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Showing posts from August, 2010

After 63 years of independence

http://tribune.com.pk/story/39076/after-63-years-of-independence/ Scenes that could have been taken straight from an apocalyptic vision of the world greet us as we mark this Independence Day. Some are almost eerily similar to those the world saw in the days leading up to August 14, 1947, when an entire sea of people began a desperate march across the border to new homes. This time there are no borders to cross. There are no homes to reach either; not even relief camps to move into. But the sense of desperation and misery on the faces of people are much the same. This time, they seek to escape from a natural disaster so terrifying in its scale that even those who lived through the traumatic events of Partition and through catastrophes of various kinds say they have never seen anything like it. What is sad is that they have seen, through the years, so many other problems too. Most of these have refused to depart. This is unsurprising since they stem from poor governance. This arises from...