India, Pakistan: Cross-border cooperation against polio. “Failure is not an option”

‘Bowl out polio’: Pakistani cricketers Younis Khan and Imran Farhat give polio drops to a child at a UNICEF event in New Delhi, Jan 2013. Photo: PTI

Here’s something I wrote for Aman ki Asha recently, published in the June 5, 2013 edition:

India and Pakistan are working together against a common enemy. Pakistan’s new government must take up the baton

Over the past year, Pakistan has been studying how India dramatically eradicated polio, with the World Health Organisation striking it off its list of polio endemic countries in February 2012; the last case was recorded in January 2011.

Quenching the thirst for peace

Tracing a peace sign together via a giant web-cam

Here’s something I wrote about how a soft drink giant creatively connected Indians and Pakistanis with ‘the other side’, with a three-minute video that was easily the most shared link on the Aman ki Asha facebook group last week (not that it’s going to get me to start drinking Coke, or any other soda); published in the Aman ki Asha page in The News, May 22, 2013

An innovative idea connects Indians and Pakistanis with ‘the other side’

“It saddens me that we have neighbours that we can’t even go visit.”

“The perception is that they’re the bad guy. But when you actually meet them you realise they’re just like me.”

Pawns and prisoners of manufactured hatred

Screenshot of Sanaullah from a TV report last year, on Indian and Pakistani prisoners participating in a kite-flying festival together. “It’s really nice, I feel like a child myself,” Sanaullah told the reporter.

Tragically, Sanaullah, the Pakistani prisoner whom a fellow inmate had attacked in prison in Jammu in Indian administered Kashmir on May 3, finally succumbed to his injuries on May 9. The attack took place on the day of the funeral of Sarabjit Singh, the high profile Indian prisoner who died on May 3, after being in a coma following an attack by fellow inmates in Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore on April 26 – ironically, the day that Indian members of the India Pakistan Joint Judicial Committee on Prisoners landed in Pakistan to inspect jails and meet Indian prisoners. The Committee’s recommendations have been made public, and if implemented, will go a long way towards alleviating the plight of cross-border prisoners.

Here’s a link to the note I wrote, published in the weekly Aman ki Asha page in The News last week – Condemnable attack on unarmed prisoner. A followup note regarding Sanaullah was published in the AKA page of May 8. I sincerely hope this is the end of the series. (If you’re on facebook, feel free to ‘like’ the AKA page and join the AKA group - both managed on a voluntary basis)

“It is essential for Pakistan and India to make peace” – Pervez Hoodbhoy

My article in the weekly Aman ki Asha page in The News today.

Speaking at MIT recently, invited by an Indian colleague, a leading Pakistani academic and physicist makes the case for peace

Indian and Pakistani scientists for peace: Pervez Hoodbhoy and Subrata Ghoshroy last week at MIT

By Beena Sarwar

In the midst of ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan amplified by hyper media on both sides, an Indian scientist warmly introduces a Pakistani colleague at one of the world’s most prestigious universities – and that too for a talk on “Pakistan’s Bomb – Past, Present, and Future”.

The Indian scientist is Subrata Ghoshroy who leads the Promoting Nuclear Stability in South Asia Project at the Science, Technology and Global Security working group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Pakistani scientist is Pervez Hoodbhoy, Professor of Physics, Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, an alumnus of MIT where he obtained his BS, MS, and Ph.D degrees.

Join the Global vigil for India Pakistan Peace, Jan 27, 2013

Initiated by Samir Gupta, an Aman ki Asha supporter in New Delhi, this global event on Sunday, Jan. 27 is taking place in different cities at different times around the world. It invites Indians and Pakistanis and those who want peace between the two countries, to come together in their respective cities. The purpose of the vigils is to urge the governments to continue the dialogue, and not give in to the war hype being created by some sections of sections of society. The vigil statement is online at this link (text below)

Confirmed venues and times so far:

Pakistan: What the Tuq is going on?

Cartoon- Sab kuch Live hai by K.B. Abro. Listen to his blog in his voice http://bit.ly/13USxnO

Below, my take on what’s going on in Pakistan, written on Friday for the Sunday edition of The Telegraph, Kolkatta –  which published a slightly abridged version titled ‘Anna Hazare, anyone?‘

By Beena Sarwar

So this smooth-talking ‘moderate’ cleric called Tahir-ul Qadri (TUQ, as he has been dubbed on twitter), a dual Canadian-Pakistani national, announces a ‘million man’ long march to Islamabad, calling for changes to the electoral system just as the government’s five-year tenure is ending. He heads over to Pakistan’s capital on Jan 13 to lay siege to the elected government along with thousands of supporters.

You know it’s India-Pakistan when… (The sad case of Idrees Alam, ‘The Nowhere Man’)

Kanpur: Idrees (left) shares a laugh with K. M. Yadav of IPFSA…but…

My article in Aman ki Asha today, re-posted here with links and more photos/documents. I’ve since been informed that Idrees is living in the compound of Police Administration (Police Line), Kanpur, under constant surveillance by two officers. He last communicated with his family over a year ago. 

You know it’s India-Pakistan when… overstaying a 15-day visa after a family tragedy leads to ten years in prison and a man’s continued 13-year separation from his wife and four sons .

…but his eyes reflect the bleakness of his existence without hope, without family. Photos: Mahesh Pandey

By Beena Sarwar

The case of Mohammad Idrees Alam is a prime example of how people suffer due to the bureaucratic wrangling between India and Pakistan.

Stuck in India, he has been unable to meet his wife and four children in Pakistan for the last 13 years. Pakistan and India both refuse to verify his citizenship. He is, as the BBC termed it in a radio report of Oct 22, 2012, ‘The Nowhere Man’.

Originally an Indian citizen, he went to Pakistan in 1986 to visit relatives. While there, he got married and opted to stay on, obtaining Pakistani citizenship. In 1999, his father Ahmed Jan in Kanpur became seriously ill and in May, Idrees went to India on a 15-day visa. His father passed away, and Idrees, embroiled in last rites and legalities, overstayed his visa by a couple of months.

India-Pakistan ‘reunification’? Why not a South Asian Union?

The respected retired Indian Supreme Court judge Justice Markandey Katju at a recent function New Delhi said that “the only solution to the Kashmir issue is reunification of India and Pakistan under a strong, secular, modern minded government which does not tolerate religious fanaticism or bigotry and suppresses it with an iron hand.”

Indian Supreme Court acquits Pakistani prisoner Dr Chishty

After the acquittal: Dr Chishty and Mrs Chishty with Justice Katju at the judge’s residence, New Delhi, Dec 12, 2012

At last! On 12-12-12, the Indian Supreme Court acquitted Dr Chishty. Earlier, an unprecedented Indian SC verdict had granted him bail to return to Pakistan, the first time ever that a Pakistani prisoner in India was given such permission. The retired virologist, now over 80 years old, had gone back to India quietly in November for the court hearing seeking to dismiss the murder charges against him. It’s been a long struggle since we first started campaigning for this, and there’s a great feeling of satisfaction that it has finally ended well.

Tehelka did a podcast with me this morning. I made a mistake in the chronology of how the process to free Dr Chishty began. In fact, Amna Chishty (Dr Chisthy’s daughter) had written to the Indian SC and Law Ministry, after which the trial was finally held (after 19 years); Justice Katju came into the picture a bit later – but his role in freeing Dr Chishty was, as I said, essential.

Milne Do: Online petition urging India, Pakistan to let people meet

The people of Pakistan and India, people of Indian and Pakistani origin around the world, and friends of India and Pakistan, are fed up of the visa restrictions that prevent them from visiting families in the other country. There isn’t even a tourist visa protocol between these two biggest neighbours of South Asia. People in the region want the right to travel and to trade, to walk along coastlines and roads that represent their collective past, to seek and spread harmony across a subcontinent not divided by politics and propaganda. In this modern age of interdependence, it is a tragedy that the citizens of India and Pakistan are left peering over a border made indomitable and intimidating. There is little space for the hand of friendship to be extended across this border. This must change. Sign the Aman ki Asha Milne Do petition at Change.org . Let’s get a thousand signatures in time to present to the Foreign Ministers when they meet in Islamabad on September 8 2012.