Teaching and Research on India in Pakistan - A Conspicuous Absence to the author:

I don`t know if you are aware of this but some young doctoral students and (at the time) recent phd`s from North American universities helped Dr. Imran Ali set up quite a significant history ``area`` (as it was never officialy christened a department). While Dr. Imran Ali had been teaching the South Asian History course for three years already, the new professors added courses such as:
1. Topics in South Asian History -- very detailed and extensive readings, covers the independence movement period (mid 19th to mid-20th century), emphasis on the marginalised movements (in Gujarat, the almost continuous rebellion in tribal areas, the origins of the communist-inspired movements after WWI), the effect of the canalisation and colonisation of previously rain-irrigated areas in (mainly Western) Punjab, Gandhi`s more philosophical writing in comparison with his political theory and political action
2. History of Colonial Expansion -- the process of colonisation, links with the Renaissance, indigenous reactions
3. Perspectives in Development Sociology -- very popular course among those serious about understanding the complex process of the emergence of current systems. the development paradigm, evolution in the fields of sociology, the post-colonial situation
4. Social Anthropology of South Asia
5. History of Decolonisation -- This course examines radical social change in the Third World since the end of World War II by drawing examples from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The course provides an insight into factors such as peasantry, labor, military, regime legitimacy, modes of popular mobilisation and resistance, Marxism, and global capitalism.
6. Socio-Politico Strategic Dynamics of South West Asia
7. Geopolitics of South Asia

Two new courses seem quite interesting, though as always much depends on actual readings and the instructor:

``Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory`` and ``Rural Society in Theory and History``

The reference is: http://www.lums.edu.pk/BSc_socialscience_courseoutline.htm. However, the list is not referenced by topics within the social sciences, so the interested reader would have to do some browsing.

cheers

The 786 Cybercafé on Tariq Road (continued) oddly enough, part 2 reads better than part 1... or maybe I got used to your pace and you had added enough elements to your picture by the time I got here.

or maybe not, in which case, some attention to sentences like:

``Jamal slept his way through many of his lessons and talked his way through others. He wasn`t as stupid as some of the other boys - Omar, the boy who always managed to lose his homework between his walk from his home to the school, or Mohammed, whose short term memory functioned so badly that he had a hard time remembering his own father`s name.``
might help.

My problem here is that a gap seems to open up between the author (and hence the reader/listener) and the subject... there is a single-dimensional paper doll effect to the passage about Jamal`s schooling. I suppose this sort of comment would drive you up the wall in frustration, but I`m afraid I can neither explain better nor suggest anything without encroaching on your right to write as you wish to.

It is an interesting question that urstruly raises: how to write a good first chapter? without being formulaic, nor trashy nor cheap. just let the story tell itself from the first.... ``Call me Ishmael`` :D

finally: ``it all seemed cold, even though the temperatures outside were scorching.`` very, very nice.

Train to Pakistan 2004 - Heading Back Questions for the author:
1. About rural poor: I don`t understand what you mean by the poor not being allowed to migrate to rural areas? What/who holds them back? And aren`t the katchi abadian in Karachi counter-evidence that there is a real rural exodus going on?
2. Which year did your father join Baluch? My nani`s brother was in the same regiment and it meant a lot to him for some reason that I, a hip anti-war kid, never understood. He passed away recently and I`d like to tell his sons about you and your visit.

Urstruly/12: what prejudice or derision or contempt????
woah! best get some practice reading travel writing... for example, try Evelyn Waugh on the Mediterranean (Labels: A Mediterranean Journal) to see what eccentricity or mean-spirited-ness can be like... this guy is about as fair as one can get. quit carping. would love to see what you write about India. I`d say he`s been more generous than I am about Pakistan.

What word? dekho bhai, lahore ka ``mazaaq naheen rakha``... ``buss, lahore tak na jana... mujhey gali do, magar lahore ko naheen``

``and realities, and they hung between us and the milkshakes.`` - nice adaptation ana.

When did Freethought Cease in the Muslim World? Interruption... sorry, fact break.
I apologise in advance for breaking in on your debates. Just wanted to point to this new report on the global distribution of scientific output:

--start--
King attributes Britain`s scientific strength to reforms in Britain`s higher education system during the 1980s. This was a time of significant pain for both UK universities and the scientists who worked for them, as cuts in public spending imposed by the Thatcher government led to job losses and departmental closures. But it also led to a significant restructuring of the country`s overall research efforts, reflected in a decision to reward the most productive university research departments with extra funding (and remove funding from those that were failing to perform). The result, as King`s analysis has shown, epitomises the recipe ``short-term pain for long-term gain``. Or, as King himself puts it, ``although many UK scientists campaigned against these cuts, they encouraged a level of resourcefulness among researchers, and approaches to industry… that are now bearing fruit``.

It is perhaps here, rather than in the absolute figures, that developing countries have most to learn from this study. Pumping money into science is not enough, as many of such countries have discovered to their cost. Indeed, a single-minded pursuit of increased expenditure on research and development as a proportion of GNP is not the Holy Grail that many pretend (if it was, France and Germany would be way ahead of Britain in the research race).

What counts is the level of transparency and accountability with which the money is spent, and measures that are introduced to ensure that money is used to promote and reward scientific creativity (even if on relatively small projects), rather then institution building and career politics. The more this lesson can be built into the science policies of the developing world, the more rapidly they are likely to bridge the `output gap` that, at present, continues to fuel the knowledge divide between rich and poor nations.

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end

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-- http://www.scidev.net/Editorials/index.cfm?fuseaction=readEditorials&itemid=122&language=1

The French Engineering Education System Irfan,

Oddly enough, the French engineering community`s R&D output seems under-represented in the Thomson ISI data analysed by David King in a report published in Nature.

check out this plot:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v430/n6997/fig_tab/430311a_F3.html

note though that in Maths, the frogs *are* ahead despite all their problems with English.

the full article is here:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/Dynapage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v430/n6997/full/430311a_fs.html

and this hurts:

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The political implications of this last comparison are difficult to exaggerate. South Africa, at 29th place in my rank ordering, is the only African country on the list. The Islamic countries are only represented by Iran at 30th, despite the high GDP of many of them and the prominence of some individuals, such as Nobel prizewinners Abdus Salam (physics, 1979) and Ahmed Zewail (chemistry, 1999)7.

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Aman

Kashmir: Everyone has lost in their own way sadna,

not sure what I said to deserve that outburst, esp. given that I was agreeing with you.
what gives?!

khair, sorry about the late reply, apparently I don`t follow discussions regularly enough.

Aman

What’s the Taj Mahal like from the inside? And Other Stories random thought: I recently made friends with a Pathan from Peshawar (well, his ancestral village is somewhere else, and as his father was in the army, he`s spent most of his life in different cities)... the first real Pathan I know. Over-turned many of the stereotypes I had imbibed over time - and reinforced some others!
For one thing, it turns out that just as every thing is a Jewish conspiracy or the act of the Foreign Hand for the Pakistani establishment or its ruling class, for the Pathans, the world is divided into Pathans and Punjabis. To the extent that in some circles, being called a Punjabi is the very worst form of insult - it means someone devoid/incapable of honour.
Maybe this has something to do with the Sikh rule in the 1800s... or maybe it dates back further in time.
Funny how each group has its own particular Other to define itself against.
Sunnis for Shias and vice versa, mohajirs and ansaar (sindhis), English-speaking/modrain and mullah, Punjabis and the rest of the world, Jats/Maliks/Chaudhrys/... and the rest of the world, Pathans (esp. from Peshawar) and Kabulis... the two Sindhis I know well are from well-to-do families in Karachi. One of them really resents the Pathans that have destroyed his city with their ugly katchi abaadian and their lack of respect for a place that they consider nothing more than a temporary abode to which they owe no obligations (this is his interpretation, not mine, nor do I lay claim to its validity on his behalf). There is also Baloch and Kabuli trouble (actually, these are specific cases of the mohajir/ansaar relationship).
maslay-masail...
Homogeneity is such a myth.

What’s the Taj Mahal like from the inside? And Other Stories ``khubsoorat kar key``, janaab, ``khubsoorat kar key! aaho!``
hope your enthusiasm is infectious :D
loved your definition of ``home``
I so wish I was back home so I could see the inside of the Taj Mahal too!

Kashmir: Everyone has lost in their own way arjun,

I think you misunderstood me... I don`t know about it being gay or anything, but I was actually expressing my cynicism regarding idealism. And linking that to the diehard nationalism (also an ideology) of many in this discussion.

I agree that we`ve hurt ourselves much, much more than we have India. But that still doesn`t mean that the freedom struggle, at least initially circa 1989, did not express a genuine desire for autonomy. But, is genuine-ness enough?

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The article posted by sadna in #21 shows, however, that the movement has gone totally off-track. They have lost moral credibility and also their basic asset - the support of the population (well, they will if they keep inflicting more wounds than the Indian army).

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stuka said in #18 ``Only way out is to expand the kill ratio and also change the demographic balance. The latter unfortunately a week Indian government has not done but it is still a possibility.``
This is chilling - ``unfortunately``?? Are you spoiling for a fight?

Kashmir: Everyone has lost in their own way wow... looks like I`m late to the party and there`s blood all over the floor (cf. the exchange between arjun_m and urstruly)

the chowk banner says ``unflinching idealism``
and it`s idealism that seems to have caused the most deaths in history...
(or is it idealism manipulated by commercial interest, until someone decided that he could sell enlightened greed and self-interest as an ideology in itself too... and then there was the inevitable backlash in the form of communism... but that`s for some other discussion...)

among the ideologues I found here, only four are not frothing at the mouth... do you like being manipulated? when will you think for yourself?

for starters: can you justify nationalism? have you read even one of the many, many articles on the theoretical basis and the historical evolution of this most nebulous of organising institutions? if nowhere else, then on chowk itself? darn, now I’m hectoring too...

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Beena Sarwar, thanks so much. This is new information - one keeps hearing things like the ``human fallout``, the ``refugees``... but to actually have first-hand testimony is valuable information on the changing social dynamics in the area.

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very typical ``debating`` point regarding minority muslims wanting secularism and majority Muslims wanting shariah. Yet, what if it`s true? Is this really the case, or just a perception? If perception, whose? If not, it would be interesting to sit down the campaigners of both positions and see them argue it out.

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(first foray into the heart of darkness... let`s see what the natives do to me...)

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On Being an Ex-Expatriate It seems that, for once, you can do no wrong Bina Shah!
This has got to be in the best-of-chowk anthology, for the comments as much as for the article itself.
And looking at the dates, it`s heartening to see that it`s acquired a sort of enduring-through-the-ages sheen... all the way from `98 to `03.

Will the String Theory Tie Them All Together? Sir,

Okay, that does help.
I do remember the uncertainty principle from school - the idea was that there is a limit to the precision of our measurements. The more you know about the velocity of a particle, the less you know about its direction. Am I correct?
So, could you now connect the dots between vacua, unique vacua and perturbative solutions and the implications for TOE`s?

Thanks,
Aman

Will the String Theory Tie Them All Together? Dear plancherel,

Could you explain what non-pertubatively means?
And what do vacua have to do with a TOE?

I just like to catch up from time to time with these discussions, and lacking any formal training in physics, I was wondering if you could do some translations there?

My Pakistan Diary: Roots! A Spiritual Journey oh wow!! incredible sir, brilliant stuff :) count me a fan.
here`s hoping that more will follow in your path from both sides of the border and that it all leads to a long, long overdue healing.

Thinking of Home beautiful