Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan policy: Brazen smash and grab, organised ethnic cleansing, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics

Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan policy: Brazen smash and grab, organised ethnic cleansing

Evolution of Pakistan’s Northern Areas policy

B Raman

September 18, 2009

By renaming Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Northern Areas in the garb of introducing administrative, political, financial and judicial reforms, Islamabad is violating Security Council resolutions. More importantly, it is trying to make Northern Areas a part of Pakistan

On September 7, 2009, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari signed what is called the ‘Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order 2009’, purporting to introduce administrative, political, financial and judicial reforms in the Northern Areas of Jammu & Kashmir, which has been under Pakistani occupation since 1947-48. The order re-names the Northern Areas as Gilgit-Baltistan, thereby seeking to obliterate the linkage of the area with Jammu & Kashmir.

Addressing a Press conference the same day, president of Gilgit-Baltistan branch of the Pakistan People’s Party, Syed Mehdi Shah, said that Mr Zardari had instructed the authorities concerned to prepare a comprehensive plan to accelerate economic development in Gilgit-Baltistan. He claimed that the Zardari Government had given internal freedom and all financial, democratic, administrative, judicial, political and developmental powers to the Legislative Assembly of Gilgit-Baltistan. He said that a Gilgit-Baltistan Council, to be headed by the Prime Minister, would be set up and that Mr Zardari had ordered early initiation of a Gilgit-Skardu road project, the establishment of regional branches of the National Bank of Pakistan, the National Database and Registration Authority and the House Building Finance Corporation in the area.

http://newageislam.com/pakistans-gilgit-baltistan-policy--brazen-smash-and-grab,-organised-ethnic-cleansing/islam-and-politics/d/1761

Pakistan’s Women legislators: how have they performed?, Islam, Women and Feminism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam, Women and Feminism

Pakistan’s Women legislators: how have they performed?

By Nirupama Subramanian

Posted July 29, 2009

As Indian legislators recently scrabbled over the proposed reservation of 33 per cent parliamentary seats for women, this was one area in which Pakistan, where democracy is still no more than a struggling infant with an uncertain future, could look at its eastern neighbour with confidence and say: “Been there, done that”.

In fact, Pakistan did it as far back as in 2001-2002. The present Parliament, formed after the February 2008 elections, is the second to have reserved seats for women. The quota is not the ideal one-third, but 17 per cent in the National Assembly and the Senate, the lower and upper houses respectively, and in the provincial Assemblies.

Unlike in India, where debate still rages over an acceptable mechanism for the reservation for women, in Pakistan women in the reserved seats are not directly elected. Each party gets to nominate a certain number of women proportionate to the number of seats they won through elections. Women also enter the National Assembly through elections for the general seats.

In the current Parliament, there are 75 women in the 342-seat National Assembly — 60 through the quota and 15 in general seats. At nearly 22 per cent, this is better than any other Asian democracy and is more than several western democracies, including the United Kingdom and the United States.

But how have these women MNAs (Members of National Assembly) performed? While they stream in and out of the House in a haze of stylish chiffons and pashminas, the latest designer sunglasses perched over their blonde highlights, have they achieved anything? What kind of issues have they raised? Have they been effective, and indeed, what does an “effective” woman parliamentarian mean — one who raises women’s issues, one who raises all issues, or one who stands loyally by her political party, even if it means opposing pro-women legislation?

http://newageislam.com/pakistans-women-legislators--how-have-they-performed?/islam,-women-and-feminism/d/1600