Six unmarked police cars carrying plainclothes officers arrived at the Sandringham estate while the former prince was celebrating his 66th birthday on Thursday. Officers searched the Norfolk property as well as Mountbatten-Windsor’s former home at the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian journalist David Pegg.
Some Thoughts on Pakistani Culture
Last week, there was a lot of discussion about Basant and its place in Pakistani culture. In that context, I’m sharing this essay I wrote while I was preparing for my panel at the Faiz festival last weekend. The panel was entitled “Faiz and the Cultural Policy of Pakistan”. My co-panelists were Asad Gilani— presently serving as Secretary National Heritage and Culture Division– and Mahtab Akbar Rashdi-– a former actress, bureaucrat, and parliamentarian.
I spoke at the 10th Faiz Festival held in Lahore last weekend (February 14-15) as part of a panel titled “Faiz and the Cultural Policy of Pakistan”. I was invited to be a part of this panel primarily because of my book A New Explanation for the Decline of Hindustani Music in Pakistan (Aks Publications 2024).1 Though my book–a republication of my M.Mus thesis in Ethnomusicology– focuses narrowly on Hindustani music, I did discuss the Faiz Cultural Report of 1968, particularly in the context of arguments that Hindustani music declined in Pakistan because it did not accord with the national identity of the newly formed Pakistani state.
I thought I’d briefly share some of my thoughts here since others might find them interesting.
What is the Faiz Report? Continue reading Some Thoughts on Pakistani Culture
Japan: War Criminal Dynasty and Moonies
Post header image is of War Criminal Nobusuke Kishi, later PM and founder of LDP. At the right is Shinzo Abe PM and grandson of Kishi
This post is text details of YouTube video. The main crux of the post is that Japan was ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that was founded by Nobusuke Kishi a War Criminal. The LDP had 38 years of continuous power. CIA uses Moonies Church to Launder money and support the LDP. Nobusuke Kishis grandson Shinzo Abe PM, assassination leads to investigation of Moonies
This is the outline on video
a) 3:10 How the CIA Built Modern Japan
b) 7:29 The Moon Cult, Money Laundring and Christian Zionism
c) 10:17 Shinzo Abe’s Assassination and the Collapse of the Unification Church
a-i) Nobusuke Kishi was imprisoned as a suspected Class A war criminal, but U.S. occupation authorities did not charge, try, or convict him, and released him in 1948 during the Reverse Course (see wiki)
During this time, a group of influential Americans who had formed themselves into an “American Council on Japan” came to Kishi’s aid, and lobbied the American government to release him as they considered Kishi to be among the best men to lead post-war Japan. The American Council on Japan included former ambassador to Japan Joseph C. Grew, retired diplomat Eugene Dooman, Newsweek journalists Harry Kern and Compton Packenham, and corporate lawyer James L. Kauffman
a-ii) Kishi becomes Japans PM in 1957 with US and CIA help. Kishi creates the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) LDP has a 38 year uninterrupted run of power. Continue reading Japan: War Criminal Dynasty and Moonies
Back from Vermont
Dr. V and I spent Valentine’s week in the Green Mountains. Clean slopes, functioning lifts, small towns organised around winter.
It is hard not to compare that with the Himalaya–Hindu Kush arc. The Karakoram, western Himalayas and Hindu Kush contain some of the highest and most snow-reliable terrain in the world. Peaks above 7,000–8,000 metres. Glaciated valleys. Long vertical drops that exceed most Alpine resorts. Gulmarg in Kashmir already has one of the highest gondolas on earth, reaching nearly 4,000 metres. Parts of northern Pakistan and Ladakh receive heavy winter snowfall and have multi-month seasons.
In purely geographic terms, the region has the ingredients for a major winter sports economy. Yet large stretches of this highland are militarised or politically contested. Infrastructure is thin. Insurance is expensive. Foreign tourism is episodic. Investment flows elsewhere; to the Alps, to the Rockies, to Japan. The comparison is not moral; it is structural. Geography offers potential. Institutions determine whether that potential becomes an industry. That contrast stayed with me on the drive back.
Review: Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian writer and public intellectual best known for her Booker prize winning novel The God of Small Things. In 2017, she published her second novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (which I have previously reviewed).
I eagerly looked forward to reading Roy’s recently published memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me (Scribner 2025). Though it is ostensibly about her contentious relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, the book is really about Roy’s own development as a writer and a thinker. It will particularly appeal to those who are already familiar with Roy’s novels, especially The God of Small Things. Many of the sections describing Roy’s family background and childhood clearly have parallels to that novel.
The memoir also details the evolution of Roy’s political views. Many of these will also be familiar to those who have read her non-fiction (or indeed The Ministry of Utmost Happiness which includes topics such as the Kashmir conflict, rising Hindutva, and Dalit assertion against upper-caste violence).
Some other reviewers have criticized the memoir for focusing too much on politics. In their opinion, the strongest sections are those that revolve around Roy’s relationship with her mother. However, Roy is an intensely political writer and I believe that it is impossible to understand her works without appreciating her political commitments–if not necessarily agreeing with them. Continue reading Review: Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
Evangelicals ban Behemoth from Bangalore
Pakistan Does Not Need to Imitate India to Be Stable
Similarly the core Hindu-Dharmic civilizational nature of India, that is Bharat, is for Indians to decide. Outsiders demanding secularism often mistake their own preferences for universal law.
Pakistan – Falling Behind in the Indian Subcontinent
So the UN HDI numbers for 2023 were out last year.
https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index
Global Data Lab is an organization that uses this data (amongst other data) to create “sub-national” HDI.
https://globaldatalab.org/
One thing you can see from the map is that the only border which is so distinct is the India-Pakistan one. If one does not know they will not be able to make the borders of India-Nepal, India-Bangladesh, India-Bhutan or Pakistan-Afghanistan.
Thing is not only does Pakistan have the lowest HDI in the Indian subcontinent (only one in UN’s “low” HDI below 0.55. Everyone else is above 0.6), it will also have the lowest per capita income in 5 years, going below Nepal.
In fact, the World Bank has removed Pakistan from “South Asia” and classifies them as part of MENAP because their growth data is so different from the rising economies of the subcontinent.
https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/region/mena
https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/region/sar
And not only are the other desi countries leaving Pakistan behind, many sub-saharan African countries are as well.
HDI of SSA countries vis a vis Pakistan
GDP pci of SSA countries vis a vis Pakistan
Bangladesh
Bangladesh swears in its first male prime minister in 35 years Tarique Rahman.
The morning after the monsoon: Bangladesh votes for a fresh start
Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Tarique Rahman, takes the oath as Prime Minister of Bangladesh 17 February. Screenshot BBC News report.
Intro
The electorate of this delta nation has given politicians another opportunity to build a democratic, peaceful and harmonious nation. The road ahead is challenging, but some tasks are achievable
Opinion
By Irfan Chowdhury / Sapan News
If democracy had a scent, in Bangladesh it would be the acrid smell of burning tires. For nearly four decades, elections in this delta nation have been martial events, marred by strikes, machetes, and the terrifying silence of the “hartal” (strike). Yet, as the sun rose over the river Buriganga on 13 February, the air was clear. The 13th Parliamentary Election, held the previous day, did not end in bloodshed. It ended in queuing.
For the first time since 2008, Bangladeshis cast ballots that were actually counted. And they delivered a verdict that is as decisive as it is retrograde.
As the final tallies from the election trickled into the Election Commission’s headquarters, the air of revolutionary fervour was replaced by the cold math of electoral reality. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party has returned from the political wilderness with a crushing two-thirds majority.
The numbers are startling. The Nationalist Party and its allies secured 212 out of 300 seats, an absolute majority that gives their leader, Tarique Rahman, the mandate to reshape the republic. For Rahman — the son of the late President Ziaur Rahman and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia who passed away recently — this is a personal and political vindication. Having led the party from a self-imposed exile in London for nearly two decades, he returns to the centre of power
Pakistan’s dramatic drop in fertility
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s average number of children per woman has dropped sharply from 3.61 in 2023 to 3.19 in 2024, reflecting shifting fertility patterns. By comparison, India’s rate declined more modestly from 2.14 to 2.12.
Why women in South Asia are aging faster than in Europe, US
Those are not marginal adjustments. That is acceleration. For decades, Pakistan was treated as a demographic outlier. India fell below replacement. Bangladesh stabilised. Iran collapsed to European levels. Turkey dropped. The Gulf states hollowed out. Pakistan remained “young.” That youth dividend now looks fragile.
Economic Pressures
The fertility transition is no longer creeping. It is sprinting. The familiar explanation is economic pressure. Urban housing costs more. Education lasts longer. Children are expensive. Women delay marriage. This is all true but incomplete. The deeper shift is cultural. Modernity changes how individuals see time.
Rural Norms
In agrarian societies, children are labour, security, and continuity. In urban societies, children are choice. Once children become a choice rather than a necessity, fertility becomes elastic. It bends downward.
Social Media Continue reading Pakistan’s dramatic drop in fertility