Pakistanis set for Ramadan fast amid flood misery

They've been left homeless and hungry by the worst flooding in decades, but for many Pakistanis, their suffering is no reason to ignore the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn to dusk during Ramadan, which is due to begin on Thursday in Pakistan and which started on Wednesday in many other Muslim countries.

Floods triggered by heavy monsoon rain over much of Pakistan began nearly two weeks ago, and have killed about 1,600 people and disrupted the lives of about 14 million, including about two million who have been forced from their homes.

Many survivors from flooded villages have lost their stores of food as well as crops in the field and livestock, and are surviving on occasional handouts, living in the open.

But despite the hunger and hardship, for most people not observing the fast during the most sacred of months is unthinkable.

"We will fast but we don't know how will be break the fast, whether we will find any food or not. Only Allah knows," said Nusrat Shah, sitting beside a bridge in Sukkur, where she had laid out bedding for her family under the sky.

"Pray for us," said Shah, as she made tea over a smoky fire.

Fasting Ramadan is a requirement for all able-bodied Muslims, but Islam exempts, among others, those who are travelling, ill or not strong enough to abstain from food and drink.

Countless villages have been swallowed up in the floods and many people are still stranded, some on tiny, shrinking patches of water-logged land.

People traditionally break fast with a meal of fried food and sweets at dusk. The vast majority of Pakistan's 165 million people are Muslim.

While the country might have a reputation as a haven for hardline Islamist militants, most Pakistanis are moderate Muslims who are conservative and devoted to the rituals of their faith.

"What kind of a question is that?" laughed Fakhar Zaman, a businessman in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, which has been cut off this week by floods and landslides, when asked if he would be fasting this year.

"You know the people of Swat, they would never skip fasting," he said.

POOR NUTRITION

A big international relief effort is gearing up to help the flood victims, and some aid workers fear that Ramadan could endanger the health of people already facing food shortages, and complicate efforts to deliver assistance. People only getting poor nutrition are not well placed to fast although abstaining from drinking water for much of the day could protect people from water-born diseases, said a doctor involved in the relief effort.

"Definitely, they are not in a good position to fast. The food they are taking is not enough," said the doctor, Ahmad Shadoul.

"On the other hand, fasting can be a preventive measure for diarrhoea as people are not drinking water for 14 to 15 hours."

Working hours in many Muslim countries are shortened during the month when people fasting often suffer from a lack of energy.

While aid agencies aim to continue working flat out, there are worries that the effort may flag.

"Traditionally people work 50 percent of their ability during Ramadan," said Ershad Karim, chief field officer for the U.N. Children's Fund based in northwest Pakistan.

"Of course, it will be a very challenging situation."

Naseer Somroo, who had just been evacuated on a navy boat from his flooded village in Sindh province, said he and his family were getting sick and had been hungry for days but his faith was unshakeable.

"We've already been fasting for four days ... We'll observe Ramadan but we don't know how our Eid will be," he said referring to Eid al-Fitr festival at the end of the month which is usually the most joyous holiday of the year.

Source http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSGE6790FT._CH_.2400

Cabinet approves Bill to protect whistleblowers

Activists staging a dharna to protest against the murders of RTI activists, in New Delhi. The Government on Monday approved a Bill to protect whistleblowers and those who disclose information in favour of public interest.

A proposed legislation to protect whistleblowers and provide severe punishment to those exposing the identity of people disclosing information was approved by the Government on Monday.

The Public Interest Disclosure and Protection to Persons Making the Disclosure Bill, 2010, provides the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) powers of a civil court to hand down harsh penalty to people revealing the identity of whistleblowers, official sources said.

The Bill was approved at a meeting of the Union Cabinet.

The Bill which has provisions to prevent victimisation or disciplinary action against whistleblowers will cover, Central, State and public sector employees.

The Bill is expected to encourage disclosure of information in public interest and people who expose corruption in government. It has clauses which provide fine and penalties to people who punish those exposing corruption.

The CVC will be the nodal authority to handle complaints against the State, Central government or PSU employees.

According to reports, the CVC will also have powers to punish those making frivolous complaints in accordance with the Bill’s provisions.

Source http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article560731.ece

80 killed as massive cloudburst triggers flash floods in Leh

At least 80 people were killed and over 300 injured in flash floods in Leh area after heavy downpour triggered flash floods devastating Leh in the Ladakh region. 59 bodies have been recovered from the flooded areas, J and K Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda said. Among the dead were related stories three jawans of the Army Service Corps.

He said a massive rescue operation was underway involving the state police, paramilitary forces and the army in Leh town.

50 CRPF jawans were rescued from the flooded areas, Khoda said.

The BSNL network was completely damaged, besides the runway of the Leh airport, cutting off the town from the rest of the country.

The district hospital and two buildings housing offices of the Union Home Ministry were also affected.

Five villages have been hit in the sudden downpour and flashfloods. These included Choglumsar and Shapoo. Old Leh city was among the worst affected. The main bus stand was flattened.

Leh is located at a height of 11,500 feet above sea level, 424 kilometres from Srinagar. The worst hit was Choglumsar area, 13 kms from here, where 14 bodies were recovered, officials said.

Khoda said the toll may go up. "The actual damage will be known only after the water receded," another senior official said.

J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, while expressing grief over the tragedy, has directed the civil and police administration to undertake relief and rescue work on a war footing.

All flights from Delhi to Leh have been cancelled.

Source http://www.hindustantimes.com/80-killed-as-massive-cloudburst-triggers-flash-floods-in-Leh/H1-Article1-582953.aspx

India struggles to douse Kashmir's separatist fire

Men carry the body of Mohammad Iqbal, a Kashmiri youth, during his funeral in Srinagar August 4, 2010.

India faces a full-blown separatist uprising in Kashmir that may sink hopes for peace in the strategic region as disaffected Muslim youth rebel against a government seen as leaderless, complacent and out of touch.

New Delhi paints the street protests as incited by Pakistan-based militants or radical bands of stone throwers. But the evidence is growing this may be a wider and spontaneous movement led by young Kashmiris angry at years of misrule.

Critics say the risk is that India's refusal to recognize the roots of the alienation may ignite a vicious cycle of violence and return Kashmir to the kind of upheaval seen during the 1990s.

It all bodes badly for a disputed region seen as key to wider long-term stability under South Asia's security arch of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"This is the most serious challenge to central authority I have seen in 20 years," said Siddharth Varadarajan, strategic affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper. "And the government doesn't have much of a clue how to resolve it."

Muslim-majority Kashmir, which India and Pakistan both claim but rule in parts, has been racked by militancy since 1989 when an insurgency against Indian rule erupted. Around 47,000 people have died but militancy had fallen in the past few years.

The latest violence started with the death of a teenage student in early June. The region has been locked down for weeks, and protesters have defied curfews to attack police with stones and set security camps and police stations on fire.

The death toll in seven weeks has risen to at least 40, mostly demonstrators shot dead by police. Basic foods and fuel supplies are running short and families have been confined to their houses for days, with schools and businesses shut.

So polarised has it become that protesters seem more radical than their leaders. An appeal by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a separatist hardliner, for peaceful protests went unheeded.

For many Kashmiris, the whole population appears to support the protests. Volunteers have established blood donation camps, pooled rice and vegetables in community kitchens and supplied food to patients in Srinagar hospitals.

"The protests seem to have taken a direction of their own, which we've never seen before," said well-known separatist leader Sajjad Gani Lone. "There is not a leader who could say stop the protests and they would stop it."

VACUUM IN LEADERSHIP

It did not have to be this way.

Only 18 months ago, hopes for peace in Kashmir grew after young Kashmiri leader Omar Abdullah, who is backed by the central government in New Delhi, won the state election on promises of ending injustice in the region and pushing economic development.

His election came only months after mass protests across the valley, then the biggest in two decades, sparked by a dispute over land for a Hindu shrine trust.

But those hopes were quickly dashed by Abdullah's own mistakes -- he was seen as detached from the problems of Kashmiris -- as well as alleged army abuses including the rape of young girls, and heavy handedness from India's government, such as the banning of pre-paid cellular phones and text messaging on security grounds.

"Omar has mishandled the situation but the real problem is that India's political leadership took their eyes off the ball," said political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram says more than 1,000 security personnel were injured by protesters and that the government is open to a political settlement if demonstrators shun violence.

But over the last 18 months, New Delhi failed to move on any of Kashmir's contentious issues, including a widely hated law that gives special powers to the army such as holding suspects for up to two years without trial.

"It is all symbolic of the vacuum in Indian leadership," said political analyst Narasimhan Rao.

"This government is just moving from one controversy to another," he added, referring to government battles over high inflation to controversies over mismanagement in the build-up to the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

Indeed, the government appears to have little policy initiative to diffuse the crisis aside from just wearing down the protesters, perhaps hoping that the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan next week will help protests subside.

That same policy led the 2008 protests to tail off, a relief that proved only temporary.

"Kashmiris cannot offer the same degree of mobilisation forever," said Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a Kashmir university law teacher. "New Delhi interprets that as reconciliation by Kashmir. In reality, it is just a dormant volcano."

New Delhi does have a card up its sleeve. Despite the deaths and protesters, this is not the equivalent of China's Tibet.

While Kashmir was a diplomatic football in the 1990s, this time round the troubles have had little international resonance, with no criticism from the United Nations or the United States.

While Pakistan has made some diplomatic noise, there is little sign that the disturbances will impact on relations that are tentatively improving after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

"Compared to a decade ago, no one is willing to annoy India," said Varadarajan. "It carries too much weight globally. In this region, the world 's eyes are on Afghanistan, not Kashmir."

Source http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-50646420100805

Karachi on boil after MQM legislator's assassination

Over 40 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in Karachi and surrounding areas since Monday evening's assassination of the Sindh Assembly member from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Raza Haider, with members of his party allegedly turning their ire at the Awami National Party (ANP).

Mr. Haider was gunned down along with his guard in the Jama Masjid in Nazimabad on Monday evening. Apprehensive of the kind violence that Karachi witnessed since the MQM legislator was shot dead, federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Monday evening itself had said there was enough indication of the involvement of the outlawed Sipah-i-Sahaba in the killing. He also urged MQM members to avoid attending the funeral as security agencies had got information of a possible suicide attack on the gathering.

According to Mr. Malik, the legislator was on Sipah-i-Sahaba's hit list; a fact he reiterated in the Senate on Tuesday. While the funeral proceedings remained incident-free, Pakistan's commercial capital was on the boil all day as shops and vehicles were set ablaze by workers of the two warring parties. As a measure of precaution, the authorities decided to keep all educational institutions in the city closed for the day.

Stating that the assassination was aimed at triggering violence in Karachi to destabilize Pakistan, Mr. Malik said the legislator had received threats from Laskhar-e-Jhangvi also for speaking out against it like the Sipah-i-Sahaba.

He urged the leaders of the MQM and the ANP to stop their workers from fighting each other because this would be tantamount to playing into the hands of vested interests which want to destabilise the country by keeping Pakistan's commercial capital on tenterhooks.

Historically prone to violence with various faultlines common to any urban centre that doubles up as a melting pot, Karachi in recent weeks has seen a spurt in targeted killings that have been blamed on the land mafia and strains between the MQM and the ANP which has of late made inroads in this area. Many see the violence as part of a turf war as Karachi is MQM's main stronghold despite efforts to move into Punjab and the ANP is gaining strength here because of the Pushtoons who have moved into the city in large numbers in search of a livelihood.

Source http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article549466.ece

Protesters in Indian Kashmir defy govt pleas

Thousands of protesters in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday held rallies and threw stones at police in defiance of a plea by the region's chief minister for deadly violence to end.

Forty people have died in weeks of unrest -- most of them killed by security forces trying to disperse angry protests against Indian rule. Each death has triggered further violent demonstrations and security crackdowns.

Police said the latest victim was a young man killed on Tuesday when security forces opened fire to quell demonstrators in Srinagar, the region's main town.

In Ompora village, outside Srinagar, two people were also critically injured.

Omar Abdullah, Indian Kashmir's chief minister, held crisis talks in New Delhi with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday and appealed for restraint as the Muslim-majority region endures its worst bout of unrest for two years.

"Tragically, we have locked ourselves into a cycle of violence where protest leads to death, leading to further protests and further casualties," Abdullah told reporters. "We have to break the cycle."

The death in early June of a 17-year-old student -- killed by a police tear gas shell -- set off a series of almost daily protests in which 40 people have been killed.

Abdullah asked the central government to provide more paramilitary troops to try to enforce curfew orders that protesters have repeatedly ignored.

But some pro-India politicians warned against security reinforcements.

"Calling in more troops in a highly militarised place to terrorise the protesting people would further deteriorate the situation," Mehbooba Mufti, the leader of main opposition People's Democratic Party, said.

"The totally bankrupt approach in handling the present situation will only add to anger and alienation of the people," she said.

Tuesday's death again brought huge crowds onto the streets of Srinagar as the dead man's body was carried on a stretcher through people chanting anti-India slogans.

Media teams carrying curfew passes were prevented from covering the procession when paramilitary forces fired warning shots in the air, an AFP photographer said.

The 20-year separatist insurgency in Indian Kashmir has claimed thousands of lives.

India and Pakistan each hold part of Kashmir but claim it in full. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two wars over the region since independence in 1947.

Indian officials say Pakistan-backed hardline separatists are behind the latest unrest, but locals say it is the spontaneous result of years of pent-up frustration and alleged abuses by police and paramilitary forces.

Decades of on-off political dialogue about the status of the disputed territory have made no tangible progress, and unemployment is running high, especially among young people.

Abdullah acknowledged there was a sense of "alienation" among Kashmiris and said that political action was needed to find a permanent solution.

Police say they have opened fire only after coming under attack, and after first trying to disperse the crowds with baton charges and tear gas.

Source http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h-qCJmN6g3IGjXBUSdINp35_Rajg

Indian parliament freed from deadlock

India's parliament got back to work Monday after a week of disruption and deadlock over price rises that had threatened to hold up the government's reform programme.

Protests by opposition MPs, who wanted a debate and vote on the government's handling of rising food and fuel prices, had halted all parliamentary business since the beginning of the current monsoon session on July 26.

The time lost had raised concerns that the government would be unable to push through key legislation, including a civil nuclear liability bill that is key to allowing US companies to sell reactors to energy-hungry India.

Another major bill on the agenda of the short, month-long session is one that reserves a third of all seats in parliament for women.

At a breakfast meeting chaired by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, opposition leaders agreed to allow parliament to function normally in exchange for a symbolic resolution expressing concern about inflationary pressures.

The ruling Congress Party-led coalition also agreed to a discussion on price rises on Tuesday.

The government has been under relentless attack from opposition parties for its inability to protect the poorest from surging food prices and for raising fuel prices in June.

India's annual wholesale price index, the main cost-of-living measure, stood at 10.55 percent in June, well above the central bank's preferred 5.5-percent level.

Source http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gJWDxM43kwspWhJ7dKW4Ks6Na07w