Imran Khan gets bail and the Stock Market crashes!

Pakistani businessmen and industrialists have always been scared that one day Imran Khan will get out of jail and the country will again see a repeat of his previous stint in power, which brought the country to the brink of default. So yesterday, when the apex court gave him bail in some of the cases against him, his supporters thought he had been acquitted. The stock market immediately lost 1,346 points and recovered only after the government announced that he has been convicted in other cases and will not be released soon.

I was also surprised when the army spokesman said that the army chief had not said anything about Imran Khan being pardoned if he apologized for the attacks on its institutions three years back. That corpulent analyst Sohail Warraich had reported a few days back about an interview he had with the chief, who was reported to have said that an apology would be necessary for the jailed politician's release. It turns out that the interview didn't happen. After he published the "interview", the analyst was roundly abused by Imran Khan's brainwashed followers, which was only to be expected. Unfortunately for them, they will have to wait (for ten years, I hope), before the cult leader gets out of jail.

Heavy rain cause havoc in Karachi again

Even when I was 7 or 8, Karachi  would be flooded every time it rained heavily (which was after every three or four years). I remember Mr. Jinnah saying "Clouds in Karachi have no water". The climate of Karachi, like its people, is very different from the climate in the rest of the country. This year, for instance, except for Karachi, the country has seen rains and floods since June. So we thought this would be one of those years in which Karachi would be dry (like the past two years). But yesterday the rains were the heaviest in years (up to 180 mm in some parts of the city).

In 1977, perhaps the heaviest rains (10 inches) had struck the city. I was then doing construction jobs in the SITE area, one of the many industrial places in the city. It took me more than four hours to reach my house in Clifton (normally it was a journey of half an hour). Yesterday, I was stuck on the flooded roads for two hours instead of the 15 minutes it usually takes. Many people I know were also stranded for hours, one of them even went back to his office after three hours in the slow-moving traffic. He spent the night in his office and went home at seven in the morning today.

Many people ask why Karachi doesn't have a working drainage system, despite them paying heavy taxes. One reason is that the present drains can sustain rains of two inches maximum. Another reason of course is the pervasive corruption that is threatening to destroy the country. 

Faulure to get Imran Khan freed

A key difference

Published in DAWN on August 17, 2025

THIS is with reference to the editorial ‘Another attempt’ (Aug 6). The fact that there has been no popular movement to get the jailed opposition party leader freed despite two years of incarceration proves that the party and its leader are not as popular as they believe, or they want others to believe.

They fully expected that United States President Donald Trump would secure his release from prison. That did not happen. They spent millions on lobbying in order to persuade US Congressmen to do the bidding, but to no avail.

Recently, his two sons flew to the US for the same purpose, and returned without any result. They even spent a huge amount placing an advertisement in the New York Times, calling attention to the man’s ‘plight’ and appealing for his release. Where is all this money coming from?

Other Pakistani leaders, past and present, have been jailed for periods much longer than the former prime minister, but they did not go to any such length to secure their release.

And, this is despite the fact that the man has been jailed for corruption after an extended legal process on the basis of tangible evidence that was available against him. Perhaps the other political leaders who were jailed in the past did not have as much wealth as he surely has.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1931427/a-key-difference

 

The mystique of the number 40

Today is "Chehlum", the fortieth day after the event of the killing of Imam Hussein and his family members. I've always wondered why the fortieth day should be considered holy. There was a time when even my community (Memons) used to observe the Chehlum of dead relatives, but not many do so now. Because of the processions that will take place today, no commercial activity is possible. Servants will say they couldn't come to work due to roads being clogged, while many sick people will die while being taken to hospitals. Years ago, the stock exchange also used to be closed on this day, but that is no longer the case.

There is something about the number forty that fascinated the ancients. Jesus is supposed to have spent forty days without food or water, Moses is said to have wandered for 40 years in the desert, and it is widely believed among the Jews and others that a man becomes wise when he turns forty.

I remember my mother telling me that if a person's nails fell on the floor while being cut, it would mean a loss of forty days' income    for that person. Even at the age of 5 or 6, I couldn't help wondering why it should be exactly forty days and not forty one or thirty nine.

Indian Air Force Chief's desperate attempt to save Modi!

Embed from Getty Images

I've always believed that most Indians and Pakistanis are so similar that they might be first cousins. The people of our Punjab are remarkably like those who live in Indian Punjab. They are both good technicians, they are good fighters, they look alike, they speak the same language and they have the same customs. They even have the same primitive beliefs about women (but that is true of most Pakistanis as well).

So I wasn't very surprised when the Indian Air Force chief (Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh) suddenly declared that his air force had shot down six Pakistani planes in the four day war in May this year. In fact, I wonder why he didn't make this fantastic statement earlier, why did he do it three months after the conflict? Better late than never, I suppose.

The timing is very significant. It came after Trump repeatedly said that five or six jets had been shot down, as Pakistan has proved. So even Indian analysts are amazed. One of them even says that it's a lie, and it will have a demoralizing effect on Indian air force officers, who know the truth. Obviously, it's a desperate attempt to save Modi from humiliation. But I doubt if it will succeed.

Why did Dr. Mubina Agboatwala indulge in child trafficking?

 I've never understood why filthily rich people want to acquire more wealth. Our politicians have so much money that the grandchildren of their grandchildren can live comfortably on their wealth. Yet, like Zardari, they loot the people every day without considering that their victims (the people of Pakistan) are struggling to stay alive.

The other day, the police arrested a lady child specialist (Dr Mubina Agboatwala) for child trafficking. Her grandfather was one of the richest men in India. he was called "Agboatwalla" because he owned many ships ("Agboat" translates literally as "fire boat"). His empire collapsed after the sinking of his hundredth ship called "bijli" or 

"Electric". It was the first ship in the region to be powered by electricity.

I've never met the lady doctor herself although I have walked past her clinic many times whenever I've gone to get my eyes examined in the DHA Medical Center near my house. But I have known her brother Mushtaq since I was six. He, like me, was also a student of St. Patrick's High School. For a couple of years he was also in my class at NED Engineering. 

He, poor chap, was always being teased and mocked for being very effeminate (he still hates me for teasing him in those days, even though now he's a strict heavily bearded fundamentalist). In fact, he would have become my relative if his engagement to the sister of my recently deceased brother-in-law had not been broken (this happened more than fifty years ago).

The strange thing is that the lady doctor was already very rich. She had a good income from her profession as a child specialist, so why did she do something so blatantly illegal? 

Trump should realize he's making Modi very popular

The more Trump says things that make him look stupid, the more convinced I become that there's something terribly wrong with the American education system. Trump has antagonized Indians with his threats to further penalize India for buying oil from Russia. He hasn't stopped after imposing a high duty rate (25%) on Indian goods that are being exported to the US. On the contrary, he's threatened to increase the duty rate even more. He tried the same thing with China, but it didn't work. The same has happened in India.

India has pointed out that both the US and the EU are importing from Russia (including oil and gas), so why shouldn't they be allowed to do it? India's resistance to the threats and refusal to bow down to Trump are increasingly making Muslim-killer Modi even more popular. I doubt if India will ever agree to stop importing arms and oil from Russia. In fact, being a member of BRICS, it will have the support of Brazil as well as China in its defiance of Trump. I believe it would be appropriate for Trump to stop issuing threats to India immediately, otherwise the situation will no longer be in his control. 

Why is Trump favoring Pakistan and penalizing India?

Indians are in a state of shock. US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn't like India and has imposed a 25 percent tariff on Indian exports to the US. Not only that, he has penalized India for buying Russian oil despite a ban. He has also described the Indian economy as "dead".

Indians must be wondering what happened. Modi has spent the past ten years trying to get Pakistan declared a terrorist state. The Indian cricket team has been prevented from playing matches with Pakistan. Last April, Modi got a terrorist attack staged in which thirty two Indians were slain, just to provide him with an excuse to bomb some so-called "terrorist havens" in Pakistan. That attempt ended with six or seven Indian Rafael fighter jets being shot down. After that, Pakistan has been viewed by the international community as a more reliable and trusted country compared to India.

Modi and his cronies of course refuse to admit that India was beaten. But opposition politicians are baying for his blood, one of them even asking him to prove that the thirty six Rafael fighter jets India bought are still there. I doubt if he'll remain in power for long, despite his attempts to disenfranchise Muslims (who have traditionally voted against his party).

I believe that Trump has now realized that India is not the superpower it has pretended to be. He's against Apple setting up a factory in India. Perhaps he knows that India is useless at containing China. He may have realized that it's better to be friends with China. Whatever the reason, India is the loser. It will have to bend backwards to appease Trump, like buying at least a hundred F-35s for instance, for which it will have to spend billions of dollars. The Indian economy will be "dead" and the common Indian will suffer.

 

More honor killings

After the horrific murder of a man and woman in Baluchistan, a spate of honor killings has erupted in the country. It's like a contagious disease like polio, spreading from one person to another. First, there was a divorced woman in Sukkur who was killed because she refused to marry either of two men who had been pestering her. Then, a nineteen-year old girl in Rawalpindi was killed after being sentenced to death by a jirga (a tribal court). The shameless man who ordered her to be killed also performed her namaz-e-janaza (funeral prayer). Her crime? She had been absent from her home for a week or so. It was believed that she went to her boyfriend's house but apparently he backed out of his promise to marry her.

The latest is that of a couple from a village in Gujranwalla who eloped and escaped to Karachi. Just a week before their murder, the man changed his religion from Christianity to Islam. Despite that, the girl's brother is reported to have killed the couple. I can't understand how he was able to locate the couple so soon after their marriage.

I'm convinced that the most unfortunate people in the world are Pakistani women (particularly those who live in rural areas or who belong to illiterate families). In the countryside, their bodies belong to the local feudal lord, who can rape them himself or ask his cronies to do so. He can even order them to marry the person he has selected for them. Even in illiterate families in the cities, girls are married off a couple of years after puberty. Their parents do not let them study after the age of twelve (assuming they're put in schools at all). They have to agree to marry their cousins (who may be junkies or street criminals). And after marriage they have to bear at least seven or more children (because that is what their husband want). And I doubt if this situation will change in the next five decades, if ever. 

It appears that Pakistan will always have polio

Already seventeen cases of polio have been recorded in the country. It's not only the illiterate parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated against the dreaded disease. About forty years back I asked an engineer if he had got his first child vaccinated. He laughed. "It's all a scam to make vaccine manufacturers rich", he said. This is what many Americans believe as well, and some of them are suffering from the after-effects of Covid. 

In Pakistan, however, the problem is compounded by clerics and some influential people. Many years ago, there was a mullah who used the FM radio channels to brainwash housewives into believing that vaccination causes male children to be impotent, and female children to be infertile. "This is one way of reducing our population devised by the evil Westerners", he used to say. No wonder many polio women workers have been killed in the northern areas of the country, and in those districts where Pathans live.

So I doubt if this and successive governments will ever eradicate polio in country. They should give up trying and the money saved can be used for treating people suffering from cancer or other diseases.