Thrissur (Kerala), Nov 14: An engineer from Mumbai has designed and developed a remote operated mechanism to control the violent elephants in the state.

Zachariah Mathew with his son conducted the trial run of the device here on Thursday amidst the mahouts and elephant owners.

The duo has named the device ””Violent Elephant Control Gear”” and it has been manufactured at their engineering firm in Mumbai.

This device weighing only 8 kilograms can be attached to an elephant”’’s legs and can be controlled from a distance of over 25 meters with the help of a remote.

Zachariah Mathew said that he developed the device after seeing the number of deaths due to elephant rampage in the state.

“Last year I saw in TV that in an area of Kerala, three people died of elephant rampage. So we developed this machine. The advantage of this device is that if an elephant becomes violent, then it can be controlled with the remote from a distance of about 25 kilometers. The elephant will be unable to move its legs after that,” said Mathew.

The remote control gear expenses around Rupees 30,000.

Elephants are used for temple festivals in southern India, particularly in long processions.

Elephants are deeply respected in India, with the elephant-headed god Ganesha one of the most popular in the Hindu pantheon.

But despite their divine status, hundreds of elephants continue to be ill treated and overworked at illicit circuses and temples, where they spend 9-10 hours carrying tourists and locals.

(ANI)

ISLAMABAD: The evidence regarding Indian involvement in Balochistan will be presented at “a suitable time”, Prime minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani said Sunday adding that “the country’s nuclear assets are safe”.

Speaking to reporters in Multan, Gilani said the issue had been taken up during his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh and was made part of the joint statement.

Gilani said: “The evidence will be presented at a suitable time.”

Interior minister Rehman Malik had said in October that India was responsible for the rising wave of terrorism in Balochistan province.

Gilani said Pakistan wanted good relations with all its neighbours and desired the resumption of the composite dialogue process with India, adding that dialogue was the only way forward.

He said no military operation is currently underway in Balochistan and that the ongoing operation in Southern Waziristan will soon end.

Pakistan has been hit by a wave of terror attacks that have killed over 250 people. One of the worst attacks took place Oct 28 when a massive bomb killed over 115 people in a crowded market of Peshawar.

The Pakistani Army is battling the Taliban in the rugged terrain of South Waziristan. The Taliban has vowed to retaliate against the US drone strikes, one of which killed its chief Baitullah Mehsud in early August.

Gilani said there was no threat to the country’s nuclear assets which were completely safe and secure.

“Pakistan will not compromise on its nuclear programme and the country’s nuclear assets are safe under the NCCA (Nuclear Command and Control Authority),” Geo News quoted him as saying.

The prime minister said the country had the will to fight the war against terrorism, but the international community’s help would be vital in enhancing the country’s ability to win the war.

He said Pakistan only lacked state-of-the-art equipment to fight terror and the international community had been asked to help the country build its anti-terror capacity.

The prime minister said the government’s timely decision had resulted in successful operations in Swat and South Waziristan. Criticising US drone attacks, Gilani said the strikes were counterproductive. He said: “While we are trying to separate militants from tribesmen, drone attacks are doing exactly the opposite.” Gilani said the US should transfer the drone technology to Pakistan.

(News sourced from : The Times of india)

PKonweb Monitor

A Pakistan national is said to have been arrested by India’s security agencies from the Indira Gandhi International airport in Delhi for ’spying’ on Indian defense secrets.

“One Pakistani spy was arrested at the IGI airport yesterday,” Union home secretary GK Pillai told PTI as reported by DNA news web site.

He said the foreign national ‘was arrested for spying’ for Pakistan government and passing on defence secrets. Further investigations in the case are on, Pillai said.

Asked if the arrest had any connection with the on going investigations into the trails of terror suspect David Headley arrested by FBI or his co-accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian of Pakistan origin, Pillai said it did not have any connection with the probe.

Official sources told PTI Indian security agencies have seized some documents and photographs from him.

Nevada (US), Nov 14 : Entertainment icon Michael Jackson will be a subject at Oscar winner musician A.R. Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory, according to reports.

Rahman himself will reportedly give the inaugural lecture on Jackson. Rahman loved Jackson’s music and has said about Jackson in the past: “one of the greatest musicians of our time… pushed the milestone of Pop music to unbelievable levels… I am yet to find an artist with that energy, perfection and vision…”

During their meeting in Los Angeles (USA) earlier this year, when Jackson showed Rahman a five second example of his dance move, Rahman stated: “It was like a lightning strike”.

Jackson even reportedly asked Rahman during this meeting to compose a unity anthem. Jackson collaborated with Rahman on Ekam Satyam track in 1999. Rahman is reportedly developing an album in memory of Jackson, which will include musicians from all over the world.

Founded by Rahman (who is also its Principal), KM Music Conservatory in Kodambakkam area of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state of India envisions expanding the horizon of musicians in India by offering education in both Indian and Western music besides music technology and its mission is to provide students with a strong artistic, intellectual, and technical foundation.

T. Selvakumar is the Managing Director of this international school of music and music technology whose tagline is “Become the Future of Music”.

Conservatory offers Preparatory Program (2-5 years), Foundation Program (1-2 years), and Degree Program (three years) under affiliation of Middlesex University in United Kingdom (UK), and has proposed to offer Diploma Program (one year) for international students) and Masters Program (two years) with concentrations in music performance-composition-technology-education. Many faculty members have degrees from USA and UK. Sound editor Joe E. Rand (Titanic) has lectured here besides demonstration by Vienna Chamber Orchestra.

(ANI)

Allrounder Shane Watson and paceman Mitchell Johnson will be sent home ahead of Australia’s last limited-overs international in India in order to rest and prepare for a heavy domestic summer involving series against the West Indies and Pakistan.

Australia clinched the seven-match ODI series by winning the sixth match and taking a 4-2 lead ahead of Wednesday’s last match in Mumbai.

Chief selector Andrew Hilditch issued a statement Tuesday saying it was important to manage the workloads of Watson and Johnson, despite a string of injuries that has depleted the Australian team in India.

“In view of the extremely heavy workload shouldered by Mitchell Johnson and Shane Watson since the ICC World Twenty20 in May and with the imminent start of the Australian summer … the national selection panel has decided Mitchell and Shane will depart India as soon as possible,” Hilditch said in a statement.

Australia will open its home season with the first test against the West Indies at Brisbane on Nov. 26. Following test, limited-overs and Twenty20 series against West Indies and Pakistan, the Australians will tour New Zealand.

Johnson has led a weakened Australian bowling attack throughout the year, including test tours to South Africa and England, the Twenty20 World Cup and the Champions Trophy defense ahead of this series against India.

Watson, who has a history of injury-enforced layoffs, has been opening the batting for Australia and bowling in all forms of the game since the third Ashes test in England in July.

Earlier Tuesday, Australia captain Ricky Ponting said his lineup would be aiming for nothing less than a big victory in Mumbai.

“We want to finish the tour on a very positive note. As far I can see 5-2 looks better than 4-3,” he told reporters in India. “Yes, the series has been decided, but certainly it is not over as far as we are concerned.”

{Source: ARY News}

PKonweb Monitor

Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor has arrived in Jerusalem on a key visit where he is scheduled to hold talks with top military officials.

The visit comes as India and Israel move to deepen their military ties.

Israel has become India’s No. 1 supplier of arms and ammunitions, overtaking Russia. The bulk of supplies constitute about 50 percent of Israel’s defense exports and about 30 percent of India’s imports.

Israel has supplied a range of defense products, including Barak missiles, assault rifles, night fighting devices, radar network, hi-tech electronic warfare systems and information technology related equipments.

The Indian Air Force last May received the first of the three Phalcon airborne early warning radar systems (AWACS) from Israel as part of a 1.1 billion US Dollar deal in a big boost to its surveillance capabilities in the region.

The next delivery is expected in the first quarter of next year.

As per recent reports, India is interested in working with Israel on submarine-launched cruise missiles, ballistic missile defense systems, laser-guided systems, satellites as well as unmanned aerial vehicles.

India and Israel are already cooperating on war on terror and other regional issues including logistics and training on handling insurgency in Kashmir.

Gen Kapoor will hold discussions with senior Israeli defense officials as ‘part of regular ongoing exchanges’ to tighten bilateral defense ties.

The three-day visit will also allay fears that the CBI inquiry into controversial Barak missile deal may disrupt the robust defense ties between the two countries.

Defense sources in Jerusalem said that Gen Kapoor, who arrived yesterday, will meet Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, besides other senior army officials.

He will also visit the Israel Defense Forces southern command.

By Rafia Zakaria

Since the release of Gen Stanley McChrystal’s report on the US effort in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, pundits and policymakers in Washington D.C. have been waiting with bated breath for the outcome of the war room briefings that have been taking place in the White House.

It was rumoured that the much-awaited decision regarding the provision of an additional 40,000 troops requested by Gen McChrystal, who is the top US commander in Afghanistan, would come in the footsteps of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s acquiescence to holding run-off elections in early November. Yet even as Mr Karzai announced his support for the run-off elections, there was no sign of a decision from President Barack Obama’s camp regarding an increase in troop levels in Afghanistan.

Yet while administration officials ponder the onerous decision of whether to commit thousands of more troops to Afghanistan, there is little sign that anyone in the Obama administration has even been charged with the task of coming up with a strategy for Pakistan. While there has been applause in Washington for the Pakistani military following its recent offensive in Waziristan, there seems to be scant consensus as to what sort of national security dividends the United States expects to reap from the offensive.

One central source of confusion and division in Washington pivots on whether security objectives in the region must be directed towards the Taliban or Al Qaeda. The confusion between the two and the consequent paralysis it has instigated among those constructing Obama’s policy harks back to the fateful campaign slogans that painted Al Qaeda and not the militants among the Iraqis or the Afghans as America’s ‘real’ enemy.

As the Pakistan Army continues its offensive against the Taliban, it is thus this lingering question that once again haunts both the White House and Congress. The perplexity of their dilemma was highlighted at a congressional hearing held last week where military analyst Frederick Kagan insisted that the war against Al Qaeda also meant a war against its allies and proxies (the Taliban) while across town White House press secretary Robert Gibbs played down the threat posed by the Taliban saying: “Their capability is somewhat different (from that of Al Qaeda) on the continuum of transnational threats.”

The uncertainty of how to proceed on Pakistan is compounded by the inability of US analysts to distinguish between its nation-building efforts in Afghanistan — a relatively desolate land that has been ravaged by 30 years of war — and Pakistan, an increasingly urban nation of nearly 170 million, which has elements openly scoffing at US aid. The theme of ‘inter-connection’ of ‘AfPak’ has often misled officials with little geographical or socio-cultural understanding of the difference between the two countries into believing that they are crude extensions of each other.

Hence the assumption that throwing aid towards Pakistan would accomplish similar nation-building goals as has been pursued in Afghanistan and simultaneously buy the goodwill of the people. The vacuity of this superficial recipe was exposed by the public outcry in Pakistan following the Kerry-Lugar bill, when the intractability of buying hearts and minds with aid disbursements came into sharp focus.

Strategic complexities in arriving at a plan for Pakistan are compounded by political complications that arise from President Obama’s core constituency: the American left. Traditionally anti-war, they spent the campaign revelling in the fact that Obama — their dream candidate — had never supported the Iraq war. They thus remain ambivalent regarding the troop build-up in Afghanistan and utterly confounded as to where they should stand on Pakistan.

While some have admittedly come out against the drone attacks in Pakistan that have killed civilians, others are vexed at the possibility that their anti-war president may be dragged to a third front. Their current paralysis and the possibility that they may vehemently oppose an increased troop presence in the region suggest untold political costs for the Obama administration in the upcoming mid-term elections and could lead to further indecision on Pakistan.

In essence, the ongoing military operation launched by the Pakistan Army against the Taliban has effectively exposed a gaping chasm in US policy towards the region. In the months leading up to the recent offensive US officials such as Defence Secretary Robert Gates and even Centcom chief Gen David Petraeus presented a series of cataclysmic pronouncements urging the Pakistan military to take the Taliban threat seriously.

Yet now that the Pakistan Army has done exactly that it seems unclear what the US expects as the end-game of this battle. Its dithering on the issue of whether or not it will choose to have a stronger troop presence in Afghanistan and the confusion regarding whether its efforts will be directed against the Taliban or Al Qaeda represent deepening divisions and unclear objectives.

The conundrum is exacerbated further by the diminishing influence of Obama’s special envoys to the region on policy discussions regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan. The sidelining of special envoy Richard Holbrooke from discussions with President Karzai on the issue of run-off elections is yet another example of the fact that those actually negotiating with players in the region are losing crucial ground.

Ultimately, the absence of a cohesive US strategy towards Pakistan beyond urgings

to take the threat of the Taliban seriously is reflective of an omission that is likely to impose both political and strategic costs on the United States. For Pakistan, the war against the Taliban is territorial and directed specifically at gaining back control of specific regions. For the US, the connections drawn between its national security concerns and fighting territorial wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are far more complex.

The evasive logic of these connections has become especially problematic when US policy towards Pakistan is exposed as a lurid hodgepodge of drone attacks, aid packages and diplomatic urgings to fight the Taliban. Given the already fragile relationship between the US and Pakistan, the absence of a comprehensive and clear plan towards the region does little to reassure Pakistanis that their status as American allies will continue in the years to come.

- The writer is an attorney and director at Amnesty International, USA. [email protected]

{Source: Dawn}

Statements of key witnesses in the Mumbai attack case in an anti-terror court in Mumbai will be forwarded by India to Pakistan, reported Indian media on Sunday.

The 7th dossier includes certified copies of the statements by witnesses. The statement includes the deposition of a magistrate before whom the lone captured gunman Ajmal Kasab had given a voluntary confession of his alleged involvement. It also includes testimony by FBI officials.

The magistrate’s statement is significant as she told the trial court that Kasab had disclosed before her that the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan by Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The fresh dossier will be used as evidence in the trial in Pakistan, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said in Mumbai on Sunday.

The court has allowed the prosecution’s plea for certified copies of the statements and within a day or two they will be forwarded to Pakistan through diplomatic channels, Nikam said.

Evidence about articles seized from terrorists such as ‘rubber boat’ and food items bearing labels ‘Made in Pakistan’ will also be forwarded to the neighbouring country, Nikam said.

Earlier also the government of India had sent evidence to Pakistan in this case, which included confession of Kasab and the voluminous chargesheet filed by the police in the court.

APP adds: India has not provided any documents to Pakistan relating to the Mumbai attacks, said the Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit on Sunday

Talking to a private TV channel, he said “We have asked India again and again to share the information through the Foreign Office rather than sharing it through the Indian media,” he said.

{Source: The Nation}

A new United States report has revealed India’s expanding involvement in Afghanistan, and said New Delhi’s goal is to deny Pakistan “strategic depth” in the war-torn country.

The report by Congressional Research Service (CRS), which works exclusively for the US Congress, said India is the fifth largest single country donor to Afghan reconstruction, funding projects worth about $1.2 billion.

CRS provides policy and legal analysis to committees and members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation.

However, the report, citing US observers, said, “India’s role in Afghanistan is constructive, and some would support an Indian decision to deploy more security forces in Afghanistan to protect its construction workers, diplomats, and installations. “India reportedly decided in August 2008 to improve security for its officials and workers in Afghanistan, but not to send actual troops there.”

It pointed out that India supported the US-backed Northern Alliance against the Taliban in the mid-1990s. “Tajikistan allows India to use one of its airbases; Tajikistan supports the mostly Tajik Northern Alliance, the report said.

“Many of the families of Afghan leaders have lived in India at one time or another and, as noted above, (President Hamid) Karzai studied there. India saw the Taliban’s hosting of Al-Qaeda as a major threat to India itself because of Al-Qaeda’s association with radical organisations in Pakistan dedicated to ending Indian control of parts of Jammu and Kashmir. Some of these groups have committed major acts of terrorism in India, and there might be connections to the militants who carried out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008″.

Pakistan says India is using its enlarged presence to promoter insurgency in Balochistan.

But the report said, “Indian officials assert that all their projects are focused on civilian, not military, development and are in line with the development priorities set by the Afghan government. India, along with the Asian Development Bank, financed a $300 million project … to bring electricity from Central Asia to Afghanistan. It has also renovated the well-known Habibia High School in Kabul and committed to a $25 million renovation of Darulaman Palace as the permanent house for Afghanistan’s parliament.

“India financed the construction of a road to the Iranian border in remote Nimruz province… and it provides 1,000 scholarships per year for Afghans to undergo higher education in India”.

{Source: The Nation}

The 152-member Indian Congressional caucus, which includes a number of influential Democratic and Republican lawmakers, played a key role in inserting strict conditions and an offending language in the aid to Pakistan bill, says the influential Wall Street Journal newspaper.

Although unusually tough on pro-Indian US lawmakers, the WSJ editorial is not the only media piece that seeks to blame someone for turning a goodwill gesture — a $7.5 aid package aimed at deepening friendship with Pakistan — into a public relations disaster.

The prestigious ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine blames all: the bill’s sponsors, the Obama administration and the Pakistani government.

‘Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, should have seen this one coming,’ wrote a Washington Post columnist.

‘Pakistanis might be forgiven for wondering whether, with friends like these in Washington, who needs enemies?’ wrote Simon Tisdall, former US editor for Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

He noted that Congressman Howard Berman’s comments that they were reluctant to send US dollars ‘down a rat hole’ were ‘condemned as insulting and colonialist in Pakistan’.

Mr Berman chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and is one of the co-authors of the final bill.

‘By linking the cash to tighter civilian control of Pakistan’s military, Washington was trying, clumsily, to strengthen Asif Ali Zardari’s government. But it achieved the exact opposite,’ Mr Tisdall noted.

‘Pakistan is already so destabilised by US actions since 9/11 that it cannot be left to fend for itself. In such tortuous logic is found the death of empires,’ he warned.

The WSJ explained that the original Senate draft did not have the conditions that stirred protests across Pakistan. They were inserted in the House bill and Congressman Berman demanded that they stay in the final bill too.

‘The California Democrat was backed by Gary Ackerman, Jane Harman and the 152-strong India caucus in the House, who wanted to send Pakistan their own message. None of the contentious language was in the Senate version, and the administration and these columns warned Congress to keep it out,’ WSJ wrote.

The newspaper noted that tripling US aid to $7.5 billion over five years ‘would have been an easy diplomatic win’, if House Democrats hadn’t insisted on sticking ‘a gratuitous thumb in the eye of Pakistani national pride’ by tying the aid to specific benchmarks.

‘Now Pakistan is angry just when we need influence there. So much for smart power!’

Commenting on the adverse reaction to the bill in Pakistan, WSJ noted: ‘For good reason, as subsequent events show. Pakistan’s military, media and opposition parties have seized on the House language to attack America’s supposed designs on the country. The government of President Asif Zardari, which backed the aid and wants closer ties with the US, finds itself on the back foot. Recent gains toward strengthening civilian rule and fighting the Taliban are in jeopardy.’

{Source: Dawn}

By Dr Riffat Hassan

It is customary to divide Allama lqbal’s career into three phases. The first phase, which ended in 1905, was a period when the young poet strove to teach the bitterly divided people of India the lesson of love and faith. He addressed not only those who defiled his homeland with religious and communal bickering, but also the children who were its future citizens.

In the second phase, which lasted from 1905-1908 and coincided with Iqbal’s stay in Europe, his focus shifted from the issue of sectarian conflict in India to serious reflection about the nature of the Islamic millat. The reason underlying this shift was his growing realisation that his universal vision could only be actualised by a “like-minded” homogeneous group which was “non-temporal, non-spatial.” He believed that in essence, the Islamic millat possessed these characteristics.

In the third phase, which lasted from 1908 onwards, Iqbal wrote much on this subject, emphasising the universalism which he believed was implicit in Islam. Ironically, this made him open to attacks such as the one made by the Cambridge Professor Lowes Dickinson, who, while reviewing Iqbal’s Asrar-e-Khudi said: “Thus, while Mr Iqbal’s philosophy is universal, his application of it is particular and exclusive. Only Muslims are worthy of the Kingdom. The rest of the world is either to be absorbed or excluded.” Denying this allegation categorically and strongly, Iqbal said:

“The humanitarian ideal is always universal in poetry and philosophy, but if you make it an effective ideal and work it out in actual life you must start, not with poets and philosophers, but with a society exclusive in the sense of having a creed and well-defined outline, but ever-enlarging its limits by example and persuasion. Such a society according to my belief is Islam. This society has so far proved itself a more successful opponent of the race-idea which is probably the hardest barrier in the way of the humanitarian ideal… it is in view of practical and not patriotic considerations… that I was compelled to start with a specific society (for example, Islam), which, among the societies of the world, happens to be the only one suitable to my purpose. All men and not Muslims alone are meant for the Kingdom of God on earth, provided they say goodbye to their idols of race and nationality and treat one another as personalities. The object of my Persian poems is not to make out a case for Islam: my aim is simply to discover a universal social reconstruction, and in this endeavour, I find it philosophically impossible to ignore a social system which exists with the express object of doing away with all the distinctions of caste, rank and race.”

Iqbal saw no conflict between his commitment to Islam and his universal ideals because to him Islam was universal in essence. For him, “the ideal nation does already exist in germ” but the germ has to grow. The seed needs air and sunshine in order to develop, and the individual needs the social security provided by the community. In his view, “Muslim society, with its remarkable homogeneity and inner unity, has grown to be what it is under the pressure of the laws and institutions associated with ‘the culture of Islam’.” Here, it is important to note that the expression ‘the culture of Islam’ was not used by Iqbal to refer to the cultural practices of Muslims in India or elsewhere but to the value-system implicit in the normative teachings of Islam.

Iqbal believed that in order to become “a living member of the Muslim community”, a person “must thoroughly assimilate the culture of Islam. The object of the assimilation is to create a uniform mental outlook, a peculiar way of looking at the world, a certain standpoint from where to judge the value of things which sharply defines our community, and transforms it into a corporate individual giving it a definite purpose and ideal of its own.”

Iqbal had become convinced that the Muslim community in India had been able to survive only through the preservation of the culture of Islam. How strongly he felt about the preservation of cultural identity can be seen from the following statement: “That which really matters is a man’s faith, his culture, his historical tradition. These are the things which in my eyes, are worth living for and dying for, and not the piece of earth with which the spirit of man happens to be temporarily associated.” In a letter to Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Iqbal said, “It is absolutely necessary to tell the world both inside and outside India that the economic problem is not the only problem in this country. From the Muslim point of view, the cultural problem is of much greater consequence to most Indian Muslims.” In another letter, which Iqbal wrote to Jinnah a year before his death, he said “the enforcement and development of the shari’at of Islam is impossible in this country without a free Muslim state or states.” This realisation inevitably led to another one: “The life of Islam as a cultural force in this country depends on its centralisation in a specified territory.”

What would Pakistan have meant to Iqbal had he been alive in 1947? He would have seen it as a successful culmination of the historic struggle spearheaded by the Aligarh movement to preserve the rights of Indian Muslims as a “nation”. But — more importantly — he would have seen Pakistan as a model environment in which ‘the culture of Islam’ which he understood as the highest ethical values of Islam, could be actualised to the fullest degree.

- The writer is professor emerita at the University of Louisville in the US and a scholar on Iqbal and Islam. Email: rshass01@ gwise.louisville.edu

{Source: The News}

Prof. Ahmad was of the view that since its inception, Pakistan has been ruled by the elite who denied general leadership. Elections were held in the 1970s, but power was not transferred. As successive rulers of Pakistan used Islam as an instrument to perpetuate their rule, the Bengal movement became more secular and democratic in the 1960s.

He said that both sides committed genocide in 1971 and his house was also burnt in Dhaka as “friends became enemies.”

“In Bangladesh, hatred [for these acts] has not subsided much,” he said. There are“black spots” in history and this legacy continued most of the time without any valid reasons.

Prof. Ahmad said that when Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s apology for 1971 was highly appreciated in Bangladesh because the regrets came from a military man. He believes that relations could also be improved through exchange of people, especially students.

Around 100,000 students from Bangladesh study in Indian universities and many of them were there on scholarships, he said, adding that Pakistan could also offer scholarships for Bangladeshi students.

Prof. Ahmas said that he had not encountered any ill-feelings about Bangladesh here, during his last six visits to different cities of Pakistan. He felt that there were beautiful places in Pakistan to visit, such as “Kafiristan,” and people of Bangladesh could come here for holidays, instead of going to Thailand and other Asian countries.

Speaking about the role of media in playing up the problems between the two countries, he said that when the Bangladesh cricket team defeated Pakistan some years ago, some newspapers termed the victory as glorious as that of 1971.

Prof. Ahmad believes that both RAW and ISI are allegedly present in Bangladeshi politics which has not helped relations between the two countries.

{Source: The News}