Wasim Khan steps down as PCB CEO

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Filed Under: Cricket news | Latest Cricket Updates | The Express Tribune on Wednesday 29 September 2021

Inzamam says he did not suffer a heart attack, thanks people for well-wishes

Inzamam

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Filed Under: Cricket news | Latest Cricket Updates | The Express Tribune on Tuesday 28 September 2021

Inzamamul Haq's condition stable after suffering heart attack

Former Pakistan captain and an all-time great batsman, Inzamamul Haq, suffered a heart attack and successfully underwent angioplasty on Monday evening. It is reported that Inzamam had been in a state of discomfort for the past three days, where the right-hand batter complained about chest pain. The initial test reports cleared him but upon further inspection, it was revealed that the 51-year-old had suffered a heart attack. Following this, he was rushed to the hospital for surgery. Previously, his agent confirmed that Inzamam is doing better. The latest update confirms that Inzamam has now been released from the hospital. Inzamam remains one of the most successful captains in Pakistan cricket history alongside being one of the most decorated batsman the country has ever produced. He shot to global prominence in the 1992 World Cup and is also Pakistan's leading run-scorer in the ODIs with 11,701 runs in 375 matches. He is also the third highest run-getter in the longest format of the game for the Men in Green. After retiring, Inzamam remained connected to Pakistan cricket in different capacity; he has served as a batting consultant and chief selector. In addition to that, Inzamam has also worked as head coach of Afghanistan national team.  Twitter Reaction پیارے انضی ۔۔۔ تمہارا دل۔۔ اتنا پیارا دل۔۔ اسکو لگتا ھے نظر لگ گئی ۔۔ بہت فکر ہوئی کہ اتنے پیارے دل والے کو تکلیف ہوئی ، دعا ہے کہ تم ٹھیک ھو کر جلد اپنے پیارے دل سے ہم سب کو اسی طرح خوش کرو گے جیسا تم ھمیشہ کرتے ھو۔ پیارے دوست اپنا خوب خیال رکھو ۔ جلد ملتے ہیں ! — Wasim Akram (@wasimakramlive) September 28, 2021 Wishing you a speedy recovery @Inzamam08. You've always been calm yet competitive, and a fighter on the field. I hope and pray that you'll come out stronger from this situation as well. Get well soon. — Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) September 28, 2021 Wishing you a speedy recovery @Inzamam08 bhai. 🤲 https://t.co/RL0GrIhgvg — Shan Masood (@shani_official) September 28, 2021 Inzi bhai, inshallah your recovery will be as effortless as those cover drives you used to hit past me 🙏 https://t.co/3BNE38AHEk — Jonty Rhodes (@JontyRhodes8) September 28, 2021 Lots of prayers for your speedy recovery @Inzamam08 Bhai. May Allah bless you with lots of strength and complete health 🏼🏼🏼 Get well soon inshaAllah ❤️ — Hassan Ali 🇵🇰 (@RealHa55an) September 28, 2021 Prayers for @Inzamam08 bhai quick recovery. May Allah grant him a long healthy life Ameen — Umar Gul (@mdk_gul) September 28, 2021  

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The importance of Turkmenistan’s pragmatic Taliban stance

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow expressed a very pragmatic stance towards the Taliban while addressing the United Nations General Assembly via video earlier this week. Publicly financed Russian international media outlet TASS quoted him as saying the following: “The situation there (in Afghanistan — TASS) is not easy, the government and public institutions that are being formed are very fragile. This is why assessing the situation in the country requires ultimate consistency, prudence and responsibility — both in words and actions. The situation in Afghanistan has changed, and when forming an approach to it, one needs to abandon ideological preferences, old grudges, phobias and stereotypes, thinking first and foremost about the Afghan people who are tired of wars and turbulences and dream of a peaceful and quiet life. We call for normalising the situation in Afghanistan as soon as possible and expect that new government agencies will operate effectively in the interests of all Afghan people.” The world should take note of his country’s position towards Afghanistan’s de facto leaders even though some governments such as Russia’s still officially consider them to be terrorists in spite of pragmatically engaging with them in the interests of peace and security. First, President Berdimuhamedow acknowledged that the Taliban is in the process of forming a government and reshaping public institutions. This is an objective reflection of the facts. These structures are indeed very fragile at the moment, yet the former insurgent group is still doing its best to manage everything. Afghanistan’s foreign stakeholders mustn’t have unrealistic expectations, hence the recommended need to exercise “ultimate consistency, prudence and responsibility – both in words and actions.” Pressuring the Taliban to immediately comply with those states’ envisioned socio-political models can actually be counterproductive. Political statements to that effect are one thing while actions are another entirely. The US froze Afghanistan’s foreign assets within its jurisdiction and pressured the international financial institutions under its influence, the IMF and World Bank, to suspend their loan programs. This risks worsening the country’s cascading crises. By contrast, Pakistan and Tajikistan agreed last week to facilitate talks between the Taliban and rebellious Tajiks. This noble gesture might not succeed, but it’s still better to gently apply diplomacy for encouraging a peaceful resolution of Afghanistan’s problems than to weaponise financial instruments as political punishment. President Berdimuhamedow’s wisest words during his speech were his suggestion that “one needs to abandon ideological preferences, old grudges, phobias and stereotypes, thinking first and foremost about the Afghan people who are tired of wars and turbulences and dream of a peaceful and quiet life.” This can be interpreted as a subtle message to India, Iran, Tajikistan, and the Afghan groups that are under their influence. Those three countries and the groups within Afghanistan that are most sympathetic to them have to acknowledge that the majority of Afghans are very relieved that the war has finally ended. Attempting to stir trouble through those governments’ provocative statements and those groups’ actions is against the will of the Afghan people. It’s time to move on and chart a new future for the country. The Taliban deserve a chance to fulfill their promises but they’ll require some time to do so since stability comes first. This pressing need explains why its recently appointed acting authorities are all Taliban members and thus don’t adequately represent Afghanistan’s ethno-political diversity. The group preferred reliable and trusted individuals over fresh faces because they didn’t want to risk any deadlock or inefficiency at this crucial moment. Nevertheless, these optics prompted concerns that the Taliban hadn’t truly changed, but such worries are more representative of some – though importantly not all – of those observers’ “ideological preferences, old grudges, phobias and stereotypes”. They’re judging the Taliban through those prisms instead of having an open mind. It’s admittedly difficult to take the Taliban’s claims to have reformed at face value, especially when the composition of its acting authorities seems to discredit those hopes, but the group also has a valid point in wanting to prioritise stability right after the war instead of immediately experimenting with political reforms. What President Berdimuhamedow appears to be implying is that it’s simply too early to draw any conclusions, and that those who’ve already arrived at pessimistic ones aren’t being objective. It’s acceptable to have some concerns, but unacceptable to exploit them as the pretext for pressuring the Taliban via words and actions. Doing so could inadvertently contribute to further destabilising Afghanistan, especially with respect to the West’s weaponisation of financial instruments during the moment when the country needs such aid more desperately than ever in order to stave off its impending humanitarian crisis. The Turkmen leader’s appeal “for normalising the situation in Afghanistan as soon as possible” and his “expect[ation] that new government agencies will operate effectively in the interests of all Afghan people”  can be interpreted as a message to both the Taliban and the country’s foreign stakeholders. He’s telling the first to remain committed to its previously promised reforms even if they still take some time to transpire since he believes that they’re truly “in the interests of all Afghan people”. As for the second, he’d like them to acknowledge the Taliban’s de facto leadership of the country and pragmatically engage with it. It would be contradictory to “the interests of all Afghan people” if the Taliban went back on its promises and/or the country’s foreign stakeholders refused to pragmatically engage with group. Turkmenistan’s position should be regarded as the world’s most objective one considering the country’s constitutionally neutral status. The Central Asian state isn’t regarded as a partisan actor in any respects, whether in the Afghan Conflict or wherever else. It hasn’t joined any regional blocs, not even the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), though it has positive working ties with them and others. Turkmenistan therefore has unparalleled moral legitimacy to speak on Afghanistan. The country doesn’t have any ulterior interests but simply sees itself as the most objective observer of events. All that it wants is its regional stability. Hopefully the world will take note of its stance and follow President Berdimuhamedow’s advice.

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Filed Under: The Express Tribune on Monday 27 September 2021

Why did Imran Khan and Glenn Beck join forces?

Popular conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck recently praised Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan for intervening to assist his private effort to evacuate American civilians and some of their local allies from Afghanistan. The disclosure of their close cooperation on this mission was very symbolic since it showed that those two were able to put aside their many differences in order to join forces for the sake of saving civilians. Beck himself drew attention to this in the statement that he published to Prime Minister Khan. He wrote: “Collectively, we transcended religious differences, political divides, national boundaries and local dynamics – united by shared human dignity, it was a humanitarian effort aimed at saving men, women and children, innocent victims facing certain suffering, hardship or worse if left behind in a war-ravaged country where uncertainty, misunderstanding and suspicion remain prevalent...[Prime Minister Khan’s] leadership of placing humanity before politics is a great example of inter-faith cooperation between the faiths”. Beck and Prime Minister Khan are well known for their Christian and Muslim faiths respectively. In fact, it was due to Beck’s deeply held religious beliefs that he organized this dramatic evacuation mission. He was disgusted by the Biden Administration’s abandonment of fellow Americans and their local allies who’d helped the US military over the past two decades. Beck also believes that the private sector can be much more efficient than the government, which was a political point that he put to the test by trying to save civilians on his own. As for Prime Minister Khan, his deeply held religious beliefs were why he promptly agreed to cooperate with Beck on this ambitious endeavour. Pakistan has done more than any other country when it comes to saving civilians from Afghanistan. Not only did it open its airspace for such missions, but it also hosted many of those who transited through the country en route to their final destination. Nevertheless, Islamabad hasn’t received much public credit for this due to the West’s desire to scapegoat it for the Taliban’s return to power. Beck has a controversial reputation in the West for some of the rather unsavoury comments that he’s previously made about Muslims, to put it mildly, which have led to his critics describing him as an Islamophobe. Whatever one wants to call this conservative commentator, it’s now clear that he’s at the very least open-minded enough to cooperate with a prominent Muslim leader like Prime Minister Khan in pursuit of shared humanitarian interests. This is a development that should be applauded irrespective of Beck’s contentious reputation. In fact, it actually inspires hope if one’s objective enough to think about it. Beck commands enormous influence in many conservative circles that stereotypically aren’t known for being friendly towards Muslims. The very fact that he’d not only work hand-in-hand with Prime Minister Khan on this daring mission but even publicly praise him to the extent that he did should prompt his audience to reconsider their suspicions of Islam and wonder whether maybe they too might have been wrong about this religion and its believers. As for Prime Minister Khan’s international reputation, he’s always been in favour of working with members of other religions and has consistently treated them with respect. Even so, however, Pakistan continues to be perceived by many abroad as a place whose people are hostile towards non-Muslims. Hopefully this false narrative will lose some of its steam after Beck’s praise of Prime Minister Khan’s assistance for his Afghan evacuation mission. Overall, the optics of this unexpected interaction between those two influential figures is that prominent representatives of Christianity and Islam pragmatically joined forces to save civilians from Afghanistan. Whatever one’s opinions about their political and other positions might be, they both deserve praise for successfully pulling this off and setting a powerful example of inter-faith cooperation. It would be in the interests of all that these two continue their cooperation and consider expanding it into other domains. For instance, Beck might be invited to visit Pakistan one of these days in order to see the country that helped him save thousands of people. It would certainly help improve Pakistani-American relations at least in the sphere of public diplomacy if this prominent conservative broadcaster showed his audience what Pakistan and its people are really like, let alone participated in a prospective conference on inter-faith cooperation for example. The Pakistani government should therefore seriously consider this possibility in the future.

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The second amendment and its impact on religious harmony

Whoever has needed to get their Pakistani passport made or renewed may know that in order to start the process, Muslims must, as part of the paperwork, declare Ahmadis non-Muslims. To challenge this bigotry, a Pakistani citizen, Hareem Sumbul, recently set out to appeal to the Passport Office in Lahore to waive this section off from her application form. Her argument, one that I support, is even though Pakistan’s constitution says that Ahmedis are non-Muslims, it does not necessarily mean citizens have to do the same. Why then, are citizens required to fill out a highly discriminatory section within the passport application form? Ahmedis have continuously been under threat in Pakistan since the second amendment was passed in 1974. They face trouble when it comes to acquiring passports and other documents related to identification. Furthermore to hold any governmental office they are supposed to condemn Mirza Ghulam Ahmad- the founder of the Ahmadiyya sect. In addition, they are prohibited from calling themselves Muslims and not allowed to call their place of worship a mosque nor are they allowed to say the first kalma. The anti-Ahmadi influence within Pakistani culture is heavily supported by the legislation, which leads to them being rejected by a majority of the Muslim population. Ahmadis not only face cultural isolation but they are also vulnerable to extremist violence. For example, in addition to many Ahmadis being prosecuted regularly, their mosques in Faisalabad have been attacked in 2018. The most recent attack was earlier this year which left many people dead and injured. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s growing religious polarity and lack of tolerance towards other existing sects and religions has no doubt made the environment around here severely dangerous. Many people, even Sunni Muslims who are perhaps the most protected community in the country are fleeing to other parts of the world in order to build a freer life for themselves. Sumbul has so far been made to run in circles and no positive outcome has come out of her stand till now. Her passport renewal fee was refunded and she was advised to send her passport to Islamabad. She has written necessary emails and we can only hope that she is able to pull something that is not entirely impossible but quite a feat regardless, to get a passport without signing the declaration. It has been done before just last year, with another citizen successfully getting the section cut off from her application before she signed it. In order to prevent the image of Pakistan from being tainted, our government needs to address unfair and discriminatory conditions put on Pakistan’s minority groups while making sure that all of its citizens are treated equally. Pakistan needs to ensure that people are given the freedom to practice their religion, as the Constitution of Pakistan also promises in Article 20. Not only will such moves help our minorities breathe easier but it may also help us gain more respect in he international community.  

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Sowing the seeds of hope in Thar

As I stepped out of the coaster with my colleagues and onto the barren land that is Thar, I knew my perception of the world was about to change. It was surreal to look at the vast expanse of sand, almost glistening under the hot sun. The light brown hues were only interrupted by the vibrant attires of the local women that I could see in the distance. I was standing on the land that I had only seen in textbooks but no picture in the world can prepare you for the stifling, humid heat that hit me as soon as we got there. As we made our way into one of the villages, women, old and young, with veiled faces welcomed us with the most genuine smiles. We were also the object of attention for many of the children, with some downright staring at us, while others laughed, smiled and even waved. Some kids also looked us with suspicious faces, possibly wondering what would be in store for them with the arrival of the people from the big city. It was the summer and I was in the middle of Tharparker for a project called Muhinjo Sohno Thar (‘My Beautiful Thar’, MST), which is using mobile phones to help empower the indigenous people of Thar. As the pandemic hit Thar —a disadvantaged community— saw the halting of necessary migrations, the shirking of the already limited job prospects and the access to food and water, diminishing further. Livestock was also compromised, resulting in a severe food shortage which put pregnant women and children at risk. The resulting financial, emotional and physical challenges also took a toll on the community’s mental health, with at least 143 cases of suicide reported during just the last year.    As I felt the sweat on my brow, I also felt the weight of my privilege and I could not help but become eerily quiet. I had often heard about my colleagues’ experiences but nothing prepares you for Thar till you get there. People had made a life in the middle of nothing. Nursing mothers put their kids to sleep, kids played on the hot sand, birds fluttered about searching for water and people gathered to chit chat about the day. The Thari people don’t have much but they do their best. They make do with the little they have, still reserving the most comfortable shaded spaces of their homes for their guests. Between the resilience of the people and the harsh conditions, my own problems seemed trivial at best. Why did I complain about anything ever? A local lady health worker joined us after we had settled on charpoys. She explained that there are two sets of clothes for the entire year and that women were happy staying in the desert while men travelled to the city in search of jobs. Eventually a very pregnant woman, Geeta, also came to sit with us. I was certain she was given special treatment or help with her tasks owing to her condition but I was wrong. A Thari woman has to work hard every day to survive, no matter what her physical condition. It was therefore even more important to ensure that Thar had internet connectivity under the banner of MST, which in turn has enabled people to connect to affordable healthcare from the comfort of their homes. During our team’s on-ground health awareness sessions, the stark contrast in our lifestyles became even more apparent. Since the start of the pandemic we have heard some messages so often that they have been ingrained in our brains to the point where we think they are universal. When we communicated the importance of washing hands with water for 20 seconds as per WHO’s guidelines, the women asked us for alternatives to water. Many such instances made us stop in our tracks. While we would get temporary respite from the heat in the coaster that was transporting us, I could not help but think how this is the reality for the Tharis. For them, there is no respite and no escape. I wished we could do more for them. Despite social workers coming here, local lady health workers told us there was barely any improvement in the living conditions of the Tharis. Projects are usually oriented by strict timelines, while the problems of Thar are complex and have no short time solutions.  As we traveled to some more villages to conduct interviews about our health interventions, particularly mental health, I realised that through MST we managed to do something unique and unimaginable for many. No matter where they are in the world, human beings are intrinsically the same. Who would have thought that our mental health sessions would get a positive response from the local people? Through MST, our team managed to educate the Thari community on mental health and wellbeing. We trained our community health workers to be trauma-informed and approach Thari women to curb the social isolation they may be facing. The women were first screened for mood disorders and other mental health conditions. Later, clinical psychologists and therapists provided six to eight therapy sessions via the internet. More than half of the target population tested positive for depression, stress, and anxiety. But what changed the equation for us was the winning attitude of these women. They were upfront and vulnerable about their circumstances. There were no excuses, no pretence, only the determination to fully avail an opportunity that would at least change one aspect of their lives. We interviewed several women about how these sessions had impacted them and all of them were over the moon. Like most people, these women just wanted to be seen and heard without the fear of judgment. There was only gratitude that something like this had been possible in their villages. I also felt grateful, because through the programme I met many beautiful people, who fortified my belief in the resilience of human beings. I learned to be open to new experiences and taught me the true value of having dreams. The Thar desert maybe barren but it is not empty and I left it a changed woman. But is change coming fast enough in Thar? No. But change is coming. And we helped sow the seeds for it.

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