Recently, the Home Minister of India spoke about his government’s desire towards opening of Sharda Peeth cross LoC Corridor on similar lines of Kartarpur Corridor. Few times back, there were media reports that a proposal for opening of Sharda Peeth Corridor was also in consideration by the Govt. of Pakistan. These beginnings are not just important due to long pending[Read More…]
The Forbidden Truth of People and Cultures: Abrar Hasan (‘Wild Lens’ Youtube), Pakistani Motorcycle Tourist Revives the Interwoven Passions : Mamma Your “Bismillah” Lives with Me Legacy of British Colonialism and Loss of Strategic Direction While the politicians and extremists manufactured hatred and wickedness to further their own agendas for ages to keep the masses oppressed, common people on both[Read More…]
At a time when J&K political leaders meeting with PM, NSA is attending meeting at SCO alongwith NSA Pakistan, Ceasire promise has been kept by Pakistan and India, Peace activists getting hopeful that future may belong to a better environment where Peace will sustain. Peace activists have sent a letter to the Ministry of External Affairs with many suggestions that[Read More…]
The passing away of Mr I A Rehman who was also fondly referred as Rehman Saheb, founder of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a truly people’s Commission on Human Rights is a big loss for the human rights movement in South Asia in general and Pakistan in particular. His was a voice that stood with its head high and with[Read More…]
In September 1994, a few Indian and Pakistani social activists and professionals gathered together in Lahore, and came out with a statement stating their intention to set up a forum through which interaction could be established between the common people of the two countries. This led to the formation of the Pakistan-India-People’s – Forum -for- Peace-and-Democracy (PIPFPD). This article is[Read More…]
“A nation at peace and a region in harmony are thus essential prerequisites for attainment of national security in the true spirit. No national leaders of today can ignore these factors,” said Army chief Gen Bajwa, marking a significant iteration of Pakistan’s latest security policy. “…, it is an almost universally acknowledged fact that the contemporary concept of national security[Read More…]
Pakistan’s army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa called on Thursday for arch rivals India and Pakistan to “bury the past” and move towards cooperation. He expressed that the U.S. had a role to play in ending regional conflict. The Pak general’s statement is an overture towards New Delhi that follows an unexpected joint ceasefire announcement last month between the two[Read More…]
Every conscientious person in the world strives for peace and harmony among the neighbours. Kashmir has been crying for it for decades. They are the worst sufferers of the hostile relations between India and Pakistan. Always terrorized, humiliated, and killed on all sides for the last seventy years, especially those families living across the Line of Control between two countries.[Read More…]
In recent years, tensions mounted between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers in South Asia. The 2016 Uri attack, the 2019 Pulwama attack on a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu Srinagar National Highway by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber that led to deaths of 46, and the retaliatory Balakot airstrikes by the Indian air force can[Read More…]
The Global Nuclear Rat Race The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United[Read More…]
During his stint in power as Pakistan’s prime minister until July 2017, Nawaz Sharif had nurtured cordial working relationship with India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi. This, along with his role in Kargil conflict of 1999 with India, was precisely the reason why Pakistan’s military establishment turned against him and he was eventually disqualified[Read More…]
History is replete with examples of political grandstanding by arrogant leaders. At the same time it’s also full of landmark opportunities that they came across to make major course correction. However, no politician worth his tuft has ever had the guts to choose the latter and create history. The territorial dispute over Kashmir between India & Pakistan is one such[Read More…]
The India Pakistan Friendship and Peace March from Ahmedabad to Nada Bet during 19 to 29 June, 2018 concluded successfully even though Ahmedabad Police detained the marchers for about 3 hours at the beginning as soon as it started from Gandhi Ashram and Border Security Force didn’t give permission to the march at the fag end from Nadeshwari Mata Mandir[Read More…]
In a joint calling attention petition, over 130 eminent citizens of the divided State of Jammu and Kashmir urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to resume ceasefire along the Line of Control and begin the process of dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue by including all the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This[Read More…]
Photos of grieving women and old men hugging the casket soldier killed on the Jammu and Kashmir border skirmish are appearing on the front pages of newspapers almost every day. Dressed in battle fatigues and bullet proof jackets, Indian army jawans and personnel of the Border Security Forces are constantly moving through border hamlets and paddy fields to take[Read More…]
Official reactions to the recent incidents on the Indo-Pak border ( killing of Indian jawans, the death sentence passed on an Indian national by the Pakistan judiciary , the incessant cross-border firings), follow a predictable pattern. At the diplomatic level, the foreign secretaries of the two states, perpetually miffed with each other, exchange angry notes. At the military level, the [Read More…]
“The partition of 1947 should not have divided the people of the subcontinent. Today, they look divided because Pakistan and India have been denying the logic of geography, history and shared culture. This policy is harming vital interests of people. Both need peace, democratic governance and respect for pluralism. They must eastablish cordial relations and exploit all possible means of[Read More…]
Toba Tek Singh: On January 8, Aaghaz-e-Dosti, a joint Indo-Pak Friendship initiative, launched its 5th Indo-Pak Peace Calendar in Toba Tek Singh in collaboration with Youth for Human Rights Pakistan. Aaghaz-e-Dosti has started series of calendar launch on 1st January from Lahore and in the series, these Peace Calendars will be launched in several others cities of Pakistan and India[Read More…]
(Why should the fate of Kashmiris be tied up with the establishment of Indo-Pak friendship?) There are some very common refrains in regard to the solving of the most intractable and the longest pending political problem of Kashmir. In the global context, it is the necessity for a peaceful dialogue between the two neighbouring countries, India and Pakistan, to solve[Read More…]
As part of our aim to embed critical thinking and peace, Aaghaz-e-Dosti through interview series – “Voices for Peace” features inspiring peace personalities who have worked significantly for Indo-Pak Peace. We start this series with Ms. Kia Scherr, an inspiring Peace Personality. She is known to the world as the 26/11 (Mumbai attack of 2008) victims’ family member who forgave[Read More…]
In a note sent to me few days ago, a retired captain of Indian army wrote that soldiers are not enemies of each other. They just follow instructions and take war as task. He also shared his own experience wherein during his posting at Hussainiwala Indo-Pak border and on Nathula Indo-China border, he used to enjoy and exchange greetings with[Read More…]
The recent Kashmir uprising, furious speeches at UN, threatening statements by politicians and the subsequent escalation of tensions on ‘Line of Control’, has brought yet another conflict wave with regard to India and Pakistan. The new cycle of tension between the two countries has increased resentment and worry particularly among the masses in Kashmir. Their hopes of peaceful settlement of[Read More…]
India’s 29 September cross-LOC strike was conducted professionally, as expected of the apolitical army of the Indian Republic. Pakistan’s predictable response is denial of its ever having happened. It could have been left at that, but government and the opposition (such as it is), encouraged by TRP-hungry TV channels provoking certain publicity-hungry military veterans, have been using the apolitical army’s[Read More…]
Recently Indian Motion Producers Association (IMPPA) took a decision to ban Pakistani artists and technicians from working in Indian films until normalcy returns. The pretext of the ban is the terrorist attack on an army camp in Uri allegedly carried by JeM, killing 20 army personnel. The attack created poignant enragement and attracted widespread condemnation, which it must. Terrorism[Read More…]
The context of nationalism in India has lately been supercharged- post India’s ‘Surgical Strike inside PoK’ in view of repeated Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks in India – the latest of which, in a significant way, was Uri terror attack. The so-called claims, counterclaims and ‘independent’ global media coverage have made it complex and confusing for the ordinary citizens, considering both[Read More…]
Time has come to unite against the Yuddhists in India and Pakistan and to generate a strong public message that the sensational mainstream media, the corrupt army officials, and the politicians with their dwindling power mechanism and shrinking images on both sides do not own the share market of our freedom, peace and harmony. Time has come to isolate the Yuddhists on both sides. If the people across the boundaries can not protect their peace, then who else can?
The persons creating the War Hysteria should first get educated about the consequences of a present day war especially between the nuclear armed countries!
Over the last week or so, there is an increasingly shrill demand coming from the hawkish ‘foreign policy advocates’ and the right wing war mongers that as a “fitting reply” to the tragic killing of 18 of our soldiers in the condemnable Uri attack on Sept.18, India should abrogate the 1960 Indus Water Treaty between the two countries, thereby ‘choking[Read More…]
Tension between nuclear armed South Asian neighbours India and Pakistan continues to mount after terrorists on Sunday night attacked an army camp in Baramulla in Northern Kashmir killing constable Nitin of 40th battalion of the BSF and the injuring constable Pulwinder of the same battalion. According to news reports the terrorists are likely to have escaped taking advantage of night[Read More…]
The short answer to the above question is, both! Recent bout started with Uri, the Indian border post at the Kashmir front. 18 Indian soldiers were killed by across-the-border assailants. India blames Pakistan and Pakistan denies and says it is the work of the disaffected Kashmiri insurgents. In the ensuing row India is winning diplomatically, Pakistan is rambling madly and[Read More…]
I wash my face and come back, back to the battle that has been raging— that I have been raging. No, its not a physical battle, but a virtual one against and inside a world where jingoism and bigotry are served up on a platter garnished and intricately designed with nationalism. Its a plate I cannot digest, even though to[Read More…]
Indian Army conducts surgical strikes. The Government thumps its chest. The media debates that this is the way to respond. The media channels compete debating this issue and try to increase their TRP ratings. Discussions get carried out on how skillfully the surgical strikes were carried out and comparisons made with similar strikes by Israel and United States.The urban middle[Read More…]
Kashmir is in international news once again. The killing of Burhan Wani followed by fresh mass uprising has provided a fresh impetus to the issue locally as well as internationally. The Fidayeen attack on Indian brigade headquarters at Uri and the subsequent alleged Indian surgical strike across LOC has stirred the hornet’s nest once again. Though the two Countries[Read More…]
It was a day of quiet on the India-Pakistan front except for the sporadic gunfire exchanged between the two sides in the Akhnoor sector of the international border in Jammu and Kashmir. On the other hand, it is a worrying sign to see no diplomatic efforts being taken up by both the sides to diffuse the tension. The South Asian[Read More…]
The India-Pakistan relations remain tensed after India’s surgical strikes across the Line of Control Wednesday night. India admitted that one of its soldiers is in Pakistan’s custody. The army says that 22-year-old soldier Chandu Babulal Chauhan strayed into Pakistani territory “inadvertently” on Thursday and was captured. According to the army Chauhan, a soldier of the Rashtriya Rifles, did not take[Read More…]
We, the people of India and Pakistan, stand in solidarity with each other to speak out against war in any form because, in war, we are all losers regardless of who might appear to win. We hope that the elected representatives of both countries will exercise restraint, and act with wisdom, in the interests of lasting peace in our region,[Read More…]
My Dear Prime Minister, I am constrained to write to you, because of the recent developments in Jammu and Kashmir, the attack on our air station in Pathankot , and now in Uri, where we have lost precious lives not to mention the many injured. The lack of response by India to the latest attack, has clearly been due in[Read More…]
Pakistan- India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) PIPFPD expresses its concern over the growing tensions between India and Pakistan following militants’ attack on strategically important army base in Uri, Jammu & Kashmir. The leadership of both the countries needs to urgently act towards defusing the tense scenario rather than fuelling it. We appeal to the saner voices of[Read More…]
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
