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Aman Ki Asha: The Indo-Pak Peace project

The Times of India- Page 4, 5th January 2010.

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We saw what TOI published. Can someone show here what the Dawn published?

Well...I have skimmed through e paper version of Pakistani newspaper " The News"....but could not locate anything more than the articles I have already posted.
 
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A nice dream and an excellent concept.
BUT !!!!

Is it feasible with all the long standing issues between the neighbours?

The last time something similar happened ( Sadvabna) we got a nice gift in return, KARGIL !!!
 
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Subcontinent’s Year of Hope

5 January 2010 Can the media give peace a chance? All those who woke up on New Year’s day in India and Pakistan, woke up to the front pages of the ‘Times of India’ and the ‘Jang Group’ celebrating conjoined doves outlined in saffron and green (presumably the colours of predominantly Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan), a common Editors’ note that professed the possibility of friendship in a terror-obsessed subcontinent and even a trans-national agenda for food, music, travel and trade over 2010.
Overnight it was okay to be part of the candle-lighting brigade at Wagah, the land border between India and Pakistan, which has been witness to lonely peaceniks nimbly sidestepping warnings of nuclear holocaust, disregarding armed intrusions at Kargil, Kaluchak and Kashmir and keeping faith with Sisyphean stories of beginnings and ends, to keep their annual date with hope rather than reality.

‘Aman ki Asha’, the slogan read, translated as the ‘hope of peace.’ In a country still reeling from the aftermath of the Mumbai horror, here were the sub-continent’s biggest newspapers (over 500,000 daily at the TOI and about 300,000 at the Jang) extolling their huge readership to make babies, not bombs.

So what gave? One throwaway line in a story in the Jang’s English-language daily, ‘The News’, talking of having brought “all the stakeholders” on board by both media houses in their respective countries, pointed out that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had been sounded out about the campaign and that he’d agreed.

So let me make a prediction or take a bet or do both this year, especially since we’re still in the brand new week: 2010 will be the year that India and Pakistan resolve their major differences, whether over Siachen or Sir Creek, and arrive at some sort of a deal over Kashmir.

2010 will be the year that both countries, India and Pakistan, will move on and rejoin the sub-continent — the litmus test being open borders and freer travel, spurred by Punjabi entrepreneurship and uniting 
‘mohajir’ families.

For the first time since 1947, when the partition of India sundered all ties, the glimmer of an economic coming-together — “union” is too strong and loaded a word for the time being — of the Indian subcontinent, it seems, will mark the new decade.

For the first time it is slowly becoming clear that India, whose economic growth has remained at 8 per cent despite the worldwide recession, will power nation-states like Pakistan in the west and Bangladesh in the east, Bhutan and Nepal in the north and Sri Lanka and faraway Maldives in the south, to greater economic prosperity, thereby softening the region’s political angularities and caprices.

Of course, 2010 hasn’t started in the best way possible for some of the above Bollywood-like scenarios: Nepal’s Prachanda is at loggerheads with Delhi and the political scene in Sri Lanka in the run-up to its January 26 presidential elections is a potboiler as India is dragged into the 
presidential sweepstakes.

But check out the following: Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina is coming to Delhi next week, a conquering heroine who in recent weeks has picked out ULFA terrorist Arabinda Rajkhowa and others from their safe havens, like rats, and sent them packing to the mother 
country, India.

Delhi is sure to reciprocate on the economic front, whether it is over unifying the electricity grids or sharing the Teesta waters.

Meanwhile, Bhutan’s reigning monarch, Jigme Wangchuk visited Delhi in the Christmas week, amid a flurry of accords on power and water, making Bhutan the richest state in the Indian subcontinent, second only to India.

To return to the whys and wherefores of India-Pak friendship, truth is there’s too much at stake here for the experiment not to succeed and some of it is centred on the Afghanistan anvil. Meaning US President Barack Obama’s successes in that country will be hugely dependent on America’s abilities to neutralise the Afghan Taleban, some of whom have taken refuge in the Pakistani cities of Quetta, Miranshah as well as in the North Waziristan areas.

The Pakistan military will demand its pound of flesh on Kashmir — in any case, the Musharraf and the first Manmohan Singh regime were close to a secret Kashmir deal in 2007, in which Kashmiris were given real political autonomy in exchange for joint India-Pakistani oversight on issues like the management of watersheds, forestry and the environment.

A deal on Kashmir may not neutralise the hardline elements in Pakistan’s army and intelligence agencies, especially those who have been nurtured on an anti-India diet.

It will, however, remove the excuse several Pakistanis see in the Kashmir dispute and Islamabad’s ostensible inability to withdraw forces from the eastern border to fight the Taleban in the west.

Imagine what a peace deal between India and Pakistan could do: It would hugely strengthen the elected government, even if the Pakistan army remains the most powerful national institution. It would embolden the moderate face of the Islamic republic, confirming Pakistan’s place as the geostrategic lynchpin between South Asia and the Gulf on the one hand and with Central Asia on the other.

Meanwhile, real estate prices in Lahore and Karachi, Amritsar and Ghazipur, would rise and rise. It is also clear that Manmohan Singh, having put his personal reputation as well as his prime ministership on line over the Indo-US nuclear deal, now wants the Pakistan issue settled.

Check out his attempt to give respect to Pakistan’s Prime Minister at Sharm-el Sheikh last year. Methinks the abortive attempt at peace has only strengthened Prime Minister Singh’s resolve this year. It helps that Manmohan Singh has his roots in Gah, in the heart of Pakistan Punjab.

So who’s better qualified to cut a deal with the enemy than a refugee-turned-prime minister?

Even Bollywood can’t come up with a better story. Perhaps that’s why you need journalists — in the Times of India and in Pakistan’s ‘Jang’ group to write it.

Khaleej Times Online - Subcontinent’s Year of Hope
 
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While Googling for Indo-pak relations, I found that you have a posting that mentioned Aman ki Asha as a joint effort by Dawn and Times of India.

What I believe is that Dawn Group has nothing to do with this initiative, rather Jang Group and Geo TV have taken up this with the TOI.

For reference you may further read about it at Geo TV website.

Thanks,

Assev
:pakistan:
 
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There is a conspiracy theory growing behind this too.... xD

the second video when you search 'aman ki asha' on youtube

So far the 'first step' is failing on both sides apparently.
 
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There is a conspiracy theory growing behind this too.... xD

the second video when you search 'aman ki asha' on youtube

So far the 'first step' is failing on both sides apparently.

There will always be a conspiracy theory about everything....give them some time.....things will change.
:cheers:
 
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Jang Economic Session: Speakers call for removing mistrust with India



RAWALPINDI: Removing mistrust between Pakistan and India is necessary to maintain peace in South Asia. As a joint strategy poverty has to be eliminated as the policy of confrontation is not in favour of any country. Instead, we have to adopt the policy of mutual cooperation. But at the same time India has to be forced to restore Pakistani water it had been blocking and scrap its $220 billion programme to build 75 dams. This programme, if allowed to go ahead, shall destroy our economy and agriculture. Resolution of water dispute between the two countries should be a precondition for the implementation of the “Aman Ki Asha”. The atomic war between the two countries would kill 250 million people and nothing would grow for the next 90 years. South Asia is endangered with worst drought because of the impending global warming.

The participants of the Jang Economic Session held in Lahore and hosted by Sikandar Hamid and Intikhab Tariq expressed these views. The participants included an economist Dr Akmal Hussain, former chairman Punjab Industrial Estate Muhammad Ali Mian, former vice president Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industries (LCCI) Shahzad Malik, Executive Member LCCI Dr Shahid Raza and a trader of Indian goods Agha Nasir.

They maintained that promotion of Indo-Pak trade depends on the sincerity of the Indian leadership and trading community. Taking part in the discussion, Dr Akmal Hussain asked Pakistan and India to choose once for all whether to live in peace or war.

ìThey have to look into the status of the political economy behind the trade and economic issues and what to do for immediate increase in the trade turn over,î he argued. He said Pakistan is against war and that’s why responsible reaction had been displayed after the recent threatening posture from the Indian army chief.

Muhammad Ali Mian hoped that campaign for the Aman Ki Asha launched by the Jang Group and Times of India may yield positive results and also lead to lesser defence expenditure. Resources are being diverted in the two countries on defence because of political tension leading to lesser allocations for education, health and poverty alleviation, he said.

Shahzad Malik asked Pakistan to think over as to under what conditions it has to carry forward trade with India. He said India had already blocked half of the River Chunab water and by 2016 more reductions in the supply will occur after the completion of more dams. India had to be told in categorical terms that the case may be taken to the International Court of Justice in case India continues with the water theft.

Dr Shahid Raza called for securing national interests before promoting trade relations with India. He also pointed out that India had been stealing Pakistani water in violation of the Indus Basin Treaty. He said like water Kashmir issue is also a hurdle in promoting relations between the two countries. He opposed allowing India to carry transit trade through Pakistan as it had blocked our water affecting agricultural production and crippling the national economy


Jang Economic Session: Speakers call for removing mistrust with India
 
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