Pakistan People’s Party – Sankarshan Thakur

Sankarshan Thakur, The Telegraph

Garhi Khuda Baksh (Larkana), Nov. 12: An unscheduled two-hour detour became the centrepiece of Nitish Kumar’s touch-down-and-take-off scurry across the Sindh countryside on Sunday. It was an alteration of course bid from the “highest levels” and its implications could resound in Pakistan’s domestic politics well after Nitish’s departure home.

He was meant to turn left into the Mohenjo Daro ruins upon exiting the tiny eponymous airfield. His party turned right, instead, and headed to probably the most significant political address in contemporary Pakistan — a nondescript village called Garhi Khuda Baksh deep in Larkana’s abundant ruralia, home to the Bhutto clan and resting place of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto, both former Prime Ministers, one hanged by the military dictatorship of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, the other assassinated during the “democratic” dictatorship of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Continue reading “Bhutto heirs ride Nitish tour” →

Sankarshan Thakur, The Telegraph

Karachi, Nov. 9: The red carpet rolled out for Nitish Kumar is actually a black Mercedes. It is an especially souped-up limo, double-proofed against bullets and bombs, and it is the same vehicle that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari uses when he comes home to Karachi.

It says at least two things that the Bihar chief minister has been accorded President Zardari’s car. One, that he is being feted at the highest level in this province and provided the utmost care. Two, and probably more important, that Karachi is the most dangerous city in Pakistan. A third could well be a subtle signal to a people who foreground their grumble over the export of terror that Pakistan itself lives a shivered and precarious existence. Continue reading “Zardari’s armoured limo for Nitish” →