but when it comes to Indian policy he & I are on the same page!' - From Saleem Safi.

I tweeted this message to the Indian stalker. No reply as usual. But one of the best responses came from @i_am_ahad who sent me the following tweet:

"Give them a break sir. They're just busy being absolutely NOT obsessed with Pakistan. Their main focus is chai, na? #NotChina !

Thanks Saleem and Ahad. You both made my Saturday night.

P.S. For more info about activities of Indian hatemongers on twitter, see http://bit.ly/pACedo

P.S. After Saleem Safi left with his guest, my wife & I discovered he paid our bill in advance without our knowledge. Thx Saleem. Had I known this, I'd have asked u to leave your credit card with us for the round of green tea after the meal!

Let's Crush A Baby!

An Indian 'baba', or healer, literally stands on the bodies of little babies claiming that this heals health problems. India also has the highest rate of forced marriages of underage girls, and systematic discrimination against citizens based on caste; women from the lowest caste are routinely raped. Male members of the lower caste are often victims of physical abuse, including death in many cases. These things happen only in India, the world's largest democracy. The mainstream Indian media and the hordes of American and British journalists based in India don't see these glaring little scandals because of an official policy carefully crafted to project India as the next superpower that is being groomed to serve western interests in Asia. But occasionally stories like these do come out, thanks to conscientious Indian citizens working for the rights of those ignored by the Indian government.

I am posting this video not because it makes for good anti-India bashing and because I am from Pakistan and that’s how things go. Not at all. We in Pakistan have many embarrassing problems unique to us. But none that go as far as crushing babies or burying female newborns alive, which is another issue with the highest global incident rate in India.

The reason I am posting this video here is very political. Instead of buying expensive weapons to fight China and maintain 700,000 soldiers in the tiny patch of Kashmir to crush a people’s demand for freedom, the Indian government should share its immense wealth with its poor and end poverty and illiteracy that breeds the horrendous practices of ‘baby crushing’ and female infanticide. Multimillion-dollar adverts on CNN and glossy Indian movies can't hide this reality, but a good sense can.

And imagine how reduced Indian expenditure on weapons and more on ending poverty will affect stability in Asia: Pakistan won't have to keep up with India's arms race, China will be at ease, and everyone will go back to focusing on things that matter.

India doesn't need a stockpile of weapons because no one is going to invade India. But this man in this video certainly needs a good government to teach him a lesson.

Pro-US Cabal In Pakistan Is Angry At China Praise

The outgoing US ambassador to Pakistan needs to be congratulated for one thing: she did an excellent job of meddling in Pakistani media and politics. She is credited with organizing a pro-US cabal inside Pakistan that springs into action whenever the US is criticized in Pakistani media. Ironically, this cabal, which consists of Pakistanis, never shows equal passion when the US officials and media demonize Pakistan worldwide.

Ms. Patterson has not been working alone. She received full support from the ruling PPPP's media managers. That is why I am mentioning Pakistan's own wunderkid: Ambassador Husain Haqqani who is said by sources in his won party to be responsible for organizing PPPP's media plans while sitting in Washington DC.

Today the pro-US Zardari-Haqqani cabal in Pakistan [read: PPPP Media Cell] are seething with anger that I criticized Nobel's cheap shot against China. A version of my op-ed, titled, A 'Nobel' Mob Ambush, Chicago Style, was published by the blog section of the Pakistani affiliate of International Herald Tribune. The comments section makes for an interesting read.

They are livid that I linked Nobel's China swipe to the unusual wave of anti-China political ads during the current mid-term election campaign in the US. I explained how the Indian lobby in the US is contributing to the 'Blame China' campaign to divert attention from US public's anger at outsourcing jobs to India.

So guess what? The pro-US Zardari-Haqqani cabal teams up with Indian net surfers to bash China on this excellent Pakistani website.

But no one should worry: Their comments and arguments don't even begin to scratch the surface. The best answer to their ramblings cames from Mr. Ghias Ahmed whose half-line was both pithy and shrewd:

"‎2012 Nobel Prize will be paid in Chinese Yuan...".